Geraint Thomas questions Remco Evenepoel’s Tour build-up - 'You've got to get out there'

Their discussion started with the Critérium du Dauphiné, now the Tour Auvergne Rhône Alpes, but soon moved on to two bigger questions: how much racing does a Tour contender need before July, and how much pressure is too much for a rider like Paul Seixas?

Thomas was not fully convinced by Evenepoel’s decision to go into the Tour with 68 days without racing in his legs. His issue was less with Evenepoel himself or Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe than with the idea behind the approach.

“I don’t like that approach,” Thomas said. “I’m a bit more old school. You’ve got to get out there. You’ve got to race it a bit.”

Thomas argued that racing offers something training cannot fully replicate. Even in an era of altitude camps, nutrition planning and carefully measured workloads, he believes riders still benefit from the instinctive rhythm of competition.

“I just can’t imagine just training up until the Tour,” he added. “Surely there’s a psychological side to this as well.”

Rowe was more understanding of the logic behind the modern method. He described Evenepoel’s preparation as an example of a rider and team trying to remove unpredictability from the build up.

“What riders like now is the Remco approach,” Rowe said. “I know what my body needs to be ready for the Tour, and I’m going to go to my controlled environment.”

That controlled environment, Rowe explained, means altitude camps, training at home or other carefully managed blocks away from the chaos of racing. The benefit is precision. The downside is that racing does not follow a script.

“What I will receive as an athlete is what the race gives me,” Rowe said. “You can’t write the script.”

The pair agreed that the Dauphiné remains hugely prestigious, but they also recognised that its role has changed. Once, it was the clearest pre-Tour showdown, a race where the main contenders tested one another directly. 

Now, the biggest names are spread across different programmes, with some choosing Switzerland (Pogačar, Pidcock), some the Dauphiné (Seixas, Ayuso, Del Toro, Onley) or Slovenia (Lipowitz) and others no racing at all (Vingegaard, Evenepoel).

Thomas noted that this creates more uncertainty ahead of the Tour.

“You got a real indication,” he said of previous eras. “Now you’ve got all these guys doing completely different things. So coming into the Tour will be very much unknown.”

Rowe still described the Dauphiné as “the fourth biggest stage race in the world,” but pointed out that its difficulty may now scare some teams away. With eight days of racing and a brutal final weekend, the race offers value, but also risk.

That tension between risk and readiness led naturally to Seixas, the young French rider expected to carry an unusual level of national expectation. Rowe, who had recently spent time with him at altitude camp and during recon, suggested that Seixas may not yet fully grasp the scale of what awaits him at the Tour.

“I don’t think he quite still understands how big this Tour de France is,” Rowe said.

The French public, Rowe argued, has been waiting for years for a genuine home contender, still looking for a successor to Bernard Hinault, the country’s last Tour winner in 1985. Riders such as Thibaut Pinot, Romain Bardet and others have carried that hope before, but none quite delivered the ultimate victory. Seixas, still only 19, now represents something different: youth, promise and possibility.

“They just want to believe in someone who can do it,” Rowe said. “And with that comes a shedload of pressure.”

Thomas was more cautious about Seixas’ first Tour. Given his age, he felt the expectations should be different.

“At 19 in the Tour de France, there’s no such thing as failure,” Thomas said. “Being on the start line is already a success.”

He described the race as a “free hit” for Seixas. The pressure, Thomas suggested, will grow in future years if expectations rise and results do not follow. For now, the French teenager can enter the race as a sensation rather than a proven favourite.

Rowe agreed that Seixas is heading into unknown territory.

“You don’t know, I don’t know, he doesn’t know,” Rowe said. “Until you’ve done something, you don’t know.”

That uncertainty is part of the intrigue. Seixas has already shown enough to be treated seriously, but three weeks at the Tour de France is another world entirely. Rowe praised his character, calling him smart, calculated, driven and “a good kid,” while also stressing that no one can yet predict how he will respond deep into a Grand Tour.