'I was actually eight weeks without riding' - Florian Lipowitz on his Tour podium hangover

From the outside, 2025 looked like a clean ascent for the 25-years-old German, a breakout season that turned a former winter sports athlete into Germany’s most exciting stage race prospect in years. 

Inside, Lipowitz described a very different aftertaste recently on the Ulle & Rickpodcast, hosted by former pros Jan Ullrich and Rick Zabel. “After the Tour, I wasn’t doing that well,” he said. “I had health issues and it was hard to really enjoy the result.”

What followed was not a traditional reset. It was an almost stubborn pause. “I was actually eight weeks without riding,” Lipowitz admitted. In a peloton that treats consistency like religion, eight weeks off the bike sounds like a risk. For him it was survival. “Coming back wasn’t easy, but I needed it.”

Part of what hollowed him out was not training. It was attention. Lipowitz is unusually direct about the effect of media noise and public expectation. “I’m just not someone who enjoys being in the spotlight,” he said. “That was one of the things that really threw me off after the Tour.”

This is why the arrival of Remco Evenepoel at the same team changes the story in a way the headlines keep missing. Most people saw a power struggle coming. Lipowitz saw a buffer. “Remco is someone who likes being at the center of attention,” he said. 

“That might actually be good for me, because I can focus more on my own work.” The first few weeks of the seasons have already shown that Evenepoel will take plenty of the spotlight. For Lipowitz, that might be the best possible setup: less theatre, more training.

These thoughts echo earlier comments from Red Bull’s management, with CEO Ralph Denk and Lipowitz’s coach John Wakefield both expressing belief in how the pairing can work as they line up at this year’s Tour de France to take on Tadej Pogačar and Jonas Vingegaard.

It suits Lipowitz, who tends to keep things straightforward. That's why he is also pushing back against the sport’s new obsession with squeezing every last percent from every last day. The heat suit trend for example leaves him cold. “I’m not someone who sits on the roller with one of those heat suits,” he said. “I’d rather ride outside at forty degrees.”

He takes the same view of nutrition. He pays attention when it matters, but refuses to let food become a prison. “I also enjoy a bag of Haribo or a bar of chocolate,” he said. “You still need joy, otherwise this sport becomes too draining.”

Asked what he already looks forward to leaving behind one day, he did not hesitate. “Being away from home so much is what really takes energy,” he said.