“He loves an excuse”: Remco Evenepoel slammed by fans for blaming defeat on being forced to ride savage final climb in big ring; A Brompton bike vs the National Cycle Network; Sportswashing and sprinters at the UAE Tour + more on the live blog

With his debut Tour de France on the horizon this July, and expectations high for a heavyweight GC battle with Jonas Vingegaard and Tadej Pogačar, it’s fair to say that Remco Evenepoel’s start to 2024 couldn’t have gone much better.

After a trademark 55km solo victory Figueira Champions Classic, the world time trial champion demonstrated why he’s currently the best in the world against the clock, blowing away the likes of Magnus Sheffield, Stefan Küng, Filippo Ganna, and a rather sluggish Wout van Aert to dominate the ultimately decisive 22km time trial at the Volta ao Algarve on Saturday.

Despite two defeats to a rapid Dani Martínez on the Volta’s two summit finishes (the second of which we’ll get on to in a minute), and a flurry of attacks on yesterday’s final stage, that heavy TT win – courtesy of a monster 62-tooth front ring – proved enough for Evenepoel to secure his third overall victory of his career at the Portuguese stage race.

🇵🇹 pic.twitter.com/z0CvtTQIRh

— ⚪ Blanco Bee (@BlancoAsegurado) February 18, 2024

But, as ever, the always entertainingly divisive 24-year-old has attracted some controversy on social media – not for his domineering performances on the bike, but for his comments in front of a microphone off it, after the Belgian blamed his second successive summit defeat to Martínez on being forced to ride the notoriously steep slopes of the Alto do Malhão in the big ring following a late mechanical.

“I had to do it in my 54 chainring. I had a mechanical problem and couldn’t shift into my small gear anymore,” Evenepoel said after finishing second on yesterday’s iconic Volta ao Algarve stage.

“That was a pity because doing a climb that goes close to 20 per cent was pretty difficult. It killed my legs a bit.

“In my head, I stayed quite calm. I said it to the car ‘my gears weren’t working anymore’. It’s a shame because I’m a guy who likes to ride on a high cadence. In the first part, it really killed my legs and it was just a bit less in the end because of a lot of loss of power, due to the gear mechanical. That’s life. There are worse things.”

Now, we’ve all been there. For instance, I’ve lost track of the number of times I blamed an subpar performance on a shipped chain, a slow puncture, a bee sting, a weird tree distracting me when the decisive move went up the road… I could go on.

And while those (mostly) fabricated excuses always elicited a raised eyebrow and a smirk from my teammates, this is Remco, after all, so the reaction is a touch more severe online.

“God bless him!” wrote popular cycling account Mihai Simion after hearing of Remco’s mechanical troubles on the Alto do Malhão.

“He loves an excuse,” said Tony.

“I knew he was gonna give an excuse. Sometimes you have to give kudos the winner,” added Sharif, while Joe wrote: “He has an excuse every time he gets beaten. Tired of that.”

“Need to add that one to the book of excuses,” wrote Christopher.

He has a lot on file! 🤣 pic.twitter.com/bZA0JNJcHB

— #Angge (@aeyc) February 18, 2024

“2024 and same old Mr Excuse,” added another Twitter user (you can see where this is going).

Rigo couldn’t [change gear] too back om stage nine of the 2017 Tour de France and was still able to win the stage,” pointed out Lalo, presumably a massive Rigoberto Urán fan.

“Come on Remco, you don’t need that bro,” said Cobrax.

“Definitely could’ve won if it was ITT,” wrote Mooiplas. “He must learn to give credit to his opponents.”

Remco Evenepoel: "I think I could have won La Vuelta 2023 if I hadn't lost 27 minutes in the first mountain stage."

— 🇫🇮 (@capoatm) February 18, 2024

Others, meanwhile, leapt to Remco’s defence quicker than a Mikel Landa turn on the front.

“Strange reactions here. Try climbing on the big ring yourself and see how good you do,” said AmBiorix.

“Valid ‘excuse’ in my opinion. He’s just respectfully stating what happened. Gave Kudos to Martinez and WVA in his interview for Sporza too, so what do you want?”

“I don’t know if he would have won, but I think he’s telling the truth. He was pulling a big gear on the last climb and on the images I’ve seen again, he’s on the large chainring in the difficult parts,” argued Yume.

“People immediately talking about excuses, but whether he would have won without it or not, it did look like he was stuck in the big ring, and that would indeed have had a measurable impact,” added Michael.

> Remco Evenepoel splits opinion after refusing to sign kid's jersey thrown at him by dad

Meanwhile, Miyamoto wrote: “I’m team Remco on this, simply stating a fact, suspect it’s often barely contained chaos behind the scenes, he made the best of a bad situation, I like that he reveals what’s going on behind the scenes...”

“I love that even though the haters get mad every time he opens his mouth, Remco still says what he thinks,” says Flower Flower.

And Janis concluded: “Never change Remco, keep those haters hating for just speaking your mind.”

Well, I’ll tell you one thing for sure, Remco’s never not interesting, is he?

So, this just popped up on the road.cc Facebook feed:

Indoor cyclocross with stilettos on a mid-2010s Specialized Tarmac, anyone? No, I don’t understand it either, if I’m honest.

> Speeco launches revamped version of its aero-optimised handlebar that is UCI-legal (for now)

When you play Pro Cycling Manager on the low graphics mode pic.twitter.com/naTEAqqiEs

— the Inner Ring (@inrng) February 19, 2024

Carlton Kirby, for one, seems to love the expansive, sandy nothingness of the UAE Tour’s helicopter shots – your milage may vary…

Earlier this month, we reported that a team of researchers from Imperial College London and the Sikh Scientists Network found that turbans, while not generally as effective as bike helmets, can in some instances offer “superior” protection to conventional lids in a collision.

And one Buckinghamshire cyclist has backed up these academic findings by asserting that his turban saved his life, after he slid out on a wet road and collided with an oncoming motorists, sliding under his car.

The 44-year-old suffered a serious leg injury in the 2019 crash, but believes his turban – which was covered in mud but stayed intact – “absorbed” most of the impact from the road and prevented a head wound.

The crash was caused by Mr Singh braking sharply on a wet road, causing his back wheel to slide out.

“As I slid underneath the car, my right leg banged into the car bumper causing a very serious injury,” he told the BBC.

“My head also scraped along the ground for a short distance before I collided with the car. I’m sure if I had not been wearing my turban then I would have ended up with a serious head injury. My turban saved my life and I’m still enjoying cycling today.”

> Turbans can reduce the risk of head injuries in cyclists but not “as effective as helmets”, study finds

As part of their study examining the effectiveness of turbans in collisions, which was published this month in the Annals of Biomedical Engineering, the researchers from Imperial College and the Sikh Scientists Network wrapped five different styles of turbans, distinguished by two wrapping styles and two different fabrics with size variation, onto the heads of crash test dummies and subjected them to cycling-style crashes, comparing these injury risk findings with conventional cycle helmets and with bare heads.

They found that turbans greatly reduced the risk of skull fractures in areas covered with a thick layer of fabric compared to bare heads. However, the chief factor affecting the risk of head injury was the style of the turban.

They also found that although the risk of skull fractures and brain injuries was higher with all turbans than conventional bicycle helmets, the risk might be reduced by placing energy absorbing materials between the layers of the fabric, or reducing the friction between the layers of fabric.

“Overall, while helmets generally offer better performance than turbans, certain turbans displayed comparable or even superior performance in one or more injury metrics,” the team concluded.

“Our findings show that simple Sikh turbans have the potential to mitigate head impacts,” Dr Gurpreet Singh, from the Sikh Scientists Network and Imperial College’s Department of Materials, said.

“This provides important evidence that we hope will point the wider scientific community to invest in the best headgear fabrics to absorb shock, which indeed will open commercial markets to people from all walks of life that deal with concussions and head impacts.”

Tim Merlier certainly enjoys the opening stage of the UAE Tour.

After last year’s stage one victory, by the narrowest of margins, over Caleb Ewan, the big Soudal-Quick Step sprinter enjoyed a much more comfortable win today in Liwa, latching onto a trademark super long sprint by the in-form Fernando Gaviria to power to his third career UAE Tour stage ahead of Tudor’s Arvid de Kleijn and Corratec’s Jakub Mareczko, while A-listers like Fabio Jakobsen and Sam Welsford were forced to settle for fourth and fifth.

An absolutely 𝒄𝒉𝒂𝒐𝒕𝒊𝒄 sprint! 💥

Tim Merlier takes the opening stage win at the UAE Tour after a huge crash at the finish 😬 pic.twitter.com/DRCjaP6ba2

— Eurosport (@eurosport) February 19, 2024

It wasn’t a completely benign, peaceful cruise to victory for Merlier, however, who had to navigate a fraught, chaotic finale that featured a bit of barging from a Decathlon-AG2R lead-out rider and a nasty mass crash in the final few hundred metres, caused by a touch of wheels, and which narrowly avoided Mark Cavendish, who was forced to tap his way to the finish, ruefully shaking his head.

Chaotic finish aside, after last year’s “dead heat” fiasco with Ewan I’m sure Merlier will just be happy – as he noted in his post-race interview – to finally have a “nice photo” to sit on the mantelpiece at home.

It really wasn’t the best of long weekends for Uno-X’s Tobias Johannessen.

The evidently supremely in-form Norwegian committed one of pro cycling’s great faux-pas at the Classic Var on Friday, raising his arms in celebration and sitting up metres before the finish line on Mont Faron, allowing Groupama-FDJ’s Lenny Martinez to nip in for the sneakiest of wins, and leaving his face as bright red as his Uno-X jersey.

Then, after another promising fourth place on the first stage of the Tour des Alpes-Maritimes (the old Tour du Haut-Var), Johannessen crashed on yesterday’s final stage to Vence, breaking his collarbone. Ouch, that might sting more than Friday’s embarrassing premature celebration.

 

 

 

 

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A post shared by Uno-X Mobility (@unoxmobility)

Uno-X confirmed last night that, following the crash, the 24-year-old “has sustained a collarbone fracture, confirmed by X-rays at the hospital in Nice this evening. He is scheduled for a consultation tomorrow with a specialist to decide on the treatment plan. We appreciate your support and well-wishes for Tobias’s swift recovery.”

Johannessen, who unfortunately now has time to stew over his Mont Faron faux-pas, addressed his finish-line cock up on Instagram on Friday night.

 

 

 

 

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A post shared by Tobias Johannessen (@tobias_johannessen)

“I was the first one to reach the metal bow before the finish line, no one can take that away from me,” he wrote, complete with a laughy face. “No, I feel sorry for my teammates doing a perfect job the whole day just to see me do the thing I really believed I was never going to do.

“But I really thought I celebrated after crossing the line… Just to be clear, the finish line is the blue small thing that you see at the end…”

Well, at least he can take comfort in the fact he’s in good company during his break from racing.

Long, straight desert roads, the potential for crosswind carnage, a polite smattering of fans at the finish (and barely any at the roadside), an Adam Yates GC win, sportswashing opportunities galore, and, oh, probably the deepest sprinting field of the entire calendar year – that’s right, the UAE Tour gets underway this morning!

And the annual conference of fast men is so stacked, even Ned Boulting couldn’t keep up with it all:

Sprinters in UAE: Molano, Groves, Bauhaus, Cavendish, Welsford, Bennett, Viviani, Ackermann, Merlier, Jakobsen, Mareczko and Groenewegen.

Crikey.

— Ned Boulting 🏳️‍⚧️ (@nedboulting) February 19, 2024

Crikey again. Missed those names. Probably the toughest field in recent times - who's missing apart from Philipsen?

— Ned Boulting 🏳️‍⚧️ (@nedboulting) February 19, 2024

Fans of chaotic finishes, sprint trains, and lots of elbowing, get your streaming device at the ready… 

While you were watching Remco winch his way up a steep Portuguese hillside in a 54x11 gear (probably), here’s what else was going on round the cycling world:

> “No wonder cyclists use roads instead”: Locals slam “higgledy-piggledy” cycle lane with barriers and misaligned separators

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> Near Miss of the Day 892: Cyclist squeezes on brakes to avoid overtaking driver — who still ends up hitting cyclist's safety flag

> How to stop pavement parking? “Install bike racks”, say active travel campaigners

> In need of an XL gravel bike with 36-inch wheels? Curve Cycling has answered your prayers... but you'll need to fund its production

> “You’ve yet again ignored cycles as mobility aids”: Former GB News producer called “ableist” after staging backlash over Hammersmith Bridge reopening to cyclists

> How to conquer long bike rides without getting too tired: Smash long-distance epics and avoid the dreaded bonk with these top tips

> Dutch cargo bike company Babboe was “well-aware” of its sale of faulty frames, finds investigation

> Sir Chris Hoy “optimistic, positive, and surrounded by love” after revealing cancer diagnosis