How do you design a paintjob befitting a European, Olympic and former World Champion like Remco Evenepoel? It sounds like a tough task, but his team got the job done ahead of Il Lombardia at the weekend.
This was the first outing for Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe’s Evenepoel since winning the European Champion’s jersey in Slovenia by a whisker. Specialized rushed to get a special paintjob done for the Belgian to honour that victory, making this its second European Champ’s bike of the year behind that of Demi Vollering. The unique task with this one, however, was to keep the gold earned at the 2024 Paris Olympics.
Photographer Xavier Pereyron managed to get a peek at the bike ahead of Il Lombardia, where Evenepoel raced to fourth.
Remco Evenepoel’s Il Lombardia 2026 Specialized Tarmac SL9
Xavier Pereyron
Remco Evenepoel has been riding the latest generation Tarmac since its launch in the summer.
For Il Lombardia though, the Belgian was riding a 1x SRAM Red setup with a 52-tooth chainring. That might be an aero-conscious choice – he was riding a similar setup during flatter stages of this year’s Tour de France.
Xavier Pereyron
Evenepoel was using an XPLR rear derailleur instead of the road option. Mads Pedersen did the same during the spring Classics. That’s backed up with what looks like an XPLR cassette too.
More SRAM-backed riders seem to have been up to similar tricks in 2026. Anna van der Breggen used a massive SRAM Eagle cassette to tackle the Angliru back in April.
Xavier Pereyron
The Olympic champion keeps the gold K-Edge chain catcher and crankset decals from his pre-Euro rig. The golden saddle shell remains as well, although the gold chain and cassette seem to have been dropped since we snapped his bike at the Tour de France – maybe it’ll come back next year.
Xavier Pereyron
The European stripes stretch to the forks, and they are shared with the gold from that Olympics win two years ago.