Soudal – Quick-Step<\/a>, compared to the superteams of UAE Team Emirates – XRG or Visma | Lease a Bike whose domestiques alone could probably give Evenepoel a good run for his money if given the freedom to ride for themselves.<\/p>\n“But I think we do have some rouleurs with us, who can be very important in such a stage. Cattaneo, for example. A Schachmann in shape – preferably the version from Itzulia Basque Country, not the one from the Dauphin\u00e9 – should also be able to do that. And a strong and well-positioned Van Wilder is always worth his weight in gold.”<\/p>\n
Evenepoel’s team made big steps and even bigger statements about going all in for the Belgian’s GC ambitions, but it’s yet to be really reflected in their roster, a pill that is becoming increasingly bitter to swallow for the Olympic Champion who cannot expect any star recruits in the climbing resort for 2026 either.<\/p>\n
“It’s difficult for me to go into this in depth, but… a bit of a shame, yes,” sighs Evenepoel, about the silence on the transfer market. The only notable signings on that end was Mikel Landa in 2024 and Valentin Paret-Peintre ahead of this season. “Landa did sign,” he nods. “But Mikel will not be racing until he is sixty either.”<\/p>\n
Could there be possibilties to recruit riders like Kevin Vauquelin and Cristi\u00e1n Rodr\u00edguez from the struggling Ark\u00e9a – B&B Hotels? “They aren’t the very best climbers, but they are indeed guys who consistently finish in the top fifteen in their races, and on a good day even in the top ten. If these guys stay injury-free, they can make progress and blossom with us.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In particular the requirements to perform at the highest level have grown massively with the arrival of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":239258,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4104],"tags":[4230,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-239257","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling","8":"tag-cycling","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114798888685615072","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239257","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=239257"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239257\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/239258"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=239257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=239257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=239257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Tadej](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/pogacar-vingegaard-evenepoel-6846d7b2b8527.jpg@webp.webp\")
<\/p>\n