{"id":262283,"date":"2025-09-28T22:16:13","date_gmt":"2025-09-28T22:16:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/262283\/"},"modified":"2025-09-28T22:16:13","modified_gmt":"2025-09-28T22:16:13","slug":"evenepoel-road-race-dream-unravels-in-mechanical-meltdown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/262283\/","title":{"rendered":"Evenepoel Road Race Dream Unravels in Mechanical Meltdown"},"content":{"rendered":"

Evenepoel vents frustration in spectacular fashion as he suffers costly slow bike change at Rwanda road worlds: ‘l felt like I was in excellent shape.’<\/p>\n

\"Evenepoel\"<\/p>\n

Updated September 28, 2025 10:06AM<\/p>\n

Mechanicals and a botched bike change threw a wrench into the rainbow dream of Remco Evenepoel<\/a> on Sunday at the UCI road worlds<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Belgian was forced to switch bikes twice and suffered a brief but spectacular meltdown in a disastrous phase of his quest to double his time trial world title with the road race gold medal.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hit a pothole before Mont Kigali. After that, my saddle completely collapsed,\u201d Evenepoel told Sporza<\/a> soon after the race.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis might sound strange, but because of my different position on the bike, my hamstrings really cramped up. I couldn\u2019t even produce 400 watts.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI had to change bikes again,\u201d he continued. \u201cI was on my third bike after that, but I felt like my saddle wasn\u2019t quite the same position. It caused quite a lot of pain in my lower back. That\u2019s when I knew my saddle was too high.\u201d<\/p>\n

The bike changes could have proven costly for Evenepoel, and not just because the saddle blew out his back.<\/p>\n

While bike change No.1 ran smooth, the second did not.<\/a><\/p>\n

The 25-year-old stood awkwardly in front of local fans for some 45 seconds while he waited for the team car carrying his spare Specialized.<\/p>\n

He penalty-kicked a plastic bottle in frustration \u2013 he was a star soccer player \u2013 as he waited, helpless.<\/p>\n

Intriguingly, Belgian team mechanic Dario Kloeck told Het Nieuwsblad shortly after the race he couldn\u2019t fathom the problem with bike No.2.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe measured it three more times, but the saddle was the same height as on his other bike,\u201d he told HNB. \u201cWe\u2019ll find out exactly what was wrong soon, but I think it was mostly frustration.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe lost a lot of unnecessary time because of that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Evenepoel\u2019s hopes at double gold scuppered by his saddle: \u2018I was in excellent shape\u2019
\n\"\"Evenepoel lost costly time an energy waiting for a spare bike. (Photo: Dario Belingheri\/Getty Images )<\/p>\n

It was a setback that surely transformed the race for Evenepoel, who was chasing his second gold medal of the championships.<\/p>\n

While the Belgian sensation was gapped by Poga\u010dar\u2019s decisive attack on the Mont Kigali climb at 110km, he later had the legs to blow all his rivals off his wheel when he set out in pursuit of the solo-flying Poga\u010dar.<\/p>\n

\u201cI felt better after I changed bikes again and got back into the race,\u201d Evenepoel told Sporza. \u201cBut if you sum it all up, there are a lot of moments [that went wrong].<\/p>\n

\u201cChasing twice is a bit much. It\u2019s a shame. l felt like I was in excellent shape,\u201d he said. \u201cI came for the double.\u201d<\/p>\n

Evenepoel came to the line in second and slumped to the barriers, disconsolate.<\/p>\n

His silver medal will likely taste very bittersweet Sunday night.<\/p>\n

\"EvenepoelEvenepoel was left wondering \u2018what if\u2019 after mechanical mishaps. (Photo: David Ramos\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Evenepoel vents frustration in spectacular fashion as he suffers costly slow bike change at Rwanda road worlds: ‘l…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":262284,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[137190,62,137191,137192,97600,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-262283","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-parent_category-road","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-tag-remco-evenepoel","11":"tag-tag-uci-road-world-championships","12":"tag-type-article","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-unitedstates","15":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115284238968282627","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262283","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=262283"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262283\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/262284"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=262283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=262283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=262283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}