Why Remco Evenepoel rode the time trial in the UAE Tour with long sleeves

It was a striking sight in the individual time trial of the UAE Tour: Remco Evenepoel riding with long sleeves to the fastest time. Until this year, the Belgian always raced his time trials in short sleeves. This is certainly no coincidence, the reigning world champion explained afterwards to Het Laatste Nieuws.

Evenepoel achieved his biggest time trial victories—think of his three world titles and Olympic gold—with short sleeves. The rider had a remarkable explanation for this himself.

"Apparently my skin is faster than a time trial suit," he said a few years ago in the 'Wolfpack,' an Amazon Prime series about his then team Soudal Quick-Step. "The shorter the shorts, the better."

Wind tunnel
That was back then, because Evenepoel—together with his new team Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe—has come to a different conclusion. "I'm glad someone noticed," he said after his time trial. "It's actually the only change that came out of our last visit to the wind tunnel. I'm getting a bit older, you know. So maybe my skin too," he adds with a laugh.

"Last year Remco rode a Castelli suit, now it’s Specialized," his team director Klaas Lodewyck indicated in conversation with HLN. "That can also make a difference. But our engineers are convinced that this is the fastest suit in this setup."