> After the successful spring of last year, Van der Poel dives into the wind tunnel for the first time in his life. In the Belgian Beringen, he tinkers with his time trial position, which immediately yields results in this Dauphiné. In the weeks that follow, he also does a number of training sessions on his time trial bike in Spain. “About five or six times. That is already something to get used to that position. It is at least five or six times more than normal, haha.” And so he sends a text message to Evenepoel asking if he can stay within a minute of him with his position.

> That doesn't quite work out – partly due to the efforts in the third stage: he has to give up a minute and two seconds to the Belgian. "I have broad shoulders, that's my problem a bit. Remco is very aerodynamic on both the regular and the time trial bike. I have to find the balance between sitting aerodynamically on the bike and delivering power. That's a bit of a game. It's not possible to come close to specialists like Remco. But I do want to get better at it. [...] Maybe I'll make another bet in the Tour later," he says undoubtedly with his characteristic grin.


Grug even trying to sell TT bikes now.