It has been three years since Remco Evenpoel‘s first experience of gravel racing at a Grand Tour – stage 11 at the Giro d’Italia, where he struggled on the Tuscan sterrato, losing two minutes to eventual race winner Egan Bernal in Montalcino.
The news that this year’s Tour de France – his first – would also include gravel roads in the parcours was, when the race route was announced back in October, met with a negative reaction from the Belgian as he said, “I don’t think it’s necessary.”
His Soudal-QuickStep team boss, Patrick Lefevere, has also signalled his displeasure with the trend on several occasions. Heading into the Tour de France’s ninth stage on Sunday, routed over the dirt roads around Troyes, it seems as though one of the men has changed his tune.
“Looking ahead to that stage, I’m looking forward to it, but I’m also a bit nervous,” Evenepoel told the Belgian media after stage 8 in Colombey-Les-Deux-Eglises. “I can’t wait to discover those gravel roads, and at the same time, I know that anything can happen. All of the GC riders have to be careful not to lose time.
“I know all the sectors,” he added. “I’ve explored the most difficult ones, and, to be honest, I’m a fan of them. We’ll see how it turns out. It will depend on the leading group and on whether there are really strong riders up front, or not.
“In any case, I have the impression that tomorrow’s stage will be one of the most watched sporting events of the year.”
Lefevere, speaking to Cyclingnews on the morning of stage 8, in the rain-hit village of Semur-en-Auxois, remained steadfastly against the idea of gravel in Grand Tours.
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“I’m anti. I’m not in favour and I don’t think it belongs in the Tour de France,” he said. “In the beginning, I was against Strade Bianche, but I changed my mind – only idiots never change their minds. It’s OK there, but it doesn’t belong in a stage race.
“I’m not Madame Soleil [French astrologer], I told you already,” he added when asked for a prediction on what might unfold on the 199km stage. “There will be two races in the race, one to win the stage and one to not lose time for the GC guys. We’ll ride to protect Remco as much as possible. The others have no personal ambitions. We will see. The day will tell us.”
Writing in his weekly opinion column for Het Nieuwsblad, Lefevere looked back to a modern classic edition of the Giro d’Italia, won by Ivan Basso after a gradual fightback against breakaway leader David Arroyo.
The race’s epic seventh stage, run in wet conditions across that famous sterrato to Montalcino, saw Cadel Evans seize the maglia rosa, producing a memorable image in the race’s recent history. Fourteen years on, Lefevere remains unimpressed, using the example to illustrate his displeasure with the concept.
“An image of Cadel Evans in the 2010 Giro is burned into my retina,” he wrote. “He won the gravel stage then but crossed the finish line with a caked-on gravel mess covering his entire face. Is that how we want to see riders?”
It’s a question to which many fans would swiftly answer ‘yes’, even if the Tour de France peloton will be hoping that the present forecast for dry weather is borne out.
Evenepoel and the other 172 men who finished stage 8 battled through different conditions on Saturday as rain hit the Tour at the end of a warm and dry opening week. As sprinters Biniam Girmay, Jasper Philipsen, and Arnaud De Lie battled for the stage win on the rising finish, he found himself finishing up in 10th alongside Fred Wright and Alex Aranburu.
It was an unfamiliar position for Evenepoel to find himself in during a mass sprint finish, a situation that came about entirely by accident, he said.
“In the end, it was a pretty good day, even though the start was a bit tricky due to the effects from yesterday’s time trial,” Evenepoel said. “But I was well surrounded by my teammates and I was able to spend most of the stage at the front of the peloton.
“In the last kilometre uphill, I wanted to make sure I wouldn’t lose time in a stupid way. So, I stayed at the front and finished 10th, but that was more by accident. I didn’t do it on purpose.”
