Cadence and leg pain, that's how Evenepoel calculated the pace to win the Time Trial World Championship without a power meter

A couple of minutes before the start of Remco Evenepoel at the Zurich 2024 World Time Trial Championship everything was about to go wrong. A backward pedal stroke, with the chain crossed and a single chainring setup caused it to come off. Suddenly panic spread. Remco managed to get back on track but, a few meters later, he realized that his power meter was not working, an essential tool for measuring effort in this discipline. This is how Remco managed to save the day and conquer a new rainbow jersey.

Feelings and references from the car saved the Time Trial World Championship for Evenepoel

Today there is no more technological and scientific discipline than time trial, except perhaps team pursuit on the track which, after all, is still a time trial. Everything is absolutely measured and parameterized. The air density, the aerodynamics worked on for years by cyclist and bike, the wind impact at each point of the route, and the exact cadence at which to pedal in each section. That is why, to achieve maximum performance, one must adhere meticulously to a power plan that has been previously calculated on the computer.

Obviously, Remco Evenepoel had his plan studied to the millimeter to become world champion again when everything started to fail. While at the start, his power meter lost connection, something that, according to the Belgian, is quite common due to the enormous electromagnetic noise in the area with so many radio signals, television, mobile phones, timing, GPS... filling the environment.

In these cases, the cyclist has automated moving the cranks to reactivate the meter and have the cycle computer detect it again, but of course, if you have a single chainring setup on cranks not designed for it - his team uses Shimano which does not have a specific road groupset for single chainring - and on top of that the chain is crossed on one of the high sprockets to get out as fast as possible, it is most likely that what happened to Remco will happen, that the chain will come off.

Finally, after moments of nerves, as it got stuck between the chainring and the chain guide, Remco's mechanic managed to put it back in place with half a minute to spare before receiving the start signal. However, in the first few meters, Remco was seen manipulating the cycle computer, a sign that something was not right. Almost an hour later, with the rainbow jersey on his shoulders, Remco explained what had happened at the finish line.

“My power meter wasn't working. It was the toughest time trial of my life” the Belgian pointed out emphatically in front of the cameras before explaining that communication with the car was essential to be able to achieve the world title.

After a few minutes of uncertainty where the car team thought that, due to the chain incident, something was not working well with his gears, things calmed down “when they realized in the car that he didn't have problems with the gears but that the power meter was not working, they started giving me constant information about the splits and the speed at which I was going”.

Remco had to improvise a plan, relying on his feelings and the information he was receiving from the car to regulate his pace. “It turned out to be the toughest time trial of my life. At first, the plan was to make a difference on the climb but instead I went slower there. Up there, I felt that I hadn't reached my limit yet and I pushed trusting in cadence and leg pain. It turned out to be enough but in the last kilometers, it was extremely difficult for me to maintain high speed”.

This explains what was seen in the race where, at the top of the climb, where the second timing point was located, Remco barely led Filippo Ganna by 9 seconds, a difference that in the third split increased to almost 20 seconds. At that moment, it seemed like he had the time trial won. However, at the finish line, only 6 seconds separated him from the Italian.

Nevertheless, despite the improvisation, the sensations that Remco perceived and knowing himself turned out to be a really precise tactic. Before the race, the established power plan, as explained by his teammate in the Belgian national team Victor Campenaerts, was that he would do a time of 53 minutes. Well, Evenepoel crossed the finish line in 53 minutes and 1 second. “There is no better example of time trial mastery. Evenepoel is a metronome, a Swiss watch. In our opinion, this is his best performance of this wonderful year” Campenaerts concluded.