Recently Remco Evenepoel travelled to the United States to put on a few days of research work for Red Bull – BORA – hansgrohe to use regarding everything the team has directed to the time trials. However, Evenepoel had spent a lot of time in the Specialized headquarters previously with Soudal – Quick-Step, so what is the reason why he needed to do this with his new team?
As a time trial specialist, aerodynamics mean everything, specially when talking to the rider who is the reigning Olympic, World and European Champion in the discipline. Evenepoel is without a doubt the best of his kind in the current peloton, but a team switch also means gear and equipment switch, and his perfect Quick-Step setup will no longer be in use. However, both the Belgian team and Red Bull – BORA – hansgrohe use Specialized bikes and several of the same equipment suppliers, so why was it urgent to have Evenepoel travel to the USA already at this point in time.
One of the engineers at Specialized, Lionello Bardina, has explained the reason in words to Cyclingnews: “The data collected by or for a professional team remains strictly confidential and is never shared outside that team unless they give their express permission”.
Evenepoel has won almost everything he could on a time trial bike. @Sirotti
In other words, the German team is not allowed access to the data that Soudal – Quick-Step collected on Evenepoel’s position and equipment, even though Evenepoel is no longer racing for the team. He isn’t the one himself to have the key scientific information, and so the team flew him out to America to redo what he had previously done with Quick-Step. “After a transfer, the new team will almost always bring its new recruit to our wind tunnel to retrieve the data.”
The same happened with Demi Vollering last winter who was in the exact same situation, moving teams whilst having the same bike supplier, from Team SD Worx – ProTime to FDJ – Suez. The information could be shared, but obviously Quick-Step has good reasons not to give Red Bull a head start now that Evenepoel is a competitor. “But you mustn’t forget that the teams we support also compete with each other.” Whilst Specialized itself, in the middle of the situation, is also forced to maintain privacy on the data collected by the teams. “Our commitment to respecting data privacy is therefore essential for the strength of our partnerships”.