According to his technicians, this (second) bike change would not have been needed, the two bikes he switched were the exact same; they checked and checked again. But Evenepoel believed the opposite; I reckon he was fooled by the pain he developed on the first bike after it ‘broke’, pain which was transferred on the second (correct) bike, while returning to a normal position. I would add that, after riding the second, normal bike a while and standing for a while on the roadside, his pain vanished and so he felt better on the 3^rd bike, despite it being the same as the 2^nd.

Anyway, Evenepoel was allowed to get back in the trunk of a car, possibility which had been denied to many other riders previously… And because of that, he seems to believe he was faster than Pogatchar and lost only because of his bike incident (indicentS according to him).

I mean, that’s Evenepoel being Evenepoel: it’s always something external that happens to him and prevents him to crush everyone, according to him.

Truth is he only was faster when he was dragged by a car. He also regained a handful of seconds when he accelerated to drop Healy and Skjelmose, but lost them again soon after, which is pretty normal.

While Pogatchar rode 66 km alone (and the previous two with only one helper), Evenepoel only rode 20 km alone: before that he was with 2 or 4 others guys. Of course their relays were not as strong as his own, but still he could rest. It also forced him to go slightly easier, in order not to drop them, which allowed him to save extra strength for the future compared to riding full gas (same for Pogatchar when he was trying to keep Del Toro with him).

Despite all this, after he ditched Healy, apart from the handful of seconds he regained at first, he continuously lost time to Pogatchar along the last 20 km. Oh, he was only slightly losing, but he never won anything; he was slightly slower.