Remco Evenepoel is determined to continue his run of aggressive racing and early-season success with Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe at this week's Volta Comunitat Valenciana before heading to the UAE Tour for his first WorldTour showdown of 2026.
With a 100% strike rate and three victories at the Challenge Mallorca, Evenepoel enjoyed a perfect debut with Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe as they made their racing debut. The German super-team also won the Trofeo Palma thanks to Arne Marit to win four out of five of the Challenge Mallorca races.
Evenepoel was the driving force in the Trofeo Ses Salines team time trial victory and then attacked on the climbs to win alone in the Trofeo Serra Tramuntana and the Trofeo Andratx-Pollença on Friday and Saturday.
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"I'm really happy with how it went, three days, good feeling with the team too, it's all very positive to start like this," an enthusiastic Evenepoel told Eurosport.
"It's always good to win early in the season. After my problems last year, it's great to win a [mass start] road race, it took me some time to win again.
"I'm happy to open my account with my new team pretty early. It showed we did some good work in the winter and that we're going in a good direction so far."
Evenepoel used the racing to work on and calibrate his five-minute threshold fitness, an area that new coach Dan Lorang can lead to improvements in his ability to take on the likes of Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) and Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) later in the season.
"It was the right decision to race three races in Mallorca and make them as long and as hard as possible. That's the only way I can make progress. The most important thing now is to maintain this form and even sharpen it a bit.
"I'll keep working at a high intensity, which I'll automatically gain in the upcoming races, by attacking and maintaining the effort."
Evenepoel headed to his Calpe residence immediately after Friday's race, knowing he faces a quick turnaround to rest up and be ready for the Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana. The five-stage race begins on Wednesday and uses some of the roads Evenepoel trains on when in Spain. It is also in the same area of Spain where many teams hold their winter training camps.
Evenepoel will be joined by Giulio Pellizzari in the Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe line-up, with Mads Pedersen and Tao Geoghegan Hart making their season debut with Lidl-Trek. Evenepoel's biggest overall rivals will include João Almeida (UAE Team Emirates), Antonio Tiberi (Bahrain Victorious) and Cian Uijtdebroeks (Movistar). Biniam Girmay makes his debut there with NSN, with Ineos Grenadiers also in action in Spain.
Wednesday's first stage suits the sprinters but stage 2 is a flattish time trial to Alginet, south of Valencia, and so should allow Evenepoel to gain time on his overall rivals. Stage 3 includes the 7.5km Alto de Tibi climb, while stage 4 around La Nucía covers the Colle de Rates and a series of other short but steep climbs.
Evenepoel will ride the Tour of Valencia for the second time in his career. He won a stage in 2022 and finished second overall behind his Red Bull teammate Alexander Vlasov. This year he is the rider to beat.
"Now we have to look forward, Valencia is coming soon, and UAE is also coming soon, so it’s all going to be about finding the right balance between training and resting,” Evenepoel said.
The Volta Comunitat Valenciana ends on Sunday and less than a week later, Evenepoel will fly to the UAE for his first WorldTour race of 2026, which starts on February 16. This year's UAE Tour includes a flat 12.km time trial but also two mountain finishes, on the new 13.2km, 8.1% climb to Jebel Mobrah on stage 3 and then up to Jebel Hafeet on stage 6.
Evenepoel will face Isaac del Toro (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) and Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) in the first big Grand Tour rider showdown of the season. He is then expected to train at altitude in early March, targeting the Volta a Catalunya before the Ardennes classics in April. The Tour de France is Evenepoel's major goal of the summer.
