"It Is Not A Stepping Stone, It Is A Test Race" — Evenepoel Defends His Brabantse Pijl Start Twenty-Four Hours Out In Overijse As Vollering Arrives From Tenerife With A Three-Week Altitude Block Behind Her And The Race Organisers Confirm Dry Weather For Both The Men's And The Women's Editions
The final pre-race press conference of Brabantse Pijl week rolled out of the Overijse race-village tent at 11:30 CET on Thursday morning with a familiar lineup: Remco Evenepoel, Demi Vollering, defending men's champion Tom Pidcock, and Belgian federation coach Sven Vanthourenhout — a conference that has become the unofficial opening act of the Ardennes week every April since the organisers moved the event to a Friday slot in 2018. Twenty-four hours out from a 204-kilometre men's race and a 154-kilometre women's race, the tone in Overijse was sharper than at any point in the last fortnight.
"It is not a stepping stone, it is a test race," Evenepoel said, pushing back on the suggestion — floated on Belgian radio on Wednesday morning — that his Brabantse Pijl start was a formality ahead of Amstel Gold Race on Sunday. "I have not raced since I got off the bike at Catalunya four weeks ago. I have been at altitude, I have been doing efforts on the Montseny and the Coll de la Rabassa, but I have not had a race number on my back. Brabantse Pijl is the race that tells me whether the altitude block worked. If I am not good tomorrow, I have two days to think about what I do on Sunday. I need that test." The Belgian arrived in Overijse at 07:40 on Thursday morning and completed a 75-minute opener on the Schavei and the Hagaard with Soudal Quick-Step teammates Mauri Vansevenant and Ilan Van Wilder.
For Vollering, the Thursday press conference was her first public appearance in twenty-two days. The Dutchwoman had disappeared from social media in the final days of March and spent three weeks at the Parador de la Cañada in Tenerife on a block designed around 20-minute threshold efforts on the Teide. "Three weeks at 2,100 metres," she said in Overijse, "with a programme built around a single goal: being the strongest rider in the Ardennes over nine days." FDJ-Suez sports director Luis Guzmán confirmed Vollering would race Brabantse Pijl on Friday, Amstel Gold Race Ladies on Sunday, La Flèche Wallonne Féminine on 22 April, and Liège-Bastogne-Liège Femmes on 26 April — the full four-race Ardennes block the team announced in February.
The men's startsheet for Friday's 66th edition of Brabantse Pijl contains 173 confirmed starters, with Evenepoel, Pidcock and Mathieu van der Poel the three standout names. Van der Poel's start — confirmed on Wednesday afternoon in the joint Shimano-Alpecin statement that closed the Arenberg pedal-cleat story — has brought the Dutch media to Overijse in numbers not normally seen at a Belgian semi-classic. "I race tomorrow," Van der Poel said through his personal communications team on Wednesday night. "I race on Sunday. I race every Wednesday after that until Liège. That is my answer." Tadej Pogačar will not start Brabantse Pijl — the Slovenian will open his Ardennes campaign at Amstel Gold Race on Sunday — but his presence has been felt nonetheless, with UAE Team Emirates-XRG sending performance coach Jeroen Swart to observe the race from the team's guest car.
Weather conditions for Friday look favourable for an attacking race. The Belgian meteorological institute confirmed at midday on Thursday that Overijse and the 11 climbs of the men's course would stay dry from 11:00 until the finish at 17:30, with a moderate south-westerly wind of 18 km/h peaking at 24 km/h on the exposed sections of the S'Graventenvoorde plateau. The overnight low of 4°C will rise to a race-day high of 13°C. "It is a proper April day," race director Christophe Impens said, "which is exactly what we want. We do not want a warm day because the race is too short to need warmth. We want 13 degrees, we want a cross-wind, and we want a dry cobble. We have all three."
The tactical picture for the men's race is relatively clean. Pidcock, defending champion and winner of the 2024 edition, is racing on the back of a confirmed clean bill of health on the knee-ligament issue that had been a question mark through February and March. Q36.5 Pro Cycling Team are expected to use the race to try to move the decisive break to the final Schavei climb, which comes with 12 kilometres to go. Soudal Quick-Step have committed to racing for Evenepoel from the finish of the 80-kilometre circuit onwards. Alpecin-Deceuninck have confirmed that Van der Poel will race "on instinct" — the phrase used by sports director Christoph Roodhooft on Thursday morning — with no commitment to a particular tactical role.
For the women's race, Vollering's FDJ-Suez squad will face a concerted effort from Lotte Kopecky's SD Worx-Protime to neutralise the race before the final climb. Kopecky herself, fresh from a Roubaix Femmes podium, has confirmed she will race — which she had not committed to as recently as Monday. The weather forecast is identical to the men's race. The combined attendance across both races is expected to exceed 180,000 roadside spectators, a figure that would be a Brabantse Pijl record and reflect the weight of attention the race now carries as the gateway to the three-Monument week ahead.