"The Number On The Schavei Is The Answer" — Remco Evenepoel Leaves Overijse With A Second Place At Brabantse Pijl, A 503-Watt Three-Minute Climb Number That Matches His Best Career Data, And The Ardennes Confidence He Flew To Tenerife Three Weeks Ago To Rebuild
The power-meter number matters because Remco Evenepoel said on Thursday morning that it would matter. In the eve-of-race press conference in the Overijse race-village tent the Belgian world-championship silver medallist had framed his Brabantse Pijl start in a single line: "the race that tells me whether the altitude block worked." Twenty-seven hours later the answer arrived in the form of a power file from the decisive Schavei climb at 15.8 kilometres to go. Three minutes, 503 watts normalised, 7.1 watts per kilogram, peloton-shedding effort, followed Wellens to the line. It is the best three-minute climbing number Evenepoel has posted in a one-day race since his Volta a Catalunya return.
Second place at Brabantse Pijl 2026 is, in isolation, not a headline result. The race is a 1.Pro event below Ardennes Monument status. The winner, Tim Wellens, was a rolling-start domestique that UAE only confirmed on Thursday's startsheet. Van der Poel, third, had not raced in 72 hours. Pidcock, fifth, was on the back of a ten-week knee-ligament rehabilitation. What matters is the tactical story, the power data, and the forty-eight-hour lead time Evenepoel now has into Amstel Gold Race on Sunday morning.
"I attacked on the Schavei. I attacked with 100% of what I had. I finished second. That is my answer." Soudal Quick-Step sports director Tom Steels expanded on the reasoning post-race: "We came to Brabantse Pijl with a very simple brief. Ride to shed Pidcock on the Schavei. Confirm the power file matches the altitude data. Cross the line in the top three. We accomplished all three." The 503-watt Schavei number is within 1.8% of Evenepoel's career-best 512-watt Strade Bianche 2023 climb number. The three-week Montseny block has delivered.
The tactical scenario the number makes possible for Sunday is specific. UAE Team Emirates-XRG arrives at Amstel Gold Race with a full five-rider climbing support train around Pogačar: João Almeida, Adam Yates, Isaac del Toro (recovered from his Itzulia thigh injury), Brandon McNulty, Marc Soler. That climbing train is designed to grind tempo through the final 40 kilometres, shed everybody who is not Pogačar, and deliver the world champion to the final Cauberg with a 30-second lead. The Evenepoel counter — the Schavei-style attack on a mid-range climb — is the single best documented antidote.
The Amstel Gold Race route includes 13 mid-range climbs between the 170-kilometre and 220-kilometre markers. The Keutenberg, the Gulpenerberg, the Bemelerberg, the Eyserbosweg, and two of the final three Cauberg ascents are all within Evenepoel's Schavei power-file range. An attack on any of them on Sunday — with a 503-watt three-minute effort — would deliver the Belgian clear of the Pogačar climbing train with 30 to 50 kilometres remaining. The Friday night bulletin from the KNMI upgrading Sunday's rain probability to 65% after 14:40 (see weather analysis) only reinforces the tactical logic — Evenepoel is the peloton's best wet-race climber.
"Sunday is not a revenge race," Evenepoel told reporters in the finishing pen. "I lost to Tadej at Strade Bianche this year. I did not race Flanders. I am not going to Roubaix. Sunday is the first race I go into knowing I have the legs. What happens with the tactics is a different question. I am going to race like I have always raced Amstel Gold Race: early and aggressive." Soudal Quick-Step will race Sunday with the same seven-rider roster they brought to Brabantse Pijl, plus the addition of Ilan Van Wilder who was rested on Friday.
The 48-hour window between Brabantse Pijl and Amstel Gold Race is the tightest block of Evenepoel's 2026 season so far. The Belgian's recovery programme includes a two-hour Saturday morning opener on the Cauberg circuit, a midday ice-bath protocol at the team's Valkenburg hotel, and a 20-minute threshold effort on the final Cauberg ascent on Saturday afternoon for final pacing calibration. Tom Steels on the recovery plan: "Forty-eight hours is long enough. Remco recovers faster than any rider I have coached. Sunday morning he rolls out at 10:30 at 100% of what he can do. That is the plan."