On a brand-new bike, Evenepoel dominates the competition in the Chrono des Nations

The Chrono des Nations has long been a fixture this late in the season. It gives time trial specialists one more chance to shine over 45 flat kilometers. Stefan Küng has already won it three times and was in the field again this year. However, the Swiss rider from Tudor wasn’t considered the favorite to win, thanks to the presence of Remco Evenepoel.

The four-time world time trial champion wrapped up his season in France, partly to test new equipment. He was able to ride his first race kilometers on the time trial bike he’ll be using next year. And so everyone looked to the “Bullet of Schepdaal” as the top favorite in his first appearance at Les Herbiers.

Janos Pelikan was the first to clock a finishing time: the Hungarian crossed the finish line in 55:44. But before he had even finished, all the other riders were already on their way. We saw Maxime Decomble, Rémi Cavagna (Groupama-FDJ), Jay Vine, and Mikkel Bjerg (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) post strong split times, but Küng was even faster.

The Swiss rider from Tudor clocked a time of 11:58 after 10.5 kilometers, but Evenepoel smashed that time by a huge margin: he was a full 26 seconds faster. The brand-new black Specialized clearly performed exceptionally well. The battle for the podium spots remained exciting between Küng, Vine, and Cavagna, but the Belgian was truly in a league of his own.

Vine posted the third split time at the final checkpoint, but was then immediately overtaken by the dominant world champion, who was 1.47 minutes faster there than second-place Küng. The Swiss rider then lost his second-place position to Vine, who finished a full 2.11 minutes behind. Evenepoel thus won his final race of the season by a massive margin.