Chris Horner has opinions. This week, a news story he read on Cyclingnews caused the retired Grand Tour champion to sound off on his YouTube channel about former Soudal-QuickStep team manager Patrick Lefevere, saying he was a "knucklehead" who had wasted seven years in the development of Remco Evenepoel, now with rival outfit Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe.
Horner was humoured by Lefevere's grudge against Red Bull's team boss Ralph Denk for buying out the Belgian's contract early before his Soudal-QuickStep contract expired. He referred to the Cyclingnews story on Lefevere's comments from a Radio Peloton podcast that he "filed a complaint with the UCI" about Denk and summed up his feelings towards the Red Bull manager with a succinct "I hate him."
The long-winded Horner recounted several instances from 2024, at the Tour de France and the elite men's road race at the Zürich Worlds, where he thought Evenepoel had not received sufficient grounding on how to challenge Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates), the Slovenian winning both events. He was quick to point out that Lefevere boasted that he 'found' Evenepoel, but across seven years was seemingly not able to develop his racing skills properly.
"I love reading Patrick Lefevere's stuff, because he always looks like he's right, but he's really not 100% correct. So Patrick Lefevere, when I read [the Cyclingnews] article, you're a knucklehead. There's no doubt about that, because you had six, seven years to get Remco Evenepoel properly trained," Horner said on his YouTube video post.
"You wonder why the wonder kid from Belgium wants to leave Soudal-QuickStep, Patrick Lefevere? It's because you guys haven't done enough to help him out to become a better rider and win more races.
"You guys haven't taught him tactically how to race his bike yet. Of course, it was time to leave the team and go to a stronger team called Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe. I'm not certain if they're going to be able to teach Remco Evenepoel anything either, but certainly, at least he has a stronger team built up around him where he's going to have some teammates deeper into the race than he had it at Soudal-QuickStep."
Both Horner and Evenepoel have something in common, they both won the Vuelta a España. But in seven years with Soudal-QuickStep, there was just one Grand Tour victory for the young Belgian, and he departed for Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe in pursuit of a Tour de France GC title, in particular.
"This kid, Remco Evenepoel, is by far not well-trained. He is very fit. He's got pro legs. They're amazing.
"I have told you guys many times on The Butterfly Effect that after Tadej Pogačar, I would sign Remco Evenepoel. But maybe the day before he actually signs the signature, I'd have had a little talk with him - 'Hey, can I tweak your tactics?'," Horner chuckled.
Evenepoel was just 19 when he joined Soudal-QuickStep in 2019 and in seven years he did win three world titles in the time trial discipline, double gold medals in road events at the Olympic Games and a world title on the road in 2022, which Horner did not mention. However, his focus in the video editorial was about road race success for the young Belgian, and how he should know how to beat Pogačar.
"Lefevre said he found him, but by the 2024 Road World Championships, you haven't told Evenepoel how to race against Pogačar? Hey, if he goes at 100k, just keep your teammates together. Patrick Lefevere, you haven't even taught Remco Evenepoel what to do in that situation with Tadej Pogačar.
"Every one of his interviews are always like this - I would have done this, I would have done that. Why did you need six, seven years and now coming out in the article to say that's how you would have raced it, and that it was the problem of the directeur sportif for the Belgium national team that was in the car that didn't set up the tactics correctly. Well, you're his director. These articles are always hilarious when I read them.
"So Patrick Lefevere, I love your articles. Keep them coming, because they're all knucklehead-ism at its best."
