Insider
Fire and Ice, Side by Side
They could hardly be more different. And that is exactly what makes Remco Evenepoel and Florian Lipowitz the most fascinating leadership duo at this year’s Tour de France. A closer look.
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There is a moment in late February, high up on Mount Teide, that reveals more about these two men than any press conference ever could. Remco Evenepoel and Florian Lipowitz are riding alone together for the first time.
Remco Evenepoel and Florian Lipowitz riding at the Teide training camp
© Maximilian Fries
The plan is a two-and-a-half-hour ride. They return only after three and a half hours. They did not get lost. They simply lost track of time. They started talking —about old crashes, past races, the Tour route in July—and never really stopped. They clicked like two old friends. Even though they barely knew each other until then. And could hardly be more different.
Remco Evenepoel and Florian Lipowitz riding at the Teide training camp
© Maximilian Fries
Remco Evenepoel and Florian Lipowitz riding at the Teide training camp
© Maximilian Fries
Remco Evenepoel and Florian Lipowitz riding at the Teide training camp
© Maximilian Fries
Remco Evenepoel and Florian Lipowitz riding at the Teide training camp
© Maximilian Fries
01
Remco Evenepoel
Remco Evenepoel is one of the loudest and proudest riders in the peloton. A Belgian national hero, Olympic champion, world champion, a man with more than a million followers and a media entourage that follows him everywhere.
Remco Evenepoel
© Shamil Tanna/The Red Bulletin
His coach says his brain runs at a hundred miles an hour, nonstop. Evenepoel embraces the spotlight. He thrives in it. He draws energy from it. Sit down with him and he will talk in precise sentences about watts and aerodynamics, faith and family, and how to beat Tadej Pogačar — all in the same breath.
Remco Evenepoel warming up
© Maximilian Fries / Red Bull Content Pool
02
Florian Lipowitz
Florian Lipowitz is the opposite. A former biathlete from southern Germany who found cycling through injury and finished third in his very first Tour de France in 2025.
Florian Lipowitz
© Max Manavi-Huber/The Red Bulletin
The kind of person who prefers to remain invisible. After the biggest success of his career, he did not feel euphoria — he felt exhausted. He needs the silence of the mountains, a Brezn at the kitchen table, the closeness of his partner Antonia and his family. If you passed him on a pedestrian street, you would never guess he is one of the best cyclists in the world.
And yet they work together. Not despite their differences, but because of them.
Florian Lipowitz and Remco Evenepoel
© Maximilian Fries / Red Bull Content Pool
Coach John Wakefield calls them yin and yang. Two poles that do not threaten each other but set each other free. Evenepoel gives Lipowitz exactly what he needs most: shade. While the cameras focus on the Belgian, the German can quietly get on with his work—unseen, unbothered, free from the pressure that nearly consumed him after finishing third at last year’s Tour. “I couldn’t handle that kind of media attention,” Lipowitz says. “But Remco might actually get energy from it.”
03
Remco and Florian - two Wingmen
In the cockpit of a fighter jet, they would call someone like that a wingman. The person who has your back, who breaks the wind, who is willing to go through fire for his partner when it matters most — and knows the favour will be returned. That is exactly what Evenepoel and Lipowitz are. Two wingmen who can switch roles depending on who has the better legs.
Remco Evenepoel and Florian Lipowitz at the Teide training camp
© Maximilian Fries
That promise proved to be more than a PR line as early as March. At the Volta a Catalunya, Lipowitz was the stronger climber and moved ahead of Evenepoel in the overall standings. The next day, the Belgian— who had suffered a heavy crash only two days earlier — threw himself fearlessly down the descent and drove relentlessly on the flat until Lipowitz had secured a podium finish.
“I wanted to help Florian,” Evenepoel said afterwards, matter-of-factly. Lipowitz was visibly moved: “I don’t even know what to say. He did me a huge favour.”
Ask the two of them separately about the team hierarchy for the Tour, and their answers are remarkably similar.
Remco Evenepoel
© Maximilian Fries
That was never a question,” says Evenepoel. “Of course I’ll step aside if Florian is stronger.
Florian Lipowitz
© Maximilian Fries
Whether it’s me or Remco - I honestly don’t care. As long as we race as a team and one of us ends up on the podium, we can be incredibly proud.
You hear sentences like these often in elite sport. Rarely are they meant so sincerely.
On July 4, the team will roll down the start ramp in Barcelona — into a team time trial, into a Tour de France, into a summer that could mean a great deal to both of them. Fire and ice, side by side. And this time, when the disc wheels begin to hum, they truly know each other.
Anyone wanting to dive deeper into the story of Remco Evenepoel and Florian Lipowitz can read the full double portrait in The Red Bulletin.
The Red Bulletin Cover Florian Lipowitz
© The Red Bulletin
The Red Bulletin Cover Remco Evenepoel
© The Red Bulletin
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