Tadej Pogačar Can't Trust Anybody With His Bike

Cycling teams spy on each other’s tech all the time.

Mechanics, bike fitters, and biomechanists zoom in on bike photos, scour patent applications, and likely offer underhand deals to find their rivals’ fastest secrets.

In the modern era, Tadej Pogačar’s equipment gets the most interest. And so it should — he is pushing for GOAT status, after all.

Whether it’s the exact saddle tilt, the milligram distribution of chain lube, or even the glue beneath his trademark “Hulk” sticker — rivals want to know everything about the Pogi setup.

It turns out that team Quick-Step was offered a very direct approach to its technological sleuthing in 2024.

Pogačar casually parked his bike in their very own hotel room, ripe for a microscopic inspection.

Writing this weekend in his column for Het Nieuwsblad, former Quick-Step boss Patrick Lefevere shared a hilarious account of a snooping session involving four — yes, four — mechanics, and Pogačar’s trustingly discarded Colnago.

PSA to the pros: Never leave your bike with Quick-Step

Lefevere — who stepped down from his role as team CEO at the end of 2024 — wrote that Pogačar had cycled to a hotel in Calpe where Quick-Step was staying on training camp.

Urška Žigart, Pogačar’s partner, was also at the hotel with her former team, Liv-AlUla Jayco.

“Pogačar came to use the sauna with Urška. He had arrived by bike and asked our mechanics if he could leave it in our bike room,” Lefevere wrote Saturday in Het Nieuwsblad. “Naturally, that was no problem.

“As soon as Pogi was out of the picture, our mechanics swarmed onto that bike. Four men in total. They weighed, measured, and analyzed everything,” he wrote.

“Nothing was disassembled, but judging by the stories I heard afterward, it came pretty close.”

As Lefevere justified, it was too juicy an opportunity to turn down. Pogi is too trusting for his own good.

“He had probably never considered that he might be giving away any trade secrets,” Lefevere wrote.

“But a mechanic with a bit of professional pride is going to leave the Tour winner’s bike standing in the corner without having a look.”

Strange saddle setback … and no motor

However, Lefevere said his mechanics were left disappointed. There are no supersonic secrets hidden in Pogačar’s bike fit or build.

“All that our mechanics found striking was the saddle’s setback,” Lefevere wrote in HNB. “Pogačar seemed to be sitting quite forward relative to the bottom bracket. That was the main conclusion reached within the span of a single sauna visit.

“I am told that our staff also gave the bike a good wash,” he added.

And the most important question for the Tin Foil Hat Brigade – are UCI officials missing anything during their pre-race checks for “mechanical fraud?”

Lefevere was definitive.

“For those wondering after all those pro victories: our inspection revealed that Pogačar’s bike did not contain a motor,” he joked.

Pogačar fitted with collarbone plate after Vuelta a España crash

Lefevere filed his column to Het Nieuwsblad at an unfortunate time — the morning of stage 8 of the Vuelta a España.

Pogačar suffered a shocking high-speed crash just a few hours later in a grand tour stage that had been written off as a snoozy day for sprinters.

The 60kph fall left Pogačar with a fractured collarbone and vertebra, and a nasty concussion. It upended the narrative of the rest of this season.

UAE Emirates-XRG confirmed that Pogačar received successful surgery on his collarbone Monday evening in Barcelona.

According to the local outlet El Periódico, the procedure was led by Dr. Xavier Mir, a prestigious Catalan surgeon who’s become famous for his work treating elite motorbike racers.

“The operation required pins and plates to reconstruct the collarbone. The cyclist now needs a reasonable period to compete again,” El Periódico reported Monday.

The cycling world is now speculating whether Pogačar will be fit to defend his world title on September 27 in Montréal.

Until then, here’s hoping Pogi has his bike under lock and key while he’s getting some rest. You never know who might be poking around at it.