Remco Evenepoel (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) completed an early recon ride of the Los Angeles 2028 Olympic time-trial course on Sunday, October 25, almost two years before he could defend the title he won in Paris.
The Belgian uploaded the ride to Strava under the title "LA 2028 ITT RECON". It covered 65.34km with 614m of climbing in 2:16:10 of moving time, an average speed of 28.8km/h. He rode it on a Specialized Tarmac SL 9 road bike. The map shows a long approach across the city and a loop in the hills around Griffith Park.
On the 2.97km Strava segment up to the Observatory, he clocked 10:23 at an average of 17.2km/h, compared with a course record of 7:22. That suggests he was scouting rather than tackling the climb at full effort. The segment is longer than the reported 2km finishing climb on the Olympic course.
Evenepoel is in California for tests in Specialized's wind tunnel over the coming days, something the Belgian has made into a near-annual pilgrimage. He has a lifetime partnership with the brand. He had already been to Morgan Hill in October 2025 for wind-tunnel testing and a bike fit before his first season with his current team.
The Olympic time trials take place on July 19, 2028. LA28 has confirmed that the course starts near Los Angeles Zoo and finishes at Griffith Observatory. The men's and women's road races will finish at the same place. The time trial ends with a 2km climb averaging 7% to the Observatory, which sits at 347m above sea level. Organisers still have some route details to finalise.
That finish is very different from Paris, where Evenepoel won gold on a flat, rain-affected 32.4km course. He covered it in 36:12.16 at 53.7km/h and finished about 14 seconds ahead of the silver medallist. He went on to win the road race as well.
Evenepoel’s Olympic plans remain unconfirmed, but his exceptional time-trial form this season, along with this early recon, suggests defending his time-trial title is high on his list of priorities.
Before the 2025 Tour de France mountain time trial, Evenepoel and Specialized tried a climbing setup on his TT bike.
"We wanted to see how can we make the TT bike in a climbing setup. Then we tried it out," he said on The Specialized Podcast in January.
"Unfortunately my legs were not there in that time of the year. But on training, it felt really good. I was feeling really powerful on that bike. But just during the race, it didn't really come out."
LA28 said in June that full course details for the road events would be published later in 2026, and with only a few months left in the year, we’ll eagerly await a more in-depth rundown of the routes in LA.
