Chapter 319 173: Officially Selected for the Core Roster, Racing in the Little Tour de France

After winning the Tour of Hungary and returning to Germany, Huang Chong's team didn't schedule any more races for him for quite a while.

Aside from attending team training sessions, he was essentially "unemployed" at home, watching the Giro d'Italia with Chen Junyi.

For Huang Chong, this was undoubtedly a good opportunity to rest. He also had a growing suspicion that the team would be entrusting him with a major responsibility in his next race.

The reason was that during team training, Aldag had already instructed the logistics support group to have him train with the main lineup.

The main focus of his daily training was still to act as a lead-out rider for the team's Core Commander, Roglič.

He had joined Bora several months ago, and while he had trained with Roglič before during full-team sessions, those had been different.

On closer inspection, those were merely collective training sessions for every member of the entire team.

He barely even had a chance to speak with Roglič.

A pro cycling team might seem like a small group, with only a few dozen members, but once you were on the inside, you discovered that this tiny collective had a remarkably distinct hierarchy.

For a newcomer like Huang Chong, trying to cozy up to Roglič right off the bat was completely out of the question.

Given Roglič's status and his multi-million-euro annual salary, Huang Chong simply wasn't in a position to get close.

But things were clearly different now. Not only was he required to train with Roglič, but the group also included Vlasov, Sindel, and a few others, making a total of only seven or eight riders.

This new daily routine—training in a small squad with the team leader, eating meals together, and traveling together—sent Huang Chong an unmistakable signal.

After his rampant title-collecting on the World Tour circuit, the team had finally been forced to promote him to the true core lineup ahead of schedule.

But this was both a promotion and a source of immense pressure.

After all, when serving as a domestique for a star rider, even the slightest imperfection would be magnified endlessly.

A single poor performance in one race could unleash a torrent of public criticism.

However, compared to a true newcomer, Huang Chong's situation was completely different—he was basically playing with cheats.

He had earned 250 UCI points at the Frankfurt Grand Prix and 320 (200+40+40+40) at the Tour of Hungary. Adding the 40 points already in his system's inventory, his FTP Power had increased by another 12 watts from his post-Liège Race 448, bringing him to 460 watts.

At this power level, his Power-to-Weight Ratio had successfully surpassed 7.0.

If he were to truly go all out, especially with his terrifying Sprinting Burst, he could even drop his own team leader, Roglič, on an incredibly difficult steep climb.

For a professional Road Cyclist, strength is everything. With a Power-to-Weight Ratio exceeding 7.0, Huang Chong was now essentially among the world's top five riders.

His power level was certainly still a step below Pogačar and Vingegaard, as those two monsters could sustain a Power-to-Weight Ratio of 7.5 for dozens of minutes on long, steep climbs.

However, at his current level, he was definitely on par with Evenepoel and the aging Roglič.

Of course, unless the gap is immense, it's difficult to determine a clear winner based on raw data alone.

He wouldn't dare claim he could secure a definite win against either of them.

But on terrain that suited him—for instance, on extremely difficult climbs—he absolutely had the best odds of winning out of the three of them.

The three of them each had their own specialties: he excelled at Sprinting Bursts on incredibly steep climbs; Evenepoel was stronger in time trials and the Classics; and Roglič was the best when it came to endurance and stability on extremely long climbs.

Still, Huang Chong was very satisfied with reaching a top-five level in the world before the Tour de France.

'I can't possibly expect to utterly dominate the two 'Mars People' at the Tour de France in my very first year on the World Tour. That would be just too absurd.'

"The Giro d'Italia is finally over. Pogačar is just ridiculously strong!"

On May 26, the final day of the Giro d'Italia, Huang Chong watched the live broadcast. Seeing Pogačar in the pink jersey, riding a custom pink-painted Colnago V4rs to match his special edition Giro kit, Huang Chong couldn't help but feel a pang of envy.

For a professional Road Cyclist, having a special-edition leader's jersey and a custom bike livery was a tremendous honor, and these were strictly regulated by the UCI.

For example, the Rainbow Jersey that van der Poel was still wearing this year was the exclusive right of the previous year's World Championships winner. No other rider was qualified to wear it.

The only exception was Evenepoel. As the World Champion in the Individual Time Trial (ITT), he was permitted to wear the Rainbow Jersey, but only briefly during ITT events, such as those at the Tour de France.

But with only a few ITT events per year, the prestige couldn't compare to the road race Rainbow Jersey, which van der Poel could wear all season long.

Besides the Rainbow Jersey, the European Championships also had an exclusive jersey, as did each country's National Championships for their respective winners.

As for special-edition bike liveries, those were even rarer and more special.

Typically, a rider had to wear a leader's jersey for a significant period in one of the three Grand Tours before a bike manufacturer would create a special custom design.

The most prestigious custom livery of all was the Golden Chariot paint scheme for an Olympic champion.

Only the winner of the Olympic road race, an event held just once every four years, earned the right to ride a gold-painted bike.

'According to the history from my past life,' he recalled, 'Evenepoel is going to win both the ITT and the road race at this year's Paris Olympic Games.'