The Humble Warrior
Campanearts on set filming the DeFeet Films feature documentary Flandrien in April, 2022.
Our first interviewee, Victor Campanaerts, strolled in wearing the customary team issue sweatsuit. As we worked out the bugs on our cameras and sound equipment, Victor’s unmistakable voice flowed into our hard drives. We worked through our questions, getting to know Victor for the first time. By the end we knew we liked him. He had unabashedly talked of his achievements, like when he set the World Hour Record, but he did it in a way that didn’t come off as raw cockiness. Rather, he had a soft assuredness about him and he showed some humility. Victor walked off the set leaving us wondering if we may have detected a sense of humor bubbling beneath his proud, outer shell.
Winning the criterium in Aalst, Belgium the day after the 2024 Tour de France.
On the podium in Aalst with Jasper Philipsen (left) and Biniam Girmay (r).
In February 2023, Shane and Hope Cooper landed at the Lotto training camp in Spain. The mission was to do a deep dive with Lotto and help plot the next two years of product development at DeFeet. Campanaerts, the former World Hour Record holder that he is, pays closer attention to aero details than most riders. One product caught his eye: the prototype of the DeFeet Evo Jet aero sock. He gave his direct input, and DeFeet took notes.
Hope and Shane Cooper join Team Lotto DSTNY at their training in Southern Spain in early 2023. The result was precise data and feedback from the team made it's way back to DeFeet and into the design of the DeFeet Evo Jet.
Back at the factory, DeFeet began a more focused approach to the development of the Evo Jet. By the 2023 Tour de France, a small batch of the socks were assembled, sublimated in Lotto colors and shipped to France. Campanearts wore Evo Jet’s in every stage as he rampaged his way to win the Most Aggressive rider award at the Tour. Through the Fall and Winter, he corresponded with us, telling us how much he liked the product.
In early 2024, DeFeet took the Evo Jet to an independent wind tunnel test. We were astounded by the results. By the numbers, the Evo Jet was indisputably the best bang-for-the-buck advancement a rider could make to conserve watts while riding. Of course, the faster one rides, the greater the savings. Victor Campanaerts and his Lotto DSTNY teammates ride fast. They told DeFeet they felt more efficient when they wore the Evo Jet, and now they wanted to wear them in every race across all terrain.
As the 2024 Tour de France rolled out of Florence, Italy, DeFeet held some hopes for a stage victory for Lotto DSTNY, but we knew it would not be easy. After several near misses in field sprints from Arnaud De Lie it looked like hopes for a stage win had nearly vanished. What we didn’t know is that Victor Campanaerts had a different set of plans up his sleeve.
As we tuned into the final 50km of stage 18, we saw a group of seven riders emerge from a large, 28 person breakaway. Then, from those seven, first Micheal Kwiatowski went solo on a descent off the final climb of the day. Eventually two more riders clawed their way onto Kwiatowski’s wheel. Matteo Vercher from team TotalEnergie, and Victor Campanaerts. The three worked so well together, going pull for pull, we realized with 15km to go they were going to make it to the finish. The nerves started tingling. “Victor is going to get his shot!”, and, “They’re going to make it!” We shouted back and forth at the DeFeet office. We didn’t know if Victor had what it would take to win from the other two. They entered the final two kilometers. Vercher attacked. Victor paused, making Kwiatowski take up the chase. Victor held the third position into the last 300 meters. When he jumped into the slight uphill finish, he had chosen a slightly smaller gear than the others. Kwiatowski was caught off guard. There was never a doubt. Campanaerts was the winner of stage 18 of the 2024 Tour de France 2024.
Victor was elated. The image of him crossing the line, pure joy. It is an image of cycling, a celebration of life itself. In his post race interview my eyes teared up and I knew I wasn’t the only one. Victor Campanaerts, the most humble of warriors, gave millions of viewers the gift of feeling what it is like, and what it takes, to win a stage of the Tour de France. It was and always will be a lifetime moment.
Winning Stage 18 of the 2024 Tour de France from Gap to Barcolonette.
Remarkably, he told the cameras how he had identified this stage back in December of 2023 as the one stage in the race he believed he could have a chance. Professional riders know how slim such a chance can be, a sliver. That is vision. That is preparation. It is knowing one’s own strengths, weaknesses and exactly where the outer limits rest. Sometimes knowing the backstory provides color and beauty of another degree. Victor colored it in a way that made perhaps the most memorable and beautiful day of the 2024 Tour. He did it not only with his riding, but with his words, emotion and authenticity.
Victor's post race interview (click to watch on YouTube).
Of course, on his feet and up his heavily muscled calves were the socks fit for a warrior, his DeFeet Evo Jets. He had had a big influence on their creation. On the design, the detail, and the very purpose - the true raison d’etre - of the Evo Jet: To become the most efficient warrior possible, to slice through the air, to save and conserve one’s energy for the ultimate prize. Exactly what that is can be different for every one of us. For Victor Campanaerts, it was clearly, undeniably, Stage 18.
Victor, we salute you and thank you for being part of what we are all about. Victory in DeFeet is always something sweet.
Campanaerts en route to setting the World Hour Record in Aguascaliente, Mexico in April 2019. He traveled 55.089 kilometers.
