Boštjan Kavčnik is the only person allowed to touch Pogačar's race bike, on the logic that the bike is his "only weapon" and any break in trust ends the working relationship outright. Yet at a Spanish hotel in winter 2024, Pogačar simply asked Soudal Quick-Step to store his bike while he and Urška Žigart went to the sauna. Patrick Lefevere later wrote that his mechanics weighed, measured and analysed everything — and the only thing worth noting was a forward saddle position relative to the bottom bracket. All that institutional paranoia, undone by one casual request to strangers.