Tadej Pogacar has offered a rare look at what happens inside cycling’s most dominant rider once the Tour de France ends.

“Sometimes I would lock myself in a room and not see anyone, while on other occasions socialising really suits you,” he told the Slovenian outlet Sportal, in an interview published on the eve of his Pogi Challenge festival in his home town of Komenda.

The 27-year-old was speaking days after sealing his fifth Tour de France title, a result that put him alongside Jacques Anquetil, Eddy Merckx, Bernard Hinault and Miguel Indurain as a five-time winner. He is the youngest man to reach the mark.

The shock of coming home

“You spend a month in France, going full gas every day, and before that you have already spent another month or more at training camps,” Pogacar told Sportal. “When you come home, it is therefore quite a shock.”

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The routine that fills his life for weeks vanishes overnight, and what follows is a week the Slovenian described in unusually plain terms.

“Those fluctuations mainly happen during the first week, and then things slowly start moving again,” he said, noting that other riders returning from the Tour report the same pattern.

His prescription for himself is deliberately low-key.

“After the Tour, you have to switch off and reset. You need at least a week to get your feet back on the ground. I would not think too much about training or nutrition.”

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The Pogi Challenge cuts the rest short

Even that reset gets abbreviated. This year the three-day Pogi Challenge, the home-town festival Pogacar hosts in Komenda, ran from 31 July to 2 August, less than a week after the Paris finish.

“The first few days pass very quickly, especially when the Pogi Challenge is already waiting for you at the end of the first week,” he told Sportal. He noted his partner had already left for the women’s Tour, and that “the obligatory dinner in Paris ran late as well.”

The festival closed on Sunday with a mass climb from Komenda to Krvavec, one of Slovenia’s most demanding ascents.

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