THEMOVE - Are Jonas Vingegaard's Ultra-Short Cranks the Future? | THEMOVE+

Episode Date: February 28, 2025

Spencer Martin and Johan Bruyneel discuss the reveal that Jonas Vingegaard is riding tiny 150mm cranks for the 2025 season, and why the trend of top riders running shorter and shorter cranks is becoming popular. Next, they preview the opening weekend of cobbled Classics racing with Omloop Nieuwsblad and Kuurne-Brussel-Kuurne, answering an interesting question from the listener.   Become a WEDŪ Member Today to Unlock VIP Access and Join Johan & Spencer for an exclusive live members-only Q&A on Wednesday, March 5th, at 12:00 PM Central:  https://access.wedu.team  

Hey, I'm Ryan Reynolds. Recently, I asked Mint Mobile's legal team if big wireless companies are allowed to raise prices due to inflation. They said yes. And then when I asked if raising prices technically violates those onerous two-year contracts, they said, what the f*** are you talking about, you insane Hollywood a**hole? So to recap, we're cutting the price of Mint Unlimited from $30 a month to just $15 a month. Give it a try at mintmobile.com slash switch. $45 upfront payment equivalent to $15 per month. New it a try at mintmobile.com slash switch. $45 upfront payment equivalent to $15 per month. New customers on first three month plan only. Taxes and fees extra. Speeds lower above 40 gigabytes per detail. The cycling season starts tomorrow. Real cycling,

real cycling starts tomorrow. You know, with all due respect for all the races we've had, but the real bike racers, they start racing tomorrow in Omloop. Everybody, welcome back to The Move Plus. I'm Spencer Martin. I'm here with Johan Bernil for our weekly show where we run down a little bit of the news. And today we'll be getting into a little dipping our toes in the prediction game with the Classics opening weekend. Omloop. Apparently, it's Omloop newsblad now they've taken the het out johan oh on saturday and then kern brussels kern on sunday going forward we

will be shifting next friday we'll go back to outcomes if you listen last year you remember we do outcomes before every major race trying to predict the race um we go through the betting odds and and figure out who has the best value. But today, we're just going to be going over the since they're so unpredictable, just like what these races are, who we like to win, how we think it's going to play out, and a little bit of news. And then when we go to outcomes next week, we'll be moving the questions to a special members only q&a session. Right now, we're aiming for twice a month. So every other week, the first session will be Wednesday, noon Eastern. So that's 7pm

European time, 6pm UK time, 9am Pacific time. I hope that's all right. But we'll be doing those minutes on Wednesday, noon Eastern, and you have to become a, we do member. There's a link in the show notes and we'll be on video in the member portal. If you want to watch it live, that's great. You'll, there'll be a chat. You can ask us questions. Johan will answer them. And if you miss it, you can watch it in the members portal as well as a video. And it should be going out on that outcomes, uh, podcast feed, the members only podcast feed. So if you're subscribed to Outcomes as a member,

you should get that audio sent to you. So if you always wanted to ask us a question live, this is your chance, and we will be starting that again Wednesday, noon Eastern, and then Outcomes will start on Friday before Strada Bianchi. But Johan, first thing I want to talk about, I've been watching Ogran Camino. We'll let you talk about the racing action.

Rabobank coming back into cycling. We'll let you talk about that. But the first thing I want to ask you about is these Jonas Vindico's cranks. Apparently, so for background, those who don't know, Tadej Pogacar comes into the 2024 season with radically shorter cranks 165 i believe millimeters i think vindigo is on slightly longer ones instead of matching them apparently they've now jumped to 150 millimeter cranks which are tiny do you want to like what were your thoughts when you heard this? This seems too small, in my opinion.

Well, I mean, he did win the time trial and he won the overall. So they worked for him. Yeah. The thing is, I mean, I heard this in the offseason. I heard somebody who said, you know, well, Visma is working on very short cranks, 150 with SRAM. I said, wow, 150. That's like, okay, well, that's really short. You know, I mean, usually standard back in the days was 172.5, 175. Riders who were shorter were using 170 cranks. 165, Bogacar was kind of, I wouldn't say a revolution, but, you know,

it was not the usual. But, man, 150, that's two centimeters shorter than what the shortest cranks were used to. I don't know, man. Seemed to work for him. You know, I think there's two things to consider. Time trial bikes, where it kind of makes sense because you can, it allows you to get more aero,

because obviously your knees and your upper leg doesn't come as high, so you can bend over better. Do you lose power? I would say with my old way of thinking yes apparently it's not the case so i'm i don't know i'm not i'm not a specialist on this i'm i it took me some time to understand why it makes sense uh the 165. Then I heard that triathletes, Ironman athletes are using 155 already since a few years.

So... Listen, if they're using them, it's because they've tested them and they know there's a benefit. Otherwise, they wouldn't do it. 150 seems really short to me. It seems very short but hey he won the time trial and uh he won the overall so first test with the short pranks i would say green check or blue blue whatever green yeah he won the overall he was not the fastest he actually

was one of the slowest of the gc contenders on the climb in the time trial and he got dropped on the one summit finish i don't know if you can read anything into that but an interesting well i mean obviously one of the benefits of shortening your cranks is your cadence goes up and as we know now like high cadences is the way but johan i'm old enough to remember when you and Lance were telling us all to ride like one 75 cranks, because that was better because the lever was longer. So I don't know what to believe anymore, but an interesting benefit outside of that.

And, you know, I, I could believe that they're like, you shorten your cranks a little bit. Maybe you can turn a higher gear at a higher cadence. I guess I have to, I'd have to look into the science on that. But with these TT positions, they're saying you can cram the rider forward, basically, into a more aerodynamic position. But if your cranks are too long, your legs are then coming up, your knees are hitting your body, you can't get a full range of motion. But if you shorten the cranks, you can move the rider forward

into a more aerodynamic position, and you have a less acute hip angle. So you can still put out power while basically hunched into a really uncomfortable position. You wouldn't normally be able to ride a lot of power in, but the shorter cranks help you do that. Interesting that with that in mind, Jonas Fendigo had a great flat time trial at the Algarve. So maybe it is making a more, you know, in terms of performance and power output, I think it also makes sense. Spencer just, you know, I always try to make the comparison with, you know, if you do, uh, in the gym, if you do leg press, right. If you,

if you have the weight and you come down deep, it's going to be very difficult to go to push the weight forward. So, you know, that's the effect of the longer cranks. If you, you know, longer cranks, you're deeper, right? Your legs come closer to your body. And if you're shorter cranks, meaning the angle of your leg on the leg press is more open, you can push it away a lot easier. So from that point of view, it makes sense.

Combine that with the aero benefit. And I think it requires a lot of training too. You know, you can't just say, okay, I'm going to put shorter cranks. Or just for the time trial. I think it's about finding the balance. Personally, I think 150 is extremely short. Probably also, I mean, taller riders won't be able to use 150. I think they would have to go 160, 165 at least,

if you're taller or you have longer legs um but hey the first test uh they passed them um you know 10 out of 10 they won the time trial and uh what was walt racing with it did walt i didn't see anything there did he go for shorter cracks yeah it's a good question i mean very different person physically than jonas i'd be curious to see what he would do i'd imagine even if he was short shorter cranks that would be longer than 150 because he has such long legs but yeah i don't know i mean the only reason anyone found this out is someone a journalist went up and measured his cranks like this and these aren't cranks you can go by these are one-off carbon mold cranks from tramAM. So as you said, they've clearly done their homework on this.

Yeah. It's interesting. It's funny. You mentioned the leg press because this guy, John Wild at Pedaling Perfection, he's like a pro bike fitter. He's quoted in an article about this saying the benefit of these short cranks is it's like doing half of an arm curl. So you can do more weight because you're not in a full range of motion. They also mentioned, if you only did half arm curls, if you did every weightlifting exercise without the full range of motion, you get some pretty weird muscles, like they would start forming in a way that is not advantageous for your range of motion or in could actually get you hurt could cause problems. So I'm curious if they're racing on these 150s and then are they going back to a longer crank for some training camps i have a lot of questions about this yeah

i'm not worried about the getting weird muscles because of cycling because it's not you know it's not like you're in the gym with lifting weights you know it's a circular movement it's not going to affect the the form of the muscles. But anyway, we'll see. There's definitely something there, Spencer. Otherwise, they wouldn't be riding it. Would it? I'd also, I mean, it does put you higher up on the bike.

So you'd be a little, your center of gravity is higher. At some point, you would shorten the crank so much it would mess with your, you wouldn't be able to corner as well. But you said he got through that race pretty technical race they're going pretty fast clearly it worked well for him yeah yeah for sure so then yeah inconclusive that seems to work well i do want to know more about this i'm going to look into this more as the season goes on you you alerted me to this the other day this next piece of news rabobank i mean anyone that's a cycling fan will remember that was a famous sponsor for a long time many years apparently is like a dirty word in spanish i guess no it's not i mean yeah i mean yeah

i have a funny story actually about this because Rabobank started in 1996. I was on ONCE in 95. I was out of contract. I had a good season. I hadn't renewed yet. Rabobank came back super late. It was like September already. Actually, it was during the Vuelta a España. And so I was negotiating with Rabobank. And finally, I went to Rabobank. So the first two years of Rabobank, 96, 97, I was on that team. Now, in the off-season between 95 and 96, before New Year,

I was living in Spain, you know, in Calpe or close to Calpe. I was riding training in my Onse outfit, but I already had the Colnago from Rabobank, right? So I was riding and I met, by coincidence on the training, I met Miguel Indurain. He had a house there too. So we rode together. And he says, hey, because he hadn't seen the news or something that I signed for Rabobank. And he said, why are you in Colnago? Is your

look bike broken or something? And I said, no, I'm going to Rabobank. And he said, Rabobank? El banco de Rabo. So, I mean mean rabo in in uh in spanish is i mean it's tail is the trend rabo the rabo of uh of uh a bull is the tail of a bull right but rabo is i mean you can imagine

you know in in the you know whatever street it's something else, right? It's, it's, it's the rabble, but it's on the other side of the body, not in the back, in the front. So he was, he said, ah, does that team really call Banco del Rabo? I said, ah, it's, you know, it's in Dutch. It doesn't mean the same thing, you know? That's pretty funny. But anyway, so they're coming, yeah, they're coming back. So I think they were there from 96 still, I would say 2012, right.

It was the last year. Oh, wow. Wow. That's a long time. Yeah. And then they, uh, they left, uh, and now they're back. And, uh, you know, as a co-sponsor of Visma, um, the information I've seen is that they would come in already, uh, starting at the Tour de France on the shirt. I don't know where they're going to be. Um, if it's, uh, you know, to replace another one, I've anyways, um, what's for sure is that Rabobank is coming in and they will have long-term ambitions to become the number one sponsor again, in my opinion.

And also there's a commitment to take care again of the youth cycling in the Netherlands, which before was, I mean, everything, everything was, which was cycling related to grassroots federation. Everything was sponsored by Rabobank. Uh,

so they're coming back. So I think that's, that's amazing news and, you know, great, uh, job of, of Richard Plugga to,

you know, get a really big Dutch sponsor because, uh, because this must not touch. Yes. this is a crazy story for those who don't know the backstory rabble bank was sponsoring the team for a long time stuff was bad stuff got bad they decided they didn't want to be involved with the team anymore richard plugo worked for the team he was their press officer rabble bank says we're leaving like and and, but they still owed them a contract, I think for a few more years. And they said, you got to take our name off.

Like they want, they wanted to not be associated with it so bad. They're like, just take our name off. So they called it Blanco. They didn't have a sponsor. Pluge, no one wanted the team. Like Pluge was just a press officer and like, Hey, does anyone want to own this team? And Richard Plu put his hand up and said yeah sure he becomes the team owner manager is running the team bad team it becomes belt you remember belkin was their first post blanco sponsor not a good team for a while and then they pick up roglic and their lottoL Jumbo days. They slowly get better. Jumbo left. Wiesma, as you say, is not a Dutch company. I believe Lisa Bike is a pawn holding

company. First Lotto left, right? First, yeah. Lotto leaves. Jumbo becomes the title. Wiesma is the secondary. Jumbo left. Wiesma becomes the title. And now it's going to be be Visma Rabobank yeah

and the Lisa bike is more like Pond Holdings owns Lisa

bike I believe so that's and they also own Cervelo so it's just like

a way to keep the team running while promoting one of

their portfolio companies so yeah now they have like a real title

sponsor coming in I'm sure they've been looking for this since Jumbo left

this is big like almost like Pluga gets the last laugh it's like you guys left They have like a real title sponsor coming in. I'm sure they've been looking for this since Jumbo left. This is big, like almost like Pluga gets the last laugh. It's like you guys left and now you're coming back to be the title sponsor again. Well, they're not title sponsored yet, but I'm pretty sure that's their goal.

They are. They, I mean, even as a point of pride, you kind of have to take that on at some point. You can't be the secondary sponsor of the team used to own yeah yeah yeah yeah so yeah great news for for dutch cycling uh back in the days when rabobank was really owning the sport of cycling in in the netherlands it was it was a very successful story

yeah well they start overpaying like dutch prodigies and then they'll like like the uh thomas decker story where it's like they gave like these dutch riders were getting like so well funded and then it almost caused the team to underperform for a while because it's like if you're if you have like so much you know i don't want to throw stones but you can kind of say this maybe about some of these french teams where these riders come up they get big contracts because they're french riders and then they don't maybe achieve everything they could achieve. I'm curious to see

how the makeup of that team changes. Yeah, I don't think that's not in the Dutch mentality. If you want to be well paid, even if you're Dutch, you need to prove that you earn it. Was Steven de young one

of the was he like a star for them he was a writer for rabobank yeah yeah he was a writer for rabobank yeah so yeah if he i mean that's like one of the more intense that guy's still like ripping if you follow him on strava he does like 25 mile an hour rides every morning during the grand tour so steven i mean i know and i know he listens to our podcast and I'm going to say it here. He is an animal. Um, you know, he's up every day. I think he leaves whenever he's at a race, he leaves, whether it's for a bike or a run before 6. AM.

So he's, he's back for breakfast when everybody's at breakfast, the team, he already done his two and a half hour rides. And then the average speeds, they're probably never under 35 kilometers per hour on his own. He's an animal. Yeah. If you don't, you should follow him on Strava if you don't, because the average speeds are crazy. I mean, you told a story. It was like Matt Shriver is a really good writer.

American. Like he was riding with Steven DeYoung every morning at a race or something. And he just fried, fried them out. I think he did it like three or four days in a row. And at the fifth day, he said, okay,

not doing this anymore. Schreiber is a really good writer. So that shows you how much of an animal DeYoung is. But the last bit of news before we get into these races, Ogran Camino stage race, five day race going on. It's in Galicia in Spain. Usually it's two things are different this year. Usually Jonas Fendigo does it.

I think it's been his first race the last two years, which I don't understand why he does it because it's also usually incredibly bad weather. It's just dumping down rain this time of year in that part of the country, but it's been nice, nice-ish. Magnus Cort from UNOX dominating the first two stages, like really dominant sprint wins. I would say he had a kind of a rough transition.

If you remember, he was on EF in 2023, goes to UNOX 2024. I also heard, and this is public public record so i think we can say it he wanted to resign him for ef they just didn't get in contact with him so he's like i guess i'm going to uno x oh wow a little bit of like growing pains there but if you look at the end of last year he won a cup he won the uh i don't want to say tour of denmark i don't want to get the name of the race wrong i think he won the arctic race arctic race arctic race of den of norway of norway and second at the tour of denmark won stages in both of those and then wins the veneto classic last race of the year starts this year by winning two stages here so like clearly has now found his rhythm it's important for uno x to be getting points because they're

fighting for the... The team functions really well too, Spencer. That team is definitely, you know, I think Uno X and Tudor are two teams that are super super well organized. Q36.5

the same, but in terms of results, although, you know, now with Pitcock, they have great results too, Q36.5. But as a whole, it looks to me like Tudor and, you know, XR, like they're really like making the steps and they really want to be world tour. And, you know, when they next, if the is um probably not going to be now not not for not not for 2026 um i don't think so no no because they're too far they can't they can't too far out of it but i guess they want to be top three of second division teams for 2026. i mean it should be no usually it should be it should be two door and you know x and uh and q36.5 but um i guess astana could be mixed in there which makes it work you

know astana's gonna be number one i mean yeah yeah in the second division in the pro teams yes yeah with astana taking up that spot presumably most likely then it is kind of slim pickings below that because two doors you say funded like a world tour team and then you have uno x who runs like a world tour team like all fighting for the second spot yeah if you get the third spot you get to go to every one day and then you still are a wild card for the grand tours but i mean what that means is they have to take advantage when they have chances like this they have to take advantage of it and then what's interesting time trial today uh 15.6k long derrick g wins i thought he would win i'm closely watching derrick g because he burst onto the scene

last year as a g we all knew he was was a great breakaway rider from the 2023 Giro when it seemed like he was in every breakaway and got second like six times. GC flashed out as like flashes of GC talent last year. I think he was third at the Dauphiné. Third at Dauphiné. Ninth at the two. Yeah. And so I was like, oh, how's he going to start the year?

Because this is an important year for him. He's 27 and he wins the time trial. He's in the lead, but because Magnus' court got so many bonus seconds, 20 bonus seconds, he's only five seconds back in the GC, and these final two stages, they're not alpine tough. They finish on climbs, but tomorrow's is 3K at 6.5 sundays is like an unclassified bump which is probably still pretty hard but it's not over so we kind of have an interesting but i think i think you know it's going to be harder tomorrow stage is hard i think that g has the upper hand on magnus court um

you know i mean you never know how they how their body recovers and reacts after a time trial I think Derek G has the upper hand on Magnus Kort. I mean, you never know how their body recovers and reacts after a time trial. That's still, you know, sometimes you have riders who do a great time trial on the day after they pay the price. But I think Derek G is the favorite to win this race. Yeah, yeah. If we're betting on it, definitely Derek G. But I went back. How did Cepeda do uh

which Cepeda the Movistar guy okay let me look well I only mentioned that about court because if you remember stage two of the Dauphiné last year finished on an 11k long climb and he won the stage so yeah times yeah I know Cepeda star cepeda was a minute 22 back okay well that's you can forget about that i don't think he's gonna be able to to get that back in the next two days no no thanks not on derrick g no and do you have, anything else you've noticed from this race? I'm a little surprised. Why, why did Jonas want to go start his season here? I can't quite figure this race out. I don't know. Visma is not even there yet now.

No. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's not, I mean, it's, it's, it's an interesting race because it's very tight. You know, there's, there's a lot of riders who are close to each other, but, uh, it's not the strongest participation field, you know? There's only three world tour teams. Israel's there, Movistar's there. Who else is there?

Groupama, Sudol. Yeah. Yeah, but Groupama and Sudol, they have a lot of their development riders on the yes that's that's why these races are interesting for world two teams also because they can they can put their development riders in or some some teams they can you can bring your development team and put two of your world two team riders in the development team for a particular race that also works is that new did that always happen yeah it's been like this for the last two three years okay okay yeah um

and then you have a quipo current pharma maybe the best team in the world by next year if they continue this rise that they're on it's really impressive what they're doing um yeah i you know one thing i thought about just the rankings thing made me jog my memory about this what does it mean with one cycling so let's say one cycling launches next year let's say uno x misses out on the grand tour wild cards are there extra races that they have access to if they're part of one cycling or no what i have heard is that mean, what I've heard is that for the moment, one cycling, um, there are 16 of the 18 world tour teams are wanting to participate or candidate to be a stakeholder in the company, whatever, 16 of them.

The two of them who don't, who are either sitting on the fence or don't participate is, strangely enough, Jayco, Jayco Alula. Strange because it's, you know, money of the investors are Saudis. They have a Saudi sponsor. At the same time, I think it's more to do with the fact that the general manager of JCO Alula is Brent Copeland. He's now also the president of AIGCP, which is basically the union of all the teams, right? All the teams, World Tour teams, pro union of all the teams right all the teams world two teams pro teams have all the teams they are really close and depending on the uci so i don't know if that's the reason

why they're not in one cycling if they're not in the or if they're not in yet, I don't know. And then the other team is Cofidis, other World Tour team. But that's, you know, I've been told that it's a personal reason of the general manager, Cedric Vasseur, who has some romantic... I think we should, maybe we don't have to I can say that I can say it romantic links to a high position member of UCI

we're not outing we're not editing this Spencer I'm standing for my words sorry but I mean I'm standing for my words. Sorry. But I mean, long story short, it's good to be a world tour team. If you have the ability to qualify, you should qualify because it means you're going to get to go to the Tour de France. And that's what sponsors care about. And I don't think the tour is leaving the world tour this cycle not yet

no no no no for sure not no no so don't don't throw in the towel guys keep chasing those points well johan let's take a quick break and then an ad break and then we'll talk about the opening classics this weekend and get to a listener question all right johan well this weekend we have the Saturday-Sunday double. Omloop. I cannot stop saying in my head Omloop Het Newsblad. I also remember when it was Het Newsblad. Are you sure?

Are you sure it's Omloop Newsblad? Now let me see. It's definitely listed and branded as Omloop Newsblad, which I don't get. That's really strange because... Wait, let me see. Now on pro cycling stats, it says Omloop, Hutt, Newsblood. What year are you on though?

Huh? What year? Like select the 2025 one, like in the right hand corner. Okay, race tomorrow. Omloop, Newsblood. Yeah. Strange. Okay. Omloop Nieuwsblad yeah strange okay well it's strange because

Het Nieuwsblad is a newspaper yeah and it's Omloop Nieuwsblad that's the official site or even that that's strange because Het Nieuwsblad or maybe I don't know I don't buy Belgian newspapers anymore so maybe Het Nieuwsblad is now newsblocks or maybe i don't know my listen i don't buy in belgian newspapers anymore so maybe hot newsblocks is now newsblocks i don't know

plus you know hot newsblocks is the newspaper literally the translation the newspaper hot newsblocks so now they've just shortened it to newspaper like a circle a race around newspaper like i don't know there's very cycling just like change the name slightly and so you can confuse everyone but this is it's kind of actually it's like a miniature version of the old flanders course because it has a lot of cobbled climbs like spread throughout it's 200k long roughly I have the muir of which is now not in the Tour of Flanders anymore and the

Bosberg right right after it inside the last 20k and then you have a flat 12k run to the finish which is I believe that was the old finish of Flanders right yeah I mean it's the finish is the finish of Omloop Nusblot is nice i guess it's in

ninova right uh before before uh omlop newsblad was formerly known as omlop het volk which was another newspaper uh but it was called the hand hand you know it started in hand and it finished again you know hand hand um now it's uh it finishes in in ninova so that's super close to uh meerbeke where the finish the old finish of tour of flanders was so yeah and it's it's kind of i mean it's a cool race because you have the it really breaks up i went back and watched the last last year's edition and you know i was like shocked at like the viciousness like 100k from the finish line that they're going into like the canary berg is one of the early climbs i believe and they're like full tilt going into this thing because if you're not at the front going into these climbs like you might never see the front

of the race again like it breaks up early but it's not so hard. It's not Flanders hard that it's one person left standing. It's kind of this blob at the end. I had forgotten how tactical it got last year. If you remember, you had that group of Tom Squeens and Wout Van Aert and a few other Visma guys, one of them being Matteo. Matteo Jorgensen attacks. On the rewatch, I thought, wow, Matteo's going to win this. He gets caught by the group.

They get caught by the chasing peloton. And then Jan Tratnik on Wiesma attacks and no one, I guess, no, Niels Pollitt follows him. And he takes Pollitt to the finish line and wins the sprint. So I think it's this beautiful mix of difficult cobbled climbs, but not so hard that everyone's out of the race. And you can have pelotons come back in. And it's really tactical at the end. Yeah. And, you know, the beauty of it is, and especially

in Belgium and in Flanders, you know, we people, I mean the Flemish, the Belgians, but the Flemish specifically, we say, okay guys, the cycling season starts tomorrow. Real cycling starts tomorrow. You know, with all due

respect for all the races we've had, but the real bike racers they start racing tomorrow in omelope um it's a mini tour of flanders uh also if you look you know in the in the media in belgium the build-up towards it it's a bit the same as tour of flanders but because everybody's been waiting for this you know and, and on top of that, there's on Saturday, there's a Nisblad, on Sunday, there's Kyrne, Brussels, Kyrne, two very popular races. So, yeah, I mean,

I'm curious to see how the teams will perform, the teams that we all expect. You know, of course, we have Wismar with Van Aert and Jørgensen and Diespen Oud, Kampen Aerts, you know we have of course we have visma with van art and jurgensen and uh and we have uae in my opinion the strongest team um with narvaez and borgado and florian vermeers and uh who else do they have

pollitt pollitt was second last year. So they have a really strong team. Almost everyone on their team could win the race. Yeah. Pollitt, Morgato. It's curious to see that, you know, the two big teams that we are seeing in the Tour fighting, they're already big rivals in a completely different race. You can easily say, Spencer, that these kind of races,

especially Saturday's race, it's a different cycling. It's not the same cycling we see in July. It's different. It's different skills, different efforts, nothing. You can't compare. But still, the two best teams are the same in those races. And then in July, same teams, UAE versus Visma. Do you think as cycling gets harder, like those differences get slightly smoothed out?

Like does it like Niels Paulet actually impressive that he can, he's a main, he was a main player at the tour last year. And he's going to be a main player here. And he was a main player last year at Omloop. Yeah, I mean, you know. But just something like that, it's just so strong. Yeah, Nils Pollard is obviously a special case because first and foremost, he's a guy, his specialty are the spring classics, the cobbled classics.

If I'm not mistaken, he was also one second already in Paris, Dubai. Yeah. Yeah, he was. So a super strong rider. And then of course, you know, if you have a guy like that,

the right on the flats in the tour de France for the leader. And then, you know, the leader takes the Jersey, the whole team rises to another level. And you see Nils Pollitt doing a tempo on the climbs uh you know basically gets above what he ever thought he could do on a climb um i mean he's a great engine big engine uh but i think for these races he's going to be one of the protected

riders of the team he's not in he's not purely in a helper's role he's he's going to be one of the protected riders of the team. He's not purely in a helper's role. He's going to get his chance, his opportunity. I mean, and even like Matteo Jorgensen, he could win this tomorrow, and he could be a podium contender at the Tour de France. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, for sure. There's not that many riders who can win. Jorgensen is also special

you know i mean there's not that many writers who can say this uh writers who can say okay i have a chance to win one of those cobbled classics and i can be top five in the tour there's not that many no no i would say that's pretty rare it's not something you used to never see it. Like when I was growing up, it was like, I grew up after Lamond and, you know, if you listen to the one skin ads, you know, that I'm not as old as people think I am, but you know, it was like, would just be completely different writers who were like Tom Boonen didn't even go to the tour by the time I was in the cycling. He had been, he was so angry about all the, they weren't letting him do cocaine and you didn't want to go. It's too constrictive.

But I'll list the favorites just on the betting, the betting odds, just to give people an idea about who the favorites are. So this is on Unibet, Wout van Aert plus 400, Arnaud Delis plus 900, little high in my opinion. Tom Pickock plus 1000,

Paul Monnier plus 1200,tonio morgado plus 1200 jonathan nobrius my pick plus 1400 mateo jorgensen plus 1800 tim wellens plus 1800 lascano plus 2000 phillipson plus 2000 um and then like taj manu 2300, Mate Mahoric plus 3300 yeah, Wout van Aert heavy favorite, I don't know if I totally see him winning but what's a weird thing about this race Johan I can't believe this is still true

no one's won this and Flanders in the same year which is hard to believe oh wow, really? I'm almost sure yeah, well I mean probably back in the days yeah but um well you know i think eddie merckx hasn't even won that this race that many times if he has won it at all yeah well it has a weird winner profile so merckx did win in 71 and again in 73 a lot but like peter van peg peter van pagan him he wins in 97 98 but you know he only has two wins here which for him is not that many wins museo doesn't have a ton of wins because you get a lot of these i don't want to call them oddball

but like let's say not top tier people you would not expect like luco pallini wins in 2013 that was a weird race standard win lean standard wins 2014 2015 that second win of standard that was the best race i've ever seen he has three quick step riders and he just smokes them that was the best final ever i mean if if you can go and watch that on youtube i recommend it it's it's crazy it's amazing i re-watched that recently and they're like boonin has a few decent attacks but then by the end they're not even going to the other side of the road to attack him and it's like well yeah he's just in the slipstream what are we doing

here quick step but it's a wonderful race to watch it's super impressive as you say i mean like steve are wins in 2019 yes rostov in 2020 davide ballerini wins in 2021 i had forgotten about that well yeah 2022 van barl 2023 jan trotten in 2024 but you know what struck me the last three uh wins are Visma. Visma, yes. But you know what struck me about that? So even remember back like two years ago, like Visma has too many guys. They're like, Matteo Jorgensen's coming over. He's not going to have a chance at that team.

He's going to be a domestique. Now he's probably their second leader for the day. But like Christophe Laporte, not on the start line. Dylan Van Barrel, not on the start line. Like it is wild how – Yeah, but they broke bones. I mean – Yeah, I'm not saying like – I'm just saying like –

Van Barrel had a fracture and Laporte is sick, I think. I don't know what he has, but it's an illness, I think. It's just like surprising how – Did you see there's – I mean, I lost count now. I don't know if there's somebody else but as of last week you know since the beginning of the season 11 riders with color ball fractures 11 that's like unheard of that's a lot yeah 11 professional riders broke their color wall

huh let's keep i wonder if that's an odd just like an oddity of like the stats or we got to keep an eye on that as the season goes on. Did you know the Van Dyke brothers had gone to Red Bull Bora? I know. Yeah, I've known. I know that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that kind of makes, I, that's another team I have my eye on for the weekend. Like Las Cano. Las Cano strong. And also, uh, what's his name? This guy, that's also a strong writer. Very, very little known.

Uh, Roger Adria. Yeah. He's, uh, he's a guy. Um, yeah.

It's, it's Lawrence Pithy doing it. He's not doing it, but the defending champions doing it. Dratnik. Yeah. Yeah. And they have both van dykes there who

were the key they were kind of key players of visma's they were always in the mix last year for visma these classics i'm surprised yeah they let them go yeah well you can't keep everybody you know i mean yeah yeah i guess if you give van art lifetime deal, you have to make sacrifices somewhere else. But I mean, I personally think this is going to be the UAE show. Last year, if you remember, it was the Visma show. Not always the best thing. Like if you remember, like Visma is unstoppable. They've won it the last three years in a row.

And then kind of like things conspire against them by the time they get to Flanders and Roubaix and they don't look quite as imposing. It's not like UAE is going to dominate this race and then dominate the classics. I just think they're going to be good tomorrow. I really like Jonathan Narvaez to win. I think he's in good shape. He was Ineos' best classics rider until Tom Pickock won Amstel last year. And he can sprint. He's one of the only riders who beat Pogacar in ael last year. So, and he can sprint, you know,

he's one of the only writers who beat Pogacar on a sprint last year. So that's my pick. But if you had to pick one writer, Johan, who would it be? I'm going to pick Walt Van Aert. You know, people had doubts about him. He did a great time trial, which says a lot about the physical fitness. You know, so was second in the time trial in Algarve. He's prepared specifically for the Cobbled Classics as a good team. I mean, of course, you never know what crashes flat tires on a bad moment,

but I'm going to go for Waldvarnar to win tomorrow. Is he gifting it to anybody? Or is he over the gifting of the classics? He should be over that. He should be in that. Yeah. I mean, I think Matteo Juergensen might have to gift it to, wow, help out an up-and-coming teammate.

No, yeah. I mean, if you're betting on it, I think plus 400 is a little steep, but that time trial, I mean, we talked about it on Monday, clearly must be flying. Like that was really an impressive time trial. He beat all the GC guys except his teammate. So on good form, can he make it happen? I guess we'll find out. And then Sunday Kern bustles Kern. Well, I've've always wondered Johan, what's the relationship here? Like, are people excited to do Kern, Brussels Kern? Or is it like, Oh man,

we got to race again. It's not the pop. I mean, uh, it's hard, man. This first weekend, you know, like, like listen, a race like, uh, the envelope with knees, but it, it breaks you, you know, it's, it's a little tour of Flanders. It's super nervous, stressful. The cobbles fighting for position. You're empty. You're like dead when you finish this race.

And then the day after, you have to do Kyrne. You know, Kyrne has also changed quite a bit because they toughened the course quite a bit. Usually, Kürne was known as difficult, but the difficulties were too far from the finish and it usually came back together. And a lot of times, it was a bunch sprint or a sprint of 40, 50 riders. It tends to be less and less the case. So, I mean, having to do the double, it's not easy.

There's also guys who specifically go for Kiernan so it's difficult to predict sometimes you see like for example last year I seem to remember Van Aert was not super super good in in Omelope Nilsblad

and then he was flying in he was flying in. Uh, yeah, they were, he was in a three man group with strong guys, Tim Wellens and Los Cano. They're a minute and 23 ahead of the Peloton.

And he was like, not even worried, you know, just dusted him in the sprint. Yeah. I vividly remember how strong he was at that race. Yeah. But it's difficult.

It's not been a bunch print for a while. I think. Yeah. Well, yeah. Jakobsen in 2022 was the last time. Okay. yeah but it's difficult it's not been a bunch print for a while i think yeah well yeah jacobson in 2022 is the last time okay but i think you know then it's it's like mads pettersson won in 2021 clearly he's a sprinter but he you know it's a classics writer and then casper askren wins in 2020 not in a bunch sprint bob youngles 2019 not in a bunch sprint so it's not yeah you're right it's not as bang on bunch sprint as it used to be but the last it's a funny race because there's a lot of climbing in the middle but it's all in like the middle 40 kilometers it's like the last 40 or 50k are basically rolling to flat so you have to be very strong to stay away from they do circuits

though at the end right like i remember jasper steuben yeah they do attacking in the circuit so that if that's i guess you could get away in those but um i i'm curious to see we're not going to predict that because a lot of times you can predict someone to win kern on friday and then they crash on saturday at omloop and then they're not even on the start line at Kern so be careful betting that if you're betting on anyone that's in both races also we just know so little like that that's what's so fun about this weekend you get to see like everyone has to show their work a little bit um like we know Tom Pickcock is strong but like how strong on the cobbles we don't really know mateo jorgensen's been at a high altitude warm weather training camp could be flying or he could

be fatigued from the camp we don't really know so um tough weekend to bet on but it is fun to watch yeah i'm going to be watching so to give we're just going to tease questions the type of questions you may be able to hear johan answer on Wednesday. I have one for you. This is from Tim. I thought it was a good one. It's one I've been thinking about myself. Tim heard us talking about Sepp Kuss on Monday's show and says, I was wondering what your thoughts on what the 2023 season might have done to him. He did all three grand tours. As you remember, he finished all three grand tours. One, one of them won the Vuelta. Tim asked, did that effort break him physically

going forward? And is this something other riders and teams should consider before putting guys on a schedule like that? Yeah, good question. And, you know, I don't know the precise answer, but I do think, however, that, you know, doing three grand tours and especially at the level that

Tepkus was, because let's not forget, you know, he won the Vuelta but the other two Grand Tours he was the main or the last man standing for their leader right whether it was for Jonas or for Primoz because Primoz won the Giro

right Primoz won the Giro I think with Sepp Kuss yeah I'm checking that yeah I mean I think he was top 10 at the Tour de France until he crashed on stage 20. Yeah, yeah. So I would say it takes something out of you. And no matter how good you feel during that year,

sometimes you have a season that everything seems to work. And for Sepp Kuss, that was the case. He was great at the Giro. He was really good at the Tour until he crashed and he was amazing at the vuelta it's like okay you know where does this stop well it stops sometime and then you know when it's like your body's like on a high and all of a sudden it's like a balloon you pinch a little little tiny hole and the air slowly gets out of the balloon that's been like under pressure for such a long time

and your body needs time to recover physically and mentally on top of that you know I mean I think got COVID also I guess last season last year yeah before the tour but

you know he was before the tour okay it might be the reason why he wasn't before the tour um but you know he was i mean before the tour okay it might be the reason why he wasn't at the tour but i think it's fair to say that he was not the sep kus before that that we've we were used to see the year before so you pay the price for something like this you kind of need maybe a season to recover from that. On top of that, if you have bad luck with injuries and illnesses, it takes longer. But I think Sepp Kuss can get back to the level. You know, the level that we used to see him as the super domestique

who is capable of doing, you know know setting amazing paces in the in the on the climbs sometimes go and breakaways win a stage uh we've seen that already many times from him so i'm pretty sure that he uh i'm confident he can get back to that level as far as the three grand tours go like in your training peaks on your tss like do you think your training is scientifically harder if you did all three grand tours than what you would be doing if you weren't racing just doing the training camps or is it all is it everything else that kind of trains you i mean listen three times three weeks of racing that's already that's already a lot um i don't know if you know if i mean if you if you would prepare specifically with hard training and training camps for one ground tour

you may find that your training load is actually harder um like your pure numbers based yeah but you know it's it's a whole combination i mean it's three times three weeks on i mean that's not three times on three three weeks on the road it's four weeks on the road so three times a month on the road um in between that you know for sure several training camps it takes a lot out of you you know i mean it um yeah it's three out of five months you're in a hotel basically yeah yeah like just to sleep alone you're you're probably not recovering the same yeah yeah yeah um so yeah i would you know listen if i can recommend something to set because you did it once it worked out great

don't do that anymore have Have you heard people say, you know, like, oh, Tadej should have done the triple last year. Just do the Volta and win it. It's like, well, A, he's not going to win Worlds if he does the Volta. But, I mean, can you imagine how exhausting that would be? I mean, in retrospect, I can't believe Sepp Kuss did it.

And then the year after, Bogacar would probably pay the price and have the same kind of issues that Sepp Kuss did it. And then the year after, Bogacar would probably pay the price and have the same kind of issues as Sepp Kuss had. Yeah. I think it was like the smartest thing he did last year was not do the Vuelta.

Don't fall into that trap. That doesn't make no sense. It makes no sense to, and especially, and I actually don't know if it was always planned for Sepp Kuss to do those three Grand Tours.

But you can't just say all of a sudden, okay, now I've done the Giro and the Tour. Oh, you know what? Let's do the Vuelta also, by the way. Let's do it. You can't. I mean, the level is so high. You just can't just show up and say, okay, I'm good enough. I have talent enough.

Bragacar does have enough talent, but the others are professional riders too, and some of them prepare for those races specifically and uh you need to be prepared anybody no matter how good you are yeah it's a very good point i think i fall into it as well where you think well he's so good he could just win on one leg it's like no like if these guys are doing 6.7 watts per kilo for 40 minutes like you got to be really fit to even match that let alone drop them so um yeah actually i thought it was a good question i kind of forgot about it to be honest that he had all three grand tours and

he did them all competitively like trying to be at the front almost every hard stage i would not be surprised if that sapped him, but Johan, we'll let you get to bed. You got to get up and watch Omloop tomorrow. So it's, it's, you know, I have until two o'clock. So you might be, we don't know your sleeping habits. Maybe you're trying to, I go to bed late. Uh, normally, usually on Saturdays, Saturday mornings, I ride. But the prediction is it will rain for tomorrow, so I'm not riding tomorrow. And so I'll have all the time to get ready for the race.

And it's supposed to be sunny and somewhat warm at the race, correct? Oh, sunny. I mean, it's a big word, sunny, in Belgium at this point. You know, already, if it doesn't i mean it's a big word sunny in belgium at this point uh you know if already if it doesn't rain that's a win i've seen that you know they could see the sun a bit now and then um between six and nine degrees celsius it's not warm but at least it's not you know it's not going to be cold and wet and the wind is you know there's the wind but not that not not that strong so the the the circumstances are in favor of the riders um so that's already a good thing because yeah i mean i i you know if it's cold and rainy and windy it makes it an epic

race as the first classic but riders don't really like that, you know? Yeah, it's still pretty cold, like six degrees, racing 200K all out. That's not the most comfortable weather, but yeah, as long as it doesn't rain, I just kind of want to see a fast, difficult race, and I think we will. So I'm excited. Well, as I said, Spencer, tomorrow, the cycling season starts. I think Tim Merlier and John Malone would like to have a word with you, or even the Tour Down Under guys. They were probably going pretty hard.

But no, it's kind of true. It's just different. It's a different level of intensity, I think. Different vibes. It's different vibes. You know, I mean, yeah, okay, Tour Down Under, fine. You know, World Tour Race, Tour UAE, fine. But it's, you know, it all feels like there's races

that have been put on the calendar there for a reason. But, you know, the history of cycling, you know, the tradition is that starts tomorrow. Well, we encourage everyone to watch and we will be back to talk about it all on Monday. Hopefully with George again. But thanks, Johan. And we will talk soon. Okay, thanks.

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