THEMOVE - Breaking Down the Superstar Showdown at the Criterium du Dauphine | THEMOVE+

Episode Date: June 13, 2025

Johan Bruyneel and Spencer Martin break down Tadej Pogačar's dominant performance to win Stage 6 of the Critérium du Dauphiné ahead of his main Tour de France rivals Jonas Vingegaard and Remco Evenepoel, and discuss what it means for their upcoming showdown in July. The duo also goes through a few key takeaways from performances earlier in the race, including the shocking Stage 1 GC sprint-off, the Stage 4 time trial showdown, and predict what will happen in the brutal remaining stages over the weekend. And, before they take off, Johan gives his thoughts on the recent UCI decision regarding One Cycling. Caldera Labs: Skincare doesn’t have to be complicated—but it should be good. Upgrade your routine with Caldera Lab and see the difference for yourself. Go to https://www.CalderaLab.com/THEMOVE and use THEMOVE at checkout for 15% off your first order. Troscriptions: There’s a completely new way to optimize your health. Give it a try at https://www.troscriptions.com/THEMOVE or enter THEMOVE at checkout for 10% off your first order.

NASCAR makes history on Prime as the Cup Series goes international. We're headed to Mexico City for a road course with all new challenges, 14 turns and 7,000 feet of altitude. Don't miss the first ever points paying Cup Series race in Mexico. Sunday at 2 p.m. Eastern, NASCAR. It's on Prime. It's on Prime. A guy we really need to have on our radar for the tour. We're going to talk about him, in my opinion. He does need to ride more intelligent, smarter, more conservative. Florian Ljupovic.

He is an incredibly strong guy. So, a big candidate also for the the white jersey together with Remco. Everybody welcome back to the move plus I'm Spencer Martin. I'm here with Johan Bruniel as always, and we are breaking down the state the most recent stage of the Criterion Boudauphine stage six where Tadej Pogaccio rode clear of Jonas Vindegard, Florian Lippowitz, Matteo Jorgensen and Remco Evenepoel to put any doubts about his form away and ride into the GC lead. We'll also go back through the first few stages and pull out any notable things to talk about.

But Johan, before we do that, I just kind of want your reaction from what we just saw. I mean, that was an unbelievable performance. It was a short mountain stage, about 126 kilometers. I looked at it on paper and thought, well, not that hard. And there's harder climbs. Tomorrow's stage is incredibly difficult. Sunday's harder. I thought, I don't know if we're going to see that much today. I was wrong.

This was an unbelievably hard stage. It was UAE had the pace on the whole time. The finishing climb, I believe, was the same climb that Vindegaard used to kind of put away Pogacar in the 2023 Tour de France. And so it was sweet revenge for Pogacar. But where's your head at after the stage, after this performance? Yeah. I mean, what a statement and what a comeback I would say after, I mean, some would say disappointing performance in the time trial, stage four individual time trial. All the Tour de France

favorites were there, so Remco won the time trial, Jonas was second and Tadej lost, if I'm not mistaken, 28 seconds on Jonas in the time trial. So alarm bells were going off. You would say, oh, you know, maybe, maybe we still don't know what happened in that time trial. I think it, I think Pogacar himself and the team was also disappointed. But if you look at today, man, yeah, what a, what a way to come back. As you say, Spencer on on the Côte de Dommon-Sy, which is actually only the first part of the last climb, which was a time trial of Tour de France 2023, where I think Pugacar lost close to a minute 40 in that time trial on Jonas. He must have felt great. His team took control in the final of the stage and that attack was, I mean, could you even call it an attack? He didn't stand up. He did not stand up in the last

eight kilometers, Spencer. I've checked. He did not stand up. And he had Jonas on the lead. You could straight away see, you know, Tadej Pogacar accelerated like in a turn after an amazing pull of Jonathan Narvaez, then Tim Wellens, who did a great job today. But, you know, he accelerated. Same thing like he did in the Esbastogne Lège, actually. Also didn't stand up on Col de la Radoute, which is a lot steeper. Same thing he did in Strade Bianche when he dropped pitcock also from the saddle. Okay, you could say there is gravel makes more sense, but

it seems to be his new trademark accelerating from the saddle. So when he accelerated, you could straight away see Jonas had to stand up and you could see his style that he was on the limit and he followed what, 50 meters, 75 meters and he was gone. And then on top of that, you know, he keeps going and then takes a minute and over a minute on Jonas and more on the rest. So I think it's great we see this change, you know, like there was doubts. First of all, let's go back. We are surprisingly in stage one in this Dauphiné Spencer. Out of a sprint. Yeah, I mean, you know, five guys, Jonas, Tadej, Remco,

Mathew van der Poel and Vitrago, they get caught right in the sprint, but he wins in the sprint. That was a surprise. Then a bit of a disappointment in the time trial, still finished it for it. And now the first big appointment, big crossing of the powers between Jonas and Tadej in, would you even call it a real mountain stage? Because if you look today's stage, Spencer, if you look call it a real mountain stage? Because if you look today's Spencer, if you look at today's stage and you compare it to Saturday,

Sunday, this is nothing. These are not the real Alpine climbs tomorrow and Sunday. That's those are two big mountain stages short, but, but really hard. So, yeah, I mean, listen, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm not afraid to say it, you know, I'm, I'm a bigger fan of, of, of, of, of, I like boat riders it. I'm a bigger fan of Tadej. I like both riders, but I'm a bigger fan of Tadej than a fan of Jonas. Maybe it's because of the personality, but

yeah, it's going to be interesting again. Even Spencer, I would even say even in this Dauphiné, this is not over. I mean, right now, let's not forget that these guys come back from a big preparation phase and their form can go up and down a bit. You know, one day you're good, the other day you don't recover the same. Although I doubt after what I've seen today, I don't think that Bogaccio is going to crack now in the last two stages, but it's possible. You never know. You never know in the first race back.

Well, actually a listener, Jim Bolinski, I hope I'm saying your last name right. Jim sent me after the time trial. You know, there's a lot of speculation after that time trial. Our, our friend, Tom Danielson was spinning up the theories again, the Ohan about how it was mind games. I would say my only thing on that is if you really are coming to the Dauphiné, you don't want to purposely ride a time trial slow to give your main tour competition

any hope. But Jim sent me these, it was like, he collated 12 peer-reviewed scientific papers on the effects of altitude training and mainly coming down from altitude. And I mean, you know this if you've ever done altitude training, you feel amazing for the first few days, but there can be like a refraction period almost

where you dip, it could be like six to nine days after coming down from altitude. And then you kind of, your form kind of comes back up again. That would align with the stage four time trial. I mean, he was just so slow through the first like 10 K, it was almost unbelievable.

And then he looked uncomfortable on the descent, on the bike, which would make sense because he's probably not raced on it a ton, but whatever happened there like is done because he looks like he's, he's back. He's great. Actually kind of interestingly on the time trial. I went, I was on the Boulder cycle sport ride on Tuesday, the gravel ride, a lot of fans of the move plus on there. I'm getting some questions. Well, Jonas, can Jonas win the tour? He looks great. This was after a stage one attack. I was saying, well, the math problem, it starts to

become a math problem on the climbs because Pagache rides about seven Watts per kilo for 40 minutes. How could Jonas, a lighter rider, he's going to have to ride like 7.3 Watts per kilo to drop them. In the time trials though, kind of interestingly, I went back to their career TT battles and it's closer than you think. Vendor guards one to three and Pagachars one four. This is tour de France time trials and then third week TTs Vendor guards one to three of the four. So that, this is like Vendor guards strength against Pagachars that time trial. So that was interesting to see. And then today, I don't know if you noticed, we don't get to see a lot of these races. Like the

coverage starts kind of oddly late, but I guess Rimcoe was tailed off early, like before the TV coverage started. I don't know if he was in bad position, but it was interesting that UAE took to the front, not the yellow jersey team, Sudol Quickstep. I assume Sudol wanted the time bonuses to go up the road. UAE wanted those time bonuses, but it was, it was not a major mountain stage, as you say, but watching it, it looked like they were pinned the entire time the TV coverage was on. Like, I couldn't believe how hard UAE was pacing pretty much the entire time. Yeah. Well, I think they rolled through the stage with, that's the first thing.

And I mean, what do you think, Spencer? So at some point, Visma was so dominant, so aggressive. So, I mean, it was scary when you saw all these yellow guys, and they did a, you you know they did a really good job that was on the second last time right which was the cat one climb of the of the stage they sent kuss of the front and then Jorgensen reacted and they were they had the numbers there they were majority and and you own and today was kind of isolated. I

think he only had Tim Wellens or Tim Wellens even, no, Tim Wellens came back and then did a great job leading it out for leading it out for the final attack. But yeah, initially, I would say, hey, you know, Wismar comes in here with a lot of confidence. They obviously had their morale boosted after the time trial and they want to, you know, really make a statement today and say, hey, you know, we are the favorites. But it turned out to be different.

Maybe because the team was, when the team looked really good, maybe Jonas had a, you know, I'm not going to say an off day, but maybe he didn't feel his usual or maybe he didn't feel 100%. To me, he looked like, you know, it's hard. It's not often that you see Jonas grimacing and he was grimacing quite a bit on the last climb. He was really suffering. Well, we should say, well, did you notice this?

That Sepp Kuss attacked on that climb and Pogacar followed him. That's kind of funny because if Pogacar was on a bad day, that is how you get him in trouble. Like, why does he care about following Coos? I didn't fully understand that. You know, I mean, I do understand what you say, but you know, I mean, even these guys, right? No matter how professionally or no matter how they have everything figured out,

it's not until you really get in the moment that you know how your body is going to respond. So at that moment, maybe Pogacar was thinking, okay, I feel good, I feel okay, but I don't know if I'm going to go close to 100% what I'm going to be compared to right now, I want 90%. And maybe if Kuz is up the road and I get in trouble with Jonas, Jonas has a guy up front who can pace him for a little bit. And then I'm screwed. So he just wanted to control the controllables in my opinion. So, okay, this needs to be a man against man battle. Let's not have anybody up the road. We've seen what happened. I mean, it's not the same

thing. We've seen what happened when the Rizmo had somebody up the road in the Giro with, well, not the same situation, but yeah, I mean, it was the proof that he felt great. You know, once he got isolated, he reacted to everything. Well, and I guess, as you said, there was a lot of yellow jerseys. He's outnumbered when he attacks. He's not, they're outnumbered when he attacks, he's not, he, he, they're outnumbered because he's on the road by himself. So it is a way to like equal the playing field. And then you're dropping the, the Visma domestiques.

That's why I always keep saying expensive. And there's so many theories, so many debates, uh, programs, shows, analysis, analysis, podcasts about tactics, you know, with these guys, man, tactics, tactics are overrated. You know, you can think and you can, you can try to analyze, okay, what if they do this and this and this? Yeah, okay, fine. But, you know, these are the two strongest guys and there's so much above everybody else that there's no tactics. It's man against man.

You have to have the legs. You know, if it's a different, if it's a stage where there's a lot of space in between the mountains, then you can say, okay, I have three guys. We tried to outnumber him and then we wear him out. But you could clearly see, for example, today if you saw when Narvaez was pulling which was unbelievable how fast he pulled I mean even Jorgensen which was supposed to be their second strongest guy and a shadow leader for when Jonas fails or to use him to wear out today I mean he was on the limit and got dropped together with Remco so it comes down to the legs. You know, it's not that complicated.

Well, on on the note of the legs, I mean, you mentioned the Domancy the climb, it was like the first two and a half K of the final climb, which was kind of multiple climbs strung together. That's where Vindagard buried Pagaccio in the 23, 23 tour final time trial. These are like, I've not checked these times. This is just a source on Twitter. That's pretty good. Vendegaard's time from that tour on this climb, 642. Tade Pagache's time today, 615. That's almost 20. It's over 2100 VAM for six minutes. And then on the conjoined final climb,

8K, 8.6K long, 7.2% average, Pagachar 19 minutes, 48 seconds. Again, this is not like verified and he hasn't posted on Strava yet. 26K an hour VAM, 1888. And then if I plug that into my little climbing calculator, I, it spits out 494 Watts for 19 minutes from Pagachar. That is, that's unbelievable.

That's, that's, that's, that's very fine. At first, it seems like a lot for a rider of his stature. That would be like 7.4 Watts per kilo. So we're going to wait till he posts it, but you know, one thing doesn't lie Spencer the distance and the time Which is the average speed what you say twenty six point seven? Twenty six point one. Okay. Well anyway, twenty six kilometers per hour Sixty miles an hour. Yeah, that's crazy. That's crazy. That's crazy

Anyway, Spencer also called the Domancy very famous, a little bit of history here. Uh, Eddie Marx in 1964 as an amateur. Now it's called under 23. I think he was 19 or 20 won his first world championships on the, in there in Salange on the court, the Doman Domancy. And so 1964, 1980, Bernard Hinault won the world championships on Côte de Domancy. If I'm not mistaken, it was 12 laps or 12 times of that climb in the world. And I have heard stories, I mean, I remember watching it as a kid, but I have heard stories afterwards from people

who were there with the French national team that he attacked in the first lap. And the team director, his team, his team director, who was not the national coach jumped on the road and physically stopped him say, what are you doing? Are you stupid? Go back in the bunch. And then he, he left. I think he left in the second last lap or something. Um, and then, uh, we have a show on Monday, right? So is, is George going to be on the show on Monday? He's supposed to be Georgia for listening. I'm going to ask him a question about this climb and see if he remembers.

Okay. He, he question about this climb and see if he remembers. Okay. He should know this climb too. I'm gonna actually go do this climb. So put in the comments what you think my time is gonna be. If it's gonna be faster than 615 or slower. Very simple. Just double it. I was just gonna say.

Just double the time and you're going to be close to, I mean, maybe you're going to be a minute less than double the time, but it's not going to be far off. Because I did the climb on the Slovenian time trial course and I was double Pogacar. I actually don't know if that could be a tough, tough thing to do on this one, even doubling it. It's like, that's how fast it is.

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That's Troscriptions.com slash the move or just enter the move at checkout for 10% off your first order. All right, back to the show. All right, Johan, before we get into like predictions for the rest of this race, just to clean, to clean, to play cleanup here. So we're talking about stage one, but gotcha our wins in the sprint. You know, it's vinegar attacks. Just quick question for you on that. Did this make you wonder like, why is Jonas not doing more one days?

Like that looked like a one day effort. That was so explosive when he attacked and then get second on the sprint. It's off to five days of racing Spencer. No, it's no one's on stage Spencer. Now it's different. On stage one. Oh, stage one. Okay. Yeah.

Yeah. Like that was an explosive move. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He looked good. He looked good. You know, you come in fresh.

You know, he felt good. Just I think it's just, you know, to test where you are, you know, that that attack, you know, it's, if it works, it works. It's basically to find confirmation about where you are compared to the trainings and the numbers you have done. And then you're in a bunch. Let's not forget, you know, Jonas hasn't raced in Paris Nice. So probably super excited, feeling good, the whole team around him.

It was a surprise move for sure. I think nobody expected it. Bogacar was a tiny bit late to react, I guess. Remco was even later to attack. I think actually that's also something, okay, today he couldn't follow. So today is a bit of a disappointing boating performance of Remco better than last year's Dauphine, but still he was in the leader's jersey. But that move of Remco on stage one was impressive because you have those four guys, I mean mainly Pogacar and Jonas and Mathieu going full gas and

Remco came like from out of nowhere. Like I'm a bit worried about Remco, because his positioning seems to be a bit of a problem. It's recurring. He was bad at positioning. Multiple times today, he got caught out. And also, if you look at it, let's not forget also, yesterday he crashed. And the crash was, I've seen a repetition of the crash

from a different angle. It was pretty he went down pretty hard and you know, even if you say okay, it's nothing you feel you know the impact on the on the on the hard surface you feel that and then he was he was in a really bad position yesterday when he crashed he was totally in the back of the peloton. You could say okay, you don't want to take any risks, but you know, if there's the three kilometer or five kilometer rule, I think yesterday was five kilometer rule, it only applies if you have an incident. If there's a split in the peloton, you lose the time. And, you know, being in the leaders jersey in the yellow jersey, he was too far in the back. It was

really in the back of the peloton. It was in the last third of the peloton that the crash happened. So, yeah, he can improve on his positioning, I think. But like all of this aside, I mean, the climbing, I just don't feel like he's climbing at the level of Pagache and Vindegarde, which becomes an issue. I don't think like he's climbing at the level of Pogacar and Vindegaard, which becomes an issue. I don't think we've ever said that.

I mean, if he wants to win the tour, he'll have to climb with him. I think in his case, I think if he's realistic, a third place is the goal. Last year, I think after the Dauphiné, nobody even thought about third place for Remco. I think this year is realistic. Although today he couldn't follow, but he's a lot better now than he was last year in last year's Dauphiné. He's lighter and I think this is something I really want to point out also. There's still a lot of room for improvement because you now in the tour, you know, let's last year he made a big improvement after the Dauphiné in the start of the tour. And then let's not forget, you know, this the mountains of the tour, if I'm not mistaken, the first real mountains is stage 12.

To a month away from now. It's one month, it's one month to the big mountains of the tour and a lot can happen and a lot can happen both good and bad. But you know, if you want to improve, you still have time. I mean, the only problem is he rode like the perfect tour to France last year and got third. Like that's how high the level is that. You know what I mean, the problem with these guys is, you know, like a guy like Remco, you know, I mean, if you look at his pal, Morris, you know, there's one, there was one person I actually, you know, I, somebody sent me that comment. Uh, when I was talking about

Remco and being one of the, you know, one of the big riders of, and they said, yeah, Remco is not a big rider. He's not up there with the big riders of the moment. And he said, okay, world champion time trial, world champion road, Olympic champion time trial, Olympic champion road, two times Les Bâtonnières, three times Saint-Sebastien, Vuelta, first, third in the tour. Man, that's pretty impressive. Plus, you know, all the other races he has won. You know, there's, there's, there's, he's definitely up there with the big riders. You just rank the GC contenders currently and be like, Pogacar, Vindigard, one, two. Is he third? Like maybe I got third at the tour last year. Yeah.

Yeah. Like it actually is pretty interesting if you take those two guys out and you start to, so there's some people that are closer to third than you would think. Like, Schwal. Like you would think like, well, what's, what's while I made ever done? It's like him and Remco might be the next best GC contenders in the sport. Yeah. That three and four for the moment. If they, if, if all of them race together. And so just to tie up a few things, Jonathan Milan wins stage two and then in a nice sprint, even Romeo stage three, this was like kind of an interesting, like last 15,

15 K of the stage. They didn't have a big gap in the breakaway over the Peloton. It was like just a little over a minute. He rides away from a strong group that includes Matthew Vanderpool. So really impressive result for a Movistar writer, Movistar like pulled out of the uh the ether it feels like but I was surprised by that. Also Matthew Vanderpool what's going on with the wrist Johan? He's just like broke his wrist two weeks ago and now he's he's in breakaways?

I think it's probably a hairline fracture or something. Not is the scaphoid, which is a complicated bone. If it's broken and separated, in my opinion, it's a fracture, it's a hairline fracture or something in the scaphoid. Yeah, the fact that he started the dauphiné with not even a brace or anything, it must be okay. And going off what I've seen from him now in all the stages that he was able to show himself, including today, let's not forget, kilometer zero, first attacker, Matthew Van Der Poel. So he's here to train.

He's here to really level up his condition. And I saw an interview of him yesterday. Yesterday said that he was happy with, you know, the intensity training he was doing during the dofina. So yeah, I'm not worried. He's gonna be he's gonna be good in the tour. Where I think in this Tour de France, there are quite a few opportunities for stage wins for Mathieu compared to other editions of the tool where there was not that many possibilities. Yeah especially that opening week. He's got to be, he wants to be ready for that.

And then stage five after the TT, Jake Stewart on Israel Premiere Tech wins a sprint on like this, I think he does like the suck it victory celebration, I couldn't believe that. But he wins on this like new factor bike that just, it was like, this was marketing for factor. And he was flying in that sprint. And then you said that they'll probably ban this bike for next year. Yeah. Well, that's another thing I would like to, you know,

once we're done with the Dauphiné, I'd like to have a little comment on some things that just came out this morning or yesterday. But yeah, Jake Stewart, first World Tour victory. I think it's only his third win in his career. But what a win. I mean, that sprint was, okay, you know, a part of Jonathan Milan, who is, you know,

one of the best sprinters in the world. But other than that, the top sprinters are not here, but man, there was not even a contest. He started his sprint before Milan even could start his sprint and there was nobody even coming close. So yeah, that was a great win for him. You know what's interesting about Jake Stewart is part of this class of British rider

who came up through Groupama FDJ. Like you would think that they would be developed by a British team, but it's like Louis Aske, I believe is the same. And it's just a lot of these writers that like, they've left FDJ, but they, that's like where they matriculated. There's another, I was at the tour of Alsace last year,

and I saw another British writer on FDJ win that final stage. It's kind of weird that they're ending up there, but just to finish off the Dauphiné tomorrow's stage might be one of the hardest stages of the year. It's only 131 kilometers long. That's like, what 80 miles ish. It has like 5,000 meters of climbing, only three climbs, all HC. It's pretty much you're climbing or descending the entire day with a, like an 18 kilometer final climb at around 7% average. This is a really tough stage.

They do the Col de la Madelaine, Col de la Croix de Fer and then Valmeyne, which is a climb I don't know. But, uh, I don't think I've ever seen this in a race Valmeyne. But it's, it's, it's up, it's in that Valley. There's so many climbs there. But it's not famous for the tour or Dauphiné. I can't remember. I've seen a race up there, but yeah, it's 16 kilometers at 7%, which is within it finishes at 1800 meters. So, Crole-Affaire is also super long. That's 22 kilometers at 7%. 22 kilometers at 7%.

22 kilometers at 7%. That's the middle of the stage to start at the Madeleine. First is the Madeleine, yeah. That's only 6% though for 24K. But the Madeleine, let's see. Let's see. Okay. Let's see. So the Croix de Fer, they do it up the Col de Glandon, but the longs, okay, good.

I see now. And the Madeleine is, I mean, the easier side, I would say, of the Madeleine, but still, it's hard. The Col de la Madeleine is always hard. 2000 meters of altitude. Short stage. So today, today compared to tomorrow stage, today was peanuts. Tomorrow is real Alpine long to the France Climb.

So we can still see a change. We're going to see the same riders again. Also another thing I want to point out Spencer, a guy we really need to have on our radar for the tour. We're going to talk about him in my opinion. He does need to write more intelligent, smarter, more conservative. Florian Lippowicz. He is incredibly strong, that guy. And so big candidate also for the white Jersey together with Ramco. But he's on amazing form. He was already second in, was he second? He was second in Paris Nice, I think.

Top three at least. He does, he does another stage raise and other important stages. he was second. It was last year, right? Wasn't, didn't he, it was like Roman D or something. He was third, just out of nowhere. Yeah. Last year we started to see, this is a guy who came later to cycling. He was, he was, uh, competing by at long, you know, the skiing and the shooting. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, I mean, it's great base. That's for an endurance athlete, but the guy's super strong. I've seen him do certain things that I say, wow, man, you are so strong, but please

save your energy for what really matters. Because this is a rider, I can understand, he's discovering himself. And so he still is finding out where his limits are and where his strengths are. But this guy needs to start racing when the big rise of the riders race. You know, these guys are not stood. They're not going to let him go anymore. They can't give him any advantage because they know that he can he can stay stay away. So, yeah, we we're going to see him quite a bit in the tour. If you know, if everything goes okay.

Well, there's two riders within a minute of Pagache. Pagache is leading. Vindigard is 43 seconds back. Lippowitz is 54 seconds back. It's really impressive. And then Evanopoul is 122. Do you think there's any room for funny business tomorrow? Like there's, is there, can satellite riders even do anything on a stage like that? Can you get anyone over these climbs? It's up or down, Spencer. There's no flat. Three long climbs and three and two downhills.

A short stage, so nah. Who wins, you think? On the motherland, you could say maybe, you know, there's going to be riders trying to get away the long don't want to have a fair is so long so hard no i think it's a gc uh a gc battle uh especially you know a short stage like this is very controllable um listen vizma has to vizma will have to be aggressive they will have to send people Listen, Visma has to. Visma will have to be aggressive. They will have to send people up the road, especially after today. If Jonas had a day he didn't feel so good, they may say, okay, maybe tomorrow's better. But other than that, they're also going to have to try

to go for a stage win. So I think Pagache probably waxes them again, unfortunately for, for like a, any type of intrigue. It's just, unless he has a really bad day, but man, I think it's going to be hard to be. You don't know. In this stage, in this stage where, you know, they come from a break, they have done a buildup. There is their first test. Again, you don't know they can have good and bad days. That's the interesting part about the Dauphiné and also, you don't know. They can have good and bad days. That's the interesting part about the Dauphiné. And also, you know, traditionally it's always been the case

and I think it's still the same. The Dauphiné is a test, but it's not the exam. It's not the exam for the tour. It's a test. It doesn't mean because you're great in the Dauphiné that you're gonna be flying in the tour. And if you're a bit off the pace, there is room to study. If you have to do your final exam in the tour and be ready for your exam. So that's the interesting part of this race.

It's funny. You teed me up perfectly. So I usually think of the Dauphiné as like, well, whoever wins the Dauphiné wins the tour because I'm stuck in Frum world, Frum brain. Like Frum would always win the Dauphiné as like, well, the Dauphiné, whoever wins the Dauphiné wins the tour. Because I'm stuck in Frum world, Frum brain. Like Frum would always win the Dauphiné. It was Wiggins and Frum would win the Dauphiné, win the tour. Actually, 2014, Frum doesn't win the Dauphiné, doesn't even complete the tour. In the last eight years, do you know how many riders won the Dauphiné

and then won the tour in the same year? Not that many. It's two. It's Gareth Thomas, 2018 and Jonas in 2023. So yeah, like you're right. It is not the final exam. Yeah. So pump the brakes. I guess don't, don't crown Pogacar quite yet. The champion of the Tour de France before we leave, Johan, you, you wanted to circle back on this, the couple of UCI regulations that came out. Yeah, so there was the UCI management meeting. It's a three-day event, I think, so where they go over calendars and a lot of other things change the rules. By the way, they changed the rule from next year on already. I don't know if you've seen that Spencer.

So there's 18 world tour teams. And then for all the stage races in the world tour, including the grand tours, the organizers will now be obliged to take the first three teams of the pro teams. Not the first two, the first three. So actually relegation is not that big of a deal anymore as long as you're in the first three of the second league classification.

Until now that was two. So they maintained their, so they changed the rules a few months ago where they said, okay, it's 23 teams for the Giro, the Tour and the Vuelta this year. And so they kind of made a little modification. It remains three teams, 23 teams, but so 80 World Tour teams, two invitations at the will of the organizers and the first three in the classification of the pro team classification. So that's one of the things that they've decided. It's funny, actually, there was I was watching Dutch Eurosport and one of the commentators

is an ex professional cyclist. I'm not going to name it, name him. You'll know people who will look up will know who it is. And he said something funny. They were talking about this meeting and he said that at some point he was a member of the UCI Management Commission and went to these meetings. And he literally said on TV, it was funny. He said live on TV that, you know, most of the people, I think there's about 25 people a member of that commission because it goes, I guess there's 10 from Europe and then three from Africa, three from Asia, from all the different confederations. And he said half of them or three quarters of them are old and were always asleep, literally asleep in the meeting.

Basically, there's an agenda and everybody or the majority says yes to anything that the UCI proposes, which is typical for those kind of meetings. It's all decided on beforehand. So it's basically a formality to say the UCI Management Commission decided, but it's decided already by the president and a few of his close associates.

And he also said, that was the funny part of the comment, he said he told his kids that this is the only place he knows in the world where you can be asleep with your eyes open. But so they did decide on a few other things, which I thought were interesting. A few good things also, I think. So they decided on bar width from next year on 40 centimeters is the max is the the max or the minimum width. So you can't go narrow than 40 centimeters. Now I think there's, there's, you know,

I need to look into specifics. It's still quite narrow because 40 centimeters, it's outside to outside. So on exterior measurements. Is that hoods or drops? No, the drops. The drops. Okay. Yeah. So 40 centimeters outside to outside,

that's a 38 or 30 37 maybe, center to center. And I think it's 35 on the tops. So, so I think, I think it's really good. It's still narrow enough for people to want to be arrow. But I think it's a good thing that they put a limit to it because the narrower you go the less stable the bike is and it's a recipe for disaster. So then also they put new rules on the width of the forks. So for example I think this new prototype factor bike that won the stage with the new regulations would be banned next year. So that's a nice little present for a factor who put probably, you know, so much money

and resources in developing this prototype. So they'll have to review it, I think. And also no more time trial helmets or time trial like helmets in road races. I need to look at the specifics there. What it really, so there's arrow road helmets but then we've seen in some races, mainly I think Visma, EF are famous for that.

It's a pure time trial helmet basically they're riding with. So that will not be allowed anymore. Which I personally think, I mean, it doesn't really make any difference because the time trial helmets have the same safety regulations as a road helmet nowadays. But yeah, I mean, there has to be some kind of limit somewhere because it just keeps going more and more aerodynamic. And then one of the most important things also, they kind of,

you know, candidly hid it into the, you know, a little side note, but I think that's actually their biggest worry of the UCI. It's a little side note in the press statement they send out, is that they said no to the new project of One Cycling. This initiative of teams and the Saudi Investment Fund, which aims to create a different source of revenues for cycling, changed the business model a little bit. They decided no. So, but they said, I mean, it's a smart, it's smartly worded and it's, you know, typical for, you know, we all know that LaParte is a smart politician, you know, and he said,

you know, we will keep talking to the stakeholders and see where we can bring this. But you know, it's very simple, you know, any initiative that is not an initiative from the UCI or where the UCI is in the driver's seat is going to be, it's no, or it's going to be sabotaged or blackmailed. They've done this with SafeR, for example, this tool that is supposed to look for the safety in cycling. It was an initiative of the teams. It would be an independent organization separate from the UCI.

So they took it on board. They typically do that. I was thinking when I read that, going back to, I don't remember now, it's 2007 or 2008, but the famous biological passport, which is in place since I think 2008 was an initiative of the teams. There were, I remember because I was in that meeting and I was one of the team managers

who came up with this initiative of having a separate anti-doping system. People may think, well, you should shut up because you're banned for life because of the doping problems. But I was part of the initiative of, I think, end of 2007, which was the creation of the biological passport. And then the UCI, they said, okay, we're gonna look into this. And then they just took it and made it their own and said, okay, this is now the biological passport. We set this up and they typically do something like that.

One cycling is gonna be the same. As long as the UCI is not a big, big stakeholder in this, they're gonna try to sabotage it. So we can expect that next year, because there's talks that next year already there was going to be some testing league with certain races, with teams involved with the Saudis. It's going to be interesting to see if they're going to let it happen or not. They will try to, I mean, if people want to participate, they will say, okay, well,

if you participate in these races, then you're banned from any race that we organize, which is the typical, the typical modus operandi of, you know, a federation who wants to be in charge of everything. This might be a hot take, but I kind of agree with the UCI here. Like, I don't know if I need a hammer series, Hong Kong again. Yeah, I agree. I agree. That's the, but that's not the point. The point is to change the business model of the sport. If you look at professional cycling, Spencer, it's, I would have to,

but it's one of the only sports, if not the only, at least at this level where the economics are important enough. If you see the whole, the money stream within cycling, where teams have to fight for survival every single year because they're depending exclusively on sponsorship and there's no other revenue, you know? So their teams are not part of any other income,

TV rights, income sales, ticket sales, they have nothing. It's all with the organizers or with the UCI. And that needs to change. It has to change at some point. It's not sustainable. Well, someone needs to write a big check and buy ASL. That's the only answer. You have to come in the tour.

I've already said it in a former podcast. Now it's gonna happen at some point, but it's not gonna happen. And then you say bye-bye to the UCI. Like, okay, I don't get to go to Worlds. Like, who cares, right? That's eventually what they're gonna have to do. Yeah, the UCI will then probably, you know, when they are at the table and be a main stakeholder, they will, it's their no to one cycling will become a yes and they will promote it.

That's how it's going to work. Yeah. I mean, it's just, I find the whole thing a bit ridiculous. Like, there's not like FIBA doesn't tell the NBA what to do. Yeah. Like the NBA, I think one cycling is great for the sport. First you need to come into the game by disturbing and then finally find a normal atmosphere. But unless you don't come in aggressively and try to, whether it's a boycott or a strike or nothing's gonna change because the two big powers UCI because of their rules and regulations that's their power and ASO because they own the majority

of the calendar and the majority of all the revenue they're not gonna want I mean you need to first disturb them before they start to consider because for now for them, everything's great right now. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I know, no one's asking me, but I think you, if you don't can't buy the tour, you have to buy the Giro and the Giro is now in July. It's part of what's second. I mean, come on. Once I come on, like, I guess, like come out with a plan. What are we doing? Like, why is this all secret?

It's gonna happen. It's gonna happen. It is gonna happen. Uh, I don't, I can't say when it's gonna happen, but ultimately it's gonna happen. Yeah, I get it. You gotta go big though. I can't do this. Like the Vellans situate, those races were, I guess, interesting in some respects, but

Spencer, this is completely different. This is a different game than Vellon. It's completely different. It's, they have to, they, they have to shit or get off the pot. But excuse my French. Like, we've been hearing about this for like three years. It's like, where's the, the series well, if they come out, they're going to get boycotts from the, I guess, if they come out, they're going to get boycotts. From my guess, but you got you got to have like the pockets deep enough to be like, okay, don't go to the tour and we'll pay you $30 million a year. That's what lived in. Yeah.

I mean, you got to like write big checks to get people to abandon. That's what I've always said, you know, like even with the tour, you know, as I said, you know, I've been part of a lot of meetings in the past, you know, same kind of initiatives. And the fear is always the tour, right? And the tour was then threatening, yeah, we don't care, you know, if we don't do it with the teams, we'll do it with national teams. But what they do not understand is, and maybe I'm talking a bit too much, I mean, I can say whatever I want anyway. So what they need to understand is that the Tour de

France also has contracts and obligations with sponsors. And their sponsors want the best riders in their race. Otherwise they're not going to pay. So let's say if Jonas and today and Remco and Almeida and del Toro and Carapaz and Groglic and all these guys are part of teams that are part of this. And they're not showing up at the tour. The tour can say, okay, or ASO can say, okay, fine. Don't come. We'll organize with national teams. I would want to see their clauses in the contract and what the sponsors are going

to say. If that's a good point. Yeah. Who's going to watch. Yeah, that's a good point. That is a very good point. Well, we'll see what happens. We'll see if one cycling ever makes an official announcement about their schedule as opposed to just annoying leaks about what potentially could happen in the future at some further date. But anything else? Oh, we, two, two other things, AG2R, is this true that they're leaving cycling next year?

Yes, they are. It's very sad. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, they've been in for a long time. Obviously we've said already many times Decathlon is, Decathlon is coming in very hard. I've heard that for next year Decathlon ups the budget with 10 million euros extra. So they don't really need AG2R. Yeah. It's just kind of like a nice, I like the branding and that's why I use AG2R for all my insurance needs because of that. And then Michael Matthews, he, did you hear this? He has a pulmonary embolism.

I have seen that. Yeah. I haven't really been into the details, but that came like out of the blue. I wonder what's happening there. That's, yeah, that's scary. Potential. I mean, I don't, he's not going to the tour and then just, those take a long time to come back from can be like a year recovery. Um, so that's very unfortunate, but anything else, Johan, before we take off? No, that's it. We'll be back on Monday with a full recap of the Dauphiné and, uh, I'll ask George that interesting question. Let's see if he remembers. Yeah. And I'm sitting in Lance's office right now,

so maybe we can force him into doing the show. We'll see. He'll sit here until Monday. He can't escape us. All right, we'll see you, Johan, and we'll talk on Monday. OK, thanks, Spencer. Bye. Bye. NASCAR makes history on Prime as the Cup Series goes international.

We're headed to Mexico City for a road course with all new challenges, 14 turns and 7,000 feet of altitude. Don't miss the first ever points paying Cup Series race in Mexico. Sunday at 2 p.m. Eastern. NASCAR. It's on Prime.