THEMOVE - Can Primož Roglič Pull Back Ben O'Connor? | Vuelta A España 2024 Week 1 Recap | THEMOVE

Episode Date: August 26, 2024

Lance, George, and Johan break down the first nine stages of the Vuelta a España, discussing why we've seen such chaotic GC racing, and debate whether Primož Roglič and his Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe team can overcome their current deficit to race leader Ben O'Connor, all while controlling the ultra-aggressive racing and holding off the surge of contenders coming from further down in the field.   Ventum: Visit www.https://ventumracing.com/TheMove to enter your answer to each episode question. At the end of the Vuelta, we will pick one winner who will receive a GS1 built with APEX build. But you don't have to wait. Listeners of THEMOVE can save 20% on any Ventum bike during the Vuelta by using code TheMove20 at checkout.   Ketone-IQ: 30% off your first sub order + free 6 pack when you use the link: www.https://ketone.com/themove   AG1: Try AG1 and get a FREE 1-year supply of Vitamin D3K2 AND 5 free AG1 Travel Packs with your first purchase at www.https://drinkAG1.com/themove      

The week one kicked off with a bang. Our boy Brandon McNulty started in Lisbon. I think the crew, the road crew, after what he did to the road, averaged 57 kilometers an hour in time trial. I think the road crews are still down there probably fixing the pavement, right? I mean, that's some, some will say that's the fastest time trial of all time. All right, right everybody welcome back to the move podcast we are talking about the tour of spain the wealth of spania uh we've mentioned this a few times uh in other shows but you know there's three grand tours in cycling we all know there's the tour of france i get i actually get questions a lot about is it you know what's what what is the second biggest race, right? And the other big stage races, of course, are the Tour of Italy and the Tour of Spain.

This one is the final grand tour of the season. We're going to get into a lot of the action, most of which, full disclosure, yours truly has missed. Been traveling, been moving around, getting the kids back in school. But these two guys got it covered. Those two guys, of course, Johan Brunel, who knows everything, who just had a birthday, by the way. Happy, happy birthday, Johan. Thank you very much. Thank you.

Six zero, man. I can't believe it. Well, you know what? Just keep getting older. It's better. It's better than not. You know, when you when you don't get older, it's not a good outcome. By the way, are you're in Mallorca? I am in Mallorca still. I had a nice birthday party here and, uh, yeah. Enjoying, enjoying the Island. Man. And Christian just down there

kicking your ass on the bike. Oh yeah. No, I mean, it's not, I mean, it's not even, he's taking my ass off the bike and on the bike. So yeah, I'm getting used to that. That's teenagers for you. Uh, nobody asked me, but, uh, I'm sitting in Nashville, Tennessee. I'm over here for, I got an event tomorrow, so I just got in. Um, and yeah, I don't have a whole lot else to report other than that. And George, you're not at home.

I know that back with, uh, where we should just have a whole lot else to report other than that. George, you're not at home. I know that back with, uh, where we should just have a whole, we should have a whole series of like, where is George? Like what kind of fancy thing is he doing? Just another time here in the Southeast and didn't even let me know you're going like basically close to my house is one more time, but I'm actually in a Courchevel france which uh we all know very well um i think the last time we were here alejandro alejandro balberde may have won the stage and uh next you were fighting for the overall and we had like a really fun lead out with popovich and um, uh, uh, what?

And, and then, uh, I think it was like a 16 K climb. You're on right. Yeah. Today's time. Yeah.

They built a new road in 2018. That goes to the cold top of cold, the La Los. And it was like a 32 K climb from bottom to top. That was quite, quite tough. And it's just one incredible part of the world. That's actually here for the, for the people who watch cycling a lot. from bottom to top. It was quite tough and it's just an incredible part of the world.

That's actually for the people who watch cycling a lot, this is the climb where last year Tane Pogacar of his crisis, you know, the famous I'm done, I'm finished. The other side, the Maryville or Maryville or something like that. Oh, so okay.

It goes up the other way. We came up the Courchevel side. Okay. And you're the other way. We came up the course of all side. All right. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. And you're doing an event there, George is it was that I'm doing, uh, the hood route, uh, Alps, uh, with our, our good friend Pavel and, um, kind of shepherding him along the, the mountains has been super fun. He's riding great. He's leading the, the 50 plus category guys, the beast he's a total beast i'm you know what i i want you to tell pavel hi and i also want you to tell him that i'm so glad i'm not there

because this boy this boy can hammer on the bike like i yeah oh yeah he can hammer dude i feel for you yeah by the way to, that's like the swanky, of course. That's like the swanky, that's like the Aspen of the Alps. Yes, that's exactly what they call it, the Aspen of France. And tomorrow we're doing also your favorites, Lance, the Madeline, the Glendon, and Alpe d'Huez, which I'm going to try to stop and take a picture of your switchback. Apparently you have two of them.

So I'm going to try to stop and take a photo. I your switchback uh apparently you have two of them so i'm gonna send it out yeah um and you know i also think of the whole route when i think of um brian fogel's documentary icarus all right that's sort of how it all got started was him training yes for whole route and what started as one project at least this is my view what started as one project, at least this is my view, what started as one project while he was preparing for this turned into a completely different project as, as we all know. And he went on to win the Academy award. I didn't realize that. Yes. I didn't know that. Yep. That's what you should listen to the podcast. You know, I had him on the forward many years ago.

I know I listened to it a while ago, but I didn't realize I didn't put two together. It was this event, but it's a, yeah, interesting, fun event. Yeah. There's pieces of it in there, but better, better. Good for you, George. We'll do a little business and then we'll get into the action. We got one week of action. There's been, while I haven't caught every stage every morning, I've certainly read a lot, but just reading there's a whole lot of stuff, uh, the, there's a whole lot of stuff going on, which has led to a whole lot of question marks, which of course we're going to

get into primarily can give a guy like Ben O'Connor that much time, uh, dangerous. We never, that's not something we would have done. Um, then perhaps a mistake. And now they're going to spend the rest of the time trying to call it back. But before we do today, show brought to you by Ventum. Of course, we got the Ventum trivia. We did it every day during the tour. We'll do it every week here during the tour of Spain. Last week, Johan and the crew asked three athletes have won the wealth of three times Contador, Rominger and Roglic.

Which rider has won the race three times, Contador, Rominger, and Roglic. Which rider has won the race four times? All right. So the answer to that from last week was our old teammate, Roberto Jarras, won the Tour of Spain four times. For this week's, the trivia is last year's winner of the Tour of Spain is from the United States. His name is Sepp Kuss. The question is, what city and state is he from? Now, this is not a tough one, right? So that's the question. And all you got to do is head on over to VentumRacing.com slash the move, enter your name, put in your answer. Ventum also makes amazing bikes. I know I just flew out here. I got my GS1

with me. This gravel bike is money. Gee, I'm assuming you're riding around and doing the whole route on your NS1. Yeah, and I'm getting stopped everywhere saying, are you really? Because I'm on my custom NS1 and people are asking me all about it.

They're loving it. Bunch of special deals. The SRAM Apex AXS GS1. It's got the minted GS1 colorway, $29.99. Full electronic SRAM Apex shifting, same full carbon frame found on the highest end GS1s, exclusively available in the minted colorway. Listeners of The Move can get 20% off any ventum bike during the tour of spain aka the welta by using the code the move 20 at checkout and again that's ventumracing.com slash the move also today brought to you by our friends ketone iq i'm going to just tell you a true story i i because we talk about ketone iq so much and obviously just finished the tour.

It is a daily occurrence that somebody is asking me about ketones and ketone IQ specifically. I said, you know, look, I find it to be absolutely effective. I said, give it a shot. And the, the feedback is insane. Like people are like, wow, even check this out. Even my wife was like, maybe I should try Keto and IQ. I said, yeah, the refrigerator is full of it. And she tried it the other day and she's like, holy shit, this works. I mean, it's, it's, it's, and it does like, and so if anybody out there is listening to this show and thinking about asking me this question in the next month, don't, uh, I just

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30% off your first subscription order, plus a free six-pack when you use the link ketone.com slash the move that's ketone.com slash the move all right let's talk about week one week one kicked off with a bang our boy brandon mcnulty i'd started in lisbon i think the crew the the road crew after what he did to the road averaged 57 kilometers an hour in time trial i think the road crews are still down there probably fixing the pavement right i mean that's some some will say that's the fastest time trial of all time debatable but and for those who think in miles now i gotta try to train i mean that's around 35 miles an hour time traveling.

Insane. It's insane. I mean, 12 kilometers flat. Yes. Not very technical, but 12 minutes, 35 seconds only. And he didn't, I mean, there's, I think there's three or four guys who went close to 57 kilometers per hour, but But great start for McNulty. A bit surprised that he couldn't stay into contention until now. But to me, it sounds like, it looks like he's bouncing back.

So I think we're going to see him in more stages in the last part of the Vuelta. But, I mean, he did beat Walt Van Aert, who was the big favorite, to win the first time trial. And yeah, amazing for him. You know, in the Stars and Stripes, American champion time trial, to win that first time trial was really, really a good start for him. And also, Johan, I think he was highly, he focused really heavily on the Olympic time trial. Ended up getting fifth place, was really disappointed about not being there.

Perhaps his preparation might have been a little bit altered for a Grand Tour, but I mean, think about this guy for the future. I mean, a 57-kilometer-an-hour time trial, we know he can climb like nobody's business, and he might not be there with the top guys right now, but what an incredible talent he is, and

we hope to see him continue to progress in the Grand Tours. We've seen him do his job for Fogarty and Tour de France and he's not done as well to my needs. I did catch the prologue, by the way, but if you believe the

commentators, I just think that because we saw Wild Fun Art Ride, and this is getting a little technical, but you saw Wild Fun Art Ride a front disc wheel in the Olympics,ics which i thought was peculiar we haven't seen that in very long 30 30 years maybe the last one that i can remember actually vividly is bernard you know yeah well that's 40 years so yeah yeah so and and and they were saying that he was actually considering a front disc for this

prologue of the tour of spain which i just it just a very different course than the olympics that one the olympics were more sheltered um that you could sort of control the variables of crosswind and sudden crosswinds this one i, I thought, there is no... I was like, wow. This guy's got some stones to try that. Yeah. I think it was a smart decision because if it was windy, it would not have helped.

I mean, they have it down to the detail, so they knew exactly what they were doing at Pisma. But yeah mcnulty starts uh and then we have you know we go straight into a few bunch prints and we were all waiting you know the long-awaited uh victory of walt bernard that had been a while since he has won and the first bunch print he didn't manage to win it there was was Caden Groves who came from behind them and won the sprint. Then afterwards, we did win another stage and another stage. So he's had two stage wins until now is solidly in the, in the lead for the, for the green Jersey. But finally he got his stage win. It had been a long time since he could raise his arms. And looking back, I mean, he had not won in a Grand Tour since 2022.

So he didn't win this year. He didn't win last year. And he's been pursuing that win for a while. And the happiness we could see after that first victory of Wadwanath and the relief was really nice to see. I think he's back to where he deserves to be. Arguably could have had maybe three wins. I think he threw his bike a bit early against Pavel Bittner.

Threw it kind of for the first line instead of the middle line. He threw it twice. I've never seen that before. He did two bikes. Yeah, I know. I think that was just sort of a mental error. But yeah, incredible for him to win two stages. And I'm sure that he really needed that for his morale and, um, you know, I've been through a lot this year,

so it's good to see him back on the top step. Yeah. Um, and not only that, but what, what Seth Kuss did for him on the second stage when was incredible, you know, a past winner of the tour of Spain, putting it all on the line and Wout was just singing his praises like crazy after the finish line saying, a guy like that who's won the Tour of Spain, pulling

on the front for me at 60 kilometers an hour, he was blown away by the commitment that Sepp Kuss showed him for the winner. Yeah, without Sepp Kuss, George, Walt Bernard doesn't win that stage. It's as simple as that. You know what I mean? I think there was

about 35, 40 riders left and he only had one teammate left and Sepp Kuss on top of that, who's supposed to be the rider for GC and he emptied himself during the last 15, 20 kilometers and Walt was very, very, very grateful and appreciative for, for that.

No, and you would know better, but, um, it, it seems like wild Ben are, and we all, there's always guys within a team in wild fun hearts. Yeah. One of the top five riders in the world. So everybody watches him. I think we watch him maybe through a different lens, at least, um, maybe it's just me, but you look and see how they exist in the team and sort of the reverence there is within the team. It seems like he is really looked up to in that team. I mean, his results say that he should be, but I think he's a very well-liked rider in the team.

And guys want to work for him. Yeah, they want to work for him. I mean, also, I mean, first of all, he's somebody who shows he can win races. I mean, if you work for somebody, you may as well work for someone you can finish it off, right? So, but he's a very likable guy.

And then on top of that, I think what's mostly appreciated in Wismar is the amazing work he has done for Wingergaard at the Tour. I think it's safe to say that, you know know he was probably 50% of the team

at some point in the Tour de France and now you can also feel that they really want to give something back not just the riders

but especially the management they are they're validating him a lot and you know with all the respect that is due to

Sepp Kuss as the you know defending champion of the respect that is due to Sepp Kuss as the defending champion of the Vuelta. But to me, it seems like Wismar is prioritizing Wout van Aert, his performance, his well-being and his happiness within the team in this Tour of Spain. That's my impression. Yeah. And then, of course, the other one other thing. I mean, we have to talk about i think there is one major story of week one and that is as we touched on at the top of the show ben o'connor

but there you know other other highlights um that that we might have missed well we had i mean in the pre-show you talked about the heat are we not sorry yeah the heat the heat is it has been incredible if you look at the map of the tour of spain you know you start in portugal all the way down then you have five stages all in the south you know combine this end of august 37 38 40 degrees you know if you if you if you put in one sentence end of august and the cities of Seville, Cordoba, and Granada, that's not good. That's not a good combination.

I mean, nobody wants to go there because they want to go there at that time of the year. It's an oven. And we've seen people with problems. We've seen Tameen Aransman, who had to be in the ambulance after one of the stages with overheating. And then the guy who sat in fourth until yesterday, Antonio Tiberi, who was a big candidate for the white jersey, was already fourth in the, fifth in the Giro.

The leader of Bahrain had to abandon with a heat stroke yesterday. And then, so I've seen quite a few complaints of the riders. There's a debate, you know, I mean, we've all known when the Vuelta shifted from April, May to September. Now it's not really September anymore. You know, it's mid of August and beginning of September. So I've seen some debates that would it not be good to delay it by two weeks? Because two weeks in the summer in Spain makes a big difference.

I mean, you guys have been in September in Spain, in Mallorca, and it's very pleasant, right? So I don't know if that would not be a good idea because it would also give more space between the tour and the Vuelta to recover and to prepare better for the Vuelta. So that's maybe something that the UCI should think about. And are we talking about like tour down under heat, like 40 degrees? Oh, yeah. I mean, Michael was saying it was over 110 degrees on that one day.

And it was just, and he was complaining about the weather protocol. Yeah. There's cold weather protocol, snow protocol. Um, but this, what doesn't make any sense that they wouldn't, uh, you know, implement a hot weather protocol. I mean 110 degrees plus is not healthy for these guys. And you can see, like Johan said, a lot of guys just can't handle it. I mean, it's just not a healthy thing. And it has to take away from the racing.

You have to imagine that that just nullifies or sort of mutes some of the action. For sure. Yeah. For sure. I mean, one thing to think about, maybe, I mean, I know it's not, it's not ideal for viewership, you know, but these stages started one o'clock and they finish at five 30. I mean,

if you start these stages early and you finish by midday, you know, it would make a big difference. You would at least have three hours, which are more pleasant temperature, six, seven degrees less. I think it would be beneficial for the overall outcome of the race. Yeah. And we also need to talk about, I know we're jumping around a bit. We're obviously going to cover Ben O'Connor's attack and, you know, the tactics that went on behind that, which I'm sure we all don't agree with,

but Matthew Riccatello on the first mountain stage finish, I think he ended up fifth place. What an incredible ride. And unfortunately, a day or two later, he crashed out of the Vuelta. But it was like we mentioned on the pre-show, Johan, he had a great climb, super impressive up there, the best in the world on top of that finish climb. So we wish him well and hope to see him back on the road very soon.

I think he's still in the wealth. I, George, if I'm not mistaken, he crashed. No, no. Oh, he abandoned. Yeah. Oh, I didn't know. I didn't know that. Okay. I've missed that. I missed that. Johan, wait a minute. Gooseflash. Sorry. It was the same day that Ron got out of the wealth.

I mean, what a way to finish his career. I mean, you know, his last broken hip end of, end a way to finish his career. I mean, you know, his last broken hip, broken hip, end of his career. Yeah. Yeah. Harsh sport. Harsh sport. Yeah, it is.

We're going to get into, of course, the biggest story of the week, and that is Ben O'Connor. I mean, and I will before I'll just tease it out. I mean, I watched part of the Netflix series and with that episode, I don't know Ben O'Connor. I mean, I, and I will before I'll just tease it out. I mean, I watched part of the Netflix series and with that episode, I don't know, Ben O'Connor and I don't really, uh, I haven't followed him. He's had some good rides. Um, but that was a tough episode to watch. I thought, um, it was just, uh,

I think he probably want to do over on that one. In his defense lands, we all know how it works with documentaries. No, I understand. They can portray somebody how they want him to be. I don't think that was the ideal outcome for the personality of Matt O'Connor. Fair play.

Then he got screwed on the edit. For sure. He's not the only one. For right now he is the story of this tour of spain um and that would be i believe he's leaving the team um i'm sure he got some blowback from that episode in the series uh but now he's leading the tour of spain and and you know probably i'm sure he lays awake at night wondering if he'll get the last laugh we'll get into all of that before we do today.

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more please all right so about ben o'connor um we by the way we've we were all there right what year was he on 2001 we gave um one of the simone brothers a lot of time and uh we we were not that worried about it uh but 33 minutes 33 minutes to uh it uh, it's different. It's different than five or six minutes, but it's, it, nonetheless, the dynamic is just the same. You start looking ahead and you start looking at these stages and you have to, you're like, okay, that day we'll probably get five minutes back. We might get 10 minutes. Right.

And so you just start calculating, how are we going to chip away at this thing? Um, 33 minutes is a lot different than five or six. And, and Ben O'Connor has had some GC results, right? So now you're Primoz Roglic. Boy, he played possum real good before this. Well, I'm hurt and I don't know. And he looks great, but can he reel Ben O'Connor back in? Yeah, I think first of all, Lance, you know,

33 minutes to Simon is not the same as five minutes to O'Connor. Simon was not never to be considered a GC rider. Ben O'Connor has finished fourth in the Tour de France and fourth in this year's Giro. It's different. I think we all could agree on that. I think for most people, and I think George backed me up here, most people see that and say, well, what do you mean?

You can't hold on to a 33 minute lead. Like it's for the average fan. Like, Oh no, there is no way they can't. There's no way you could close half an hour. The average fan. I was pissed that we gave him 33 minutes. I was on the radio going, guys. I mean, this is ridiculous. And the point being that you're on,

I'm sure you're in the back of the car doing a lot of analysis. What is the best climb this guy's done? What has he done before in his career? You probably didn't know him that well, but Ben O'Connor, it's obvious. I mean, the guy's a GC rider, fourth place in the tour. And of course the director and, of course, the director and we're talking about Red Bull Bora, one of the top three biggest teams in the world

that has a guy who's won the Tour of Spain three times. I don't see any reason to give seven minutes. Once you have a breakaway of 13 guys, they're not going to work together that well. It's not that hard to keep them within four minute gap. You just put a couple of guys in the front.

Yeah. I think, I think you're, you're seeing it wrong. I think, you know, first of all, I think they didn't really give it to O'Connor.

He, O'Connor earned it and he wrote for it like crazy. I think what the teams did, they got the breakaway perfectly under control. Because if you look at the whole breakaway, there's, there's all, there's only a few guys who just come in with one minute, the best guys of the breakaway. The problem is that O'Connor outperformed everybody in that breakaway.

He was on a different level than everybody else. And he kept gaining time. He did the ride of his life. In my opinion. He was on a day, like one of those days that you fly. And it was obvious. I mean, I think that he actually said, I've never felt so good in my life on a bicycle. I don't want to take anything away from his performance. It was incredible. But you have a guy that finished second in the Giro.

You have Vlasov, one of the best climbers in the world. I think at some point you have to make a decision where we've got to go all in here. They weren't doing anything. For a while, they would let Movistar do all the work, and they would try to play possum, say, we don't care, let them go. I think it was a mistake. I'm not saying the race is over by any means, but why put so much more pressure on a guy like Primoz

that it is a clear favorite for the world, that has won it three times, has one of the best teams back in him. No excuses, in my opinion. For sure. And also, I would add to that also, George, is that, you know, how much easier it would have been

if there was some kind of alliance between teams because you see one team pulling and the other team is not pulling while Movistar was pulling, Red Bull was not helping. You know, when you, you can't just come in when the others are done or done, you know,

you need to make decisions. And from what I hear, those things don't happen that often anymore. Like, you know, certain deals for a common interest between certain teams that doesn't happen anymore. And I think that's also one of the reasons why that breakaway got where

they were. And when, when it was time to really go, O'Connor put it in the sixth gear and they didn't have anything left in the bunch. Yeah. But I would be, I would be really,

really concerned because Ben O'Connor, no, he's not, he's no, I mean, if you look at this year's Giro d'Italia, right? So you have Pogacar who is on a different level, different competition. But, you know, Dani Martinez was on a super high level. Geraint Thomas was third. And Ben O'Connor is just behind, a few seconds behind those guys. You know, it's not that long ago that he proved that he can do it, riding with the best, not profiting from a breakaway, actually,

but being up there with everybody else. He has a pretty good team, I would say. You know, he has Felix Gall, who's riding really, really well. He does go to another team, but I mean, listen, Decathlon, I mean, if they're in a position to win a Grand Tour, they're going to kill for it, you know, even if the rider leaves. So I would be very concerned

if Ben O'Connor stays within himself and tries to, you know, limit his losses. Personally, I'm going to say, I would actually say that the biggest threat for Ben O'Connor after what I've seen in the last few stages, is becoming actually Enric Mas. Enric Mas is the best Enric Mas we've seen ever. He's been the guy who was able to follow Primoz in every single uphill.

And yesterday, he's the guy who managed to drop him. And Enric Mas is traditionally a different rider in the Vuelta than in any other stage race. By the way, Ben O'Connor is from Perth in Australia, which I've never been to Perth, but it gets hot.

We just talked about the heat. You talk about the sleet. Can he hold on? Can he stay within himself? Can he manage the field? Can he manage the heat? He grew up riding in super hot weather racing and i mean that's so that's not a guarantee that somebody can manage the heat but he's been exposed to it yeah but anyway after all we have to consider i think we are right now in the situation there's there's three right there's ben o'connor who's comfortably in the lead with three minutes 50 on primos and four and a half minutes on on the rate and rick mass i think those three are the best climbers but we have after yesterday's stage we have richard

carapaz got back into the race uh he's doing what he usually does he loses a bit a bit of time he did an amazing ride yesterday we have adamates, who gets back into the race. Personally, I have my doubts if Adam Yates is here for GC or not. But especially if you look at what's still to come. I mean, we've said in the pre-show,

George, in terms of terrain, the Tour of Spain is the hardest one of the three this year. It was 42,000 meters of climbing in the Giro, 53,000 in the Tour, and 62,000 in the Vuelta. And more than half of it is still in front

of us. Plus, in the favor of Primoz Roglic, we finished with a 24 kilometer time trial. So I think it's a very open race. And for now, I really don't dare to say, okay, this is the guy who's going to win. It's, it's very, very open. Well, could it come down, right?

You could see a world where they chip away, chip away, and he's got a minute going into, I mean, if he's, if he has, let's not get ahead of ourselves, but maybe, maybe we do. If he has a minute going into that final time trial, that's probably not enough, but obviously he's motivated and we'll see. Who knows? About time trial is, I didn't know.

No, but, but Roglic is, is I think Roglic is a minute better. Again, we're getting ahead of ourselves. That's crazy though. That stat,

what did you say? 42,000, 53,000 and 62,000. Yeah. That's with this heat. Yeah. And yesterday was this heat. Yeah. And yesterday was, or they both,

they all knew that climb really well. They all do training camps there. Apparently Roglic on some certain days, he would do that climb three times in one day. So would Sepkus in training camps. Um, Roglic said he didn't have a great day. He was backwards.

He definitely did not have a great day. We could see that. But on the days before, when he had a good day, he took 45 seconds out of them in a 4K climb or even less. But those are explosive efforts that we all know in a Grand Tour, they chip away, you know, their match is burned, which he wouldn't have had to do that had he, you know, kept them a little bit more in check.

But like you said, Johan, maybe they didn't have the option that day. They just weren't. They couldn't hold them under six minutes. And where is Ben O'Connor going next year? Dude, Jayco. Home team. Right. And they're in this race.

Obviously, yeah. Yeah, Whitey. Whitey's team. Exactly. Yeah. I think it's Whitey Whitey's team. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's a great move for him and for, for the team. And,

uh, and he's definitely going to feel a lot better. The guy doesn't speak French and the guys in, in, in Decathlon don't speak English. So, uh, it's going to be a good move for him.

So tomorrow's a tough day, Johan as well. Tomorrow's tough. I mean, it's a, well tomorrow is tough it's a difficult day after rest day so the advantage is now for the majority of the race they stay north they are in Galicia now they stay north so I spoke to Victor Rubo Peña who's

there and it's 8, 9 sometimes 10 degrees less so it's going to be a lot better instead of 39 it's 28, 29, sometimes 10 degrees less. So it's going to be a lot better. Instead of 39, it's 28, 29 degrees. That makes a big difference. Yeah. But the way the race is unfolding, I mean, we're going to have to see none of these, all these mountain stages are going to be opportunities

for Roglic and Moss to chip back time. We saw Moss ride away from Roglic yesterday. I think it's an exciting race. I think we're going to keep seeing a lot of really big attacks and I think it's going to keep us on our toes for the next 10 days. For sure.

There's a lot of parallels here between Ben O'Connor at the Tour of Spain and George at the Haute Route. You guys got about a five-minute lead. Yeah. And you got, you got one day leading by five minutes. Poppy is a lady.

He's got five minutes. You've got tomorrow. You've got, um, the metal, would you say the metal end? It was kind of, it was kind of funny today.

We're on the, this 32 clay time of the cold, the lowest. And I go, probably we're good. Like, I think we're, we're doing okay.

He's like, have you, the guy in second behind Poppypy or whatever play the nearest competitor to him as a Russian guy. He's like, have you heard any Russian today? I go, no.

He goes, okay, we're good. So, so far we're good. Wow. Yeah. He doesn't,

he didn't know who he was asking. I mean, George, say one word in Russian. Thank you. All right. Yeah. George, do they, I do.

And now I'm curious about this whole root thing. Does everybody start together? So you have to kind of, I mean, you might be next to a 30 year old and a 70. So you have to figure out. Okay. It's a really cool concept. Actually, you start together, neutral start, and then there's time section. So you have to figure out. Okay. It's a really cool concept. Actually. You start together, neutral start,

and then there's time section. So you don't, you only rate, like, for instance, tomorrow we just race up the Madeline and it's neutral. You can go as easy as you want. You can stop. Like we stopped for coffee the other day in the middle of the race, because it doesn't matter until the time section. So it's kind of unique in that sense. It is actually much safer. I mean, you don't want these guys, the examiner guys racing down these descents. We remember how dangerous they are and that's not a good thing.

So it's, it's good that they make us race up the climbs and not down them. That's cool. Yeah, it is. We are rooting for Pavel. We are rooting for Pavel. And we're, and we're very confident because we've ridden with this guy. Yeah. He'll do it. He'll do it. All right.

So we'll be back in a week. I mean, look, we'll see what happens this week. All things considered. I mean, look, it makes for an interesting race. Definitely. Kenny, hang on.

TBD exciting alright well I'll let you guys go to your George you're going to go to bed Johan you're still going to dinner apparently I need to go to dinner I delayed my dinner so I could be with you guys here for this show and you're over there with Noel

yep the whole crew I will tell all of them, the whole family. We're sorry that we had to delay their dinner because we're talking about 200 skinny guys riding around in spandex in Spain. Right. They will understand. Yeah, they will. All right, everybody. Thanks for tuning in.

We'll be back in a week to see what happens. Who knows? Okay. All right. See you next for tuning in. We'll be back in a week to see what happens. Who knows? Okay. All right. See you next week. Thanks, y'all. Beautiful Anonymous changes each week. It defies genres and expectations. For example, our most recent episode, I talked to a woman who survived a murder attempt by her own son. But just the week before that, we just talked the whole time about Star Trek. We've had other recent episodes about sexting in languages that are not your first language or what it's like to get weight loss surgery. It's unpredictable. It's real.

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