THEMOVE - Drafting Pro Cycling's Future Stars: 2026 Up and Comers | THEMOVE

Episode Date: February 2, 2026

Spencer Martin and Johan Bruyneel draft their top three unknown, but rising, stars prior to the 2026 season. They also grade last year's picks, discuss which standouts may ultimately become the new superstars of the sport, and whether the push for younger and younger talent is actually detrimental to young riders' development. Become a WEDŪ Member Today to Unlock VIP Access & Benefits: https://access.wedu.team OneSkin: Get 15% off OneSkin with the code THEMOVE at https://www.oneskin.co/THEMOVE  #oneskinpod    

We were debating before the show. Is Paul Sechoss? He's 19 now. He was 18 last year. Is he the best 18-year-old in the history of the sport? I would say probably. I think so. I think so.

I mean, obviously, it's difficult to say because, you know, until not very long ago, as an 18-year-old, you were not even entitled to race in the pros, right? I think Ramco was the bit of the pioneer. who changed that, you know, being 18, 19 and turned pro. But, but yeah, I mean, listen, he's the real deal, you know. Everybody, welcome back to the move. I'm Spencer Martin. I'm here with Johan Brunel.

And unlike our weekly show, the Move Plus, we are doing a deep dive into. If we do this annual, annually, Johan, it's tradition, the up-and-comers for the 20-26 season. The young riders, we're keeping a close eye on. We'll talk about it in the show. But it's getting harder and harder to do. because a lot of the riders that feature in the major races are getting younger. So we have to go even younger to find the next up-and-coming riders. And I'll list out the riders you called out last year.

And what you'll see is happening is you're calling out riders so young that then they're not even in the professional ranks the next year after. So we'll go through last year's list before we do this year's list. And we'll kind of talk about high. I think so there were some riders in here that exceeded what we thought they were capable of, even though we thought they were talented enough to be on that list, which is impressive. But the first writer you picked last year was Joe Blackmore.

So I'll just list them. Then we'll talk about ones we want to talk about Joe, Joe Blackmore, he went to, he was on Israel Premier Tech, Pablo Torres on UAEAT Memoritz, Teobor da Grasso on Alpacinaconic, Yarno Wildar on the Lado development team slash racing some for Lotto, Paul Seishas on the decathlon development team, racing some on the decathlon pro team. Jorgon Nordhagen for Envisma, Albert Wittsen-Philipson, Matthew Brennan. Let's talk about a call-out right there. We also mentioned Paul Manier and so Paul Manier Antonio Morgado,

Artem, and then the Americans from George were Artem Schmidt and Colby Simmons. Johan, there's some good names in there, some writers that really had breakout years. Do you want to talk about one before the others? Yeah, when I see this list again, Spencer, I think we, you know, we made a pretty good choice. obviously Matthew Brennan what a season I don't know how many races he won

but more than 10 I think because initially he started the season as on the development team of Visma and then he went back and forth and then finally I think they promoted him like fixed already on the World Tour team

but definitely I mean he was 19 years old last year a great season who else do we have Paul Sextas what to say about him right? We still need to talk about him this year I think

he's still 19 years old so it's still an up and comer although he has arrived already he was third in the European championships on the road this year in the elite and won the Tour de laveneer as an 123 rider but you know he is considered

the biggest talent and the French people are obviously waiting anxiously for him to start the Tour de France. I don't think that's going to be the case yet this season, but definitely those two have confirmed. Other riders, I mean, Yarno Wiedar also did the majority of his races on the development team, but won the European Championships, if I'm not mistaken, right? on a really, really hard course. And then Tibor del Grosso, Tipo del Grosso, I think that that rider is, you know, he comes from cyclocross,

initially pure cyclocross rider, started to try his luck on the road. I could see already a few really, really good races from him. I still remember his performances in the Tour of Catalonia, Volta Catalonia, which is a World Tour race. And now he's shown. that even in cycle cross he's the best behind matthew van der poul just recently on sunday finished second in the world championships cycle cross elite although he still was entitled to raise

the 123 and there's many others you know but i think those those names are probably the ones that that stick out the most that have confirmed to be really big big big talents yeah i would say I mean, all of those, all those guys are really good. Brendan, I think, had the most surprising year to me. I mean, I think he won 12 races last year, 12 pro races, which is ridiculous. We were debating before the show. Is Paul Sechoss? He's 19 now.

He was 18 last year. Is he the best 18-year-old in the history of the sport? I would say probably. I think so. I think so. I mean, obviously, it's difficult. good to say because, you know, until not very long ago, as an 18-year-old, you were not even entitled to race in the pros, right? I think Remko was a bit of the pioneer who changed that,

you know, being 18, 19 and turned pro. But yeah, I mean, listen, he's the real deal. You know, his first Dauphiné, I think he was top seven, seven or eight, and just before the Tour de France. I still remember. freshly this tour of the Alps where he raced with Decathlon and gave the stage to a teammate, was it Nicola Prudon? Yeah. He gave the stage because he said, yeah, you know, I'm going to give it to him because he's never won a race this rider.

And I'm still young. I'm going to have enough opportunities. Turns out that Nicola Prudom, I think, ended up the season with five or six races, race wins. And Paul Sechast didn't win a single one in the pros, right? He did win two of an 11 year and many other races. But anyways, he's a huge talent. I would say, I would say he's probably the best 18-year-olds we've ever seen. Yeah, which is impressive.

What if that's a sliding doors moment? Nicola Prudom goes on to win the Tour de France. Paul Seychas never wins a pro race because he gave that stage up. But he's very good. The best ever, I would say at 18. We'll talk about it later. but the key to all of this, you don't want to be the best 18 year old ever

in the history of the sport. You want to continue to improve and be maybe the best writer in the history of the sport. Like Pagotcha every year gets better. Like he's still improving. So if you want to, you know, compete against him,

you have to get better yourself. So the key to all of this, I just want to say it up top, all of these people are fantastic. They have to get better if they want to go on to win major pro races. Matthew Brennan, I think, I mean, he looks even better to me so far this year in the limited time we've seen him than he did last year.

So he's clearly improving. The key will be improvement. I re-listened to last year's show Lance was hinting that he wanted. It's like, oh, instead of just naming these, maybe we have some ranking system. So I thought we would each take, you know, this is a really limited list, six riders total, three for each of us. And then we have draft picks. So, you know, we pretend we're American teams, like American pros, sports teams and we're drafting the best prospects. So I'll let you go first, Johan.

And then you're going to say who your first draft pick is. If they if they allowed cycling teams to have a draft, imagine we each have the worst pro cycling teams. So we get first draft pick in the 2026 pro cycling draft. Who are you taking? Well, I mean, the issue we're having nowadays is a really, they're super young. And then on top of that, the guys, I'm going to pick, except the first one, but all three are 19 years old. And since we have this system now that the big teams have their development teams and they can switch them over during the season for certain races. So we don't really know how many professional races they're going to ride, right?

But I mean, it's come to a point now that when we had one guy here, I had one guy, he's 23. I mean, I still consider him a young writer. And he's not even, I mean, he doesn't come into contention here into what we're trying to debate. But my first pick is a Slovenian rider, 19 years old, Jacob Omersel. I checked the pronunciation. So it's definitely Omersel. Two years ago, one of our ex-rider. and good friend, Yanni Breikovic, I asked him, I said, who's a big Slovenian talent?

And he said back then, he said, Jacob Omersel. Turned out that he was right. You know, in 2025, he won the Giro d'Italia, what they call it, the baby Giro or the next gen. The next gen to tell you next gen. Next gen. Yeah. Yeah.

He won the Slovenian championships, all categories. So he is the reigning Slovenian champion. And he was also a fourth in the tour of Slovenia with the pros as a 19-year-old. You know, tall, tall, really tiny, you know, thin guy. You know, he's 1 meter 85, which is quite a tall. I mean, it's a bit over 6 foot. And he's 62 kilos. But looks great on the bike.

I think huge engine. So he's going to be my first pick of my three choices for this show, Jacob Omersel from Slovenia and he's writing for Bahrain. What is it? Bahrain, is it Bahrain victorious now? Yeah, Bahrain victorious. Okay, Bahrain victorious, yeah. We'll find out someday what the company victorious does.

But their run, but. No, it is. It's not going to. No, I know, I'm kidding. It's the team. It's the team of the prince, the prince of Bahrain, who is the owner of the team. And so he has a name for all of his teams. So he sponsors a lot of different sports.

He does endurance horse racing where he is actually double world champion, I think, himself. He's himself riding the horse. He has triathlon teams. Yeah, big triathlon team. Yeah, yeah. He's a big triathlete himself, super fit guy. Yeah. I live in Boulder, Colorado.

It's the home of triathlon. You see a lot of Bahrain victorious kits around for triathlon. And we should say to be eligible for this, we only did ride. It's the oldest you could be as 20 years old racing at 20 in the 20, 26 season. And you couldn't have been mentioned last year. So, you know, if we were just doing this, I would probably just say, Paul Monnier, that's my up-and-comer. And he's going to go out and win 15 races. And I'd look like a genius.

But, you know, we already mentioned Paul Monier. Paul Monnier has already been a pro in years before this. So this is a really limited pool we're picking. We're not limited, but this window is smaller that, you know, we're not picking Palseshaas. That would also be someone that would be a slam dunk to pick. I'm going to go with my number one draft pick, Lorenzo Finn, 19-year-old Italian on Red Bull.

Like Johan said, he's on the Red Bull Bora Hansgroil Rookies team, but he also could be racing. He probably will do races for the senior team this year. We already did the team time trial at the Challenge, Majorca, the victorious team time trial team for Red Bull with Remko, Evanapole, and Florian Lipowitz on it. That's, you know, if they're throwing you in there at 19 and they're practicing their tour to France time trailing, that's a pretty big, pretty big honor. But he is the, his, I guess, claim to fame, let's say, is he won the U-23 World Championship last year in Rwanda. And you might say, well, what's the big deal about that? U-23.

Not it's not as prestigious that it used to be. Well, I believe he was the youngest rider in the U-23 World Championship race, and he won the junior race the year before. So in consecutive years, he won the Junior World Championship Road Race and then backed it up with a U-23 World Championship Road Race. So it might not sound like a lot, but if you're 18 years old racing against riders that are just about 23, that is a massive physical gap. It's about half, like the most important half decade of your development, and he beat them all.

So very, very, very good rider. And to stress how young these guys are, I was talking to someone at Ruler Live, a young, what I thought is a child walked up to this person to talk to them. And I thought it was just a fan. It was another podcast. I thought I was just like, oh, look at this kid. This kid like cycling podcast. How sweet. No, it was Lorenzo Finn.

I thought he was just a kid walking around the show by himself. But it really like hammered home how young these guys are and what we expect from them at such a young age. But I think Lorenzo Finn, big talent. I believe he has a British parent. You know, his name is last time is Finn. He's Italian. I think he grew up in Italy, but with a British parent. So he speaks perfect English.

He speaks British. He speaks British. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. It's Lorenzo Mark Finn is his full name, I think. I think, yeah, speaks perfect English. One of both, one of his parents is, I mean, probably his dad, who's English. Yeah, I would assume with his, with his last name being Finn, but it also helps your career, too, because if you speak Italian and English fluent, especially modern cycling, where everybody want, you know, the big teams want you, you know, the big teams, allows you to move teams easier, gives you access just to different perspectives.

But I think he's going to be a big talent in the coming years. Yeah. Yeah, for sure, for sure. My second choice is Spanish writer, also 19 years old. He's now on the UAE, what is it called, UAE Gen Z team called Adria Pericas. Adria Pericas, he's a climber, but he's a very complete rider. He's repeatedly named among the best next wave of climbers and grand tour. talents. And I've seen some races of him. He's, you know, he dares to race, dares to attack.

Very strong rider. Adria Pericas, 19 years old. Small guy, super light. But, you know, top, he's, I think he's top top in his category. I don't know what his results were in the worlds, but I think he was up there too. Top 10, it was ninth at U23 Worlds. Yeah. Which is, I mean, it was. he, if I'm not mistaken, he was the writer that was popped off Remko's wheel the other day. No. No, that's another rider. I'm going to name him as my third choice.

Okay. Yeah. All right. I think I actually incorrectly said Antonio Margato was the guy. Oh, no, sorry. Sorry. So, no, you're right. You're right, Spencer.

I only remember because I went back to double check myself. You're right. He was in the breakaway. And he was the last rider to stay on the wheel of Remko. and actually he stayed on the wheel of Remko, even if he was during the hall climb, the college player, and he got dropped in the downhill,

which was a bit strange. Yeah, what, did we ever, I mean, I guess if you're 19 and you're not used to the descent, I was surprised, yeah,

that he got dropped on the descent because, you know, it also shows you. You could also say, I mean, I also think that Remko has improved a lot in the downhill. Yes, and I was going to say it shows you how good these top pros are at dissent.

Yeah. That you can be. a top you 23 rider and a poor dissender can drop you on the descent. He also, I bet he's done that dissent a lot in the last few weeks because I think they've been posted up in Myrica. Yeah. I think that's a great pick. This guy's really, to be the last rider dropped by Remko in that race is super impressive.

Yeah. My second draft pick, this is a real, this is a bit of an oddball pick out of left field. I'm taking a risk with this one. But you know, you don't want to follow the herd. You're not going to stand out. I'm going to Jan Huber. Uber on Tudor Pro Cycling. He's on the U23 team.

He's 20 years old. He got second at the championships. We just discussed the World. U23 championships. He was second behind Lorenzo Finn. And the reason I'm picking him, other than I think he has a nice little Palmeres, he got fifth at gravel race, burn. that that's a huge, a huge one.

But it has like good, good results at Swiss, you know, pro continental level racing, which at 19 years old is impressive. But really, if you, this did not used to be the case. But if you go through the podium finishers of the U23 World Championships and especially pick younger riders who do well, it's actually shocking the success rate. It didn't, like it used to, the data used to be a lot messier. But like 2023, do you know who got second at U23 World Championships? 2023, where was it?

It was in Glasgow. Antonio Morgado. Exactly. And then you know who got second the year before that? And Wollong, Matthias Vacek. So pretty good. Oh, wow. I mean, in this 2022 one in particular, you had the, the German guy, Herzog won.

No, it was actually. Evgeny Federov? Federov. Federov. He's a good rider. And then Soren Walkinschold was third. Mattis Mikuls was fourth. Fifth was Olaf Koi.

Six is Pavel Bittner. Those are all extremely good riders. Yeah. Yeah, that's definitely something that has changed a lot in the last five, six, seven years. Because I remember before, you know, guys who were dominating the world championships, under 23 and some of them, most of them.

They didn't even make it. Most of them. Yeah. You look at these, you know, I went back and looked at Tadei Pagatra. He's not that old. The U23 Slovenian national championships, I believe Pagachar was ninth. There's not a single other rider in that race that's a current professional. And that was not unusual for a long time.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know what's changed, but I guess you're seeing riders hit their peak or hit their full potential earlier. So you get cleaner, cleaner data from that. But yeah,

I'm going to Jan Hoover. That course was incredibly hard to. So if you get second on that course, it's not a fluky. There's no Copenhagen World Championship course. Yeah, for sure. He must be a big engine.

Yeah. But my third choice is another writer from Spain. So Pericas is from Spain. It's also young, 19 years old, Hector Alvarez. He's on the Little Track Development Team. He was fourth at the World Championships in Kigali, third in the European Championships.

Two very, very, very hard races. And if you look at his build, you know, the guy is super tall. He's 1 meter 90 centimeters and he's 74 kilos. and to be fourth in Kigali and third in France with that weight, that means you have a huge engine. And then, so anyway, he's considered as, you know, a really, really top talent here in Spain. Little Freck was, you know, right to sign him.

And he already proved straight away. It's only, of course, you know, the season just started. It's only the challenge Majorca. But he, on the first stage, it was really bad. better up and down. There were a few climbs and he was the only guy who was with Antonio Morgado. They came both to the finish in really, really bad conditions, bad weather. And I had the impression that in the last part of the race, he was actually stronger than Mugado. He got second because Morgado beat him in the sprint.

But to say that, you know, 19 years old, first race with the pros and straight away second and also taking the initiative. You know, it's not like, okay, it's a guy who's in the wheels, and then finally the situation turns in his favor at the end. He really made the race in the last 40, 50K and finished second. So definitely, Hector Alvarez from Benidorm, I think, or in that area. Yeah. Definitely a name to follow. It's a good sign, a good, I guess, predictive measurement is if you're that, if you're, if you're, frame is that big but you're doing that well on extremely tough courses it's like that you said you

must be up a massive engine that's a good thing to look for my third pick is leo leo leo leo leo biso bezo so on decathlon the decafalon i believe he's on the senior team i believe the world tour team he was on the development team in years past oh he's only 20 years old i remember him being junior world championship cycle crossmancer this guy. Probably like two years ago, three years ago? Which is wild that he could have a result that

old at only 20. Bit of an odd ball pick as well. I mean, he's, he raced, his guy's 20, he's already raced the Volta Spagna, he raced it last year, was in multiple breakaways, which is not, you know, it's not easy to get in any breakaway at any race, but to get in

breakaways. At that age, and a grand tour is impressive. The thing that really stuck out to me, though, is Valta Burgos, which you might not think of, that's not the biggest race in the world. But he won a stage there ahead of very good riders. He wins a stage ahead of Julio Chocone, Julio Pellizare, Isaac Del Toro, Lorenzo, Fortunato, which is, those are very good riders. Also, the G.C of that race. That's won by Del Toro. Fortunato second. He was third ahead of Pellizari, ahead of Chaconne, ahead of Igana, ahead of Toursen, Train, who we know was on very good form. these are really good senior riders operating at the peak of their powers

and he's beating or competing competing with them or beating them which is not easy to do I do think that I also think that team has a lot we talk about Paul Sey Shas he's on that team as well it's a very good core they seem to be doing a good job of developing riders so I would go with Leo Bissot as someone to watch out for in 2026 yeah yeah I agree I agree It's very, very thin, very, looks, he looks very fragile. I saw him. He was, he was in the World Championship Cyclocross again also this year, the last weekend

in the 123, but he, I mean, I don't know if he had a problem. He was up there for a moment and then he finally kind of fell back a little bit. But, but yeah, really, really, really big talent. I agree. I like to see riders, too, that are just capable, cross riders because it tells you they have you know like an extra gear in terms of bike handling because you see a lot of riders they could come in and rack up

results in junior races um u23 races maybe they don't have the best handling but if you're doing cross racing it shows that you definitely have some sort of handling but let's take a quick break yohan and then we'll talk about the riders that didn't make this list and then a few trends you know a few larger trends and then question like is is any of this good for the riders like do you want to be good this young. What's the key to a long career and getting results later? But we'll be right back after this. Everybody, this episode is brought to you by One Skin. What I like most about One Skin is how

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try one skin with 15% off using code the move at one skin.co slash the move. That's O-N-E skin.com.com.com slash the move. That's 15% off at oneskin.com at one-skin.co with code the move. After you purchase, they'll ask you where you heard about them. Please support the show by saying the move. Again, one skin.com slash to move. All right, let's get back to the episode. Okay, Johan, so we'll just call this the honorable mention section.

And then we'll also shout out a few Americans for our American audience. But are there any riders that you were on the fence with and didn't make this? And can you explain why they didn't make the cut? I mean, there's many because if we're only able to pick three, there's many. You know, there's one rider, for example, who I think will, and it's still the question also. Let's not forget, most of these writers are on these development team. So they have a big program already. And so, you know, they try them out now and then with the pros.

But, you know, normally they should, for their own development, do a normal program in the development in the under 23 category. One rider, I forgot his first name now, but his printer is called Magagnoti. 19 years old. He's on the development team of the Red Bull Rookies. I just saw him finishing third in his first professional race in Majorca, a bunch sprint. He's a sprinter. He won 15 races last year.

15 races as a first, was it? No, I think it was a first year development. So first year under 23, I think. Last year he won 15 races already. So he's a pure sprinter. Like, he's super strong build. But I think that guy is going to win. a lot of races already in 2026, but for sure in the future.

He's super fast. His name is Alessio, Alessio, Alessio. Alessio, Alessio, Alessio. Yeah. Very big talent, very good writer, as you say. Actually, I'm trying to, I, God, I have this vague memory of, might have been 2018 Tour California, a young sprinter from Belgium. I mean, this guy must have been in his teens.

I know who you're going to say. Yeah. Making noise at the front of, I mean, it's very hard to be a teenager in sprinting as well as Alessio is. And this young sprinter came in and just, I just remember being blown away by his confidence and his ability. And that sprinter is yes for Philipson. And probably is, when we were debating this, I think, off Mike, but probably is the current, currently the best sprinter in the world, at least in Grand Tours. So, yeah, he was on the team of Axel Merck's, no? Yeah, he was on Hagen, Huggins, Bremen.

Hagen's Bremen. Yeah. Yeah, which it was almost 10 years ago at this point. That's crazy all the time is flying. But he really stuck out to me. I mean, to go in and be a teenager and mix it up in these bunch prints like we saw the other day. I think that was Saturday or Sunday, not easy to do as a teenager. And it does speak well of their confidence and ability to stay up there as they get older.

Yeah. Someone I, well, I feel like you let off as such a strong one there. It makes it hard to back to back anything up. but somebody I considered picking, didn't pick. I watched this guy win a stage of the tour of Alsace in person in 2024. And it followed him since is Noah Hobbs. He's on EF education, easy post. Sprinter, kind of like a sprinter all-rounder.

But, yeah, 21 big talent. I would keep an eye on him for, you know, he won the points classification at Tour de Lavenere this last year. He's the type, Matthew Brennan type. Yes. Yes. Yeah. And I believe he is a brother, Henry Hobbs, who is on the Bisma. Two brothers.

Yeah. But exactly. It reminds me a lot of Matthew Brennan. I believe actually older than Matthew Brennan, if you can believe it. But good rider knows how to win, powerful, versatile, all the things you want. There's another rider. I mean, he doesn't qualify for, I mean, but Noah Hobbs also doesn't qualify because he's already, is he 21 already? Yeah.

Yeah, DQ for being 21. Another rider. I'm just going to check his age. He's 21-2, but I've seen him already in great shape in the first races. Colombian rider on Team Movistar is called Diego Pescador. A really good climber, 60 kilos, pure climber. And he was in the front. I mean, I think he got second which race was Scarcer.

Scaroni won and Diego Pescador was second and Tiberi was third. I mean, to come in like this in your first races in the in the pros, it's quite something, you know. Yeah. And I've seen him active in a lot of other races. He did a few stages in Mallorca also. So 21 years old, but definitely Diego Pescador, a big climber. Yeah, I actually do remember, I remember watching this race a couple weeks ago, did not. know who this guy was. That is a big result to fly into the scene with. Another rider I'm

going to go with, he's not too old. He's 19. He's on another guy from DeKathlon. Abin Sparfel, he's a French writer. Another one of these ultra light. He's in, it must be in 50 kilos. I picked Leo Leo over him, but he won the points classification at the Gero Next Gen. podiumed a couple stages. One, the Iseray Tour. Do you know this race, Johan? The what? The Alp Isare Tour.

Alp Iserre. Alp Iser. A lot of good riders in that race this year. One that didn't quite make the cut, but I think he's a very good rider. I'm just not holding a California contingent. I saw him win a professional race last year. So he must have been 18 last year And in France somewhere

I don't know if it was Tour de Limousin or tour He won a stage there in one of those races If you have his Palmerizer in front of you He won a race in France Nozona was a stage A stage in one of those races Was it Tour de Finestre?

Finisd could be could be Yeah. Because he beat older, like, Bastion, Trunchin. He's 23. So he must. It was a pro race. It was a pro race. Yeah, that's got to be a pro race.

Yeah, yeah. It's Tour of Alsace. Is that a U-23 race? Or does just younger riders tend to race it? I think so. It's not a pro race. I mean, it's not a professional race, but. Because he won a stage.

I'm going to guess. Pro teams could probably participate. I don't know. Yeah. Yeah, I didn't quite, like I'm looking, we don't need to get into this, but yeah, I've been wondering that because you will see an odd older rider there. So maybe it's not technically a U-23 race. But do you have one more honorable mention? Honorable mention, let me check.

I mean, we've already talked about. We have a huge list here. Yeah, yeah, yeah. One guy that, I think, I mean, for example, Pablo Torres last year, we mentioned him as being this huge talent. He is a huge talent. He did this incredible ride on Col de Finestre, broke the record. I'm going to guess it's now probably Simon Yates who had the record. But I do remember he won that stage in Tour de lavenere.

He did four minutes faster in Prist Frum. but he had a bad crash. He had a really bad crash. I think in tour of Hungary. And I saw the crash and I spoke with his mom actually because he, Pablo Torres has a brother who now also went to the Gen Z, Chaimé Torres. He's now also in Gen Z of UAE. And I saw them at a race here and I asked her about the crash and it was really bad.

He heard his neck really bad and was out for months, months. So he hasn't been able to show his potential, but that guy has a big, really good climber. Yeah, I mean, I was listening to last year's show today and the stats you're thrown out for him. We're super impressive. Yeah. I mean, yeah, to beat Chris Frum's time on that climb by four minutes when Chris Frum was going all out, not easy to do. I'm looking at the Strava segment right now. Simon Yates has clocked at sub hour, 59 minutes, eight seconds.

That's pretty hard to do. Climb that long. That's crazy. He's not on here. I wonder if they, sometimes on these Strava segments, if you don't do the exact right approach. They came from further down and, yeah, I don't remember exactly. There was something different on the segment. Yeah, if you do anything different than you get bucketed into another segment.

I can try to find it in a second. But, you know, there's just like Markell Balaki on EF Education Easy Post. I assume that's Yoseva Blokky's son. It is his son, yeah. Yeah. Turn pro when he was 18 straight away to EF to the pro team. Well, and then I'm going to ask you about that in a second. And then just U.S. writers, last year I had George Ther, Ardham Schmidt and Colby Simmons,

who I would still say both of those writers to watch. Someone that I've been watching and he's only, Only 20 years old, technically would have been eligible for this, is AJ August. Andrew AJ August, this is full name. He's on INEOS. Oddly, a lot of very good young U.S. riders on INEOS. But he's someone that I don't know if he was, he turned pro very early. I think he was 18 when he joined that team.

And then you just get thrown, you know, you're thrown into the fire. Like you look at his calendar last year. it's all big races like tour of Norway, tour of the Alps, tour Switzerland, Fulte Burgos, Deutsche Land Tour,

Tour of Britain. And, you know, not, I don't want to say struggle to find his footing, but those are big, fast races to be in

right away as a pro. But that is someone I'm watching with hope for, you know, he's only 20 years old. So he has this next pro season, he will be 20 for all of it. Yeah.

I think he could, he's someone that could develop into a very, very, very good. No, he's a really good rider, Spencer. I remember three or maybe four years ago, three years ago probably. He was 17. He won the cyclocross on the Koppenberg, which is considered one of the hardest ones in Belgium.

He was part of the USA Cycling, like the Cyclercross Academy. And then it turns out like his first year, which was 2024, he was 18 years old. We had a trip with, we do travel. And we did Pari Roubaix with a group of American cyclotourists. And his parents asked me, like he got called up last minute in his first year professional as an 18-year-old to do Pari-Rubé. Why did they do that? That's crazy.

And so his parents were with me in the van the whole day. And, you know, they explained a bit about him. So very, I mean, very nice people. And I think AJ finished the race because I waited with his dad in the velodrome until he came in and they put him out of the time limit. So he finished out of the time limit. But yeah, I don't know. I had expected a bit more, but maybe we don't know if something happened if he had an illness or an injury or maybe took some time to adjust to the, you know, a different regime as a professional cyclist, right?

Let's not forget that these young kids of 18 years old, they have to come over. They have to straight away, make it, you know, find their life here in Europe. They have to have a base. They have to be here five, six, seven months of the season. So it's not easy to adapt to that different lifestyle. Yeah, to explain how steep this curve is. So fall 2023, he does Green Mountain State. race. That's like the type of race I would

have done. So it is a green mountain which is a hard like U.S. race, but it's fourth place at that. It's not a high level professional race. The spring of 2024, so mere months later, he's doing UA tour and Perry Rubet.

That's a big jump really fast for someone that young. I and I guess this takes me to my next point, my next question, Johan. Should riders be going pro this young? Like, does this serve them? I mean, I guess it's all a case-by-case basis would be the boring answer. But should some riders think about not going to the world tour that young? Or is it,

do the positives outweigh the negatives? Because you're inside the, you know, the apparatus of a very professionally run team. Maybe that's better than racing U-23. I don't know. I don't know. I mean, I think, I think the 18, 19-year-olds that can turn pro and that is justified for them to turn pro, in my opinion, Spencer, you can count them on the fingers on one hand. You have to be a big talent and, you know, to be able to, the thing is that the way the teams are set up now, it's, there is this comfortable zone where you are part of the development team and they switch you now and then to the, to the professional races. But I think that, I mean, if I would be, uh, I would have a voice and I don't have a voice,

of course, but I would make the under 23 category at least mandatory one year. They need to be one year under 23 at least and even two. The thing is that now the young guys, they, you know, it's like if they're not getting picked up as a junior by somewhat of a affiliate team with a professional team, it's like they consider that they failed. And that's, I think that's a shame because there is. a lot of talent that needs a bit more time to mature, a bit more time to develop.

But it's so easy to lose your motivation. If you see that there's three or four guys who are all of a sudden picked up and they get all the nice stuff and the bikes and the gear and you still are with your club as a junior or even as an 123 rider. But, you know, there's no, there's no signs that says that you cannot all of a sudden at 19, 20, 21, you can keep making steps. And that brings me to my next point is that, yes, there are talents, big talents, and they're 18, 19, and they have incredible performances.

The question is, how much can they still improve? And it's not just on the physical part, but also mentally. And I think that's the biggest challenge right now is that you see these young talents, they are focused and everything is fine-tuned and optimized when they're 17, 18 years old. Then I ask myself, okay, what can they still do to get better? Because they have the best trainers. They have the best bikes. You know, if you're on Red Bull, for example, or what is called Grenke or Sudal or Jag,

which is Visma or as a junior, you already have the equipment of the pros. Right? They write the S works and the big time trial bikes and they have buses and they have all the staff. And, you know, where can you still get better? And, you know, the big talents will keep improving. But I think that there's too much focus and optimization already so early that at some point, and you see it all the time. You know, I don't want to sound like a negative old grumpy guy, you know, but you see riders of 19. 20 years old, that they all of a sudden say, okay, you know what?

This is it. You know, I don't want to do this anymore. I'm sick of it. I'm doing everything you can think of. And I am just a normal guy. And so we need to ask ourselves the questions. Are these 18, 19 year olds that we are mentioning? Are they already completely specialized and focused and optimized with, you know,

how much can they do more? to improve a part of their physical development was you would think that normally physically when you're 18, 19, you still get stronger when you're 20, 21, 22. You still should get stronger. Yeah, I believe. I mean, that's why you look for people like Isaac Altoro who had, you know, looked at a time trial bike and said, what's that? I've never been on one of those.

That should be a sign, like a flashing green flag of like this guy has a lot of room to improve. Were you saying, I believe, you might have told. me this, that someone on one of the teams looks at training peak files. And if you're an 18 year old who trains more than 15 hours a week, they don't want to sign you. Is that correct? That was the case. That's true. That was the case until two, three, four years ago. Okay. But now they can't maintain that criteria anymore because the thing is that if nowadays you train 12 to 14 hours as a junior, you're probably not going to be that good because you're competing against guys who trained 20 hours.

Yeah. Yeah. Part of me, one. So, I mean, the other side of this argument is someone like Quinn Simmons. He wins Junior World Championships in 2019. I always, and then he went, he went pro. He went to Trexsig Afreda. That's an exact.

That's one of those exceptions. Yeah. And I always thought, you know, I don't hate that because Quinn Simmons go, why does Quinn Simmons need to go live in a leaky basement in France and make $15,000 a year on a U-23 team. He's not going to benefit from that. If anything, you could hurt him because Quinn Simmons racing U-23 is going to instill bad habits in him because he's going to be so much better than everybody else.

But this is the big debate in the U.S. for basketball. I believe you have to go spend a year in college no matter how good you are. Players used to go straight to the NBA. The NBA team said, well, this is kind of hard. We got guys coming in who don't know anything about life and now they're on our team. So actually the teams made a rule that you have to spend a year in college. so everything gets sorted out there. But as you say, there's so few people, I believe, that should go from junior amateur to the top level.

Yeah, it makes me wonder if the masses are best served by this. But here's another question I have. How much are these riders getting paid? Probably a lot of money. Everybody we mentioned right now, like what type of contract would they be on with these teams? I don't know. I don't know. But yeah, I mean, straight away, they make good money. Not big money, but good money. Probably hundreds of thousands of euros, right? Probably.

And yeah, I mean, setting aside the weirdness of being 18, 19, 20 and making 400,000 euros a year, will there become more, you know, will basically the arms race for these ultra-talented riders that can go from junior to, pros get so hot that team start like would the market then start to value well riders who slowly develop in the U23 like maybe look at a 23 24 year old who's been passed over you're going to get him for a lot less money than a hot 19 year old I mean listen I know I know a writer I mean he's not even he's he's not even 123 yet he's junior and you know he's already signed with a big team for not for next year, but for the year after, for a million a year.

That's insane. But that's also the craziness and this, as you say, this arm's race amongst those teams like, okay, we need to have this guy. And, you know, they're chasing these guys. And at the end, you know, okay, I mean, what do you want to say? You know, I mean, if you're 17 or 16, because he was 16 when they offered him. that money. I mean, you have to say yes. There's no way you can say no. You have to take it. Yeah. Yes, you absolutely. I won't take that. Can you imagine turning that down? You're like,

now I'm going to go raise for a couple, couple grand a month, 23 ranks. That's what I want. Oh, it's a problem for the parents also. You know, I mean, as the parents, I mean, how do you deal with that situation? Yeah. Can you imagine that if Christian was making a million euros a year next year? I would say sign it with a permanent marker. The problem is a problem is Christian would probably be spending

about a million euros a year. Like if you have that much money coming in at that age, if there's no safety net around, you know, which you see a lot in Europe with football players, for example. It's a, you cannot keep your your head straight as a young teenager, right? if you're making those amounts of money.

Yes, it can cause a lot of problems. That's why, I mean, just a big leg up in life, I guess, as being from a stable household with parents that you have contact with because it can help you a lot in those situations. But so let's say, wow, arms race to sign these riders. You're looking at a team. Like, I was shocked. I talked about DeKathlone.

They have a lot of very young good routers. But the team that I didn't expect to is EF. I was looking at EF's roster. I was surprised how like George Steinhauser, York, I perceive him to be old. He's only 24. And then you have someone like Luke Lampurdy, Mattis Meekles, he's only 22.

He's a very good young writer, Colby Simmons, Michael Leonard, Noah Hobbs, who we mentioned Markle Bellaki, and they have an 18-year-old in 100 years well. So the team like that, like they've recruited very well. They have all these young riders. on Friday they just put out a call for basically more money saying we need a title sponsor come in because I assume they're thinking we're going to lose all these riders when their contracts are up.

We don't have the money. If they develop into very good riders, we don't have the money to resign them. We're just basically developing riders for other teams, which is I don't know if I've ever seen a team just put out a call for, hey, do you want to come partner with us because we need more money? Kind of an interesting decision. But am I also right in thinking? It's going to be hard to wrap your head around. You were talking about you can switch. You can, you know, you can race for development team or the pro team in the same season.

Yeah, but you cannot do world two races. You cannot do world two. Okay, okay. But that is a good chunk of the calendar you can do. Yeah, yeah. So does that mean since Enios didn't have a true development team until just recently, like someone like AJ August couldn't, you know, couldn't do the smaller races and, yeah. Yeah, because until, I mean, now they start in 2006, right, with their proper and own development team,

but before they had a collaboration with a German team, and I don't know if there it was possible to switch them over. But it's, you know, it's better to have your own structure. And, you know, for a team like in Eos, you have to, you know, you have to have a development team. And I'm going to even go further. I mean, most of those teams, they're also going to have junior teams. You know, like UAE is building their own junior team for the future. So the A Quick Step already has it. Red Bull has it.

Visma has it. I mean, it's a different name, but it's the same team. So that's the best, you know. And then of course, you can see how these riders, develop and you know the background, you know the personal situation of the riders, which is super important, I think, to know, you know, their families and their whole background, right? Because it's not just the numbers and the power output, you need to know the mentality of a rider and how they can deal with stress situations, which is something that also sometimes is a bit

neglected, I think, in modern cycling. Yeah, I guess it makes it... If you were weighing up, if you're a writer, like, well, I'm going to go to Enos. This is, let's say, Nios, two years ago. But I'm on the World Tour team, and there's no negotiation there versus you go to Red Bull. And they, you know, you can oscillate between the development team, even the junior team, development team and the pro team.

And it's all one integrated structure. That's a huge advantage for the riders to have. Yeah. I believe is our friend George, his son is on the junior team. The Grinke team is the Red Bull team for juniors, yeah. Okay. So then you could, in theory, spend your whole career, you could go junior, U23, senior team, all within the Red Bull structure.

Yeah. Correct? Yeah. Which that is a massive advantage. I mean, think of if you don't have that and then you're stuck, you know, think of Ineos. They've been having, they had to sign Oscar Onley for allegedly six million euros. if they have that full structure in place, maybe onlies with them from the time he's a junior.

Yeah, you could probably save a lot of money that way, even though you're spending a lot of money on these teams. Yeah, for sure. Also, we should shout out, speaking of George. And this is a good, this actually loops into what we're talking about. Brian Byron, Muntin on Modern Adventure ProSciping. Yeah, yeah. What a signing.

Yeah. Second in the high. hardest stage and 30 tour, I think. No, no, not third in GC because he must have lost flat races in one of those flat stages with the wind. But yeah, that was

quite the performance, man. That guy yeah, I know, afterwards I did some checking. He raced in Portugal in the past and he won a stage in the tour of Portugal and I think top three in GC,

probably. Yeah, third and 2025, which you don't know, that's a really hard race. It's hard. It's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's a hard race. It's a very hard race. You could just have a protein where you sign, you look at people who did well at Volta Portugal and just sign them and you're going to have pretty good riders. But this guy's 27 years old. I frankly, I've never heard of them before and shows up. Yeah, it gets second on the queen stage, really hard stage. And Spencer, especially the way he got that. It's not like he took advantage of circumstances. He was there. He was there. He was

there on the hardest climb and then he attacked himself on the on the flat part afterwards and uh yeah really big performance i mean john christian won the stage won the overall but he's only 11 seconds in front of and this was an all out the climb's brutal all out plateau to the finish but that shows you there are riders let's say you miss this this entire wave we've just discussed there's still a chance for you as a writer and then as a team i mean there's a lot of talent clearly just floating around that, let's say, 24 to 29-year-old age that you're deemed too old for a lot of teams. But kudos to modern adventure for seeing that and signing them. Absolutely, yeah.

Yeah, that is a serious result. And the irony of everything we've just discussed is like Paul Sechoss. Like if he does not, these people you perceive them to be so good, as we said, the best 18-year-old ever, if he doesn't get any better well then let's say eighth place at Dofine you're like well that's a nice rider but that's not a star so you

still have to just continue to improve and that's the tricky thing with what you mentioned if everyone's training at the top level I think Spencer I mean the level he has now is already with the best of the best right I mean third in the European championships top 10 in the world

I think also was he not seven or eight No, you got 13th. He fell off a little bit at the end of that. But the super impressive thing is he's sending to get better between worlds and European championships. And two of Lombardy, he was up there? Seventh, which is a big result for 18 years. That level is already top, top, top, right? He just needs to be a bit more consistent and a bit more endurance. And yeah, he's going to be fine.

Yeah, he's the real deal, man. Yeah, I mean, he was, so World Championships was what, September 2,000, 28th. European championships is October 5th. He actually did look quite a bit better by by just the week and a half in between those two races, which is impressive. Anybody else we're missing before you were, before we take off? No, I think we, you know, there's all the riders, but, you know, I think the main big talents, I think we've named them with those six riders. Who wins the young riders jersey? at the Tour de France

I think is Remko still qualifying? There's no way right I think you have to be hold on to say they got to change this they have to change it yeah they have to change it he's 20 he's turning

he's 26 I think he's 26 already yeah I think you have to be under 26 okay you know del Toro no yeah I mean if he gets there

I don't see, yeah, that would seem to be the obvious one. Yeah. Who is only, he's not on this list. Was he on the list last year? No, because he was on the list the year before. The year before. The year before. He's only 22 years old.

Last year was already his full year as a pro. Yeah. I mean, I'm going to go ahead, I'm going to go out on a limb and say, I think of all these writers we just discussed, Isaac Del Toro. he's going to be the best of this generation. The currently 18 to 22 year old. Yeah, I think I agree with that. And I know he biffed the zero,

but the way he came back from that and put together like an 18 or 19 win season. I don't think I've ever seen him to do that. Number two on the world ranking. Yeah. Of 2025. And his first true. Yeah.

I heard a story that he showed, he went to the, this was not that long ago. He went to the Colanago office, like the HQ, to buy a time trial bike. And they sold him a used one. This was like recently. So that shows you how much, it's the secret, right? The key to all of us is finding these riders who have a lot of room left to grow. And I think that's, yeah, for sure.

Got to be hard for teams to figure out. But thanks, Johan, and we'll be back. We got some racing. Some, what racing do we have this week? Volta Catalul, not Catalonia. Volta Valenciana. Valenciana. And so we will be back. And then also soon is the UAE tour, no?

It is soon. The UAE tour starts on these European dates always get me. It starts two days after Valentine's Day. So February 16th is when the UAE tour starts. Yeah. But we'll be talking to Valenciana on Friday when we come back for a week of the show.