THEMOVE - Giro d'Italia Stage 13 Analysis & Stage 14 Preview | THEMOVE+

Episode Date: May 23, 2025

Johan Bruyneel and Spencer Martin break down Mads Pedersen's thrilling win over Wout van Aert on Stage 13 of the Giro d'Italia, where Isaac del Toro continued to collect time bonuses, as well as a small gap over the others at the finish line, to extend his race lead. They discuss a few takeaways from the stage before previewing tomorrow's Stage 14, predicting who will win, how the action will play out, and which riders present the best betting value. 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. Manukora: Now, it’s easier than ever to try Manukora Honey. Head to https://MANUKORA.com/THEMOVE to save up to 31% plus $25 worth of free gifts with the Starter Kit, which comes with an MGO 850+ Manuka Honey jar, 5 honey travel sticks, a wooden spoon, and a guidebook! ● That’s https://MANUKORA.com/THEMOVE to save 31% plus $25 worth of free gifts.

And we were talking about how like really good cyclists actually sometimes are. They don't they're very I don't know how to phrase this. They might not be the best at like understanding the mentality of the normal rider because they're so good. But Lance Armstrong once told me he's like, when it when your countryman starts doing well, you start doing well because you see that guy doing well and you want to be better. And it's like, well, I think if you're not as talented,

that actually gets more complicated than that. Everybody welcome back to be better. And it's like, well, I think if you're not as talented, that actually is more complicated than that. Hey everybody, welcome back to the move plus. I'm Spencer Martin. I'm here with the Johan Bernal. We are breaking down stage 13 of the Giro d'Italia. And then we'll get Johan's take on who's going to win tomorrow's stage 14. But just a quick recap.

It was a strange day, a flat day through the Po Valley and the Veneto, but marked by maybe every steep climb they could find. And it had a tough find. There was a, I guess, late stage categorized climb that Enio's pressed the pace on. And then it went into a tough final circuit and Vicenza, the finished town,

it looked like it maybe would have some GC implications, but outside of Isaac del Toro taking in some time bonuses and his teammate, Juan, I used to take in a few more. We'll talk about that. It went into a strange mix between a sprint finish and a climber finish. I don't know how to quite explain that,

but Mads Pedersen, while Benart go one, two, Mads Pedersen wins over Benart. Super impressive for both of them. Open up a gap on the rest of the field. Isaac Del Toro is the only one who can be remotely close. And then the Peloton is five seconds behind. Del Toro gets three seconds of real time plus four seconds time bonus for the third place.

So he continues to add to his overall lead. But Johan, first let's talk about the stage win here. Mads Patterson over Wild Wout Van Aert. This is kind of what we wanted when we saw these two on the start list for this race to get us through this second week before we're in the mountains. I thought this was one of the most exciting finishes of a Grand Tour stage I've seen in quite some time.

I guess going all the way back to stage nine when we had Del Toro with Van Aert. But these are two titans of this type of finish. What was your takeaway here? Well, you know, as you say, Spencer, we, nobody really knew if it was going to be too hard for these guys. I've seen a lot of comments to say, yeah, it's going to be too hard. I had some info from, from within the Peloton that both Visma and Pedersen were highly motivated for

today's stage. And we saw from the start that both of their teams together with Q36.5 for Pitcock, those were the three teams that did all the work in the stage to keep the breakaway, which was six, seven guys, more difficult to keep under control. So it was clear that they had big plans, right? Then that they believed that their guys could win. I have to say though, you know, when you see the finish, I think the profiles were a bit exaggerated. The ones we looked at yesterday. Yeah, but it was still very hard. Uh,

it was still very hard. And, um, you know, these two guys, I mean, we all know Pedersen is on extremely, extremely good form. Von Arth seems to get back to really good form. Um, and, uh, these two guys, sprinters slash punchers are the two only ones in the Peloton who can actually challenge the climbers on a finale like this. And so, yeah, I mean, I think that

the display of power of Pedersen was incredible. He had to fight hard to stay in contention. He was in trouble at some point when I think that the fact of the day in terms of a part of the finish is that Ineos attacked with about 50k to go on that harder climb of the day. Many riders were in trouble, including were in trouble, including Van Aert because of, I mean, somebody went out of the corner and Van Aert was held up. And also Pedersen was struggling. We kind of knew they were going to make it back because it was still far to go. But these kinds of efforts really take their toll. And the fact that both of them were still up there in the final and our one, two speaks volumes about their potential.

These are two massive engines, right? Peterson and Van Aert and they're more than sprinters. They're really complete riders. And yeah, I was happy to see, I mean, I would have preferred, I mean, I like Peterson, you know, but this is his fourth stage win already. Van Aert won a stage, but it would have been amazing for him to win another stage like this. He was close, but he was just beaten fair and square by a guy who was stronger today. But it's nice to see him back up there. You know, he's getting back. It's not the Walt Van Aert yet that we are used to seeing in July. But the way it's going now, I think we will see that guy in July. Yeah, so Mads Pedersen, he's now seventh, he's seventh up for Grand Tour stage wins amongst active riders, which is impressive because he didn't win a Grand Tour stage until 2022.

And then since he's won his first one, he's second. If you take it from 2022 forward, only Pagatra has more stage wins than him. Phillips and Kaden Groves oddly tied right behind him at nine and nine. You don't really think of it, but Kaden Groves has a mini grand tour stage win since 2022 is yes for Phillips. And the only caveat there is Phillips are almost all tour to France stages and Groves doesn't have a single tour de France stage because he's never started the tour.

But Wout Van Aert, seven since then. So actually more than you'd think considering that's a struggle period. I too was a little disappointed if I'm being completely honest, but I didn't, the thing is I didn't think Wout Van Aert would even factor in this finish. So kind of pleasant surprise.

I mean, both of them, we were talking about before we recorded, I think they looked like because it was so hard leading in and because it was a hard finish, everyone else in the front is small like because they have less weight. But it looked like Pedersen and Van Aert were big kids racing against like illegally racing

against little kids that they weren't supposed to be competing against. Like that's how much bigger, more powerful they were. And when they step on it, I mean, they are just pulling away from that field. You see del Toro is the only one who can put up any sort of resistance and even del Toro, like the man of this year. So far it gets humbled by. Yeah. You could clearly see that, that, that there's the power is not there with these guys. You know, they, I mean, they have obviously, uh, you know,

power to wait that they're incredible. But if you, if you obviously, you know, power to wait. They're incredible. But if you talk about real power and we have this stat from Vellone as they usually do a great job in publishing certain data. Walde von Arz power output for the last one minute 20 is 840 Watts over a minute 20. And with a maximum of 1110 watts, we can see here on the picture. That's impressive. That's impressive, especially taking into account how much he had to work

already. You know, he said in an interview that he felt the effort that he had to make to come back after that mishap, after missing that corner with about 50k to go. He said he spent a big bullet there, which he missed in the final. It's not an excuse because Peterson was also struggling and had to do a huge effort to come back. But still, I agree, you know, you could clearly see the difference in pure power of these two guys compared to the other riders. I mean, maybe with the exception of Dorian Godon, who's also a tall guy who was fourth today, who actually won here already

on this finish in El Giro de Veneto in 2023. So good, good time for him. Good finish for him. But all the other riders were GC guys, right? So, and still, there was a lot of doubts about Peterson and Van Aert, but you see that these talented guys, they're super class. They can do this. They can do this. And yeah, the fact that they were believing it so strongly before the start means that, you know, they knew they could do this. Yeah. I mean, if this, if you're watching the stage

and you're thinking, oh, it seems like Philippe Chalbert would be great on this stage. It's because he won the last time they were here against, who did he win against? Johan, it was Alberto Contador. Pretty good, pretty little it was Alberto Cantador. Pretty good, pretty little finish there for Cantador. That's second on a stage like that.

But just to circle back on this, 840 watts for the last minute 20 is absurd. Like I saw this and in my notes, I even wrote like, would love to see Pedersen's power file because that must be crazy. And that is crazy. 840 watts for a minute 20.

Like you were saying, we were looking at our own power files before this, trying to put this into context and you're like, oh, you shouldn't compare yourself to a professional. But in this case, like professionals shouldn't compare themselves to Van Aert and Pedersen, because there's probably not many pros

who can do almost 900 watts for well over, for a minute and a half basically. Like that is unbelievable. Yeah, that's impressive. That's impressive. Well, you know, I, I, I still, I still say, you know, nobody, uh, even, even writers who have, uh, raced and are retired for a number of years, uh, it should never compare themselves to the actual rep professionals in the, in the Peloton,

unless you are called Alejandro Valverde. He's still up there. He's still up there in the stats on Strava. But that guy, yeah, that guy is special. No, but it's just unbelievable. Normally Spencer, whatever, I figured it out. I've done a few rides and at my age, for example, it's always double. Whatever there is, if it's a time on a climb or if it's the best, it's always double.

That's a good goal. If you're 10 years younger, 15 years younger, you can go from there, but me, I'm 60, almost 61. I'm half the speed and still that's pretty good for me. It is actually surprising. Like even if you take cycling seriously and you go out and you do the tourmalet, like you'll probably, and you go hard, you'll probably do it in twice the time that like Pagache would do it, which sounds ridiculous,

but that's still a pretty good time. So someone wrote in there asking like, oh, what do Johan and Lance and George do power now compared to when they were racing? And it's, I guess half, like half would be a lot. No, no, George is different. George is different. George is still a professional cyclist.

Well, there was a point where George owned a professional team and I think he was probably stronger than many people on that professional team. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But no, I mean, these, these values are impressive. Power out. But, but, but listen, I mean, one and two, again, But, but listen, I mean, um, one and two again, uh, Peterson and, and well, one art same result as stage one, by the way. Also first to where we began. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. On different terrain now, but, uh, yeah. And then, um, Del Toro third, um, as expected, um, you know, he's the best of the rest.

He's the best of the GC guys. I keep saying, Spencer, you know, we're gonna have to wait until he explodes, if he explodes, but for the moment, man, if you look at the way he rides, especially the way he's positioned, he was the best positioned of all the GC riders. That's for a reason. It's because he has amazing legs. You know,

I don't know if I use the term already diamond legs. He does have diamond legs in this Giro. Um, looks, it looks easy, looks smooth. Um, I repeat myself, but I, I'm, yeah, I've said it yesterday, but I repeat, he's as serious contender to win the Giro. Yeah. So he just to give people con he was crazily well positioned today. I, they were saying on the commentary as a mountain bike background, which would make sense because he looks easy in that Peloton easier. There's no,

no disrespect to Juana Uso, but the way del Toro sits and moves about in the Peloton, he just looks a lot more relaxed than Juana Uso. And Primoz Roglic, he looks more relaxed than Primoz Roglic. I don't know if that's saying much. Primoz, but you actually do notice like, obviously premise is amazing. One of the best writers ever to ever do it stage racing wise, but it's like you learn it late and you never quite have the same level of

comfort to someone that came in at a younger age. I heard an interview today, uh, of, or I saw an interview, uh, of Isaac del Toro when he was 15. He presents himself, I made like a total very shy. And he was talking already then about how many years he had been racing. So he started really like early, like 11, 12 years old, he was racing already.

He looks like it. I mean, yeah, it looks unbelievable. Just a couple of stats on him. So he had a bad time trial. That's back on stage 10. He hasn't really put like, let's say real gaps into people, but he's increased his lead up from, are you so, from 25 seconds to 38.

It's pretty good considering it's almost all bonus seconds. And then Roglic has gone from 118 to 135. And you think like, well, does two seconds really matter? But it's like, well from 118 to 135. And you think like, well, does two seconds really matter? But it's like, well, 118 to 135, that's actually quite a bit different. So he's kind of slowly pulling away from them. But I will say this,

and I love the del Tor experience, would love to see him win. I was thinking today, and I'm also the power is power man. Like I think power, doing power, high power is good, whether you're on a climb or you're on a flat or you're on a hard finish. I was thinking these efforts are very different

from the efforts they're gonna do in the third week. So just being like, wow, he's up there in the sprint. It's like, well, okay, but they're getting like, it almost feels to me like Primoz Roglic is the only one who's looked at the race book. Like this third week is quite a bit different than that. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. I mean, it looks to me like, for if you look at the footage, right, that Primos is just

looking and for example, today, the intermediate sprint, the Red Bull, the Red Bull kilometer, he didn't even try he was there. He was up there, but he didn't even make an intent. It looks like it's deliberate, but it also could be that he just can't. You know, that for the moment he's just forced to follow and, you know, try to get better and hope that something, you know, I mean, the way I see it now, Spencer, especially in the case of Del Toro, Primos needs to have a great last week. He needs to have two really great stages and the Del Toro needs to explode. He needs to blow up, uh, which is very possible. I mean, you know, it's, there's hard stages. So, you know, one, what is it now? 135.

135 stages are very hard. Yeah. It's, it's, it's nothing. If you have a, if you have a bad moment, 135, you're, you lose it in a heartbeat, you know, on those, on those stages, but he needs to count on the fact that Del Toro will fade and have a heart last week. And that's normally what should happen. But again, I say this guy takes it day by day and he is extremely strong and he could hang on to it. I'm a bit, a bit in doubt about today because it looked like in the bonus print, Del Toro was going for it.

And when he saw Ayuso coming, he kind of let him pass. So and he keeps saying, even this morning at the start, the leaders of the team are Ayuso and Adam Yates. I think the Adam Yates, he should leave that out because there's no way. Adam Yates is still the leader of the tour of the Giro of UAE. But it is clear that Ayuso is the leader. For example, if you look at the team car and you see the order of the spare bikes, Ayuso's bike is on the place where the leader has the team, his spare bike.

That's the easiest accessible for the mechanic. Which makes sense because Del Toro, 21 year old's winning Grand Tour is not a great history of that. And the way you're talking about it reminds me a lot of the way people were talking about Simon Yates in 2018. You know, just so easy in the second week, so easy. And then if you don't remember, he did not win that. But I think, you know, to the contrary of del Toro, I mean, we'll see what he does in the last week, right?

But I even think at the beginning of the last week, uh, Simon Yates did some attacks when he was in pink, which were completely unnecessary. I think even, I mean, I think he even, I don't know if he won it, but the stage two Zoncolan, he did a big attack was out there for a long time. And then, you know, took some time on who was it? Was it, who did he lose to? On Zoncolon? No, who did he lose the Giro to?

Oh, overall? Yeah. Christopher Froome. Was it Froome? Yeah, because Froome won on the Zoncolon. He dropped Yates by six seconds and you think, well, it doesn't matter because Froome is three minutes back. But then I watched this on the,

I had a plane delay last night. So I watched the 20. Because Dumoulin was in the lead when, Dumoulin was in the lead. Okay, yeah, yeah. Yeah, and then it cracks formed on stage 19 and then it's stage 20 to, no, sorry, stage 18 and then stage 20 at the Fenestra where he blows up.

But if you think about like, let's just build a logic tree for Primus Roglic. Save your energy because the third week is hard. Izek Del Toro is really strong. He's so strong, in fact, it actually doesn't make sense to contest any of these sprints against him because if Del Toro is this strong the whole race,

doesn't matter. You're not going to pull that back anyway. So you might as well just go all in on the third week strategy and save all the energy you can. Because if Del Toro doesn't get weaker, it doesn't matter if you like get a few time bonuses because he's just going to hold you off anyway. Yeah. Yeah.

That gives him the use of it. Yeah. At this point, a guy like Roglic, he has no other option. You know, that's his only chance. And he has done it in the past. He's, you know, he's come back from behind in the last week. You know, for the moment, I have to say, except the time trial, he did a really good time trial, trial Roglic of all the GC guys. But other than that, he has not impressed me. He's been good, but he's not been impressive. I've seen out there somebody who gives his opinion on social media and has this theory that Roglic is here to train for the tour. That's bullshit.

That's bullshit. Wouldn't there be much better ways to train for the Tour de France? I mean, you can listen, you could try to save yourself as much as possible and then still go full gas in the last week and then still go for the tour. But he's not here for training. He's here to win. That's for sure. But yeah, I mean, another thing, Spencer, I don't know if you noticed, there's little details you can see. I don't know if you noticed, you know, there's little details you can see. So obviously the total great, great position for the, for the final climb finishes third. The best of the GC guys takes time plus bonus.

So good day for him, right? Then the other two favorites, Ayuso and Primos were both badly positioned, which is already not a good sign because normally, you know, if you're strong, you should be well positioned. Ayuso just has to stay at the wheel of Del Toro because he has teammates keeping them in the front. Primos maybe not so much, but I could see there's a little improvement in some of the Red Bull guys. I saw Dani Martinez a little bit better. Perizale was there, Alioti was there.

So there's a slight improvement. So we'll see what that gives in the last week. But both of them were not well positioned. Um, Primos, uh, fights his way up slaloms true guys and finishes where they finished fifth or sixth, sixth, no finish in six, right behind Godon. Yeah. So good recovery. Yeah. Sixth. Uh, Ayuso on the contrary was positioned two places, two positions in front of Primos, but instead goes backwards. Um, that's because you're on the limit. It does happen sometimes on climbs, on explosive climbs like this that you feel okay. And then all

of a sudden, you have to give it all and your legs are blocked. But today was not a good sign for you. So even if he got the bonification, he got four seconds, right? Which maybe he shouldn't have if he was hurt. But then he got gapped off his own teammate on the final climb. So should he have saved that energy? I think that bonus sprint was more, uh, a way of positioning, UAE was leading it out anyway.

So they were, they were second and third. And so then they, they just, you know, pass their own teammate, but, but I also passed the total, uh, and, and we should know that he had stitches in his knee. Yeah. He's not, yeah. That's one of the things. So he got stitches after the gravel stage.

It got a bit better, but then he said that after the time trial, it got a bit worse again. The stitches opened again. It's hard to recover from this, you know, in a ground tour and a stage race, especially on the knee, it's spending all the time. So, um, yeah, it's definitely, uh, not an advantage. It's, it's, you know, it needs to heal. Hopefully it doesn't get infected. You never know. Um,

normally you should stay quiet for a week with this, right? But they have to keep peddling. So that's obviously having an impact on his performance. It affects everything. Your recovery, your sleep, you know, your body needs to spend energy focusing on recovering that part of your body. So that's obviously energy you can't use for pure recovery. So, um, yeah, that could be one of the reasons why he's a bit on and off, uh,

in certain stages, but still, you know, he is, he is second in GC and he remains one of the big favorites. Well, we didn't even mention the big thing of the day. He got dropped to mid stage when Ineos took the pace up and he's the one missing out. I think dropped is a big word. He was not in great position. He was probably on the limit. And then, you know, there was a gap, couldn't close the gap and then had to rely on others. Teammate, I guess, was it Micah who closed the gap? Yeah, I think so. Have you noticed this at UAE? Someone told me it's to hedge on others, teammate, I guess, was it Micah who closed the gap? Yeah, I think so.

Have you noticed this UAE? Someone told me it's to hedge their bets, but they ride like not together in the Peloton. They ride like scattered around. So it'd be like Del Toro is perfectly positioned, but then they're not all together. So then Aiuso is just on the wrong side of that split. But you think, I mean, I don't know, maybe that's- Hedge their bets in case of crashes? Yeah, I remember like Omi OP,

like took down the whole Visma team. Yeah, so if there's another Omi OP situation, they don't all go down. But here's my big question for you, Johan, before we move on, why is Enio's doing these attacks? Yeah. Where are they going? I don't fully, it's fun to watch, I don't really get it.

Yeah, well, it was obviously at the request of Bernal. Bernal feels good. He does feel good. You know, he didn't, I mean, he lost time in the time trial and got dropped from Del Toro on the gravel stage after doing a lot of work, of course. But he does feel good. Yeah. An attack like this doesn't really bring you anything. You know, you're not going to go anywhere. I don't know. Maybe he, I don't

know. Maybe he thought I used to was in trouble or he, I mean, they see things we don't see, of course, you know, they're next to each other. They hear them breathe. So I don't know what he was thinking, but it was way too far. He should save himself. I mean, listen, his terrain has to come. It's the last five stages. I'm sure you've ridden in this area. Like when you're not on climbs, it is pancake flat. So it's like, Ineos would then have to be rotating through

and holding off and chasing Ayuso.. So that seems a little hard to listen against, against this UAE team with Del Toro and I also, if you attack with 50 get to go, you, there's nowhere to go. You're not going to get anywhere. You're going to get reeled in. Um, so yeah, it was a bit of a, I mean, it was nice to see it was, it was chaos in the Peloton. There was bodies everywhere, but ultimately everything comes back together. That's a bullet you wasted for nothing. You know? I wonder if like Maro Vigni like slipped

a 50 in the, in the window of the team card. Like, thanks guys. You made it exciting. People like the course now. And it was exciting. Like it's funny. It brings me back. There's, you know, it's a very long time ago, but there was like back in the days at the, like, I think it was late eight, probably 88 or 89, 89. I was on a small team where we were invited to do the tour of Switzerland, which was a huge race for us. We were back 10 days then. It was 10 days race. And there was this race director, his name was Sepp Wögli, a Swiss guy, very authoritarian, you know, like big guy. He was in a big Mercedes open roof, standing up, standing up, you know, like waving. And he had this habit of, you know, like the invited teams,

they got money to attack. And then when the breakaway went, then this, I'm not kidding. When the breakaway went and there was the, sometimes there were situations where the Peloton wouldn't make it back. Then he went with the big car in front of the Peloton and drafted the Peloton to make it back. So those things have happened in the past. Just light race fixing, match fixing. Yeah, when I hear people complain about wild cards not attacking, they're just waiting for that cash payment. It's not that hard. All right. Just give them some money. Well, Johan, let's take a quick commercial break or quick ad break and then we'll predict stage 14.

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on a trip just tonight and I'm going to take those honey travel sticks with me. That's Manucora.com slash the move to save 31% plus your $25 worth of gifts. All right, back to the show. All right, so tomorrow's stage 14, or today, whichever day you're listening to it, starts in Treviso in the Veneto, rips right through Friuli. We have a few climbs at the finish

because they're on the border of Slovenia, actually. It starts to get a little bit more mountainous. And then we have a few climbs at the finish because they're on the border of Slovenia actually. It starts to get a little bit more mountainous and then we have a finishing circuit in Nova Gorsija, Gorkija, I don't know how you would say that in Slovenian, but it's kind of a tight technical city circuit. It's 195 kilometer long stage and even though we're going to Primoz Roglic's homeland, I do not think he'll be contesting this stage. I'll list off the favorites on Unibet and get your take on who's going to win. Olaf Koi, likely sprint stage favorite plus 175.

Kaden Groves plus 375. Mads Pedersen plus 400. Wout Van Aert plus 1000. Casper van Uden plus 1400. Paul Manier plus 2000. Isaac Del Toro plus 3300. I don't know if I see that. Matthias Wadzec plus 3300, Milan Fritton plus 3300, Sam Bennett plus 3300, Ben Turner plus 4000, Corbin Strong plus 6600. It goes on and on. But how do you think this is going to play out

and who do you think is going to win? Definitely bunch sprint Spencer. Technical circuit at the end, two times 13 kilometers. Little climb, a cat four, but you know, not for these guys. It should not be a problem. I'm going to follow the books and predict Olaf Koi, especially with the confidence of yesterday, a great world, Van Aert, to lead him out. Great team.

They have Afini who's super strong. Yeah, even at plus 175, Olaf Koi for the win for me. It's hard to argue with that. I'm gonna go, just cause you picked Coy, and I wanna swing all the way the other way. So Coy's plus 175. Casper Van Ouden, I don't really get this, plus 1400. Like he was quite good yesterday.

He would be my pick, obviously. I'm conceding that Coy will probably win, but Van Ouden at plus 1400, that's an interesting option. Also, did you know they're over the same age? Coy's only 23 years old. That is shocking how they have these two judgment. I heard an interview of Koi after Von Uden's win and they know each other very well.

They were racing in juniors together already. So they know each other since a very long time. And we were talking about how like really good cyclists actually sometimes are, they don't, they're very, I don't know how to phrase this. They might not be the best at like understanding the mentality of the normal rider because they're so good, but Lance Armstrong once told me he's like, when, when your

countrymen starts doing well, you start doing well because you see that guy doing well and you want to be better. And it's like, well, I think if you're not as talented, that actually gets more complicated than that. But I'm going to invoke that logic right here. Van Uden is going to, he saw Koi win and he, now they have this rivalry between them. I think actually he could do quite well tomorrow.

He's still plus 350 for the podium, which seems like a really good price. Yeah. Yeah. No, listen, he showed the other day, he won a stage already. Then the other day he almost got it. Did a great sprint started. I mean, I'm not going to say too early, you know, it's difficult to win against Koi. I think he did the right thing. Um, tomorrow is definitely a stage for him.

So yeah, I, uh, I, I like that choice. When he shows, he's not afraid, right? It's like, yeah, a lot of guys are, they sprint afraid. It's just like, I'm going to go. No, he believes in his own power and his own possibilities. Yeah, for sure. For sure. My second choice is going to be Kaden Grove, Spencer. I think Kaden Grove gets better through a ground tour. I was, I was surprised to see him up there today until very, very long. He actually thought he had a chance. The lead out was impressive by his team and especially Blancardt. He did an amazing job. He didn't notice or hear that Kaden Groves got gradually dropped and he was in the lead

I think until 400 meters to go. But Gaten Groves, I'm going to pick him because he has a great lead out train. Probably with Visma, probably one of the best lead out trains. And there's some guys on this team who are here only for this. It looks to me like they're missing that last that last guy with, with big speed, but, uh, still in this zero Peloton, uh, I think, uh, Alpecin is going to bring Kaden Gross in a great position and he has a good chance because he has shown already some incredible speed.

Actually, when you start to think about who has the speed to come around, cause a lot of guys have the speed to be there like Ben Turner, but like who has a speed to come around and win? It probably is Koi, Groves, Ben Oden. It's hard to find a fourth one. Yeah. I mean, just even look in this list, you'd say Paul Marnier maybe, but what does he really, has he shown us at this year that he has the strength two and a half weeks in? That's the thing.

You know, it's, uh, he's young. Um, he's obviously not fresh anymore because if you're that young, uh, I mean, listen, Coy and Van Duten are young too. Uh, but it's, it looks to me like they have more racing in the legs already. Um, but yeah, Paul Marnier, um, listen, he's fast. He's fast. Uh, why not? Why not? Well, how would you rate Marnier versus Milan Freton? The only problem with Milan is, is he's shown us that he can get around

anybody at this Giro. Yeah. Um, Freton has been, he's been up there. He's had a good season so far. I'd probably go for Milan Fratin. Just even mathematically too, looking at this list, it's like he's plus 3,300. He's below Vodzic and equal with Bennett, which seems a little incongruent with what we've actually seen on the road. I would rate him one of the top four favorites for the stage, what he's buried down the list.

So I would pick them just because of that, because of his odds. And before we go, this is not the only world, I guess like world-class level race happening in Slovenia this weekend, because there is a mountain bike race in Novo Mesto. World Cup No novel Mesto. Yeah. And, uh, we will see the, uh, reappearance of a certain Matthew of under the pool who, uh, I've been told is in really good shape. Uh, I mean, I've seen some little videos, man, that guy is unbelievable. Technically it's crazy how you can be one of the best riders in the world on the road and then just jump into mountain biking. And this is a technical course. There's a descent

with lots of rocks. The way he flies over those rocks is crazy. That guy can do anything on a bike. So curious to see. He's getting in the middle of the season into the circuits, uh, the mountain bike circuits. Uh, we all know, and he has told publicly that his dream is to become world champion mountain bike, which is a big goal of him for the rest of the season. Uh, he's going to do the tour to France as a training camp, I guess. That's absurd by the way. No one else bothers me so much.

He uses the tour to train. But yeah, he's not going to be, obviously he's a professional. He's going to try to win a stage. He's going to do lead outs for Phillipson as usual. So, um, but yeah, uh, also in Slovenia, I think tomorrow is the short, uh, short race. And then on Sunday, it's the, it's the big race. I guess on max in the U S I believe both, both are on max. I'm not getting paid by max to plug that. Yeah. And I mean, this whole thing is ridiculous. He's raised only 12 days so far, and then he's already switching to mountain bike,

but he's basically won every race except for Flanders that he wanted to win. And I actually don't hate it because Worlds is such a goofy Worlds. He's not gonna even compete at Worlds because it's so climb heavy. Yeah. I can't road Worlds.

So it kind of makes sense actually that this would be the, if you want to go for world mountain bike, this is the year to do it. The problem Matthew has is obviously that, you know, compared to he's a road racer, he's paid a lot of money by, uh, by Alpecin, uh, also by Canyon for Canyon. Obviously it's great because he's multidisciplinary rider. So it's great for them, but you know, his team pays him a big contract to race on the road. Right. Uh, so it's not ideal compared to the real specialists, mountain bikers, but, um,

I'm sure he hasn't figured out how he gets, how he's going to get ready for, uh, for the mountain bike worlds. Well, like in this week in Root Hooves, that's like one of the impressive things about what they've done with that team is it's like, they're not, it's not like, well, Vanderpoel is not going to be fully focused on the tour. So we have nothing. It's like, they have all these other riders, they can contest stages. So it's really impressive what they've done there. Yeah. Plus they have a full off-road program, both men and women, cycle cross and also mountain bike.

Because Puck Peterson is also one of the, I mean, she's actually, she won Lierse Bastogne-Liège. No, she won Lierse Bastogne-Liège. No, she won, no, she won. Flesh well on. Sorry. Yeah. Yeah. Boston.

The edge was the, the, the girl from, uh, more. It's look court. Yeah. Yeah. Um, but anyway, but Peterson has been in front and all the, all the big races on the road. Now she's also switching to mountain bike. I saw a video of her. She's, she's really interesting to follow on social media.

She does these recons. She films everything. And today she recount the course together with Matthew Van der Poel. They're on the same team. They're both on Alpecin. Yeah, I mean, it clearly to go back where we started, it helped Del Toro today positioning.

So it's not like they're wasting their time. And it's like, it's probably helped. Like I saw Puck Peterson doing like 40 second wheelies on climbs on a training ride, like holding it for 40 seconds. So she's she is she is better than I would say 80% of the professionals men on a bike in terms of skills. She's unbelievable, which does help you. So I guess it's, it's nice that they have both programs. Well, Johan, anything else on stage 14 or the World Cup? Watch the bunch sprint tomorrow

and let's see what Matti van der Poel does on his mountain bike. Yeah, no, it's actually perfect. They've not done the most exciting weekend at the Zero, but it lets us watch both races before we buckle down next week for the insane third week. Okay. Thanks, Johan.

We'll talk tomorrow.