THEMOVE - Giro d'Italia Stage 2 Analysis & Stage 3 Preview | THEMOVE+

Episode Date: May 10, 2025

Johan Bruyneel and Spencer Martin break down Joshua Tarling's ride to win the Giro's opening time trial, and dive into the significance of Primož Roglič opening up early gaps on the GC contenders, before previewing Stage 3, which serves up a tough early mountain test. Listen in to see how the duo thinks the action will play out, who will come out on top, and which riders present the best betting value. Troscriptions: There’s a completely new way to optimize your health. Give it a try at https://www.troscriptions.com/THEMOVE or enter THEMOVE at checkout for 10% off your first order.

any single doubt that would be in his own team and his teammates around him. They will now reel around him like, you know, like he's the one leader. He's the guy. There's absolutely no discussion that there's anybody else. Not I'm not saying that would be the case before, because I saw on an interview with Jay Hindley, let's not forget, ex winner of the Giro, that he was at the full service of Primoz Roglic, but with this performance, the spirits in Red Bull Hansgrohe are super high.

And there is no doubt that they will go full gas for him, all of his teammates. So that's another advantage of a really strong performance. So early in the race. Everybody welcome back to the move plus. I'm Spencer Martin. I'm here with the Yohan Berniel. We are talking stage two of the Giordatale breaking down the 14 kilometer long time trial as well as predicting tomorrow's stage three, which is surprisingly difficult mountain terrain.

So I'm quite excited to hear Yohan's thoughts on who's going to win that and how it's going to play out. Just a quick primer, Josh Charling. Oops. Please delete yesterday's episode. If you have that in your player, Josh Charling wins by one second or a fraction of a second over Primoz Roglic with Jay Vine third, who crashed yesterday, the race leader, the former race leader, Mads Pedersen finishes seventh, eleven seconds back, loses the jersey by a single

second to Roglic. So not only did we have one sub one second race for the race win stage when we had a second margin between Roglic and Pedersen for the race lead. So it was actually quite an exciting stage. But Johan, what are your takeaways here? First of all, an apology to Josh Charling. Wow. That was quite a ride. I felt quite silly. You almost got it right with Primoz Roglic winning the stage, though. I did not quite... I was surprised he was that fast. But what did you take away from this? Well, my takeaway is that we underestimated Josh Starling. I think we got carried away by yesterday's seeing him not making the front group. But if you think about it, it's only logical, you know, he's a big guy. He probably wanted to try to hold

on maybe with in mind that if he would win the time trial, he would be in pink. But the way the way the race developed yesterday, I think it was only logical that he couldn't hang on. And based on that, we said, yeah, well, maybe he's not the favorite. We should have always made him the favorite. He is a time trial specialist, 13.7 kilometers, big power. So yeah, I also apologize to Tarling. I've heard that people around him are listening to a podcast and are making fun of us. So it won't happen again.

He's also a child. He's 21 years old. He's not a teenager anymore. He's an adult. He's an adult now. He's 21. I saw, I don't know if this is true, but I saw he was the youngest Giro stage winner since 1981,

which I believe is Mateo Argentine. Argentinian. Is that the Argentinian? Yeah. Moreno. Moreno. Moreno. Moreno. Not Mateo. I got Mateo Jorgensen on the mind, but that's moreno Argentinian. Quite the achievement. So, yeah, impressive. Yeah. Impressive. And then the other, the other big takeaway of today is the confirmation that Primoz Roglic is in great shape. He showed up in full force. We could see it already yesterday a bit, the way he was, you know, surfing at ease in the

front of the peloton with or without teammates. You could see, you can see in his pedaling style and the way he was sitting on the bike yesterday and how comfortable he was navigating the situations that he showed up really, really fit. And today, I think he proved that. It's only 13.7 kilometers, but he was the best of all the GC guys. And especially a 16 seconds difference with Juan Ayuso. It's not much, you could say, but it is more than a second per kilometer.

And especially the mental victory in this first big appointment. The first time trial is always the first big rendezvous between the GC guys. And so that's obviously the first battle is won by Roglic, he's in pink. He probably won't defend it, don't want to defend it. I would recommend them or him to not defend it. Especially because we have other candidates that could take over the jersey, whether it's from a breakaway or most likely if Malz Pedersen tomorrow can stay in the front group and take

some modifications, he would then be the pink jersey again and has a strong team around him who will defend it. Another advantage, Spencer, of today's performance of Roglic is that he now has erased if it wasn't necessary, but I mean, you never know until you're in the race and you show how strong you are. He has erased any single doubt that would be in his own team and his teammates around him. They will now reel around him like, you know, like he's the one leader. He's the guy. There's absolutely no discussion that there's anybody else. Not I'm not saying that would be the case before,

because I saw on an interview with Jay Hindley, let's not forget X winner of the Giro that he was at the full service of Primoz Roglic, but with this performance, the spirits in Red Bull Hansgrohe are super high. And there is no doubt that they will go full gas for him and all of his teammates. So that's another advantage of a really strong performance so early in the race. He's also not been time.

If you've noticed, he's not been time traveling well at the beginning of grand tours. Like think of the last time you won this race, 2023. So this shows you, I mean, maybe you could say this is, he's too fit too early, but I think it means, yeah, he's, he's gotten this, he's buttoned up. The team knows who's boss. I would be really despondent if I was trying to win this race and I wasn't Primoz Roglic on the. On that note, Spencer, on that note, you know, I mean, you,

you bring up a good point. He's maybe too early to fit. That's my fear. That's my, that's my fear. And the Giro is known very typical that, you know, somebody who had shown up that he already was once in a situation like that. He did it. It was unbeatable. Like he was so strong, way about everybody else. And the third week he fell apart, knowing that the Giro is always the hardest in the last week. It's a race of attrition and a race of, you know, who's recovering the best and who's wearing out. Um, okay.

Not saying that's going to happen to Roglic, but he needs to really manage the three weeks and especially not race every day he needs to really manage the three weeks and especially not race every day, uh, during 21 days as if it was every day, one day race. You bring up a really good point. Yes. That's a great point on the gaps. We were talking before this, you're saying, yeah, like it's more mental than, than an actual important time gap. But do you remember how much Primus Waglec won this race by last time he did it? It's 14 seconds and he gained 16 seconds on Wanojus of today. And you forget because I think people assume like,

oh, the mountains are big at the Giro and then Tadej Pogacar blew everybody out last year. This race is usually decided by less than a minute. So at least it has since like 2015, 2016. It's been a really, really tight race. So these time gaps are significant. It's, I just have them listed out here, like 12 seconds on Brandon McNulty, 16 seconds on Ayuso, 25 seconds on Tibiri, 27 seconds on Storer, who had a great time trial by the way, 28 seconds on Derek G, 36, 33 on the Yates brothers, 48 on Bernal. So like that is, if you think about this being a tight race because everyone's going to huddle together now and wait for that third week, these are kind of big gaps.

Yeah. I mean, listen, if you look at 45 seconds or 48 seconds on Bernal, that's considerable, right? But again, the Giro in the last week is horrible. It's so hard. But it's better to be 45 seconds ahead than 45 seconds behind. That's for sure. Yeah. I mean, also the problem in modern cycling too, if you take Pagaccio out of the mix, a lot of people don't drive each other because everyone's yeah, roughly the same strength. Yeah. It's tight. Yeah.

So I'm on the Jersey. So he has the pictures. He gets it by a second from Patterson who put in a great ride by the way. Wow. Yeah. And I thought he was going to pull. He was sprinting at the end, which is unusual in the time trial. I thought that was going to work, but what do they do now? I'm actually quite curious about this. I think personally, I think you want to get, you would want to give it away on, which makes me think that they're going to keep it because of whatever. Yeah. Yeah. Listen, if you look at this,

if you look at this race as a three week race, you have to try to get rid of this Jersey unless you just keep it against your will without doing too much effort. Right. But it's a matter of finding somebody or let either the breakaway go and then look at, look at the situation in GC and say, okay, this guy's going to get the Jersey. You know, it's probably not done anymore now, but, or maybe it, maybe it is, but not as obvious anymore. You kind of make a little gentleman's agreement with the other, with the other director during the race to

say, okay, you know what, we're not going to chase it down, but you guys get the jersey, but you need to commit to defending it at least for three, four days. That's huge for a team that has the sole favorite because let's say it as it is, everybody sees Primoz Roglic as the big favorite, the only favorite. And all the other writers are writing against Primoz and against Red Bull. Right. So, um, that would be my strategy. Uh, it's probably not going to happen because they do things, they do things,

uh, they're all like in their own bubble, but, uh, but it would, it would be helpful if, if you find, uh, a partnering team with the same interests and at least get four, three, four days where you can preserve the team. Because if things go to plan, it's going to be a hard zero for Red Bull because they're going to have to work a lot. Yeah. I mean, I, I do think they're going to have to work a lot. Yeah. I mean, I, I do think they're going to put those boys on the front and ride them to

Rome where that's going to be the plan. It's also tricky with this. I was going through this and visualizing how you would do it because it's uphill finish stage five and then it's summit finish stage seven. So. Yeah. Even if you give the Jersey away, you could get it back earlier than you, than you want, right?

Yeah. Unless there's a breakaway that takes two, three, four minutes. Those things don't happen that frequently anymore in today's cycling either, you know, big breaks. That's not, that's not the case anymore. So yeah, I mean, you could give it away and get it back without wanting it back because anytime it's uphill, he needs to go full gas to stay with his rivals or to take time on his rivals.

Well, and what really complicates it too is don't, don't look now, but we've got some interesting stuff brewing at UAE. Like after this time trial, they're now fourth, fifth, sixth in the GC Brandon McNulty's fourth. I used to his fifth del Toro sixth. All three of those guys are good. Brandon McNulty is very good. So who's the leader that that's kind of an interesting question. Who does Red Bull think the leader is? And they have Jay Vine who almost wins this stage after crashing yesterday is

now like three and a half minutes down because of his crash on the first day. But if they start putting any of these guys in breakaways, like it's going to that breakaway is not going to get a big gap and it's going to put Red Bull in a difficult position. UAE, I'm trying to play with Ayuso, with Del Toro and McNulty. And then have, I mean, Ayuso is the leader. That's almost a guarantee. He said, he said before the race that it was, he shared the leadership with Adam Yates. I don't think in his mind he doesn't. He's the only leader in his mind. He has the leader's mentality. But it is a good strategy as a team to have a lot of riders well placed after the first time trial and then try to play them in different moves and wear out the team of your rival, which would be Red Bull. So I'm more thinking about the McNulty McNulty could be a very important piece here.

Uh, he's not considered as a real threat for GC because he's never done it. But at the same time, there's always going to be that what if, you know, you can, if this guy gets three, four minutes, what if we never get it back? It's like the Ben O'Connor conundrum, you know? Exactly. Because some riders, especially with that kind of qualities, once they get into a leader's position, let's say he takes the pit, sometimes they surpass themselves and they surprise themselves and they hang on. So, uh, yeah, they cannot let that happen.

Something that would keep me up at night. If I worked for Red Bull, stage 17 of the 2022 Tour de France. Do you remember Brandon McNulty? Basically, it was a hard mountain stage in the Pyrenees. Brandon McNulty is on the front pretty much the whole time, shreds the field, gets third on the stage. So if you think like, oh, we're going to get to the high mountains and this guy's going to come back to us, like he might not.

So that's something to keep an eye on before we move on from it entirely. Just Josh Tarling. I'm curious where you see him going from this. Like, what's his up, what's his potential, what's his upside? And then any, I was like, what does this mean to them as a team? Well, just darling, uh, I think he came to this race, uh, as soon as the, I think as soon as the route was announced, he was on the list with the nails because of these two relatively shorter time trials and relatively time trials for time trial specialists. He's for sure a time trial specialist. So I think

his immediate goal is when the other time trial, uh, it's also short dish, you know, not very, you know, 23 kilometers or something. But it, it's 28. It's flatter though, too. It's probably a better time. Oh, listen. 28 is fine for him. You know, he's won the European championships all over a longer distance. He's been, uh, meddling in the world championships.

Uh, he was 14. Was he 14 the Olympics? Yeah. He fought in the Olympics. Flat tire. Am I remembering that right? He had, he had a mechanical for sure. Beginning of the race. So, you know, that's going to be his next goal. Now the other time trial, um, other than that,

I think he can develop into a great classic specialist with that kind of power. Uh, you know, in the spring classics, he must be in the future. One of the guys who, um, was up there. Yeah. Like I'm even looking Perry needs to share stage six, Matt's, Patterson wins Josh Charlie in a second. Um, like a tough hilly day. I remember that it was super cold.

Yeah. So I did, I mean, obviously that's a stage race, but I think he could yet be very good in classics. This is tall. He's like shockingly tall, you know, almost, almost two meters high is what it looks like. So he's a beast. Get that man on the classics. Probably not. Jeez. Should he not not get sucked into the any of this GC machine? What do you think?

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, there's no way. I mean, and they shouldn't, he should focus on what he's good at, you know, time traveling and, and, I mean, stage wins and from breakaways, he can do that too. Or, I mean, he's fast also, pretty fast. Yeah. If it's a reduced group and yeah, I mean, listen, he's one second stage two in his, in his first grand tour.

I assume it's his first grand tour. Um, don't know if he already developed. I don't remember now, but, um, anyway, he's one, uh, an early stage. Anything that comes now is a bonus. So this is one of the guys who's riding now on, uh, he's euphoric, you know, uh, anything that will happen now will be good. Yeah, we'll see more of him. And if, if he doesn happen now will be good. Um, we'll see more of him. And if he doesn't have any bad luck or sickness, we'll see more of him in this, in this year. And then my, my pick for the day, wow. Then art. I mean,

I only mentioned this because very disappointing time trial, but it shows us just how he was not bluffing, right? Like he's not feeling good. It's actually surprising that he got so close to winning stage one based on how much he looked like he was, he wasn't terrible today, but not, not Wout van Aert's strongest. And also, I mean, Wout in his interview after this,

I don't know if it was on TV, but I saw it in the Belgian media. He said he was super disappointed. You know, he expected a lot more. I think he even started with in his mind trying to get pink, especially after yesterday's performance. By the way, I just want to mention Spencer, I got misquoted in the Belgian press. I did an interview about 10 days ago for a Belgian magazine, Hummel. A long interview and one

of my explanations was there that I found it strange that Wout Van Aert was at the start of the Giro because he did the spring classics. We know he's going to do the tour. So the Giro doesn't make too much sense. And I also said it's probably because last year, he had signed a contract with a good start fee to do the Giro. Wasn't able to go because he crashed in Warsdorf-Landren in Warringham. And now he's making up for that or that contract is still in place or... Anyways, that's what I said.

There's a Belgian newspaper who's always trying to twist certain sentences, who actually took that quote out of that interview and added the fact that Waldweinart had been sick before the zero, which he said in his interview with the presentation, which I didn't know 10 days ago when I did the interview with the magazine. They put those two things together and they presented this to Richard Plugga saying, hey, Brunel says that it doesn't make sense that Van Aert is here. They don't say the explanation I gave and he is sick and that he's obligated to start. So two completely different things, they put it together, they presented it to Plugge and

Plugge said, of course, we would never force a writer who's been sick to start if he's not healthy, right? Which is a good answer. But anyways, I just want to point out that, you know, certain media are really are really manipulating, uh, quotes and then putting other quotes together and making a different story. So anyways, it's all good. No problem. Well, most of our listeners probably aren't pro cyclists, but they probably all have been sick. So if you know, if you're very sick,

you're probably not getting second on the opening stages here to tell you. So I don't think he's at a point where they shouldn't have started them. No, I mean, I think, I think that it's true. I mean, I also saw an interview with of Wout's wife, uh, who said that it was a difficult approach to the Giro because he had been sick in the weeks before or the week before. Uh, but being sick, okay, it can be a cold, like a little flu. Uh, you can't train properly, but you kind of get,

get better and you, you get, you're ready to start, but your preparation has not been ideal. I think that's what happened to vote. You know, obviously they wouldn't make him start if he's, if he's unhealthy, or if he's sick or if he has fever. Yeah. And I mean, your picks were great. Primoz Roglic, Mateusz Vajchek both did very well. Primoz almost wins this stage. My second pick, just the trail of my failures. Why don't you so little, little disappointing finishes. Yeah.

Finishes. And I heard that maybe he crashed harder yesterday on stage one than we initially thought, which we will talk more about that when we talk about stage three, but that's just something to keep an eye on. If he is struggling through this opening week, I mean, he's probably good enough that he can, he can limit any, he will not lose time and can get better before the third week. But I was, because when I saw Tarling come through, I think he was like three seconds ahead of Jay Vine. I thought, oh,

he's he hasn't won the stage because why not? You so is lurking out there. There's really good time trial. It's lurking out there who are going to go much faster than Jay Vine who crashed yesterday. And then no one did. And one of the people I thought would was one of you. So, but just, but as we said about Roglic, this is like Roglic has been doing this for years, like underperforming quote unquote in the opening time trial.

He's still, he's still 10th in the time trial loses 17 seconds. It's not terrible. Um, and with crashes, you never know, you know, you can go down and it seems okay. And then the day after you say, Oh, I didn't know I was hurt here or here. I mean, I think a little indication of that it's probably, I mean, it didn't seem like a big deal, right? So he crashed with some other riders. His team waited for him. At some point he was a bit behind, like 45 seconds behind, made it back. He didn't panic. So that was a good sign. Yesterday, what I really saw yesterday is that after that crash, we have never seen

Juan Ayuso prominently present in the bunch, in the front of the bunch. He was never in the first 20. He was kind of not with his team and the team was not united, but Juan Ayuso was not in the position that he should be as being one of the favorites. That could be a consequence of that crash of yesterday already in the final of yesterday's stage. So, um, listen, if this is the case, we don't know, but if this is the case that today he was feeling the consequences of the crash and he only loses 16 seconds to Primos, I would take that. It's not a bad,

it's not a bad day. Another writer I'm kind of just curious about GC curious, Michael store 27 seconds behind Roglic. I, he's not been a good time trust clearly puts out a lot of power. Someone on his team told me he sits very upright and at training camp before the zero, they're focusing on tucking down closer. And he realized, wow, you go a lot faster if you're not sitting upright. But the guy's got a massive engine obviously. And then if he's time trialing this well, that's kind of interesting to me. I don't know if he's going to come out and

suddenly podium to zero, but that's an early test that I did not see him passing. Yeah, it's, it's pretty good. 27 seconds. It's not bad. Uh, as you say, Spencer, he's not known to be a time specialist. He is in really good shape. What I saw in two of the Alps was pretty good. He himself has said also that he's never felt stronger before than he feels now. He's racing without pressure, in my opinion. So he could be one of the guys that is up there for third or top five. Um, it's obviously good climber. He's going to be there. Uh, my only question is, is he going to be able to do it for three weeks that I don't know? I've never seen him do it. Yeah. He's allegedly one of the strongest people in

the Peloton, like Pogacar strong, but there's difference between, you know, jumping on Zwift. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I heard his numbers are, are up there with the best, but there's a difference between doing that on Zwift for 40 minutes and then doing that three weeks into a grand tour when it's snowing on you at the zero. Before we go on to our prediction chant, tell us about these chain rings. What is going on? Tarline at a 68 Primoz at a 68. Well, how did a 64 to have a 64. Yeah. What's the theory? It's all, it's all, I mean, they all, I mean, this huge chain rings.

I saw this little video of Primo's testing out his time trial bike. I think he was in a home trainer. This thing looked like, I mean, it's like it was almost touching the floor. I mean, it's like, it's like, he's going to pedal strike chain range. I mean, honestly, 68 is huge. Uh, plus, um, I see that a lot of ride of those riders, uh, are riding then, even with a single chain ring. So, um, they have cassettes, I think from 10 to 36, some of them. Um, but still, uh, I mean, there's anyway, we've been talking about it.

The thinking behind it is that, uh, you have, you have your chain more in the middle. So as a straight line, less friction, uh, the cadence is the same, you know, it's not because they have a huge chain ring that they go low cadence. They still go the same cadence. But hold on a second. I'm just trying to wrap my head around that. So let's say you're doing 90 RPMs and you're doing that with a 68 versus a 53,

the power must be increasing, right? It's the same, it's the same. The chain is in the middle, Spencer. They never go on the 10 or the 11. They go in the middle of the cassette in the back. So it's like 68 15 instead of 50 something like that. Exactly. Exactly.

I also heard the less you can bend it, the better. So the bigger the rings are, the better because there's less friction. It makes sense. It's not pinching, but you know, for years we always thought middle, middle middle is the best. Yeah. Now they're finding, sorry, my cameraman is all over. They're finding that even like big big is good, even if it's cross chained because

it's just pinching it less. Yeah. But also, I mean, and also if they write a single chainring, it's obviously going to be more in the middle. You know, the chain is never going to be. Yeah. Cause you're moving that big one in. Exactly. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. But I mean, it's, um, the cadence has not changed. Uh, it's still the same. Um,

should we go out, should we all go out and buy like 68 to chain rings or should we just stick with like the 48s? What do you think? Spencer. I'm not, I'm not even riding a 48. I'm riding a 46 now on my gravel bike on the road and it's great. Well, a single chain ring, 46. And then, uh, I have a 10 to a 44 in the back. Perfect. It is quite nice. I was on a 46 and then I stole Lance's old gravel bike and he had 48.

So that's what I'm running right now. But let's go to, let's pause for an outbreak really quick and then we'll talk about stage three and who we think is going to win. This episode is brought to you by TROscriptions. Here's a question to consider. What do you need right now on your path? The health optimization for me, sometimes it's just better focus. Other days, it's deeper sleep or just a clean boost without reaching for another

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T R O S C R I P T I O N S.com slash the move. Troscriptions.com slash the move or just go to the link in the show notes for 10% off your first order. All right, back to the episode. All right, we're back. Johan, this stage is pretty interesting. I mean, this whole first weekend has been put together really well.

Sometimes these foreign starts aren't so great, but I'm pulling up the stats right now. 160K, not long, like another hundred mile stage, multiple categorized climbs sorry two categorized climbs so I guess multiple there's a cat to climb almost 11k long at almost 8% average it tops out about let's say 40k from the finish line you obviously have the descent and then around 20k a flat before you finish this is not going to be a straightforward before you finish. This is not going to be a straightforward,

you know, normal like transition stage. I'll read the favorite. The odds are changing Adam as I'm looking at it, but also these odds are super interesting. This is on Unibet in Europe. Everything else will be similar. Mads Pedersen is the favorite plus one 75. The second favorite while Vinart plus 1000. So this is an insane step down. Tom Pickock plus 1200, Matthias Weichach plus 2000, Pello Bilbao plus 3300. Obviously that would be from a breakaway. Isaac del Toro plus 3300. I said 33,000. I meant 3300. Isaac del Toro, the same 3300. Primoz Roglic plus 3300. Christian

Skoroni plus 3300. Diego Ulissi plus 3,300. It goes on and on. But how do you think this is gonna play out and who's gonna win? It's difficult, it's difficult. You know, if you look at it, 160K, almost 3000 meters of vertical. So another easy stage and especially that Cat 2 climb,

10 and a half kilometers, 7.5%, that's not easy. My question is, and my doubt is, and it depends who's taking responsibility of the race and what their intentions are. But I'm afraid that if there's a bit of testing between the GC guys or if one of those GC guys, whether it's the teams, whether it's UAE or Red Bull, if they take charge of the matter on that climb, it might actually be too hard for Peterson and Van Aert too. Because that's a hard climb. Now, they are probably going to come back if they get in trouble. Especially if they get in trouble. Uh, that's, that's, especially if they're together. Yeah. But I mean, even it's not like yesterday, Spencer yesterday, these climbs at the end,

they were fast. They were not hard. And there was already, I mean, there was chaos and bodies everywhere. And this is different, right? That's a longer climb. Um, but man, I mean, these climbs in Albania are not easy, you know? So I'm a bit in doubt of what the scenario could be. I think it's right to put Max Pedersen as the big favorite. If he can stay there or if he can make it back and one of those two possibilities will probably happen, then I think he's the big favorite to win the stage and for sure get

back in pink. If he's not, and even if he's not winning, he's probably going to have taken some modifications already in the sprint at the middle of the stage. That's going to be his first goal, because I think he wants to get the, I think, if you're one second behind and you have the opportunity, you're gonna do that. So I think little track needs to keep it together tomorrow

in the final. We've seen yesterday that they have a really strong team to do that. So I'm gonna pick Matt Spadersen to win, even if it's only at 150. The last time I checked it was 150. I know it moved 175. It's better. So jump on that price. If you see it, I actually am going to do that full disclosure. I think that's probably what's going to happen because let's just walk through a few scenarios. Uh, some people would say breakaway is going to win. It's like, Oh, it's a little early for breakaway because little trucks here.

Hmm. I think he did. I looked this up last night. Um, I'm not sure about that, Spencer. I'm where I'm going to prove you wrong. Wait one second. Uh, the best I've ever seen prove you wrong. Wait one second. Best I've ever seen. I can find is 11th last year's tour. He's been, I think he's been top at the, at the Giro.

Here's his career as your results. DNF 95th, 40th, 16th DNF, DNF 25th. Okay. And then has it raised it for a while since 2022. Then maybe, yeah. Okay. Yeah. He's one stages at the Giro. He's one hard stages at the Giro, but then never. Okay. Well, then listen, then he's probably not going to be. And he's like 30 something years old. And he's probably not going to blossom into. But also also Spencer, you can clearly see that he's not fully with GC ambitions because he

was doing so much work yesterday for Mats Pedersen. If you start the Giro as the leader of the team with top five ambitions, you're going to shy away from the work he did yesterday. Because he was the guy who was making all the tempo on the last climb. It was very hard. And he was the guy who was doing the damage. So, um, so yeah, I think so they're going to, yeah, you're going to be in the service of Peterson again tomorrow.

And that team is so strong. And so, and let's talk about the climb. So it's a hard climb. Couple thoughts on it. Pederson might not bother him because my God, like the guy was one of the most comfortable riders on the climb on stage one great time trial. Like I'm not convinced he's going to get dropped on a climb, but even if he does get dropped, while the night will also get dropped. So he'll have someone to work with, but who would be in that front group that like Red Bull's not going to pace for 40 K to keep Patterson off the back. They don't care.

They would rather Patterson come back and win the stage. Well, the other scenario would be Spencer that Van Aert and Patterson are not together, which based on what we've seen yesterday, Wout was in trouble when Mats was not. So even if they get dropped, Mats would probably make it back earlier than Wout and then Little Trek starts to ride like crazy to make sure that Walt doesn't come back.

Yes. I just, yeah, I can't imagine who would be working to keep Pedersen off the back for that long. So it does tennis and Jesse's going to win. So the obvious, second pick is well, I'm not doing that, doing that for three days in a row. I think that's been my pick every stage. And then it gets actually really difficult. Cause you think, do I, do I sense that one of your family members is a huge wealth on art fan? Oh my Lord. Yeah.

So that's probably why you keep picking him because you need to score points with your son. We have to turn this around. I don't want to put too much pressure on Pluga and Venard, but we need a win because these mornings are tough the way they're going. But it gets really hard to pick someone outside of that. Cause like Mateusz Vajchek is there like, there's not a chance that he makes it to the finish and Patterson doesn't and he's sprinting instead. So I don't, I, I'm, I'm at a loss here.

Like Christian Skaroni, I might just start picking people on in Astana cause they seem to be winning a lot of stages. And I, I'm going to do it. I'm going to do this. This is, this is who's going to win if Pedersen is dropped. And I'm so hesitant to say this name out loud, but Tom Pickock plus 1200. That's my pick for the stage. Yeah. It's, I mean, disappointing time trial also today, by the way. Yeah. But yesterday he was there. Um, I think that's, yeah, that's a good choice. Is you writing? One thing I wanted to

mention also Spencer, a little thought of myself, you know, uh, little frack, listen, they've done a great job yesterday. They're obviously in great shape. Good team around Peterson. They won the stage yesterday. They're on a high. And they know that on stage three, they have a chance again. Right? Why? My question is that Peterson goes full gas in the time trial. That's only logical because he had a chance to hold on to pink. Why do Mattias Vacek and Dan Hall go full gas in today's time trial? If tomorrow they are super important for Matt's Patterson to try to win the stage again.

This I do not understand. It makes no sense. Well, I could say, well, I could say, okay, maybe I have a chance to win. You know, I was second in the Vuelta time trial. Probably with this field, you know, it was a bit more difficult. But especially when then when you see Mats Mats won the stage yesterday, he can do a good time trial. I would have said to these guys, Hey guys, listen, we don't care if you're seventh or eighth or 10th in the time trial. You know, we won the stage. We want to keep Mats as close as possible.

And on day three, I need you guys fresh as a daisy. So today is a rest day or relatively rest day. I thought about, I was thinking about this morning. I was anticipating you asking this question, Johan is, does this mean that is there distrust there because it's like, okay, yeah, I don't try. And then I get to the end of the year and you bring in Spencer Martin, who just looks at my results and says, this guy sucks. Don't resign this guy.

Like, is that what they're worried about? No, Václav is a long term deal. I think, uh, Don Haller is, they know, they know the word of these guys and the team is not going to be, because they're six or seven in a time trial that they're going to have better chances to do. Yeah, I've definitely heard, heard from riders that they've gotten to the end of the year and it's like, Hey, where's your results? And it's like, well, I've been heard heard from riders that they've gotten to the end of the year and it's like, Hey, where's your results? And it's like, well, I've been working for the team and that that's just my own theory of why maybe riders are trying to like put something in their back pocket.

Oh, listen, on pro cycling stats, I don't know if that's correct or not. So sometimes it's not correct. Although they do an amazing job. I see here that Vácek is not signed beyond 25. I think I read somewhere that that's not true. Uh, and then, uh, if you look at down hole, let's have a look at him. Same thing. Same thing. It definitely looked a little bit like conditions pulled out of contract according to pro cycling stats. So I understand your point, but it's not because they're sixth and seventh in the time trial that that's going to be all of

a sudden an added benefit to resign. It's there. The team knows their value, you know, and I have a slight suspicion that especially Vacek has resigned already. Uh, I would, I would make sure I keep that guy on my team because that guy's really good. Yeah. I mean, both of those guys. And the other thing is, are they, do they have data that's telling them 16 minute all out effort? Is it going to punish you whether you do it in 16 minutes or 18 minutes? It's going to punish you. That's kind of what I was thinking. Like, I feel like I would, I feel like that's a massive difference.

Anybody who is in the top eight has gone full gas, like blood, blood, blood in the throat. You know, that's like, yeah, there's no, there's no way they've kept something. And it's like trauma. The power that these guys are doing for that 60 minutes is like ripping your, your muscles apart. Um, I thought it was weird to Johann. I don't know. I was just trying to think of way of ways to justify it, but it definitely seemed like maybe they're trying to audition.

The thing is there's not much we can say about it because they're doing a great job as a team. They're amazing. They are strong. And you know, they, uh, they've won stage one and they're probably going to be in pink again tomorrow. So it's not much we can criticize. Or it could be as simple as we came here to win stages and let's just maximize our chances of winning stages because all three of those guys were in it. Pedersen had to go hard as you said, but those two guys were like, not that couple things go right.

And they win that stage. But then there's also, there's always also, you know, in time trials, uh, for example, I think Don Hall, uh, he's a time trial specialist. I think he's been Dutch champion, uh, time trial. So you know, at some point you have to also let these guys do their thing, right? Because that's what they like time traveling and it's better to have a guy happy and satisfied in the team than somebody who say, Hey, you know what? Okay. I know you like time traveling, but the moral, you're not allowed to go fast.

And then he's going to be, you know, he's going to be in a bad mood and probably not do a really good job the day after. So, um, it's, it's a trade off. I also think there was rumors of, not rumors. There was like meteorological studies were saying it might rain later in the day. Dan who finished 121st on stage one. So I assume he went very early in the, yeah. And also, so I mean, sometimes what you, what you also do is you send out a guy,

a good time trial specialist, if he's early on, you make him, you're making go super fast to have split times for your leader. Because normally in a time trial like today, the race will probably have provided two split times, the official one we all saw and probably an extra one internally. If it's a short time trial like this, you like to have a lot of split times that your leader can base himself on when he goes later on.

So what you could do is you could say to Don, hold on, okay, Don, I want you to go full gas until the official split. And one of the directors go behind, he takes a split every kilometer. And then that's the rhythm, the tempo that your leader bases himself on. And he at least then you know how good you are until the first split. Because it's a long time to worst until for the, for the split. Right. So let's say you could have five or six split times before the official split time. And you know already that you're in a good rhythm.

Yeah. Yeah, that's good. Yeah. That's probably, you know, listen, I'm now I'm, I'm talking, uh, Spencer, uh, it's in my opinion, it still makes sense, but, um, let's not forget that these guys know their power output perfectly, even without split times, they know how fast they can go based on their power meter. Right. We didn't have those back in the days. So that's a little detail. Before we go, I'm just looking at the odds and thinking, so del Toro plus 3,300, is there a chance he wins out of a small group tomorrow? He's a racer, man, but I don't think they're going to let him go.

If I'm in the case of UAE, I would try, I would try to, to be aggressive. And at least that the fact that they have three, four riders up there in GC use it right. Because at least when, when, when they're up there, still within a week, they're not going to have three guys anymore up there. Uh, so at least, uh, Del Toro and, uh, and Jay Vine and, um, who's the other guy McNulty and then Adam, pretty high up there too. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, no, Adam is not going to go because they're going to save him.

They're going to save him as the real one of the two real contenders, but McNulty and Del Toro, I would use them to be aggressive. Yeah. I mean, he's not good enough at flat sprinting. I'm trying to just look at flat sprints that he's won. Oh, McNulty. Del Toro. He's pretty good. He is a powerful writer.

He was, uh, last year it was his first year he was third in the criteria in Adelaide that's pretty flat. And it was a bunch of prints. Yes. Probably. Yeah. Right down under classic, huh? And then he won, he won like a, with the late attack, the

tour down under that year. Yeah. I mean, that would be my wild card. If I had to pick one del Toro at plus 3,300, kind of an interesting thing to think about, but yeah, probably, probably going to be Mads Pedersen. I would, I would go with Johan's pick there. Um, anything else, Johan, before we take off? Nope. That's it for me. Um, interesting stage tomorrow. It is. Yeah. I'm quite, quite excited to watch it actually,

but we will be back tomorrow before the weird early rest day on Monday. Yeah, tomorrow evening we're back. All right. Talk to you then. Okay. Thanks, Spencer. Bye.