THEMOVE - Has Modern Technology Drastically Changed Pro Cycling? | THEMOVE+

Episode Date: November 1, 2024

Johan Bruyneel and Spencer Martin discuss what they found interesting about the recently released 2025 Tour de France and how modern technology has changed professional cycling before answering a few listener questions. 

Mark Cavendish was the star of the presentation, which is kind of ironic because he just, you know, he's retired. Well, that's my question. Is he? Yeah. Or he's not going to be at the 2025 tour? No. I don't know. That actually threw me off quite a bit when I saw him at the presentation. I was like, wait a second, tours? He should not come. I should not do another year man come on why everybody welcome back to the move plus our new off-season weekly show i'm spencer martin i'm here with johan bernil i'm gonna we'll go over the 2025 tour de france route which was just unveiled

this week in paris a few other other news, and then we have listener questions for Johan. Johan, right up top, the tour route was released, 21 days, shocker, takes place in France, which actually is, I guess, more rare than you think it is. It's the first time since like 2020

that it has taken place entirely inside of France. The last five years, yeah. Yeah, and you did a show on this with Lance and George earlier this week, It's like 2020 that it has taken place entirely inside of France. Five years. Yeah. Yeah. And you did a show on this, but Lance and George earlier this week. So we'll try not to tread on the same topics,

but I have a few questions for you about this route. It is very North of France heavy. It's it's basically spends half the time in the North. They go down to the massive central for one stage. I believe that stage 12, it's also odd because it's 10 days before the first rest day. And then the, the second week is incredibly short.

It's one, two, three, four, five days in the second week, basically. But the basic from stage 12 to 19 are almost all just brutal mountain stages. And then you have this actually kind of strange come down stage on 20.

And then the traditional Paris finish on stage 21. We're back because the Olympics are not clogging up Paris this year. But what we hear, and I know a lot of people are saying, oh, it's hard. They made it hard. Said Tadej Pogacar can't win. I don't think that that is going to stop him after having watched the 2024 season, but what were your initial takeaways from this route? Um, well, as I said, already on the move, you know, it's, it's back to more traditional, uh, traditional start. Um, I wouldn't say, you know, traditionally it was always,

you know, a few flat, like the first week was flat for sprinters. Then, you know, stage eight, nine, 10,

you got into the mountains back in the days. It goes back to that a little bit. The difference is though, that in those first, in that first week, there are some really tricky stages. They're not decisive. Depending on the wind,

because, you know, if there's a lot of wind, there can be a lot of wind in that area. It could be decisive for some people. But yeah, I'm surprised to see it's such a long wind. Until stage 12, you know, stage 10 is, you know, a mountain stage, not a high mountain stage, but it's such a long until stage 12 you know stage 10 is you know a mountain stage not a high mountain stage it's a mountain stage but the real big mountain start is stage 12 so a lot can happen until then and and

what I think is it's you know the it's especially the stress and the nerves racing the first week on those roads in northern France and Britannia and Normandia it It's always tricky. And there's great opportunities for punchers like Van Der Poel, like Van Aert, like normally in Alaphilippe. We'll see if they are in the tour or not, maybe with Tudor, who knows.

But, but I liked, I liked the course and I, you know, I can't see how this is anti-Pogacar, you know what I mean? Some people say, yeah, you know, it's, there's super long mountain stages and mountains it's better for Vingegaard. I mean, yeah, it's good for him, but you know, it's good for Pogacar too. So I personally think it's, you know, looking right now, it's the same three guys we're going to see. Primoz, we don't know yet if he's going to participate or not. Right. Because he kind of said somewhere that he would look at

racing, focusing on the races where today didn't race, which is not, not a bad idea, not a bad idea actually. Um, but yeah, um, you know, also has announced his schedule more or less, uh, you know, saying that he's going to do some classics in the beginning of the season. I think, I think he said Milan-San Remo and Tour of Flanders for sure. No Giro. And then Dauphiné as a lead-up to the Tour de France. So a traditional preparation for the Tour, which

I'm in favor of. So yeah, I mean it's as usual, Spencer. There's a lot of debate of, okay, this is good for this Spencer, there's a lot of debate of, okay, this is good for this guy,

for this guy. It's the strongest guy who wins and the guy who has the strongest team. And, uh, you know, of course you can't have any bad luck, but if everything goes okay, we're going to see these three riders with three strong teams around them,

fighting it out for, uh, for the win. Yeah. I mean, my first thought looking at it but first of all i thought of you because there's only two stages over 200 kilometers so right there it's like oh man johan's not gonna like this these these weak kids these days but it is kind of an interesting because it is traditional kind of you know it's like this traditional genre leblanc start and then it's like prudhomme in the second half where it's like it's traditional kind of, you know, it's like this traditional genre LeBlanc start. And then it's like Prudhomme in the second half where it's like, it's short explosive mountain stages from basically stage 12 to stage 19,

which is fun. I think the craziest stage is stage 13, 11 kilometer time trial, basically just a summit finish just by yourself. It's the para, it's the para good finish at the Alta port. It's up the, up the cold, the parachute,

and then you take the deviation to pay a good to the airport. It's, it's a pure uphill. I think it's two kilometers flat and then nine kilometers uphill. And that is what you said. Like the strongest ride is going to win to me. That really makes it the strongest rider is going to win to me that really makes it the strongest rider is going to win because even if you know if you remember in 2020 that i got caught out in the crosswinds i believe that was stage seven loses significant

time i think his quote after the stage was like yeah it's not not a big deal i'll make that time up later and really didn't really get called out he had a mechanical just before it broke okay okay but anyways he lost he lost time and then on the perezuda on that same climb where the time trial is uh he took uh he took back a minute i think yeah yeah and i remember at the time i thought why are they giving him this time and you go back and watch it he might have just been going too hard for those guys to follow. He was flying. But that, that is like an insurance policy policy stage 13, because imagine like, just imagine the vault of this year.

Ben O'Connor takes that time. Imagine Pogacar is at that race. He just blows up that gap that O'Connor has in that 11 kilometer time trial. I mean, that is a steep, hard climb, steep finish. And if you're by yourself, I have to imagine that you're going to lose more time than if it was a group finish on the same fish. Also, this is the same finish. Remember Brandon McNulty was pacing.

Exactly. Yeah. I think that was what gives you an idea of how steep it is, you know? So obviously it was after a long mountain stage, but yeah, I think that was what... That gives you an idea of how steep it is, you know? So obviously it was after a long mountain stage, but yeah, I mean, we all remember those images where McNulty was pacing, and then I think Jonas attacked, and then Pogacar counterattacked, and he won the stage.

And then we all know these images when... Who was it? The Dutch guy on quickstep sprinter uh babio but no jacobsen yeah jacobsen fighting to make the time cut and for the people who uh have a really long memory this altiport is uh famous for featuring in one of the James Bond movies. There's some scenes being filmed there on that Altyport. I mean, it's kind of terrifying. I didn't quite realize you could take planes off and land them on a runway that steep. I don't want to do that actually at any point in my life.

But so they continue on. There's a lot of debate of Ventoux as part of the Alps not part of the alps i think technically geologically it is part of the alps it appears to be separate that's what i was reading this week um it looks separate when you're there it is you have a summit finish on von two so yeah like that's gonna help the strongest rider like that's not some gimmicky finish so if you've gotten time in this first week you're unless you're a really good climber you're sending that time back and then you have stage 18 5500 meters of climbing what is that in feet that is that's like 18 000 feet something like that yeah 18 150 feet of vertical gain finishes it's a little confusing corchevel

col de la los you see that you think it's the same col de la los that they finished on in 2020 and 2023 when we've been to go really really put a lot of time into pagacha actually in 2023 they went over the top finished in the town of corchevel, I believe, or at least around it. I think you said they're climbing the other side of that. So the side that they descended. Yeah. I think from, I mean, at first sight, I think they go up Courchevel and then in Courchevel, they keep going. They keep going.

It's basically a path they made. They paved to connect two valleys. And so that's, it's from the other side, but it's unbelievably hard. It's a super hard stage. Some people say it's the queen stage. I think the stage to La Plagna, is that stage 19, La Plagna?

Yeah, so the next stage to La Plagna. I think that's also a really, really hard stage. In my opinion, that's actually the hardest stage. But hey, listen, there's plenty of climbing. I think there's more or less the same amount of elevation, 52,000 meters or something as this year's Tour de France. I think if I think this year was 53,000, um, if I'm not mistaken, uh, the Tour de France, um, um, I think it's, it's, it's really balanced. Um, I like it. You know, as, as we said on the, on the move show, you know, I think the only thing that's missing for me is a team time trial. I'd love to see that again. But other than that, um,

there's something for everyone. There's not a whole lot of opportunities or guaranteed opportunities for sprints. Some of those stages that you think might be a sprint are tricky at the end. Some sprinters may make it. For example, Pedersen has a few chances where other sprinters can't make it. But I think for sprinters, it's not an ideal to the France. Yeah. Yeah, that is true. I mean, like Lille, the first stage probably will be a sprint.

The next bang on sprint stage, like stage three finishes in Dunkirk. But like these are tricky roads. You know, you get to the north of the country, a lot of But like, these are tricky roads. You know, you get up to the north of the country, a lot of crosswinds, really tricky roads. I even think of Calais. What was that, two, three years ago, where you'd look at it and you'd think that's absolutely a sprint stage. Wow, Vinart flies off the front and solos to the wind.

I mean, that's just like sums up the north of France right there. You could get a lot of funky stage finishes. My big question for you i actually i'm quite excited about this because it's almost like a bunch of little one day classics scattered throughout the first 10 11 stages is bagacha contesting these stage wins oh for sure and so he could have like a nice little tally of, of time bonuses built up by the time you get to the first rest day. There's some stages. I mean,

there's some stages for punchers like Bernard from the pool and we'll see if on the pool goes to the tour or not. We don't know yet. I mean, he has, he has kind of hinted towards focusing on for the try to be world champion mountain bike, uh, next year, not going to be easy. Um, but, uh, so that would depend. I mean, he could still do part of the tour and then, and then, uh, kind of pull out, uh, after the first rest day or something, that would also be a possibility. If I would be him, I would do that. Um, but, um, there's a few that, you know, in the first seven, eight days, there's, there's two stages or three stages where Pogacar will try to win the

stage and get, get bonuses for sure. Like stage seven, Muda, Muda, Britannia. I think Vanderpoel won last time they were there. Was it two, three years ago? And took the yellow Jersey in honor of his grandfather who had just passed away, Ramon Pulidor. That stage is still fresh in my mind. And I still consider that as one of the most incredible performances

I've seen in the last decade. Because what Van der Poel did there was unbelievable. The first time they went over Moodle Britannia, he attacked, took the bonification seconds. There was bonification. Uh, and then he got back in a real back in,

and then he attacked again and won the stage. That was the only way he could actually get the Jersey from all of Philippe who had won the day before. And yeah, that was incredible. And his first tour just right out of the gate and that's a that's a climb that really suits pagacha does not suit vinegar or evanipal stage five time trial 33 kilometer individual time trial i haven't looked at like the actual map but the profile looks quite

flat yeah to me that could be a lot like what was that stage seven this year? Like it's those guys, Pogacar, Vindigo, Evanipol. They're all so fast at the time trial, especially when they're fit. Yeah. So maybe Evanipol gets a little bit of time there. I mean, this is, we're going back to the problem. Evanipol's problem. Let's say he gets 15 seconds on Pogacar.

Where else is he getting time on him? You know, he can take a little bit of time in a flat time trial at least this year and then he loses at the mountains so if he wants to win he's either got to like hope that something happens or dramatically improve his climbing while not losing any time trial ability so it's a pretty tough task yeah and like so stage 19 you mentioned that to La Plagna 130 kilometers that's not very far you know that's not long that's gonna be a really hard stage like even just the the more I look at this route when if when I first looked at the map a few weeks ago I was like oh man I don't know it's kind of a weird, it's just like,

felt like we were going back in time. Like we spent half the time in the North one day in the messy central. This does not feel like an exciting tour, but the more you look at this route, it's actually quite, they're quite good at creating these routes. They can kind of marry history with modern explosive stages just another thing on stage 18 like oh being too hard for pagachar i looked up stage 15 of the

this last year where pagachar crushed everybody it's 222 kilometers so significantly longer 5700 57 basically 5700 meters of climbing so more climbing than stage 18 of the tour this year or this coming year. So I think he's pretty good at a hard stage. I just wanted to make a little, um, parenthesis, you know, because they're, we're talking about, okay. 4,000, 5,500, 4,800, 5,000 meters. I did some research, right. And, uh, I don't want to sound like the old cranky ex cyclist who said, you know, well back in the days, you know, but, uh,

everything has changed. No shades stages are shorter. Uh, guys goes a lot faster. Um, the gearing is a lot different, but I went back and did some research, you know, the Tour de France of 1992, stage 12, finish in Sestriere, 254 kilometers. We can see it on the profile here, 7,000 meters of vertical. Claudio Capucci won the stage in seven hours, 44 minutes, you know, 7,000 meters. And of course it is extreme, but I do remember I did some tours, you know, 6,000 meters was, I mean, long stages, but it, it, it happened.

And then, you know, while I was looking at this and this for people who, uh, I found this, uh, this journal of mine, uh, and I took a and I took a picture of it. So this is a picture here of, I think, my second Tour de France. I didn't do the 92 Tour de France, but anyway, the gearing back in those days. If you look here, you see stage 16 to Alpe d'Huez, short stage. 39.22 was my gearing, the blue circle. And the stage afterwards to Morzine with Duplan at the end in the Alps. There was three mountains, 255 kilometers.

I rode 39.23 and I made a little comment. 22 would have been better. Um, you know, I mean, to show you how things have changed, you know, we obviously went a lot slower. Um, I think the maximum we had available back then in days was 25, but it was like, I don't know if it was, was, was a mental thing, but you know, like you, you didn't want to have to take a 25 because that was,

that was like bad. You know, if you would have a 25, you were going slow, really slow, which is actually stupid because it would have been a lot better. But in our minds, it was like, okay, 39, 23, that's the gearing, you know, and that's what you use. And if you have the power, you can move that and you're going to be okay. So, I mean, nowadays, if you would say nowadays, 39, 23 guys, that's what you get mentally.

They would not be able to start the race because you know you're right nowadays they're riding with 30 32 sometimes 34 in the back you know this is insane what you're saying is crazy i mean i a lot of people there's a lot of noise made about like how is pagacha going so fast in these climbs he's beating all these records you know i was thinking at the time like i'm surprised he's not beating them by more based on what you're saying like it's it's almost impossible to even ride the climbs with the gearing that you're describing let alone what your tire pressure was at i'm sure it was at the maximum one thing that that people forget you know like imagine to have these years like 39 23 okay so let's say there's a 255 kilometer stage with three months, four mountains. Uh,

those are the gears you had. So you had to like the first time, the second time, the third time you had to go over those climbs with those gears. Imagine the muscle tiredness you had already on. Now you can use your perfect ideal gears and on the last climb, but with the small gears they have, they're able to save their legs, you know, on the climbs before the last climb, which of course is going to have a huge impact

on the speed on the last climbs. And your bike was probably really heavy and your cranks were like 180 mil. That was steel bikes, steel bike and 175 cranks were like 180 mil that was steel bikes steel bike and uh no 175 cranks but anyways the bikes were probably nine kilos i would say uh back then uh skinny tires so you know down to you down tube shifters i mean even we were talking about this just personally off the, off the record, like the handlebar widths recently, you know, I, my new Ventum, I feel very fast on it. It is objectively very fast. I go back to my old road bike.

I almost feel like I can't ride it because my handlebars are so wide and that has to make a big difference in speed. And that just has happened in the last few years. Yeah. Yeah. I remember I was always 42 center, center to center, the handlebars. And, you know, then back in the days, there was this belief that, you know, you actually had to try to look for the mountain stages. Some people would get wider handlebars because, you know, the wider your, your, your, your thorax was more open and the theory would be able to breathe better, which of course makes no sense at all.

But that was the way we were told, you know? Yeah. Yeah. How, how could that science be wrong? It makes perfect sense. I'm even, I'm not trying to remember when these tiny teacup gears became popular. Do you remember stage 15, 2010 Giro d' talia finishes atop monty zoncolan ivan basso wins cadel evans very strong at that race finishes a minute 19 down because he was on probably similar gearing to what you're describing i don't think so i think back then already you know i remember everything started to change when the when when the compact system came, you know, like basically 50, 34. Okay.

And then they have the mid compact too, which is like 52, 36. Yeah. So, I mean, if you have a 34 in the front and you have a, you know, 28, 30 in the back, you know, it's, it's fine. You know, you can go up everywhere. Do you remember when Contador started putting the really low end SRAM cassette on because they, they didn't make the high end cassette. That was really big. He was basically putting like a beginner's cassette on his rear,

basically for his rear gearing, because he could get like a 34 and it blew everyone's mind. They're like, no way. Like, can a derailleur even handle that? And it could, you know, and it helps a lot, but people almost like laughed at it. They're like, what's wrong? Why would you need that gear? Um, that was the wrong way to think apparently. I remember when, when one little story, Spencer, but now we're talking about gears, you know, um,

very young professional, I think was my second year professional. And I was on a small team and we went to the tour of Switzerland. We were invited to the tour of Switzerland and we had no equipment. We had nothing. You know, we were a poor little team, super honored. We could go to the tour of Switzerland. I had never in my life seen a mountain pass like that before. And so I remember I went to the team director and i asked for a cassette with the 25 uh and uh he was you know he was a champion an ex-champion you know i've been world champion he had won the vuelta he had been he finished third in the tour de france

so i looked up to this person right and so and his answer was what are you thinking of using a 25? Do you think this is a mountain bike race? Now, later I found out that the reason why he didn't want to give me a 25 is that we were so poor that our team only had two cassettes with a 25, which he had to give to the sprinters to make it over the climb. It's funny how you take something like that so seriously. And it's like, no, yeah, I just lied because we didn't have enough cassettes. Sorry, Johan. Yeah. So if anyone says stage 18 is the hard,

I saw printed after the route reveal, this is the hardest stage in tour history. Clearly it's not true. That's not possible. And also they might've let you and lance design this route because seven mountain stages i'm counting the time trial because it's a mountain stage and seven summit finishes so there's no downhill finishes downhill finishes anywhere to be seen yeah yeah i like that i like, yeah, I don't know. I'm okay with it. It definitely favors Pogacar, whoever's stronger, Pogacar. Also, you know, well, it kind of evens out a little bit because let's not forget Jonas lost considerable time. That's true. That's true.

2023 and 2024, sorry. So, you know, obviously we don't know if mentally he still had some consequences of his bad crash in April. That could have been a factor in his downhill skills. You know, he really didn't have the confidence that he usually has because he's, you know, he's usually pretty good in the downhills. And it's hard to imagine now, but this could be a really close race. You know, if they're both healthy and fit, I know I tallied up without time bonuses, like the difference in their tours.

Like if you imagine every tour they've raced against each other since 2021 is one tour, they're within like four seconds of each other over four years. So there's a good chance this is close. And that could make the difference, as you say, because he lost a decent amount of time on this descent in 2024. Yeah. Also, what was I going to say?

I totally blanked. But the. OK, so this is what I'm going to say at the tour presentation, like no stars. I think it's because there was a Singapore criterium. They're all there. Well, most of them are on holiday and yeah, Mark Cavendish was the star of the presentation, which is kind of ironic because he just, you know, he's a retiree. Well, that's my question. Is he? Yeah.

Or he's not, he's not going to be at the 2020, 2025's my question. Is he, or he's not, he's not going to be at the 2020, 2025 tour. No, I don't know. That may be, that actually threw me off quite a bit when I saw him at the presentation, I was thinking, wait a second tours. He should not come. I should not do another year, man. Come on. Why? You know, that's it, man. He's, you know, he has the record now. It's nothing to be gained, nothing to be gained, you know, that's it, man. He's, you know, he has the record now. It's nothing to be gained, nothing to be gained, you know, unless,

unless he just doesn't want to be at home too long. But Hey, if I'm Mark Cavendish and I don't like to be at home too long, let's, I would find other ways to then, then riding the Tour de France at this point in his life. I mean, we, yeah, we know someone who's an expert and never been at home always on the road, but so, yeah, I guess he could get the yellow Jersey stage one and then this, I'm just making the case.

If I was trying to convince him yellow Jersey stage one, if he wins, and then they're going back to Paris. So that's an act, an extra sprint stage. I agree. He should not do this. That would be crazy, but he's not going to, he's not going to, I think I was just, I think this is just a game of him. You know, I think he said, we'll see or something, or let's see your, but yeah, I think this is a game he's playing with the media. There's no way he's going to come back another year. And the last thing I'll say about this tour, you look at it on the map.

The first thing you're thinking of, if you're a staff member, I mean, even for the riders, it's going to be a lot of time in the team bus. I'm reading 3000 kilometers of transfers and it doesn't seem like there's not very many stages that are actually that close to each other. No, I mean, if you look at the map, they're all separate. There's no, almost, I mean, the beginning a little bit in the North, but there's almost no stages that are connected. You know, basically when you're finishing in one,

one city and you start in the same city or even close, you know, there's a few really long transfers, but there's also a lot of small, I mean, if you look on the map, it seems small, but it's, you know, it's 120, a hundred. It's always, you know, it's, it's two hours in the bus before the stage, two hours in the bus after the stage it's, it's hard on the guys. Yeah. I mean, here's just some of the transfers to 200 kilometers from Dunkirk to Amens that's stages three and four 197 kilometers between stages nine and

10, 170 kilometers from stages two and three. Like that's, those are brutal, brutal transfers. Like, but yeah, I mean, my next question for you is heavy in the North. Like, do they wrote, like, is this like rotating crops? Like, Oh, we'll, we'll not go to the North for two or three years. Then there'll be a bunch of towns that want to pay us money to have a start and finish in that, in their town. Actually, you know what? I don't know, Spencer, I don't know how it works,

but obviously it's, you know, the, the, the financial decisions. I don't know. I don't know. I think little, the North of France has obviously put in quite a bit of money to have, because they're around there for like three, four days, right? Yeah. They're basically in the,

what's the region like, Oh, Oh, France or something. No, no, no, Oh,

North. No, no. Is it not? No, no, no, no,

no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

I don't know. I don't know. Uh, I should know because it's close to Belgium. It might actually be in French, French Flanders might be up there. I mean, there are areas that there are actually areas in that, in that region that, uh, they speak, they speak Flemish, like, uh, uh, French Flemish, which is a very strange, but, uh, it's, it's like French Flanders. Yeah. I mean, we'll get, we'll learn more about this when the tour starts.

I need to go hunt around up there. I mean, there are two stages that start and finish in the same town, which you have to imagine costs a lot of money. You don't see that very often. Like we saw it with Twa this year, but that must be a big check that they're writing that's good for the city too you know it brings a lot a lot of economy to the city it's this it's super super busy those days it's true it's true um i've already booked my airbnb for leal i'll be there that's where everyone wants to be in the summer right everyone

goes to leille for vacation. Not very pretty. So moving on from the tour, we'll be obviously talking about this race a lot once 2025 kicks off, but more things going on at Ineos. Their head trainer, personal trainer of Egan Bernal and Carlos Rodriguez leaving. He's a Basque person. His name is, can you say his name really quick? Xavier Arteche.

What's going on here? This seems, it's just a purge going on, right? Yeah, everybody's leaving the ship. It's like, you know, the ship is sinking and everybody's jumping off. Obviously, it's a snowball effect, right? I think that a lot of guys,

I mean, Arteta is there for a while already. When Brailsford was still there, I think he's probably hired by Brailsford. Close contact with Elling there. I think he's probably hired by Brailsford, uh, close contact with Ellingworth. You know, I think that the fact that Ellingworth is leaving has an impact on, on, on also a lot of staff people. Um, and, uh, you know, it was highly qualified staff people in cycling are in demand. And there's a lot of other teams who are willing know, are willing to, to pay decent contracts to these guys. You know,

we saw Dan Bingham and his, uh, I row assistant. I don't, I don't remember the name, but they're, they're leaving to the Red Bull. I don't know where our touches would be going,

but you know, probably be, it'd probably be, uh, Red Bull or Visma or Movistar. Movistar could be back to his

origin. He's a Basque and it's his whole team. I think Movistar recently has renewed the sponsorship for another four years. So that could be one of the potential. Anyways, I think so that could be one of the,

one of the potential anyways, I think it's telling to see that these people are leaving. Um, and I don't know who they're going to replace them with, you know, I mean, uh, that's, that's the thing, uh, we are, we saw already that in terms of hiring new writers, it's not been fantastic on Ineos there's been they're losing Narvaez

the guys that are coming there's Bob Jungels and who else is there going there there's not one other guy that I think Bob Jungels and anyway the other new guys are not super, super

big riders, you know? Yeah. Did I miss this Axel Lawrence? Axel Lawrence. That's a good guy. That's a good rider and that's a guy who can win races, you know? Not saying that the other guys are not good riders,

but at least this guy can win races, which is what they need. But they're losing, they're losing Ethan Hader. These guys win races. Yeah, that's the problem. Like, Navias, Hader, those are probably two of their, I mean, Elia Viviani, in theory, a race winner, but hasn't been happening recently. But Ethan Hader and Narvaez, like those are two of their probably most prolific winners that they have.

I guess it's an odd thing too, where the team might be like these, these people actually might be worth more split up. So it's like, if you keep them together, I'm sure Ineos is thinking as we need to cut costs. All right. We're not going to pay these people more because the team's not doing well. So it's like, if you keep them together, I'm sure Ineos is thinking as we need to cut costs. All right. We're not going to pay these people more because the team's not doing well. And so the head mechanic says, okay, I'm just going to leave and go work somewhere else. I'm probably going to get a pay raise. Head coach, the head trainer says, all right, I'm going to go somewhere else. I'll probably get a pay raise.

And Ineos probably isn't willing to give them pay raises because they're trying to cut costs, not actually increase costs. Yeah. Well, it's, I'm still, I'm still a bit in the dark, you know, what's happening there. You know, now it's gone quiet around the whole Pitcock situation. We've seen, you know, some rumors that he might be staying now. I still can't see that happening, actually. So we'll see.

I mean, what's clear is that right now in EOS in Team Sky from the early days it's not the team the benchmark anymore and they're not even

in the top three not even in the top four of teams that people want to go to anyway they're you know

people are leaving but they have hired a lot of new people, new staff. Uh, they have hired new writers. They're, they're maxed out on 30 writers. So it seems to look like they're, they want to keep going because normally new writers will not sign for one year. They will sign for minimum two years. Right. So, uh So 25 and 26 looks like they're going to be teaming else.

What happened to Tim Kerrison? Remember when he left the old head coach? Yeah, I don't know where he went. They should bring him back. Get Tim Kerrison back. The good old days. Did you want to say the Benel lux corner over

here uh the belgian cycling federation speaking of me you know i just want to make a little side jump towards uh belgian cycling uh the same thing seems to be happening there i don't know what the reason is but you know we've already said in another episode that the head coach Sven van Turnhout has decided to stop his collaboration with Belgian cycling. He's looking for something else, probably going to go to a big World Tour team, most likely Red Bull Bora, not confirmed yet. But then, and you know, following up on that, I just, I saw that, uh, the coach of track cycling in Belgium, Kenny, the kid has also decided to quit his,

his position. Uh, no explanation given, but it's his decision. Um, the technical director of, uh, of Belgian cycling,

uh, who was the guy who was coordinating all the performance people, uh, is leaving Belgian cycling and actually goes to Soudal Quick-Step to be coordinating the whole performance sector of Soudal Quick-Step. Maybe at the request of Remco Evenepoel. It seems that they had a good relationship during the last few years. And then the fourth one, the national coach for mountain

bike, Philippe Meraga, has not been renewed his contract. To me, it looks like it's a financial issue that I'm surprised because, you know, the Belgian Federation has been quite successful in the last decade in terms of, you know, medals and world championships, Olympic games. So I don't know what's going on, but it's kind of, you know, everybody's leaving, leaving their position there. So I'm going to try to find out exactly what's happening, but I'm surprised to see that. Yeah. I mean, remember this thing with the, they stopped doing bonuses. This is a story last week. I mean,

there must be some financial angle because as you said, the performance has been the best in the world. It has to be just some sort of crunch there. Before we go into questions, Lorena Wiebes, did you want to talk about her third at world gravel championships? Track world championships. Pretty impressive. Unbelievable. I mean, I think it's, it's, it's, you know, people have not really paid attention to it, but Lorena Wiebes,

what a star, you know? So she finishes third in the world championship gravel, which is a week after the world championships on the road in Zurich. Right. So third in the world chapter says gravel straight from there. She goes to the last stage race international stage race in Holland, in the Netherlands wins three stages herself and then helps win Lotte Kopecky the last stage that Kopecky needed to win to win the GC

and wins so Kopecky wins and she wins because Lorena Wiebes just pulls her brakes and she just passes her at the last moment finishes that race. Two days later,

big surprise, I see Lorena Wiebes at the start of the World Championships on the track in the scratch race. So, safe to say, zero preparation for the track. She comes from

the World Championships road to the World Championships gravel to the road. Starts the scratch race against all the specialists in the world. World Championship. She wins the World Championship. She's world champion on the Velodrome. A couple of days later, another surprise.

She shows up at the start of a high-level cyclocross race in the Netherlands. The it's a night race. It's called wooden one by, um, I don't remember who won, uh,

the writer from track. Uh, I forgot her name now that that's champion cyclocross. Um, and she finished the seventh in the, in the cyclocross race. Uh, so she goes from one discipline to another, to the track and then back to cyclocross. I mean, I've never seen something like that in such as, I mean, in two weeks time, she's been on the highest level, uh, in the world

in four different disciplines. It's really mind-blowing. I mean, the end of the CIMAC ladies tour, I don't know if i fully absorbed this at the time she had to lead capecchi out in the final sprint make sure she doesn't win make sure capecchi does win because capecchi needed that four second time bonus over second place to take the overall by two seconds that's very hard to do extremely hard to do um i kind of wonder about weebus like you know we talk so much about capecchi so much about volarin i'm just looking at the win rankings this is in 2024 weebus wins 22 races that's a lot yeah that's almost like bagachar pataki level capecchi 16 volarin 15 so by wins she's the most dominant rider in the sport obviously she's helped because

she's a sprinter you can rack up a lot of wins that way i the thing i wonder about and but this shows us why it's not so easy like is she going to totally change women's cycling like eventually will teams just be like what is the point of going to the line in any race like should we just should everyone else be racing to make sure that it is not a sprint? It's a small group finish. She was beaten in the first two stages in the Tour de France. Yeah, that is. I was hoping you wouldn't mention that because then that's exactly the reason why you would say, well, let's take it to the line.

Who knows? We could beat her because it worked for those teams. Yeah. But I mean, she's so versatile. Just listening to you say that, it shows you why it's pretty difficult to get in front of her. And the thing is Spencer, I watched the, I watched the scratch race, the world champion chips, the way she won that race was unbelievable. Unbelievable. Like she went to the front with, you know, I mean, these,

and that's a really, that's a specialty, you know, that the track racing, it's a different, it's a different discipline. It's completely different. Different bikes, fixed gears, different way of pedaling. She just was unbelievable. She won that like fingers in the nose. And the races are like a few minutes long. It's quite different from what you're doing all year long.

Well, let's get into some listener questions. This one's really interesting. It's actually, I've been thinking about this myself from Kendrick in Chattanooga. How long does it take the ASO to come up with the route for the tour? If the tour concludes at the end of July and they announce the following,

if the ends in July and they announce at the end of October, does that mean they plan the tour in just three months? I would think they would have to be working at least a year in advance because they have to coordinate with all the different towns and government, or does a tour have so much money they bring in? Does a tour bring in so much money they can do whatever they want? I'd assume. Yeah. It takes a year at least to play. Yeah. It's already, it's already decided where it's going

to start next year. And, and even the year after, uh. No, I mean, you know, 26 and 27. Yeah, yeah. To start. And then I guess, I mean, they do work a year ahead for sure. And it's, you know, it's also, it's a balance act between, you know, the bidding and what they want on the terrain. But no, I mean, obviously not, it's not like the tour finishes and then in the next three months, they decide what the course is going to be. It's, it's a year

in advance for, I would say the fine tuning of the stages, but way before that already that is decided. I assume they have like, it's probably someone in a car, right. Driving around like right now, like looking at potential roots. I mean, it is, when you start thinking about how granular granular you have to get, like it's, it's actually quite interesting or finding thing. I'm always fascinated about is finding climbs, you know, like the zero and the Volta are really good at this. Like let's, they must hear rumors. Like this climb is really hard. Like, all right,

we got to go check it out and see if this is going to be good for the race. And they have to like literally go out and drive it. Yeah. Yeah. Well, the tour de France is not the same, you know, there's not,

there's not a lot of experiments in the tour. You know, usually, usually they go to the, the, the places where they've been before. Uh, you know,

there's exceptions, but the, the wealth is different. The wealth is like, okay, let's see. Oh, there's a plan there.

Oh, I just, I just heard they,ta is like, okay, let's see. Oh, there's a climb there. I just heard they paved the cattle path where the goats used to go up. They find ridiculous, the most ridiculous climb. That doesn't happen in the Tour de France, ever. The Tour also has

the benefit of, there's so many races in France that they can even just copy and paste parts of. I feel like almost every road they do, there's so many races in france that they can even just copy and paste parts of like i feel like almost every road they do there's a regional race that probably uses that road so they can just they don't have to do as much like home brewing as maybe the volta does i i'd assume you know there's a lot of talk of like oh this is a pagachar stopping route and it was the same thing with lance it was always like they're trying to make it so Lance can't win. But do they even,

they probably have the route locked in by the time the tour finishes, right? Yeah. Like there's not a lot of wiggle room there. No. So question number two, can you comment on how much bike choice affected the tour?

Pogacar seemed to ride a more aero bike with deeper section wheels on the mountain stages compared to Vindigo, who seemed to ride a more aero bike with deeper section wheels on the mountain stages compared to Vindigo, who seemed to ride a climbing bike with lighter, less aero wheels. Since Pogacar seemed to gain some of his time on the less steep sections of the climbs where aero should make more of a difference, would Vindigo benefit from using a more aero bike? This is something I was wondering about too, because not just Pogacar, every rider on UAE rides the same

bike and wheels every day of the year they never switch wheels which goes like visma definitely switches wheels based on stages but i've been curious to ask you this as well johan well well first of all i don't think there's that much difference between bikes at the highest level. It's, it's obviously, it's, it's often a choice, you know, people like to the way this bike handles better, um, in UAE, actually, I think they, they, they only use one model bike, a road bike, uh, Visma has the choice between the aero bike and the, and the climbing bike. Uh,

I mean, I didn't realize that they're always using the same section wheels. Um, what, what, like, is it like height, like,

like 60 or 50 or they're pretty deep. I don't think there's 60, maybe 50. Yeah. But yeah, just next time you see, like next time you see a race just like every uae rider seems to be on exactly the same bike and wheels no like all the actually i'm surprised the bike industry doesn't give them more crap about that because you know there's all these

like oh you got to have five bikes with different sets of wheels it's like well pogacar race is the same bike in the same wheels every day of the year, no matter what race he's in. I mean, I think the Pogacar of 2024 didn't really matter which bike he was racing. Yeah. I would also say on that, I think there's no, there's, it will, it, I don't think it will come down at that level of sophistication in the equipment. I don't think, uh, there's a huge huge uh there's no i don't think there's any reason why a guy has lost or won a race because of the equipment uh let's put

it that way maybe time trials is different yeah yes there's there's a big difference between different brands and time trial bikes i would say though if like go back and watch the Pyrenees stages from this year, Pogacar definitely got an aero advantage just on drafting. Like he was in the wheels a lot because, you know, Vindigo probably thought I have to, I have to do something here if I want to win the tour. And he was letting Taddei sit on his wheel a ton,

which does give you a huge aero advantage. Yeah. George thinks that that uh what was that it was the morzine stage at the 2023 tour george hincapie thinks that the deeper section wheels mess pagata are up on that descent but i don't know if that's true or not which one was that remember what carlos rodriguez won ah yeah yeah yeah yeah duplan which i mean when you do run deep feels like that in the mountains actually the same climb i i i mentioned 255 kilometers in the 91 tour de france um i don't think so i i think you know

what i saw what i saw i mean didn't mess him up because, first of all, he could stay perfectly with Jonas. But Pogacar was, he was definitely not the same rider. And he was not great in any descent. Actually, I had the impression that Jonas was a bit better in the descents than today in the 2023 Tour de France. Now, when you're in that zone of everything works or nothing seems to work, it has an impact on the climbing, but also on the descents. Yeah, I mean, yeah.

And also, so I do agree with you. I thought Picaccio was the weaker descender in 2023, Vindigo weaker descender in 2024. What do they both have in common? They both had bad crashes that spring, you know, and I don't know if that's probably mental and also physical. Like you just don't have the same comfort on the bike, perhaps as the other rider.

So yeah, don't, if you wanted to send fast, don't have a bad crash, like two months before the tour that you have to come back from. Next question, I'm a wreck. This is David and Hoboken, New Jersey. I'm a recreational cyclist when i ride in a group or solo i'm lit up like a christmas tree to ensure i'm visible to car traffic mainly a rear red taillight and front white light in all the videos i see of pros training

either as a team solo or just a few of the riders they never have lights on their bikes even when riding in heavy traffic why is this i have a theory i think i mean most of the riders uh well first of all first of all you know don't compare professional cyclists with recreational riders because most professional cyclists they whether they go train in in groups, they usually have a following car behind them. Or in the worst case, a motorbike that is with them with assistance, you know, spare wheels or, you know, drinks, food, whatever. I do see, however, a lot of riders with backlights, you know, front lights, probably not so much. And also it depends in the area where you're training. Of course, you know,

it's riding, riding bikes in the U S is not the same as riding bikes in Europe for the simple reason that in the U S car drivers are not as used to cyclists in, in, on the road. And they are, you know, they,

they can't estimate the distance or the speed. A cyclist gets close to your car in Europe. It's different, you know, Europe is, and then depends in which parts of Europe, but you know, if you see Belgium,

Holland, Italy, France, Spain, I would say, um, drivers are used cyclists. Uh, I'm not saying that they are always respecting them, but it's different. It's different. It's different. Um, so, but, but I see most of the riders over here, uh, have, have, uh, at least a flashing backlight when they're, when they're riding in traffic. Yeah, I would recommend that.

And I think what's happening here is David has maybe seen a, like photo shoots, you know, like if you're seeing videos of them, it's probably that's preset and they're going to, they're going to take all this stuff off their bike. That doesn't look good, but you'd be surprised when you see pros training like they have all the ugly stuff on their bikes that we have you know like frame bags and things like that um just because they're useful and then as you say johan i think that there's a difference in the u.s and europe but i mean i i bought a backlight that i saw wout van art using the garmin varia because it's like oh if wout's using it's got to be good and it is a great rear backlight to have so um

don't if you see with the radar that kind of alerts you when it's super helpful yeah and as you say a lot of these guys have follow cars so at least when they're doing serious training so you really don't want to even if you see them on certain roads, like I've gone to some areas that like Remco, Evanipols uses a training camp. And I've thought like, Ooh, these main roads are pretty busy.

I don't know if I would ride on here. You got to remember, he probably has a follow car. So don't always do what they do. It's make sure you're taking care of your own safety. Look lamer than them because they're probably also having lights on the back of their bikes when they're training by themselves. Last question. This is for Johan.

Besides the obvious improvements, and this is from Rad from Cape Town. I wish I was in Cape Town. I'm jealous. Besides the obvious improvements in nutrition training and equipment, what's the biggest change you've seen in the modern era of cycling specifically have you seen an evolution in team tactics or is cycling fundamentally the same sport that it has always been actually i haven't seen an improvement in team tactics quite on the contrary i think tactics on secondary in modern cycling and cycling is a lot more based now on performance and knowing exactly what they can do for such an amount of time. Uh, you know, back in the days, uh, we didn't have that information. We, we, we didn't, we didn't know exactly, okay,

this rider can do this for such an amount of time. Uh, we didn't have the tools to measure it. Um, so I think tactics have become, uh, secondary, not they're still necessary. And sometimes mistakes are being made tactically that they could prevent certain, uh, certain, uh, outcomes that they don't want. Um, but I think it's, uh, you know, it's, it's first of all, the bikes, the bikes, uh, have improved tremendously. You know, I've saw, I saw somewhere, um, somebody who did all the calculations and put everything into, uh, you know, all the stats.

And he came to the conclusion that nowadays bikes compared to the bikes of late nineties, early two thousands, uh, or 16% faster. came to the conclusion that nowadays bikes compared to the bikes of late 90s early 2000s are 16 faster 16 that's that's huge 16 um nutrition we all we've talked about it it's it's day and night you know it's it's become one of the most important aspects of performance. And it's huge. I mean, if you look at, for example, the Ironman last weekend, nutrition is the most focused aspect of that sport right now. Training, of course, has changed.

Back in the days, you know, training was based on experience from other riders, uh, not so much science behind, uh, that has changed a lot. And then the, you know, the psychological aspect, the mental, I mean, nowadays, every team, every cyclist has a mental coach. If you would have said this 20 years ago that was it you would you would have been considered you know weak or soft you know ah you know do you need a mental coach you're you're not you're not a tough guy right uh the mental aspect of of high performance and elite sport is is you know is super important it's one of the most important aspects.

And I think that has changed a lot too. So other than that, I think that's about it. I agree with you. I do think team tactics have gotten worse. Like think of Ayuso on the Galibier. Like that's not happening in a Johan Bernil team. You have someone hiding in the back.

I know, I know, but you know what? I mean, it didn't have a, okay. You can say, well, you know,

it's bullshit what he does, but it ultimately didn't have any effect on the outcome of Pogacar and UAE. But what he did there or not, not do it. I mean, it didn't look good, but, and I,

I, I didn't like it, but it had no, it wouldn't have made any difference well in retrospect he could have stolen his teammates bike could have stolen pagacho's bikes to probably still would have been fine you know like he didn't really none of that actually made any difference in retrospect i guess one thing i've maybe started to notice is the point you know there's so much pressure on points now i do feel like that changes the calculus. A lot of times,

like people will, will slot into racing for second, third, like think of even Lombardia, um, Kofidis. I think it was one. Is it gear?

It was second or third. And, you know, it gets like 400 UCI points for that performance, which that's a lot. Like if you scored a thousand in a, in a year, you would be one of the highest earning points riders on that's a lot. Like if you scored a thousand in a year, you would be one of the highest earning points riders on a team.

So he's getting half of that in one race. And that's really valuable for the team to stay in the world tour. I do think that's probably changed the way people race more than we think. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You see a lot of riders now fighting for for 10th place 15th place you know every single point counts that that has changed for sure or the do you see the double sprinter now maybe more than you used to or you have also also yeah well do you have anything else johan before we take off i think we've covered a lot for sure. You know, there's, there's a few things that we left out, but,

uh, we'll carry it over. Be back. Yeah. And if you want your questions answered, send them to info at we do dot team. And we will get those on the next show. If we have room.

Well, thanks so much, Johan. And we will talk soon. Okay. Thanks. Bye. Bye.