THEMOVE - Impressive Comeback at Tour de Suisse & Johan's Thoughts on Recent UCI Decisions | THEMOVE+

Episode Date: June 20, 2025

Johan Bruyneel and Spencer Martin discuss João Almeida's ongoing methodical comeback at the Tour de Suisse to set himself up for a full recovery from a disastrous opening stage, before breaking down what it means for UAE's overall strength at the Tour de France. They also touch on Quinn Simmons' impressive and emotional win on Stage 3, before Johan gives his frank opinions on the UCI's recent decisions regarding maximum-allowed gear ratios and the ethics commission investigating Dries De Bondt's actions on the Colle delle Finestre on Stage 20 of the Giro d'Italia. Caldera Labs: Skincare doesn’t have to be complicated—but it should be good. Upgrade your routine with Caldera Lab and see the difference for yourself. Go to https://www.CalderaLab.com/THEMOVE and use THEMOVE at checkout for 15% off your first order. 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.

I think very highly of Vaucelin. He may hang on. He's going to be podium for sure. And as of now, depending on what happens tomorrow, but if this is the situation before the time trial, Almeida will have to have a good day. And then he will win the Tour of Switzerland, but not by much. Everybody, welcome back to the move. Plus, I'm Spencer Martin. I'm here with Johan Bernal, and we are breaking down

the first six stages of the Tour of Switzerland, as well as speculating on who we think is going to win the overall and then clean up a few news items from the week, racing action at the Tour of Belgium, gear restrictions, rules coming from the UCI, and we'll get Johan's thoughts on all of it. But Johan, before we do that, Tour of Switzerland, today Jordi Maes wins the sprint finish over Davide Ballerini and Louis Aschi. Oddly, Joao Alameda, the heavy favorite, who everyone now still assumes is going to win,

is not in the leaders jersey yet. Kevin Vaklan from Arkea B&B Hotels is leading. Julian Alaphilippe last from the past in second place. And then Almeida in third, 39 seconds back. But we have an uphill finish tomorrow and a time trial on Sunday. So he's kind of the leader in the clubhouse. But what have been your thoughts on the tour of Switzerland so far? Well, yeah, first of all? Well yeah first of all Spencer,

first of all welcome to the same continent. Yeah. You're in the UK so we're closer now. But stage one is basically where it all got messed up you know. I still can't believe that a group of about 30 riders went away. They took three and a half minutes or three minutes 40 on the peloton. Almeida was in the peloton. So he was the heavy favorite before the race. And so you would you could say, well, you know, 340 there's always going to be one or two guys from the breakaway that will be difficult to catch. It's still the case.

If you look at the GC today. I personally had expected that the big rival for Almeida would have been Ben O'Connor because he was in the breakaway also. But Ben O'Connor has lost little bits of time here and there and now the big rival is Kevin Voquellaan, who is a very, very difficult guy to beat. He's a young rider. He goes really well uphill. He can time trial well. I still think that Almeida is going to win, especially because the last time trial, it's not a time trial, it's a climb. It's nine kilometers at eight percent. The last five kilometers are close to ten percent.

So it's a climb, right? And there, although you might have to say, you know, Vukla is climbing really well, he has time trial skills. But I think it's the form, it's the physical condition that's going to have the upper hand. Every time it was really, really hard uphill, Almeida has shown that he was the best and the strongest. Especially that stage he won, that was quite the performance. Attacking I think probably like 3K from the top and then keeping that gap until the finish with 40K to go or

something. If Almeida wins the Tour of Switzerland, that would be quite something because he already won the Tour of Romandie. What else did he win? He won another... I think I said this spring, I was like, does this guy ever win anything? He's never going to win anything. And then that was after Peronis.

To win the Tour of bath country, win this tour of promenade. Exactly. Yeah. This last two races. And then he's probably going to win a tour of Switzerland. It's likely he wins the tour of Switzerland. So listen, he's the best rider there.

And he's also in an amazing shape independently, whether he wins or not. What I'm thinking about when I see him climbing and attacking and putting the hurt on the whole peloton. And yes, it is not the strongest field compared to the Dauphiné or the best riders in Dauphiné. But still Tour of Switzerland is a hard race. And then imagine thinking the rivals of Almeida and UAE, especially Visma when they see Almeida. This is the guy who will work for Pogacar. And he has shown already,

if Almeida gets his opportunities in other races, he is an amazing teammate for Pogacar in the tour. He was last year, he's a great teammate. So yeah, it's an interesting tour of Switzerland. He has to take every opportunity he can and I've been thinking, we'll see, I mean in hindsight it's easy to say And I've been thinking, you know, this we'll see. I mean, in hindsight, it's easy to say, of course, but let's just assume that Voca land does an amazing time trial and, and Almeida loses it by 15, 20 seconds. I was thinking the stage he won, which was stage four, no stage three or four. He won stage four, four. Yeah.

Almost one stage five. Probably. So he, you know, he dropped, he, he dropped, he dropped O'Connor and then who was behind him? There was two or three guys was only behind him and two other guys. And then VocaLin made it back, I think. But there was a moment where it was Almeida and three other riders. And then I was thinking, okay, well, now with 40K to go, why don't you just lose another 10 seconds,

get with these four guys? These other three guys are gonna ride full gas to the finish also. And the gap would have been a lot bigger. Interesting. So anyway, these are things that you can think afterwards. It's very difficult to make those decisions on the go and on the spot because you don't know.

You don't know. O'Connor was dropped and I think VocaLin was dropped and it was not much. They were dropped like 15 seconds VocaLin and maybe 30 seconds O'Connor, which from the beginning, if you see the composition of the breakaway, you can say, okay, these are the two guys I need to, you know, catch up with, you know. So I think ultimately he's now 39 seconds down, I think, even if it comes down to the time trial, it's a hard climb time trial and the way he's riding. Although we have to say also, you know, we've seen, for example, in Paris, Nice, you know, he had this amazing performance on this climb where he dropped

Jonas and then let young Christian when I think who, by the way, is not a good teammate, not a good teammate at all, I have to say. And I think we've seen the interview of Mikkel Björk, where he was very critical about his own teammate. I don't know, it's because he's in Switzerland and he's young and ambitious. And anyway, I haven't seen, and maybe now that Almeida is strongly in a position to win, he's going to change his attitude. But for now, he's not been the best teammate. But yeah, I just think that on that time, he's going to do it. But I was saying, you know, we saw in Algarve that he actually didn't do a good time trial the last day, or was it the second last day? But we thought that he would win the time trial, he actually didn't. I think he was fifth or sixth and lost a substantial amount of time. So

we'll see. We'll see. But he's still my favorite to win the tour of Switzerland. Well, I guess who, so if he's the favorite, maybe part of the reason it didn't wait also on the waiting, like it can sound good in theory, but like, if you think back to Sebastian Reichenbach at the 2018 Giro, they waited for him, like Dumoulin and Pinot and then like, he couldn't do anything when he got up there. So you don't know what's back there. Yeah, exactly. You can wait, and then it's like, well, wait,

I waited for you, and now you can't pull. But who's the biggest rival? It's kind of a weird GC, where you have Oscar Anlis in fourth at 1-21 back. He looks like the second strongest rider to me. He won stage five, like really impressive. Almeida caught him on that final climb and then he still out sprints Almeida. It almost looked like Almeida wasn't quite sure where the finish line was.

No, I think there was, there was, there was a gentleman's agreement, Spencer. Yeah. It looked unusual. It looked unnatural. Yeah. Because otherwise, otherwise only would never have pulled the way he was pulling, you know, they made they made an agreement then. And, you know, I made a sprinted but you could see that it was not I mean, okay, it was a real sprint, but they had the same interest, right. And then I think they were both they both won. They both won that day.

And do you think he's the same? you think he'll end up second eventually? Vokalis, it's a good rider. I don't know about his time trial capabilities of only, although it's not gonna be, forget about time trial bikes or any aerodynamic equipment at all. This is a mountain stage, the last stage. It's hard, It's hard. So yeah, I mean,

it's going to be all the guys from DC in the front. So yeah, Onley is looking good, but Vocelein, I mean, I think very highly of Vocelein. He may hang on. I mean, he's going to be podium for sure. And as of now, I mean, depending on what happens tomorrow, but if this is the situation before the time trial, Almeida will have to have a good day. And then he will he will win the tour of Switzerland, but not by much. Let's say Almeida wins. I'm just looking at last they did the same time trial last year, I believe, or maybe not exactly the same. I don't think so.

Hold on one second. Yeah, you're right. It was different, but it was an uphill final time trial, 16 K long. And Almeida, what's odd about this is like, it does seem like time trialing still matters for some reason. I mean, it's like you and George are talking about Contador sprinting to the every kilometer on climbs where it's, I guess that doesn't work in a time trial. Like it's so your time trial and ability still kind of matters.

Yeah. Kevin Vakala on hold like winning. It seems a little that would be hard to hold him off by 40 seconds, especially assuming he takes Almeida takes a little bit of time tomorrow. It's a tough uphill finish. It's I'm pulling it up right now. It is stage seven is 4k long at 8%. So I mean, yeah, probably will be gaps on the way to the finish line. Yeah, Almeida is going to take more time tomorrow.

Yeah, he needs, he needs to, he needs to, he way to the finish line. Almeida is going to take more time tomorrow. He needs to. He needs to take every opportunity he can. With four kilometers, 8%, he can take another 15, 20 seconds tomorrow. So in that case, then I think Almeida has it in the bag. That's a roundabout way of me asking, where is Kevin Vaklan going next year? Like who's he racing for next year?

Ineos. Ineos. Don't know. Do we, do we like this? Like, how do we feel about this transfer? I mean, I don't, I don't know. I mean, it depends what happens with Ineos and the whole, you know, their whole dynamics, you know, uh, they've been racing differently, uh, this dynamics, you know. They've been racing differently this year, you know. I've heard and read that Brailsford is coming back, that Geraint Thomas is getting a senior

manager role. So things need to change. I mean, you know, it's, it's, it's, I thought for a while that they were not interested in keeping the team going. That's apparently is not true. Um, but yeah, I mean, why not? Why not? Uh, yeah, they're not, they're not the top team anymore now, but they, they, you know, they want to come back to being one of the top teams. So we'll see.

It's not a bad team. You know? Like, well, your favorite guys, Patrick and Benji, were having an interesting debate about the roster. And they're kind of the problem is they have a lot of guys like Kevin Falkland. Like they have a lot of people that would be very good at helping you win a grand tour if you had a grand tour winner. But then they don't have anyone that can, that's at the sharp end of that spear. But

then they also don't like, like Victor Lang Langoletti, really good racer, maybe not like a pure bread domestic, but like he's really good at like racking up small results and like just positioning himself in the group. And it's in secondary races, Spencer. But if you never I agree. But like I've just been thinking, if you never if you forget how to win, like institutionally, does that infect the whole organization?

Is what I've been wondering. I can think for God. It can turn around. It can turn around. Look, I mean, look, we've seen it. You know, like, look, look at, for example, Decathlon, Decathlon, AG2R. It's a different team, man. It's, you know, they, they, they're racing differently. They have, you know, they race to win, uh, little track. It's, you know, look what happened in the last two, three years to little track.

It means they- Well, XDS Astana too. Yeah. Yeah. That's, yeah, that's, that's the biggest, the biggest turnaround we've ever seen. But those are hungry dogs. All those are hungry dogs. Yeah, yeah. That's the biggest, the biggest turn around we've ever seen. All those are hungry dogs you're describing. Like, is Enios, instead of the hungry dogs, are they like the fat, are they happy dogs? They're like their house dogs. That's the thing. You know what I mean? I think, I mean, they've been known, they've been known.

And from what I hear, they keep doing the same thing. They've been known to really overpay. So that's, that's a risk. You know, you, you get to a point where you have five to seven writers who are like, you know, the kind of institutions, you know, like in within the team, nobody touches this guy or this guy, you know, I'm not going to name names, but there's five to seven writers in Ineos who are in that case who who are very comfortable there. And it doesn't really matter anymore if they have results or not. They know that the team knows their value.

But at the same time, there's other people on the market for a lot cheaper who will be hungry and will deliver results. And yeah, that's what I'm not seeing now. I think what Enales really needs to do, I think it's going to happen, is they need to turn, right now they have this cooperation with this German development team, right? What is it called? It's Lotto, Lotto something. Lotto. It's Lotto Kernhaus. Kernhaus, yeah. PSP Bank.

Yeah, yeah. They need to make that their own. They need to have their own in-house. Because they don't get enough, they don't have enough slots on the team basically. Yeah, but they need to have their own in-house development team. That's, you know, a team like that, but they need to have their own in-house development team. That's a team like that. They need to have their own. They need to have their junior team, their 123 team, or at least their own 123 team, which I think will happen. I saw this Danish, I don't know if he's Danish or Norwegian, the guy who famously broke the record on Calderats two years ago.

Initially he was gonna be on Ineos, then they transferred him to Lotto Kernhaus, and now I've seen an interview of him, he's at the Giro and Gen Z. He's only in the next year on the Pro Team, on the World Tour team. So yeah, I mean, they were lacking there. They're lacking that secondary team because if you want to have access to these huge talents so young, you have to have a place where you can accommodate them at least for

one year, maybe two years, right? Yeah. And I mean, just, it's just my observation from looking like even looking closely at them multiple times during the tour last year, you could tell they have certain riders that are like planets and like everything rotates around them and they have maybe four or five of them. Yeah, we won't say their names, but the worst thing you can have in sports is that situation. And then that writer not be good enough to win because then they just are dragging everyone

down in the mud and like no one else is allowed to rise up because so and so has to be catered to. But if so and so is not going to win and they're eating up all those resources, that's how you get yourself in the problem. Ineos is in right now. Yeah. Yeah. So long story short, Jouel made is probably going to win the Tour de Swiss.

Yeah. Yeah. Let's get back to it. Let's get back to the basics. Yeah. Yeah. I think I think I mean, and you know what? If he wins it, man, that's a hell of a performance. Looking at the situation after stage one. It is. It's not been one. It is it is. It's not been easy. It's not like the miss been some hard like stage four was hard,

but you could have easily looked at that and said it's too far from the finish to make a difference. And he just wrote everyone off his wheel. They didn't even attack. Very good. I mean, it's the opposite of what we're talking about with Ineos. Just you have riders tears down from the top that are just winning massive races consistently and then going. And what do you think of the tour? Is he going to be like fully in for

Pogacar? He's not even there for his own results. Almeida? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But he will do. I mean, Almeida can be a podium, will be, will be the last man for, for, for Pogacar. I don't think there's anybody else who will be, uh, Chloe. I mean, like Adam Yates was two years ago, three years ago. Yeah. Um, but, um, but yeah, Almeida, let's not forget he was fourth last year in the tour, eh, Spencer? He was fourth. Is that crazy to think about? And he's, and, and Almeida this year is better than last year. Well, right now he's better than Remco Ebenapol, which is a moot point. Cause I guess he was better than Ebenapol at this time last year too.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. For sure. But I mean, is he the, so let's say Pagache Vendegaard won two indisputable. Who's the third and fourth best stage racer right now? I think it's Joe Almeida right now.

That's, that's, that's what I would say. I heard, we also won't say their name. I heard a director of a team or a manager of a team say there's he's like, well, these, these one week races and riders that do well in that you think they're going to be good in grand tours, but it's not clear if they are. It's like, aren't all the best grand tour state racers winning the one week races? What are you talking about? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But let's say, you know, the priority for Almeida will be being the last man standing for Pogacar. And by definition, he will also be in the top five, if not on the podium. And then outside of the stage wins,

we have to mention. So we talked about his stage two strange sprint, Quinn Simmons. He did say like later that he was trying to win that. So that wasn't a lead out for someone. He was just that a, that confident and probably a little overeager, but that shows how fit. He is also, also it was special for him because it was the day, the day of, sadly the accident of genome. Ader, let's not forget. Quinn Simmons was with genomeator.

He crashed with him. It had a huge impact on him. And he really wanted to win for genomeator and his family, who was at the start of the stage in the tour of Switzerland. And then, yeah, I mean, then he did that the day after, which was an unbelievable performance, man. I mean, yeah, that was really, that was unbelievable. You know, you would say on the normal side, he can't keep this, he can't keep this.

It was like an optical illusion. It kept looking like he was gonna get reeled in, and they were racing like he was like an optical illusion. He kept looking like he was going to get reeled in and they were racing like all out behind him uphill. Yeah well I've seen here I've seen a stat here I don't know if it's true or not but apparently um Gwyn Simmons in the final of that stage he won he did 430 watts for 36 minutes. Really? I'm gonna write that down. You know, he's, I think he's 73 kilos. It's close to six watts per kilo, 5.9 watts per kilo. That's for 30.

And this is not on a constant climb. It's at the end of a breakaway too. And it's rolling terrain, you know, it was not, it was not constantly uphill. So yeah, that's pretty impressive. He really really wanted that win. And you know, his his interview after the stage was also very telling, like he you know, he kind of said in between the lines that he was not riding alone. So yeah, that was that was quite impressive. Everybody, this episode is brought to you by Caldera Lab. Let's be honest, being a cyclist

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the power numbers on this guy? They must be unbelievable. So that confirms it. But he's like, I wanted to win in the American national champions Jersey. Cause I can't remember the last time it happened. And I was thinking, it might be like George Hencap or someone. I haven't looked through the stats yet, but I will before our show with him on Monday. But it's been a long time since an American in the national champions Jersey won a world tour race. So long. I have not unearthed it yet. So please send it in if you know it. Well, first of all, first of all, when George was racing, the world tour didn't

exist yet. So it was called the pro tour, the pro tour. Yeah, man. Yeah. Yeah. Actually I had not, it's something I just not thought about until Quinn said that. And then I could not, I was going back through, it was like, it's been a long time since we've had a rider at the front of a big race in that Jersey. So that's very cool. He's, I mean, he's probably the last one. I mean, Sean Quinn had a decent year, the year after he won, he's a good rider, but I don't believe he won a lot. Not at that level, not the same. No, I mean, Quinn Simmons, we don't need to get into the Quinn Simmons conversation now,

but I'm curious to see. I assume he's not going to the tour. Like is there any chance? You know, he said he, he, he, he, I think he hinted towards, you know, with this form, they better take me to the tour. I mean, not, not with these strong words, but something along those lines. He said, he was, he said he was hoping to go to the tour. I mean, not, not with these strong words, but something along those lines. He said, he was, he said he was hoping to go to the tour.

Well, it'd be a little weird cause he's in such good shape, like really good shape and he's there. It's not like he's doing anything. Listen, this guy can win stages or I mean, a stage, um, with this, with this, with this condition. Um, no, I, I, I mean, I don't know what the objectives are. Initially, I think the plan was to go with Scalemosa for the GC. Now Scalemosa, I think he's still going, but he had an issue. He had a sickness or something, or he had to pull out of the Tour of Swiss at the last moment.

So he didn't do Dauphine, he didn't do Tour of Switzerland. But he's still going to be going to the Tour and will be the leader for GC. But that's like a top five goal, I would say. He was fifth, I think, in last year's Vuelta. So top five. Well, like Visma showed at the Giro, you can have multiple situations.

Like they have Van Aert going for stage wins. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I mean, also too, staring us in the face, Ineos, who could they get? Oskar Annaly would be the obvious. Like that's kind of crazy. He's British, not even a target of that team. Well, that's the thing why I have never really understood quite well, you know,

because there's been a lot of really good British writers who have not been on Ineos. I mean, young writers tend to prefer to go to other teams initially. Yeah, it's yeah, like FDJ has a ton of, Yeah, Fisma. That's where they, yeah. So unclear, we'll keep our eyes on it. Dave Brailsford might be coming back. I did hear that too.

So I think that's gonna be, this is, I mean, I don't know exactly, I'm a bit lost in what's going on at the management level right now at the NAOS, but it's clear that the moment Brailleful left, it was not the same anymore. You can see in the Netflix documentary when he comes in for a stage and it's like different, like everyone's just acting differently. I think it's not necessarily doing things differently, but it's just the charisma, you know, the personality, you know, it's the strong captain

on a ship, you know, whether or otherwise there's different people for different and there's not one person that's really in charge with a strong personality who everybody respects. Yeah. So Tour Belgium, it's our annual Jasper Phillips and Tim Merlier showdown. And crash fest. And it's hot. Look, oddly looks very hot. So Tim Merlier wins stage one. Looks unbelievable, by the way. Wow. And then Jasper Phillips and wins stage two. Merlier is blocked in. Time trial of a Ethan Hayter wins over Filippo Ganna. Kind of interesting. That was, yeah, that was a surprise. Yeah. Another British rider beating an Ineos rider. Strange. Who's not on Ineos. But- He was on Ineos though.

He was. Yeah. Wow. They should look into this guy. But it's his first win of the season because I mean, Ethan Hader, he's a great rider, big talent, but until today, he's been nowhere, like not even close to have good results. So yeah, I mean, he needed that win. You know, he really needed that win. Well, he did get third at that stage 10 time trial in the zero, if you remember. Okay, yeah. Behind Tarline.

But it is kind of weird actually how that happens. Like no road form whatsoever and then almost wins a zero stage and then wins a stage two or Belgium. But is there anything to read into this? I mean, Jordy Mayo's one today, I assume those are three, I guess you have Jonathan Milan. So you have, I mean, they both, they all look good would be my takeaway there. I don't really know like how much I mean, for me, it's clear that the, I'm not going to say the fastest sprinter, but the most winning sprinter is, is, is Tim Marley. It's crazy how this guy wins races. He is the, the definition of the pure sprinter who is able to come out of nowhere. It's crazy.

I mean, even if you look at that stage when the first stage, where he comes from, where he was positioned, loses his people, loses his strain and then wins like nobody's on the picture. Nobody's on the picture. It's like he is the master of starting his sprint before everybody else starts and then just rides away from them. So for the tour, that's the big goal. He wants to be the first yellow jersey and it starts with the sprint stage. So, and he's very famous for in grand tours to win the first sprint stage. Um, he's in great shape, um, did a different approach. Now he, I think for the first time to prepare a big goal like that, he went on altitude. So he said he came a bit, uh, he came, he came in the tour of Belgium a bit too fresh.

Literally. He said that a bit undercooked. So he will only get better. Yeah, I do think, I mean, if you can find a book that's going to take that, Tim Reillier, First Yellow Jersey, lock it in now. I mean, that guy, think back to the Alula tour, like he looks unbeatable when he comes in, like same thing at what Perry Neese, Win Stage One, Two, like the guy is when he's on, he's on it. Yeah. Oddly. Yeah. I mean, maybe it's just a lack of, he doesn't get invited. It doesn't make the cut for a lot of grand tours. I mean, he was on the promise. He was on Alpecin

and they had Phillipson. So I'm curious to see what he can do at the tour this year. You know, it's crazy is I'm just looking at speaking of the books. So Tadipa got your minus 305 to win the tour. So heavy favorite. As you all made it not leading currently in the leaders Jersey at the tour to Switzerland minus 625. I don't know if I've ever seen a rider that heavily favored. Okay. For the tour Switzerland.

For the tour Switzerland. That's crazy. Yeah. Currently not in the in the lead, but before we lead, our weekly, now weekly UCI update. So the first one is simpler. So let's get this out of the way. Gear restrictions. Daniel Benson breaks the news that the UCI are going to be trialing gear restrictions

in August. Sounds simple, right? You can't use X gear. Well, not really because gears, like your gearing changes with your wheel size as well so if you're running like big big wheels like I've always thought people in like local road races should run like 42s because you're getting like You're like you're the amount of meters that you're moving every time you do a pedal stroke is greater Because your wheels are so tall basically. So they did these restrictions, it's 54 by 11. It's 10 meters, what is it, 10 meters? It's a 10.29 meters per pedal stroke I believe.

Yeah I think it's a trial. It's a trial and they're going to do. Are they going to rollouts though like junior races? You remember those? Well, I mean, what's really amazing Spencer is like, you know, I mean, I cannot believe that this is because professional cycling, it's really professional. You know, it's like everything is on the top, top, top of their game. And now the UCI comes with this thing, okay, 54 11 or whatever the ratio is now teams with SRAM have a huge problem because SRAM starts with 10. It goes from 10 to 28 or 10 to 30 or so. And then, you know, it's not that I mean,

what I am astonished by is that they make these decisions and they don't think about the industry. It's, you know, like, this is not so easy to all of a sudden say, because SRAM cannot always say, okay, fine, UCI, we're now in for the month of August, we're going to produce cassettes starting from 11. Well, I guess what they could do is what our bikes are. They'd be like 48 by 10. Yeah, it would be 49.10. Because if it's 48.10, I've done the math already.

54.11 is bigger than 4810. It would have to be 4910, which SRAM doesn't produce either. Yeah, I was just saying now you're complicating it because that's probably, yeah, that's not something they make. Yeah, so, you know, I mean, and then, you know, like, and this is typical for cycling, oh, you know what, it's going to be a test. So we're going to allow that the mechanics just block the 10 that you can't go on the 10. So but then you're down to 11 speed instead of 12 speed. Right. So I mean, where are we going with this? You know, it's it is true, it is true that it will slow down the speeds in the downhills. But that's the only thing it's gonna do, Spencer.

Well, what about like, well, first of all, 54 by 11 is 10.46, you're right. The max is 10.52, I believe. No, wait. I think it's 10.4 and then I've checked if it's 49 it would be 49 11 I would be 49 10. It's a tiny bit smaller gear than 54 11 Most riders don't ride 28. They ride bigger than 28. Yeah, so anyone going over that even on Shimano is now non-compliant Yeah, I got smaller than 54.

It's one of those things like, you can see it's, they just don't think about the consequences, the practical consequences. It's the same thing, Spencer, with we've talked about it, the handlebar with, right? And we've seen all the discussions now and the criticism and it's actually right, you know, I mean, you can't make just one size for every type of body type. You know, you have small riders, I mean, the women's peloton will have a huge problem. And it's not just because, okay, a 40 millimeter handlebars, in my opinion, is more stable. That's true.

But also, I mean, you have to have in mind other things. I mean, a lot of these riders have grown up with these small handlebars that they have learned how to ride a bike like this. You can't just now all of a sudden say, okay, you know what? Now all of a sudden it needs okay, you know what? Now all of a sudden, it needs to be two centimeters wider for everybody. It changes the behavior in the Peloton. If you are used to ride with a 38 millimeter handlebars, or narrower, you behave differently in the bunch because you can see

more openings. Now, mentally, you still have that instinct. And now all of a sudden, you're going to have a bigger handlebar and you're going to say, okay, I can pass, but you can't because your handlebars are too wide. You know, those little, those things, they don't think about this, you know, but anyways, you know, it all comes down to the same Spencer. I've thought about this, you know, and if you look, you know, they so handlebars, the width, the depth of the rims, you know, it cannot be bigger than 65, which is fine, that's not going to be an issue. Now, the, you know, the gear restrictions as a trial, if they would have their say, they would say, we ban race radios, that's an eternal discussion.

And it all comes down to the same, especially now, this time. The UCI president is French. All of these, if you look in interviews, I've researched some interviews, all of these, if you look in interviews, I've researched some interviews, all of these ideas or recommendations of we have to slow down the peloton, comes from Christian Prudhomme.

Prudhomme is a heavy advocate. We need to make the riders slower. And then Prudhomme, his close intimate advisor, the guy who always whispers in his ear, is another French guy, Marc Madiot, who has the same speech. You know, so it's it's it's Madiot, Prudhomme, Lapartien. It's the triangle. And they're all French. And if you look, if you go and research some interviews, and you will see they're all speaking in the same direction and they say, yeah, safe are, you know, this, this entity that they have set up for the safety is recommending this but there needs

to be more thought about this and then you cannot have one rule for every single... It's the same like with the length of the handlebars for the time trial. There's different... That was a mess, by the way. Then at some point there's the different size for taller riders and for smaller riders. I would even go further than that. I would even say, Spencer, the weight limit of a bike is also not fair. It needs to be in comparison with the body size, right? Because if you're Nairo, you could write a much like today. Today I was watching Spencer.

Today I was watching the Giro the Giro what they call the baby Giro the Giro Gen Z right. Next day. Next next year. Whatever. Yeah. And next year. Yeah. Sorry. And so until yesterday this Belgian writer Yarnarno Widar, huge talent climber, it was in the lead. If you look at this guy, he is so tiny. This guy rides with handlebars like this. I mean, you cannot put this guy on a 40 millimeter handlebars.

It's gonna be riding like with the Chopper. It's true, it's true. So, you know, I mean, I can understand that there's certain limits, but it needs to be, you know, in court in comparison with every single person. You know, so yeah, we'll see. We'll see. I mean, listen, whatever we say doesn't matter. They don't care. They don't care about the criticism. They don't care, you know, care about the criticism. They don't care. But they're going to have to. And especially what I see also is that they completely

they could not care less about businesses and the industry. I know people who have invested three or four years worth of resources in creating special fast handlebars. Man, this is a disaster for these people. I know one person, he is going to go bankrupt because he's invested so much into having a special state-of, state of the art handlebar, a very popular handlebar, and he's going to go bust. So the issue, I guess the issue is the downhills, because if you have a 62, you have a 6210, and you're going downhill, you're going to be flying on that thing. Yeah.

Do you think too, like in a sprint finish? Like if everyone is like moving down they could set in the 62 are they making you know, once the group finishes They never do Spencer. It's the 62 is like Going they're going damn near 40 45 miles High the speeds are high, but I don't think on the flat Spencer It's gonna be I don't think it's to be that much of a difference in the speed. I think it's not so much, especially in the spr- for the for the downhills, I get it. And I think that kind of makes sense. Especially if it's a downhill where you can keep pedaling and you either want to get away or have to take risks to come back, it makes sense. So okay, fine, let's do that. But not in this way now that all of a sudden there's one huge manufacturer who has to change his whole production because the UCI says that you can't use those cassettes anymore.

UCI says that you can't use those cassettes anymore. But, but yeah, I mean, on the flats in the normal stages, it's that the speed is not, I don't think the speed and especially in the sprints, the speed is not the problem or the cause of crashes. It's, it's the way it's, you know, everybody, everybody, everything so level, there's nobody who who's we've said it many times Spencer There's not one team that has the upper hand and can go to the front and lead it out And it's you know there's five trains next to each other Plus you have the the teams of the GC riders who need to be in front because they're not they can't lose time

You know so that's that's more of things they need to look at. I would say for every sprint stage, and I think I've talked about it already in Grand Tours, or the GC time needs to stop when they enter the city. As soon as they enter the city, it becomes twisty. It becomes technical. GC is done. That's it.

All the sprinter teams, all the GC teams will back off. Yeah. You're going to have people coming in being like, we went through it in an incorporated community. 15k ago. That's when the time should be cut off. But do you think these teams like Georgia's HTC lead outs would be off the back right now? Like not only would they not be stringing things out, they would be dropped with the speeds that are different.

Like, do you think now riders can go faster because of the equipment? Yeah, no, there's no doubt about it. No, no, the bikes are amazing compared to compared to even seven, eight years ago. The bikes are incredible. That's for sure. But is that really the point? We need to slow the riders down. Let's go back to, let's put them on freaking gravel tires.

I think that's what Lance has suggested at times, right? Really? I think he said on the move suggested at times, right? Really? I think he set on the move, like he wants like old timey wheels. I mean, I don't know. It seems hard to slow them down as we're finding a very simple fix gets not simple very quickly. No. Yeah. Listen, sport evolves and yeah, it goes faster and faster.

I think personally, okay, it's maybe not, you can try to say, okay, you know, let's see if they, let's, let's, let's try that they don't go faster and faster. They will still go faster and faster because, you know, the athlete evolves, you know, within five years. I mean, look, for example, today, right, there's this relatively unknown writer, what's it? Nicolas Prudhomme, not Christian Prudhomme, Nicolas Prudhomme, who won the uphill finish, the stage in Tour de l'Occitanie in France. It was a hard stage.

They did the Tourmalet and finished on Leuzard-des-Dins and he won the stage and he was, I saw somewhere in a French comment that he was just about one minute slower than Lance Armstrong's record on Luzard-des-Dins. Oh, crazy. Crazy. This is Nicolas Prudhomme. This is a rider who until two and a half months ago had never won a professional bike race in his and he's 29. Right. So athletes are going faster and faster. They're getting better and better. If this if today it's with the if it's with the

the big riders in the peloton when Lance's fastest time gets crushed by four or five minutes. Is it? I mean, is this too crazy? Like should they just say biggest front is 55, smallest back 10? And if you're not on SRAM, get your stuff together, Shimano, make it 10. Like, I don't know, like give the riders that are on tram a benefit because they're well, I mean, I don't have any nice, it's difficult.

You know how quickly those Shimano would come out with the 10. All right. They're not going to do it now, but by next year they'd have it. That's for sure. Listen for, for the, I think for the, for the, uh, let's think a little bit about the industry right for for the average cyclist i mean having a cassette that starts at 10 it's so much better because you can have smaller chain rings in the front you know you and then you can use i mean you can yeah i mean it's it's perfectly i like the i mean i like the 10 i mean spencer on my mountain bike i have a cassette with

a nine. You know, and it's great because you can have small chain rings in the front and you can go up everywhere. Yeah. Yeah. It actually makes a ton of sense. And then our thought experiment come to life. Dries de Bonn, we talked about him pulling. We told him. Yeah, we did talk about it. Yeah. We debated if this was legal or not. It was kind of I was kind of joking. But now the UCI Ethics Commission, you said, is

looking into him. Yeah, they've started an investigation and they're, no, they will, they will punish him. But he kind of left them no choice by saying that, right? Well, I mean, that interview was not the smartest thing to do. That's for sure. Let, leaving no choice. Okay, listen, at the end of the day, the guy is looking to for his future, you know, he's on the market. That interview was obviously not good. It was not smart. But then, hey, if it's really true, if it's really true, who's at fault here? Is it the rider, the bond?

Or is it the DS of the F? If that's true what he said, right? If it's true what he said, hey, if you can do something today, it could have good consequences for your future, whatever. Is that a job offer? So I'm curious to see what's gonna happen there. Then again, it happens.

It happens that, I mean, if, is the fact that under the assumption that Jawaharlal Mehta and Oscar only made an agreement, Is that legal? Is that? I guess the thing is we'll never know, right? No, of course not. But I think it's logical. It's logical that and Jawah Almeida was professional enough to make it look like a real sprint. But we've seen many times, Spencer, that, you know, they make an agreement, hey, you get the stage, we collaborate. I don't, I don't sprint.

Is that different though? Because like what, like they're going for the win, but like at a soccer match, let's say two teams are going out. The coach on team A goes to a player on team B and says, Hey, I know you're at a contract next year. If you could do something a little for us, maybe there's a spot for you on my team next year. Like that starting to get, and that's not Jvalato aligning incentives with another rider. I come from a different era. It was usual to have common interests.

The only common interest here is Dries de Baan getting a job on EF, right? It's not like naturally occurring in the race. And then Carap pass getting some help. But what's the what's the incentive for the bond? It's just a job with Carapaz's team, right? It's not like it's just a job. I mean, it's important. It's it's his life.

It's not contained within the race. Like I can I can I can completely understand the bonds reaction. I said, I mean, listen, if I can't, I'm in the break. I'm not useful for my team. I can't have a result myself. I'm going to make myself useful for even in the case, I can still understand the bond. If his team would have been pissed with him because he's done that, I mean, they are the ones who are, who are not wanting to keep him on the team. So he's looking out for himself. Right. The medicine we've we've talked about it after the stages.

We said, what was that? But then that interview, you know, we said, what are you doing? You know, what were they doing? There was another writer, actually, there was another rider who did the same. Who helped Simon Yates? It was Jakob Moskow. Jakob Moskow. Yeah. I mean, what's the sense there of pulling?

Well, what you have to do is just leave it to our imagination. Yeah, I mean, you know, it's the interview, the interview, the interview was, uh, was, yeah, he should never have said that. But at the same time he's in the picture. Everybody knows now that he's on the market and he's a good writer. So he will get it. He will get a contract somewhere. The only thing is now is the incentive not to sign him so that then he helps your rider

at some point. No, he showed he showed them the wrong lesson. Well, you know, Spencer, listen, I go back to that same stage we've talked about in a podcast, you know, that same stage in 2005. We run out of teammates and we found teammates on the way. You know, we never talked about it, but it was also it was also obvious that these two lotto writers that were working for Southville Delhi, they were doing it because there was an incentive. Right. The thing is, you know, if you don't talk about it, then nobody can,

nobody can say, Hey, you know, what were you doing? The mistake of the bond was the interview. They're just inspired by it. Yeah. You just have to like let the commentators spin it up. Yeah. It just, they like him. They're best friends. They train together. Actually it's kind of interesting. We could talk about it all day. We talked about it already. Geraint Thomas leading Alt Cavendish. You know, what's that? Yeah. And if you're doing it for friendship versus a potential job,

like does that actually, does the intent matter? Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. It's, what were you talking about? The, uh, I would like to see the ethics commission of the UCI sometimes look at other things like officials, organizers, their own certain members of the UCI. You know, I think they have other stuff to do than looking into this. Yeah, that's. 2010, yeah. We had an incident at the Tour de France the last day. You know, the rules had changed and I was not aware of it. So usually we always changed like on the last day we changed the jersey for the last stage and there was a fine and Nike paid for the fine because Nike wanted the yellow.

I remember this. No special jerseys right? So Lance's last tour we had these black jerseys with you know the cancer message on the back 28 million and so they started with the jersey the UCI went crazy the Tour de France went crazy they stopped the race because they and all over riders were forced to change the jersey like they they stopped the last stage, they stopped the stage after like 5-10k. Everybody was you know trying to find jerseys like the normal RadioShack jerseys. And then the race started again and during the race I tweeted something like

I don't remember but it's something like to be a UCI commissary, you don't have to have feelings. You just need to know the rules or something like that. I got called to the UCI ethics commission and I got banned for six months over this tweet. That's like authoritarianism. Yeah, that was like an appetizer for my lifelong man. That's a crazy long ban.

That's longer than, there's probably people tested positive for EPO at one point. They got smaller bands than that. There's plenty of people who admitted to doping who got suspended six months. I mean, I can tell you. Kind of an ambiguous, well, that's for members only. But didn't they like, remember they almost kicked it out of the tour for kissing his wife? This was just last year. Yeah. But Spencer, this is, listen, I was in a tour de France. I think it was my first tour de France. And there was a rider, a Swiss rider, Urs Zimmermann. One year he finished third in the tour. And the guy was scared of flying.

And there was a transfer. You know, and the Tour de France organized, they organized two big charters, you know, and the guy decided that he didn't want to fly. So he went by car. I mean, who wanted to do thousand kilometers with this one year? And they kicked him out of the tour. They kicked him out of the tour. And then there was a protest of all the riders.

And finally, at the start, Zimbrimon was there and he was dressed already. And then finally we could convince the Tour de France organization to let him start again. But they had kicked him out of the tour for not flying on the plane. Because he was scared of flying and he went by car. So taking care of the important stuff. Anything else, Johan, before we take off? Yeah, well, I can tell many stories.

We should we should do. That is a crazy story, by the way, getting kicked out for taking the car. I know they're militant about that, but I think it's more to keep people from flying on private jets, not sitting in a car with a swan. You are. Yeah, exactly. All right. Well, thanks so much. And we will be back on Monday with George, I hope, to break down the last two days of Tour Swiss and then log off for like a week and a half before the tour.

Okay. All right, Spencer. Thanks. All right. Bye.