THEMOVE - Is Remco Evenepoel Really Targeting the Giro/Tour Double in 2025? | THEMOVE+

Episode Date: November 8, 2024

Johan Bruyneel and Spencer Martin discuss the continued shakeup at Ineos, Tom Pidcock's likely future, the truth behind reports that Remco Evenepoel turned down a 10 million euro contract from RedBull-Bora and his Giro/Tour double intentions, before answering a few listener questions. 

but the guy's a winner and you know being third in the tour is not what remco even a fool is riding his bike for he is riding his bike to win and in that in that point of view i think that the giro would be perfect for him everybody welcome back to the move plus our new off-season weekly show i'm going to go through a few topics of the week with Johan Bernil. I'm Spencer Martin. And then we will get into a few listener questions. If you want your question answered on next week's show, just email it to info at wedo.team and we will try to get to it.

But Johan, the first, the big thing, top of our itinerary here, NAO's Steve Cummingsings finally leaves it feels like this has been happening for for half a year at this point um he was at home they actually the weirdest thing about this is they they're on the record saying like no this is totally normal like he's not leaving the team and then now it's official he's leaving the team it looks like tom pickock staying i don't know if you saw it it was like like hostage video ask look when he was at the Manchester United Chelsea game. And they were all in suits,

which is kind of an odd. I don't know if I was a, if I was a professional cyclist, I'd be suiting up to go to a football match, but it looks like Pitcock staying Steve Cummings gone. What's, what's the story behind the scenes here? Well,

you know, I mean, I don't, I don't know the details, but obviously, you know, Cummings leaving it's, here? Well, you know, I mean, I don't, I don't know the details, but obviously, you know, Cummings leaving it's, you know, the next logical, I mean, we saw it coming, right. He has not been seen at the races or close to the team since I would say the Dauphiné or even before that, I think the Dauphiné,

the Dauphiné was his last race. You're right. There was, you know. You're right. There was some weird communication, but for me, it was clear that he was gone, even if he still had a contract, I think. But I think it's the next. We also saw the

head trainer leave, Javier Arteche, and all these other key people, starting with Ellingworth, going over Dan Begum, head mechanic, really a lot of key staff. So, you know, what can we say about it? You know, I wrote a tweet about it when I saw that it was official that Cummings was leaving. And I said this, I said, with Steve Cummings now officially announcing his departure from Team Ineos after almost every other key staff member has left,

I want to repeat what I've said a few weeks ago on the Move podcast. Team Ineos Grenadiers is a ship without one really strong captain. Instead, it gives me the impression of a hen house with too many chickens running around in different directions. I have spoken to some people close to the team and they have confirmed me word for word that this is what's happening. So my impression is not wrong.

Now, what can we conclude? Pitcock, surprisingly, was present at the first team gathering. What do we know is that he has a huge salary and that it's probably not so easy, even if Ineos would like to see Pitcock move on to another team and get rid of the reportedly, whatever, four or five million euro pound contract. It's not happening because there's not enough teams or any team that is willing or able to make that effort.

And Ineos probably would like to pay a little bit to see him leave, but it's not happening. So if I'm Pitcock and I see, okay, I have another three years here on my contract, contractually obligation from Ineos towards me, this is, so it's 25, 26, 27, it's 15 million. You know, if what are they going to do with this? At least next year, it looks like he's going to be on Ineos.

What's happening exactly, I can still not figure it out because they're bringing in new people, some people I haven't heard of. And also they have now recently just announced that there's going to be an INEOS development team, which to me is a bit strange. You know, it's like panic maneuvers that they're doing to get things right. The thing about the development team is what I saw is that it's not their own development team. It's an association with an existing german team now you know if if you do that it's it's going to take some years to make that your own so

you could say well do they really want to go on with the team having a development team would would indicate yes but it's definitely not the right way to go. I don't know. It's, it's, I'm, uh, you know, I cannot figure out what's, what's happening there. Um, I'm, I think that behind the scenes, something else might be, might be cooking that maybe in, maybe during the current of the next season, we'll, we're going to talk about. You'd be like, if your friend's house, like the foundation was sinking and they're like, yeah, you know, I'm thinking about like doing some landscaping.

It's like, well, okay, I guess that's a decent idea, but it seems like there's other things you need to address the development team. You're the first, first person I thought of because of that. Oh, maybe they do want to stick around in the sport, but even that is kind of weird. This, this hybrid approach. And then would you say that I don't even know if the lack of development, development of writers is their problem. Like they get a lot of good young writers and then it seems like the problems start once they're there in the senior team, they're not developing.

So yeah, it's strange. I mean, I think we can, we can read into this that Tom Pickock is making a lot of money, like a lot of money. And no one was willing to pay four point five million euros to take him take them off in his hands. And that wouldn't even be the full value of the contract. Ineos would still have to pay probably over a million euros for him not to ride on the team. Who are they going to sign for that difference? That would be better than Tom Pickock. It doesn't actually make a lot of sense.

So especially at this point in the year, there is nobody, there is no alternative. Yeah. Who's the, who's the bogey out there? Well, a bit,

I don't know this whole thing about, you know, him pulling off the team for Lombardi. That just does not make sense. I mean, it was clear that he, he was not going to win Lombardi anyway. Well, he might've podiumed though. I actually think he could have podiumed and then Brian Smith on Twitter said that it was, they didn't want to pay the bonus if he had a good result. Well, that's, that's,

then they made a really bad business decision already and it's going to have to deal with next year because if I'm Pitcock and Pitcock is known as a guy with a super strong personality and the guy's a fighter, I'm riding for every single podium I can. You know, okay. I'm going for second single podium I can. You know, when, when, you know,

okay, I'm going for second or third, man. I mean, I would say on the team bus for every race, I'd say to the team, if you get me on the podium, you guys get my bonus.

I don't even want the bonus. I just want to screw over this team. You know, you can say, okay, off of the bonus, off of my bonuses are for you guys. I mean, if it seems ridiculous, but it's also possible like they've been i mean if you just watched like the greater ineos empire some severe cost cutting measures in the last few months so

yeah i don't know maybe they didn't have the money in the bank account to transfer it over they do but it's it's, it's, ah, it's strange. I'm sure that during next year, we're going to come out with, you know, some kind of bombshell story about the nails. Yes. I don't even know if next year, but it could be even before the start of the tour down under on the topic of

money on the topic of contracts today, Pagachar. I i think we i asked you maybe two weeks ago like what what would i make if i was the best cyclist in the world i think you estimated between eight and ten million euros it comes out it's 50 million euros over six years so that's like 8.3 million euros a year that's pretty good actually that's underpaid that he's underpaid because he scores more points than many world tour teams or a fraction of the total payroll. The big thing to me, though,

to buy him out of his contract, 200 million euros. That's just... Just put in something so you can say, okay, hey, he's not going anywhere, right? In case, whatever. If the Sheikh of Abu Dhabi has to all of a sudden fight with one of the Saudis, with the Saudi investment fund, where they're richer than him.

So whatever. The buyout is ridiculous, but it doesn't really matter. I think Bogacar is good where he is. He's happy where he is. And the sponsors, UAE and all the other sponsors are extremely happy with Pogacar. So it's a win-win for everybody. You bring us right into our next one, Remco Evenepoel.

He said, did he say that he wanted to do the Giro Tour double? No, I think there's a hint that he, first of all, he said that he wants to get back to the feeling of being a ground tour winner. And then in the Belgian media, I don't know if he said it, or he kind of alluded to it, or if the Belgian media put one and one together, but there are certain reports that he might be considering doing the Giro and the Tour. It makes sense.

Smart. Yeah. You know, it makes sense. He already wanted the Vuelta, right? So the Giro, Remco could win the Giro if it's a course that is okay for him. He also said that he will never sacrifice Liesbaston-Lies. So Liesbaston-Lies and the Giro, it's doable, perfectly doable.

We saw it done this year. Yeah, yeah, yeah, of course. We cannot take that as a blueprint, you know, for that program. But yeah, I know, program, but, uh, but yeah, I mean, I think, um, uh, if, when Remco saw the course of the tour, also the absence of, uh, you know, a super long time trial, um,

it's probably not in his favor. Uh, he's going to go back to the tour trying to be on the podium again. I think that's logical. And I think that would be a logical evolution for him to be on the podium a number of times, but the guy's a winner and, you know, being third in the tour is not what Remco even a pool is riding his bike for. He is riding his bike to win. And in that, in that point of view, I think that the Giro would be perfect for him.

Yeah. I mean, I think it's a great idea. Assuming Pogacar doesn't do the Giro, like if you can win a Grand Tour, that's nothing to sneeze at. That team is not above that. Evenepoel's not above that. I mean, what did Roglic say? We also have Primoz Roglic, who actually said, hey, you know, ask me about my program.

I'm going to look at all the things that Pogacar's not doing and try to win those, which, you know, ask me about my program. I'm going to look at what I was not doing and try to win those, which, you know, I think we could, we could see Primoz doing Giro and Vuelta. Yeah. That's he's a smart man. That's how you know he's smart because right now it seems tough, but I got your show that it's not disqualifying and I'm looking at it right now. There's five weeks in between the Giro and the Tour. So the Giro finishes May, June 1st. The Tour doesn't start until July 4th or 5th, I believe.

So that's a decent amount of time. I mean, the biggest thing I would worry about, and I think Pogacar has kind of showed us that if you're good enough, the Giro can just be a training camp. The thing I would worry about is crashes and weather. But they got some pretty bad weather at the Giro can just be a training camp. The thing I would worry about is crashes and weather, you know, but they got some pretty bad weather at the Giro this year. It didn't really seem to affect them that much. And if you can stay out of crashes, like Remco Evenepoel is so good,

he's not going to be on the limit every day at the Giro to tell you. Well, you know, if you're Remco Evenepoel and the Giro, it's not the same as Bogacar riding Giro basically at 80%. You know, he was probably 100%, but he didn't need to go 100% to win it. So that's to be seen. But speaking of Remco, I'm guessing you guys have seen it also over there, but it started in the Belgian media saying that there was a journalist who came out with a column saying that he had details about the apparent apparently almost

done deal between remco and uh rebel rebel bora and they spoke about 10 million. When I saw that, I said, this is complete bullshit. I did some research also, and I now know it's bullshit. First of all, the guy who came with this rumor is a guy, it's an old guy um you know he's he's been one of the main uh tv commentators in the past he's been put on the side and tries to make noise to stay relevant it's michelle woods who you know in belgium we call that we call him in the in the in the cycling world, we call him the self-declared Pope of cycling. He's not that anymore. He's never been, but he came out with that column and spoke about 10 million. Listen, there is no way Remco Evenepoel would walk away from a 10 million euro contract in the first place secondly i don't know anybody in their right mind who would pay 10 million to a rider he's one of the

top three top four riders but he's not the number one and if fogacar makes 8.5 or 8, whatever, and he's the first, you know, the best rider by far, there's no way. Remco right now, apparently is somewhere between 4 and 5 million. I think he was 4 million. I don't know if that's a bit or without bonuses, but Patrick Lefevre and his team did quite a bit of efforts and they gave him a race

and they accommodated quite a bit of efforts and they gave him a race and they accommodated, uh, quite a bit of Remco's demands. You know, there's new cyclists that there's especially new staff members. Um, and so, um, that 10 million, I have heard that there were serious stocks, but there's never been 10 million. That's just complete bullshit. I think what Michelle words, you are a fossil that tries to stay and come alive again. We're going to get aggregated on Belgian media for sure.

I think what happened here. Answer. I do not care. I, this is George. I'm George Hincapie, by the way. But if I think what happens is sometimes journalists, media people, they forget there's two sides to an equation. So someone probably told him 10 million. And so he said 10 million euro contract. He's forgetting the duration part of that. So 10 million over a number of years, it looked like it was two years.

So let's just say two years. So 10 divided by two, that's, it looked like it was two years. So let's just say two years. So 10 divided by two, that's five. And then you're like, wow, 5 million a year. That's a lot. But the reporting said it was pretty bonus heavy. So let's just say for the sake of argument, 3 million guaranteed, 2 million in bonuses. Maybe that bonus even includes to win the tour, which isn't likely, but is worth it. If he wins the tour, of course, you'd pay him 5 million euros a year. My big question, and apparently, I don't know if you know this, there's like new stricter UCI rules on this. So if you want to approach a rider that's under contract,

you have to inform their team beforehand. Hello, Spencer. But let's just, Ralph Dank is a good guy. Let's just say Ralph Dank does that. There is no, not Ralph Dank, nobody. Nobody, whatever the UCI rules say, nobody can prevent another person from talking to another person.

And even if this team is not talking to the rider, they're going to talk to their agent. And, you know, that's just the way it is. So no, UCI rules don't matter uh it's never it they never mattered the uci is trying to regulate these kind of things but it's a free market you know i mean if uh in normal life what when if you are if you have a job and somebody approaches you are interested in your services, then you listen. You can still do whatever you want.

So, no. Well, there's actually a court case going on right now in Europe about this, that potentially it's a football case that maybe footballers will just be able to leave contracts that actually keeping them in is against employment law. But setting that aside, he somehow goes back to Patrick Lefevre.

He gets 5 million for 2025. Some weird wording on this too. He's like, I'm at Sudol Quickstep in 2025. Like, well, what about 2026? What's going on here? But here's the thing. Why actually doesn't make sense for him to leave because his team's very good. Like they have very good support for him.

He's the lone leader. What's he going to go to a Red Bull in 2025 and be with Primoz? That doesn't make any sense. The big question to me is if this is true, why two-year contract for Remco Evenepoel? I'd be a little insulted if I was him, like everyone else getting lifetime deals. Red Bull.

Yeah. Like what's going on with that? That's what makes no sense. If Red Bull is going to make the effort to get Remco even a pull out of his contract and on board, it's not going to be the two year deal. There's no way for Red Bull and not for Remco. That's, that's just, so this complete, in my, in my opinion, this complete, this information is completely false. Yeah. That was the big red flag to me. And I,

I still don't think this is done i don't have any information on this but primos has a contract through 2025 remco says he's with sudol quickstep through 2025 what happens in 2026 i this might be part of some larger this might be more coordinated than we think and yeah yeah yeah it could be so yeah i and then again so you know in sports and in cycling a lot can happen and change it in the course of a season you know whatever it seems to me like ranco at some point was super frustrated at quickstep because this was not okay. This was not okay. I have spoken with people in, in Sudak Quickstep and they have done a lot to accommodate his wishes. Uh, they've done a lot. I would say, I would say probably 90 to 95% of what Ramco wanted

he has got plus a race. He's almost like doubled his salary his salary i think wasn't he on like 2.5 million euros and now he's on listen he's one of the top riders in the world performance wise he's amazing for sponsors i think he's super interesting also he has charisma as a as a as a person so um i think he's uh he's worth his contract um but he's in a good team. Let's, let's look at it. I mean, if you, if you look at the end result, you have, you have UAE and you have Visma and who's the third team in the world. It's Sudak Wigstep, their third team in the world. What's shocking how much,

if you remember we did a daily show at the Vuelta when Sapkis won. What was that? Just 2023? We like railed on the team all the time, you know? They were good last year. Like that was a good GC team. I was very impressed. I wouldn't leave, at least for 2025 if I was him. I wrote

this little formula too. You put in every top rider's results for the season and it spits out like an objective score and i was surprised by the result evanipole was far and away the second best rider according to my formula out of the year you know like well behind pagachar but so if you assume he's second or third in the world five million euros is market rate. That's not a terrible deal. So shift shifting gears a little bit. A lot of Capecchi wants to go. She said she wants to go contest the GC at the Tour de France FEMS 2025. I've not discussed, I have thoughts about this. I know

you have thoughts about it. We don't know each other's thoughts. How did you read this? Interesting. Interesting. i think we're also dealing with a rider here that she is looking for new goals right so she she's now double world champion she's won classics um she's won tour flanders a number of times i guess so uh let's not forget she was second two years ago in the Tour de France behind Demi Vollering but she had an amazing year this year she didn't do the Tour de France if I'm not mistaken but you know she did climb pretty well in was it Tour de Romandie yeah so she be really well.

Now, now being on a different team than Demi Vollering, I think it makes sense. Probably also what the team will want from her, but we're going to have to see also the little, something we haven't talked about in no show at all is the return of on van der Breggen on SD works. You know, she's making a comeback. So from the team car, from the team car back to, and what I've heard is that she's been on training rides and that she is kicking everybody's ass. So we'll see. We'll see.

I think, I think Lotto Copecchi, if it's the Lotto Copecchi of 2023, I would say, yeah, go for it. You never know what's going to happen with the favorite. Usually, I mean,

in my opinion, Demi Vollering is the favorite, even if Kasia Nwaduma has won this year's Tour de France. For me, Demi Vollering remains the favorite, remains the best GC rider we'll see on the Bregen

what her level is going to be it may seem a bit more simple than in reality it will be because women's cycling has evolved at the level so high that she may get a shock when she gets back into competition but I'm not excluding it i think she i mean she

can definitely podium she can podium in the tour i mean yeah oh yeah i mean i think she wins i i know that's a hot take but just looking at her results from last year and this must have been the thinking inside the team because they chose not to try to retain voler and they thought she was too expensive they maybe looked around and said wait a second with andy vanderbraken coming back and lotto capecchi like is lotto capecchi the next tour de france femmes winner like do we already have like what's the meme like we're not getting we're not getting demi vollering we already have demi vollering at home like they already have the world's best rider.

Maybe they thought they didn't need Demi Voller. I mean, the Romandy result. And I know you brought up a really good point. I think this was last week that, okay, she won Romandy, but she got dropped on a lot of the climbs at world championships and had to get back on.

But stage two of Romandy is nine, 10 K basically at eight and a half percent. You know, she loses that stage, but by a bike throw, it doesn't get dropped by Demi Voller. And like, that's about as hard as climbs get. percent you know she loses that stage but by a bike throw doesn't get dropped by demi ballerine like that's about as hard as climbs get and you know she can time trial like i don't think this is a done deal and i know that demi balling crashed and it's it polluted the whole sample there is no time trial in the in next year's tour de france fun even better for capecchi

there are two hard climbs though really really hard climbs one is the col de la madeleine which is extremely hard from that side and then there's another stage which has the col de juplan in there which is super super hard um you know juplan is basically 10 kilometers nine to ten percent, so super hard. Uh, but it wasn't bad on the tourmalet. If you remember, no, it's those two climbs. That's it. Every other climb. I mean, and there are, it depends if there's bonifications and if there's wind and we'll see. So, um, I, uh, I like, I like the idea. I like the challenge.

And it's something that I think she will start. I mean, she starts to look for things that she hasn't done until now. So, you know, she's still probably going to do the classics and everything, but with a proper specific preparation for the tour, I think she's definitely a good candidate for the podium. I agree last bit before we get into the questions so we talked a few weeks ago about Alexander Boo Olav Alexander Boo he's like famous triathlon coach going to Uno X and we also talked about his like main client triathlete Christian

Blumenfeld who's had a rough year we're're saying he was going to go from triathlon to cycling. He was rumored to be going to J. Koalula didn't go at the last second said just the money's not good enough. You know, I don't know. I don't really know what he makes in triathlon, but maybe I'd imagine. And I think this was what Mark Allen, the famous triathlete said. He's like, does this guy, if this guy really thinks he's going to come in and be a star he's probably that's probably not going to happen and he's not going to get paid star money he's going to get paid like cam wharf money so i could see why that fell apart it's then i

assume jaco alula had an empty roster spot and then alan hatherley is that how you say his name the south african mountain bike rider signs with them. I kind of like this from Matt White over there, like just picking up, looking for guys accomplished in other, like, I guess, sub-disciplines of cycling and then signing them just to see if you could probably to get like a, you know, can we, is there a new star brewing that everyone's missing because they're not a traditional cyclist?

So I like the move a lot. Well, I think it's nice. The guy's obviously been on a, on a super high level all season. You know, he's won the world championships. He won the last world cups. Also, he's a really good climber. I'm a bit surprised to see it happening because I think he was a Cannondale athlete. You know, Blumenfeld made more sense because he's on Giant

and, you know, Giant is the sponsor. Yeah. So this is not the case here. But, hey, there's plenty of examples of good mountain bikers who became extremely, extremely good road cyclists. So there's no reason why this wouldn't be the case here. I have no doubt that he's going to have his spot in the top of the pro peloton. It's pretty old 28, but I mean, this goes back to,

if you're Matt White at Jayco, you don't have the budget to sign, you know, traditional big stars. So is you have to look for like, what's the inefficiency here? Maybe he's 28. People think that's too old. All right, let's bring them in. Yeah. And if like, if you're a kid and you want to be really good road racer, you should be a mountain bike racer because that's how you get really good and really strong. Like some of these guys come in and they're absolute monsters. When you got third at them, I forgot about this.

You got third at the Olympics. Like think of the level of those two guys in first and second. So that's, it's pretty impressive. Yeah. Yeah. Would you have anything else to cover before we get into questions? I think that's it. You know, there's a, we'll see, we'll see in the next weeks if we keep talking about, about, I mean, we're definitely going to talk about transfers. We should next week we can probably talk about who hasn't have found a team

yet um but no i think we've covered most of uh most of it yeah i think yeah we'll we'll have to talk about that if we because there are there are going to be some big names left out i don't know if we want to do a trades and transfers specific show or yeah it's a little tough because some teams like you look at some of these rosters and they like wait until the last second to fill them up. So you don't want to be talking about someone being without a contract when they've secretly signed a contract behind the scenes. One last thing, teams can no longer wear

leaders jersey colors from grand tours. I read that this morning and thought, what's the big deal? And then I sort of think about it. There's actually not that many colors left. And this is a classic UCI decision because the current fix was, okay, Visma's yellow. At the tour, they can't wear yellow. They wear some special jersey. Seemed like a fine thing.

Did anyone have any problems with that? And so now what you can no longer wear. It's the whole season now. The whole season. what you can no longer it's the whole it's the whole season now the whole season so you can no longer wear like white that makes no sense that makes no sense because that's that's actually that's actually pure dictatorship you know because because if you have a sponsor corporate sponsor who insists that their colors are in accordance with the uniform, that's the way it should be.

Jumbo was yellow when the supermarkets were sponsoring. Think about the brand EF has built, the team, with those pink jerseys. To me, I mean, to me, I don't want to sound too much like a conspiracy theorist.

Sounds a little bit like the UCI is trying to cut, like EF has been able to build such a recognizable brand with the, basically the color of their uniforms. And they're just trying to make it harder for teams to build their own identity. So they're all like plug and play little cogs in the UCI machine. I mean, one thing I've been wondering about is how does the UCI feel about Red Bull? Like they cannot be happy about that,

that you have this big company coming in who could really push them around. Here we have again, Spencer, the ins and outs of what's happening in sports federations, international sports federations, international sports federations. And if you would take a specialist lawyer, commercial lawyer, and dedicate a few months to the UCI rule book, you challenge this in civil court. I mean, a third of the UCI book would fall down because they're, they're in there and they're against the civil rights, you know? So, so anyway, that's what they do.

Usually sports federations are known for that. They think that they are above normal legislation and they get away with it because they are governing people that are depending on them. And even if you protest, you know, if you protest, you don't get a license and you can't exercise your job. So it's it's a sad situation. But this is one of these cases, again, if you would, if you would bring this to the, to the European court of human rights. And so the thing is, it's a lengthy process and you, you know, you lose a lot of money, you lose a lot of time, a lot of energy. And most members of the UCI think it's not worth it, but there's,

there's a bunch of laws in there that are not legal, that are illegal. Yeah. Yeah. That's a podcast. That's a whole podcast for another day, but you are correct. It's a season series. It's a whole, yeah, it's a whole nother show, sub show. So first question,rian from massachusetts this shows that people are listening johan so on a recent the move plus episode johan and spencer were discussing what benefits tata and ua uae were getting from riding deeper rims during

mountain stages remember you said this was not a noticeable difference i recall during the tour johan compared the energy expended between today and rimco and mateo jorg recall during the tour, Johan compared the energy expended between today and Remco and Matteo Jorgensen during the tour and today expended significantly less kilojoules during the stage being discussed. I am...

Sorry. It's the way it's written. Threw me off. He's basically wondering are the deeper section rims and his like aero position and aero bike, even though the bike's not that aero, is that causing him to expend less energy? Well, it's a combination of a lot of different factors.

I think the first factor is that Tadej is more protected than these other two riders, even if Remco is protected, uh, Remco is not as skillful on the bike in terms of fighting for position. And, you know, I think Remco needs to make a lot more efforts to go along the Peloton with or without teammates, but already, you know, at the same pace, I think Matteo for sure, because Matteo was never protected. So he's always in the wind. And Tadej is actually only hitting the front when he decides to go. I think that's the main, that's, that's the main, the main reason. Irodynamically,

I think it's difficult to find somebody who's more aerodynamic than Remco even a pool, although Tadej is also aerodynamic on his road bike. But Remco is, I mean, they don't call him for nothing the aero bullet. So I think that those, you know, they're more protected, but also just overall, I think the level of level of the epigachar is just higher than everybody else and whenever he's in zone two uh the rest is sometimes already at the end of zone two or in the beginning of zone three it's as simple as that yeah i mean also the positioning from remco like i've been going through and marking his position at major points and big races. And he's always at a position, you know,

that's got to cost you a ton of, a ton of energy. And then Pogacar is always in the right position. I was also surprised the size of Pogacar's teammates, the tour, like some tall, really tall riders, like Niels Paul, obviously he's a monster, but even like Pavel Sivakov, pretty big guy. What's the other guy's name? The Slovenian guy. I forgot his name now. Domen Novec.

So you do save a lot of energy with that. Yeah. Remco had a few big guys too. That's amazing. Yeah, he has big guys, but then he's not always behind them, you know? He'll just be like randomly sprinkled throughout the field. Yeah.

So next question. Greetings from Denmark. Love the show. Following the Tour de France route presentation, I have a question regarding the dangers for GC riders and bunch sprints. The bunch sprints are extra dangerous because both sprint teams and GC teams

are fighting to be in the front. We saw this, uh, remember with, uh, RIMCup Primoz Roglic crashing out at this year's tour. What if the GC contenders talked to each other before the race and agreed that in the last,

for example, 10 kilometers, they would ride five to 10 seconds behind the Peloton, each with a couple of domestiques to shield them. This is probably not possible but wouldn't that reduce the risk of gc contenders crashing out all the best yawn yawn you've read my mind i yeah i think that like ua should just ride behind the peloton like what why are they fighting for positioning but you tell us why that's wrong you know yeah well it makes sense

if everybody agrees but cycling is known for making agreements and then some guys will never agree at the last moment. So nobody trusts anybody. That's just proper to this sport. There's so many different players with different interests at any single moment that it's never, that's never going to happen. It needs to be a rule. Otherwise it's never going to happen it needs to be a rule

otherwise it's not going to happen yeah basically yeah and what we're discussing is not just related to cycling this is everything like politics like why like why don't all countries just get rid of the nuclear weapons wouldn't that make more sense but then everyone's afraid someone won't do it and then they'll be in trouble because yeah, if you're all behind there, also something that I think is underrated, you don't always know who the GC contenders are in the first week. You know, obviously with Pogacar, like you kind of forget, but even think of like Jai Hindley at the Giro that he won,

like you didn't necessarily, you weren't necessarily like Jai Hindley or think of Ben O'Connor at the Vuelta this year. That's a perfect example. Like would he have been tagged as like, Hey, you have to ride back here with us. Or would he just be upfront? What if there's a split and you're 10 seconds behind and then suddenly you're a minute behind? I think it's changed already. You know, they, they, for certain stages,

they, they changed the three kilometer rule to the five kilometer rule. So that's, you know, it's a step in the good direction. uh i just think it should be it's very simple whenever sprint stages uh are on the menu it's usually into a big city and uh it should be especially in france you know you always come from there's a lot of terrain between cities or villages. Whenever you hit the, I mean, and over here, we call it the agglomeration where, where the city starts, where the city starts and where usually then the, you know, the, the road starts to start to narrow and there are more and more turns that should be where the time cut is for GC.

Yeah, I agree. Did you see this weird rule, the Roglic rule, that now if, so let's say it's the 5K rule, you crash inside the last 5K. If you crash alone, it doesn't, like you're on your own. Like you're losing that time because it's a little ridiculous. You could take a crash. Yeah, and then Rog You could take a crash. Yeah.

And then Roglic crashed on a downhill. They like, there was a descent. And then I would say borderline and uphill finish. And he lost a ton of time, but then he got credit at the same time. I think that was a surprise. That was a surprise. Yeah.

But now I guess it incentivizes you. If you're crashing, you should just start grabbing at anyone you can. So you're not the only one going down. So last question for the day. Hi from Germany. One question that has been on my mind for years. What are Johan and Lance's opinion on the movie, the program about Lance's career and what do both think about how they are portrayed in this one? Is it almost what happened or are there major things that have been wildly exaggerated thanks patrick from germany i i will say i've seen the movie johan i don't think you have it's not a good movie so i i'll just start with that yeah mistakes were made in the midst i can't speak

for lance but i'm pretty sure he has the same opinion um and that's actually a really good question i'm happy and happy comes up um well first of all the program is a movie it's actually a really good question. I'm happy and happy comes up. Well, first of all, the program is a movie. It's not a documentary. It's a movie where they've used actors to play certain characters. And it's been based on the book, seven deadly sins written by David Walsh. That's the, that's the, this, the, how do you say this? The script, the script, right? The movie is definitely not a reflection of what happened. I've seen some, some little clips. You know, there's, there are,

I'll give one example, right? Which this is funny, actually. Um, there is a scene of, uh, this guy who plays me, the, the, the French actor, Danny Menoshe was also famous for his role in, in glorious bastards. Um, and so there is a scene in there where he, uh, anyway, I'll start over, uh, in cycling, usually when the start is given, riders can start coming back for bottles after 50 kilometers. That's the rule, right? Now, in the Tour de France, sometimes with the heat, the commissaires decide maybe after 25 or 30K,

and then they announce this on the race radio to the cars, and then usually the directors communicate that to the cyclists that they already allowed to come back to the car for drinks. I was always using one phrase. I said, guys, the bar is open at kilometer 30. The bar is open. Meaning you can come back for bottles in the movie written by David Walsh. There is a scene that I am sticking my head out of a camping car. And I say, guys, the bar is open. And that was the sign.

If the movie says that was the sign that the guys had to come into the camper to get a blood transfusion, the move, the bar was open. So, I mean, and it's plenty full of these kind of little things that happened that are put in a completely different contract, complete lie. And then there's a lot of things that I say, okay, yeah, you know what? That's true. That happened. But the way they have portrayed it, they gave it a completely different meaning, which is far from reality. And, you know, to really give you an idea of how unrealistic this movie was, a part of being a bad movie and not successful at all. The person, the actor who played me in the movie Danny Menoshe contacted me before they started uh recording um I remember I was still living in London back then and he contacted me by email

and he wanted to meet me um you know and back I had a few years before I had written a book so he had he read the whole book uh and, and he said that he wanted to have a meeting because that's usually what he does to get inside the personality. Um, so we, uh, we agreed on a time and a date and, um, two days before we were supposed to see each other. And he said, this is off the record. This is my decision. He said, two days before we were supposed to meet each other, he sent me an email that the directors had heard that he was planning on meeting me, and he was told not to meet me.

They did not want him to meet me. And I spoke to him afterwards, after the whole thing, and he said that he did his job, but he has refused to watch the finished product of the movie. Actually, the same exact thing happened. The lead role, Ben Foster, who plays Lance in the movie, has refused to watch the movie because they just did their job,

but they did not agree with the story that the movie wanted to portray. Yeah. I mean, it's like, yeah, they definitely didn't want this guy to meet you and then be like, Oh, he's not so bad. Cause they wanted the movie to be negative, negatively portraying you. There is a funny scene in it where I have, I have confronted David Walsh a few times with certain of these episodes,

but he has never given me an answer or an acceptable answer. There's like a funny scene in the movie where Lance shows up for his first race in Europe. And there's like someone like bowling him basically. The person is you. Oh yeah. That was this. That also never happened. Oh yeah. I'm sure that actually this movie is a good example it's made me question a lot like like say zero dark 30 i watched that movie and i'm like well i guess this is what happened it actually makes after meeting you and lance and having seen this

movie it actually makes me question a lot of um movies that are like based on true stories that i've seen it's like because even the small thing that you mentioned, it's like, okay, you said the bar is open, but you were referencing something else. And then it gets, someone maybe says that in the writer's room, it gets one bit removed from reality. And then it's telling a whole different story. I'm sure that happens all through these scripts and they don't actually like mirror what happened.

Yeah. But there's also, there's another interesting scene where it's like you go to Austin because Lance seemed like coming back and you're like, there's a really good guy on the team. I don't think you can beat him. Did that happen, Johan? That did happen. Wow.

How'd that conversation go? Oh, good. how'd that conversation go oh good i remember lance say okay fine we'll see that yeah that that is the most interesting part of the movie actually like the the him coming back and i obviously i wasn't there but i remember watching that really well so that's like you know you're kind of remembering it happening and then seeing behind the scenes, but it it's like, what a weird, what a weird experience for you guys. I can't imagine that actually a movie based on your things that you've done that aren't actually things that you've done. And then an actor portraying you,

that's a surreal experience. Well, I mean, let's, you know, we, let's face it. A lot of things that happened that were in the movie happened they just didn't happen the way they wanted it to fit the story yeah frustrating part but hey what can you do you know we're we're long past this and we're long immune to all this bullshit so i don't care at all i should say some of the acts the actor the acting was good like the guy who plays you is good the guy who plays lance is good i don't want to like denigrate their performances by saying the movie they're amazing actors

but they're professionals and you know it was telling that both of those guys have refused to watch the movie. Yeah. It's telling for, you know, they did their job. They did what they had to do, but they did disagree with the script. Well, do you have anything else, Johan, before we take off? Maybe I'll watch the program tonight. Yeah, settle down on a Friday night, watch the program. We will be back next week.

So send those questions into info at wedo.team if you want them answered. Okay. Thanks, Spencer. Speak soon. All right. Talk to you soon.