THEMOVE - Is Saudi Arabia Taking Over Pro Cycling? | THEMOVE+

Episode Date: January 10, 2025

Johan Bruyneel and Spencer Martin discuss a few news items, including the apparent reemergence of the Saudi Arabia-backed One Cycling, Caleb Ewan's uncertain future, and Remco Evenepoel's recovery timeline before getting into listener questions.  Zwift: Zwift just released Zwift Ride, an all-new smart bike that is changing the indoor game and making it easier and more affordable than ever before at only $1,299.99 to get started riding indoors. https://www.zwift.com/events/tag/wedu And join WEDU for our rides on Zwift. WEDU Wednesday is our casual, no drop ride and SUFFER Sunday for those wanting to push the limits. https://www.zwift.com/events/tag/wedu     Helix Sleep: Get 25% OFF any purchase using code HELIXPARTNER25. Plus, each mattress order comes with 2 FREE Dream Pillows ($150 value). https://helixsleep.com/themove   Cook Unity: Reset your routine with convenient, mouthwatering meals crafted with local ingredients by award-winning chefs. o Go to https://cookunity.com/THEMOVE or enter code THEMOVE before checkout for 50% off your first week.

It's good to see that we'll have Van Aert back at some sort of high level in 2025, presumably, if he can stop crashing between now and Flanders and Roubaix. I mean, while we're on this, how much pressure is on him for Flanders and Roubaix? Like, if he doesn't win it, win one of those this year, does it start to get a little uncomfortable back at home in Belgium? I mean, you know, everybody expects him to win, and he expects it in the first place, he himself. You know, that's basically what people want.

Everybody, welcome back to The Move Plus. I'm Spencer Martin. I'm here with Johan Bernil on our weekly show. We're catching up on a few news items like the potential return of OneCycling. Wout van Aert looking pretty good. Caleb Ewan missing. Remco having to pull back on the bike. And Tim Merlier's schedule and contract renewal for the foreseeable future. But first, let's talk about our partner for the week.

Johan, do you want to introduce them? You have a close relationship with this company. Yes, I want to introduce them you have a close relationship with this company yes uh i want to thank zwift um our presenting sponsor for the move plus um i'm using zwift now in the off season quite a bit uh especially since swift just relieved the zwift ride this is an all-new smart bike which is basically changing the indoor game and making it easier and more affordable than ever before to start riding indoors. Now, especially with the cold winter days when riding outdoors is a little bit more of a challenge, Zwift has the perfect solution for all of us. This bike is ultra quiet and super easy to set up.

You just need one tool. It's called the frame key to build it all and to make any adjustments to saddle height, bar height, or reach. You can share the bike with other people in your family. And once you're done, that frame key goes back into the slot, into a magnetic holder, so you will never lose it. This adjustability makes Zwift Ride perfect for anyone in the house to use it. And at $1299.99, it's a game changer. So head over to Zwift.com to check it out. And also join us for our WeDoRides. On Wednesday, we have WeDoWednesday, which is a one-hour casual ride.

And on Sundays, for those who are a little bit more hardcore, suffer Sundays. I think it's two and a half to three hours, really, really hard. So we have those two events on Wednesdays and Sundays for those who want to join the WeDo community. I'm usually trying to join the WeDo Wednesdays. A few weeks ago, we actually also had the honor

of having a surprise appearance of Adri van der Poel, the dad of Mathieu van der Poel, who joined us for We Do Wednesday. So check it out and sign up for those rides. Yeah, We Do Wednesday. We might have to get the whole van der Poel family in there. Let's see how it goes. Audrey was complaining about perhaps the pace being a little hot. I saw Audrey in Belgium and we talked about it. I saw him at the start of the, of the cyclocross race.

And he said that it was a tiny bit too fast. I agree. I agree. You know, it's, it's supposed to be a coffee, right? Let me tell you, it's not a coffee ride anymore. So we may have to restore a little bit of order there and make sure that it's still a coffee ride. And at the end, let's say in the last 10 minutes, then if people want to go full gas, that's probably better. So I'll have to talk to the people, to the team to the team leaders, uh, who, who had out,

who had those rights, but, uh, we do Wednesdays is fun. I like it. And just to talk about one more partner before we get into it, Johan and I, where we are kicking off our 2024 challenge completed to see who could get the most miles. That's where we do Wednesday and suffer Sunday come into effect. But 2025, it's a new year. And how have I been getting an edge on you? I've been getting sleep, Johan, with my Helix Sleep mattress. I went on their website, helixsleep.com. I filled out the sleep quiz, very easy to do. And they send you a personalized mattress right to your door, free of charge. You get a hundred night trial. So if you don't like it, you can send it back very easy, but you will like it.

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I can promise you there's nothing more important. The most important thing to your sleep is your kids sleeping. So that's a no brainer purchase. And if you want to do that, you get 25% off any purchase using code HelixPart 25 plus each mattress order comes with two free dream pillows. It's $150 value. You redeem that at helixsleep.com slash the move helixsleep.com slash the move and use code Helix partner 25 to get 25% off any purchase. But Johan back to the show before we get into this and talk about a few more, you know, tangible racing things. We, we, I had forgotten about this, but we talked extensively, maybe two years ago about this one cycling,

this mysterious one cycling movement or company. It's a little unclear what it is, but a recent story in the escape collective kind that they had one piece of actually two pieces of two facts that really stuck out to me. The first one is their source said the Saudi, I'm trying to find the name of this right now. It's a subsidiary of PIF, but it is the Saudi Sports Investment Fund.

Apparently, it's going to invest 300 million euros in this. SURJ Sports Investment, a subsidiary of Saudi Arabia's public investment fund, which is PIF, apparently have an investment imminent in this. But before we get into that, you just tell us like what would this look like that that's the one thing i have a hard time kind of imagining yeah i i still i'm also in the dark i've heard uh the rumors a few years ago it's been quiet after that um we all know that you know aso is not a part of it it, which makes it a little bit more difficult. But, you know, what I've heard is that they have kept going on. It's still very much alive.

The 300 million is also a number I've heard. And I guess it's just a matter of getting started and getting all the teams together as partners, together with probably some races. The last thing I've heard, and it's a rumor, it's not confirmed, but I've heard that RCS, the owner and organizer of all the races in Italy, the Giro, Tour of Lombardy, Milan-Sanremo, Tireno, also owner of La Gazzetta dello Sport, for example, the newspaper, they are considering selling their races to this One Cycling project. So that would mean that One Cycling becomes a pretty powerful partner, not at the same level as ASO, but still's it's a pretty good start i could perfectly see also a a joint

cooperation between uh one cycling and flanders classics uh which is a completely different organization also they own all the classics tour of flanders uh all the all the all the classics in in flanders but mainly tour flanders and then uh then Tour of Belgium, Tour of Benelux, whatever it's called. A bunch of important races, Cantre-Evelgem, not Paris-Roubaix, not Liet-Bastogne-Liege because that's ASO. But if those two companies, if RCS and Flanders Cycling would join the project, ASO is still in the driver's seat in terms of power, but it becomes a very relevant party.

And that's how the Saudis have started. The Alpif has started also with golf. They started this little league, and then finally they kind of forced the, what's it called the pga yeah the pga pga to to join them and now they basically own it i think so um i could see something similar happening now how would it work exactly i don't know but it's definitely an initiative that would put uh the teams together with those organizers in a more powerful position

compared to the, you know, monopoly basically of ASO. I think it's good. I think it's good for, you know, the balance in the sport. It's never good if all the power is with one party. And I'm curious to see, but I think it has a possibility. At some point, they will have to get ASO at the table and then it's to be seen,

you know, what kind of role ASO would play in this whole project. Yeah, I think, just putting that on the back burner for a second, I guess when the more I think about it, one cycling, I guess you could imagine it. And Richard Pluga kind of alluded to this with formula one.

He talks a lot about formula one, but formula one is just a company that they don't, they own some races. They've started to do it more, but they don't really own any races. Like someone owns the race as the race organizer. Formula One provides them a standardized operation, and they sell the TV rights. But it's more, they don't actually have physical product.

I guess that's what one cycling could be. If you're the Tour of Switzerland or you're Flanders Classic, you just plug into this one cycling ecosystem. They standardize everything. It's probably good for rider safety, but they probably also bundle the TV rights and go out and sell that for you. You just get a check for your TV rights. The, the, the piece with RCS, I've long thought, let's say you want to, let's say your Liberty media and you own formula one and you say, well, could we buy cycling? How

would we do that? Let's buy the ASO. Let's buy the Tour de France. But if ASO says no, your next play I've always thought is RCS and Flanders Classic. And the way like 300 million, that actually could be enough to buy RCS as properties probably. But let's say you did that. And let's say you ran the same playbook as you did in golf suddenly oh the zero's in july oh all the best riders are getting 10 million dollar start fees to go to the zero and then what they how uh i forget the name of this golf league live golf pressure the pga as they raise the prize purses so high that they forced pga to raise their prizes to like an unsustainable level. And they just put immense financial pressure on them that way. So in theory, you could do the same thing in cycling,

like RCS could be owned by PIF essentially be paying people massive amounts of money to race their races, not ASO races. ASO then either has to just give up and sell out or try to fight them with equal money, but they won't be able to do it. They'll run out of money and it will become unsustainable at some point. So if you were going to do it, there probably is a path there if you wanted to. Yeah, yeah, I think so. I think so. Listen, it's still, I mean, the fact that it has resurfaced now is obviously proof that it's still very much going on. And we'll see. We'll see what happens. I think they'll have to start without ASO.

But the fact that they're willing to do that is, in my opinion, a good sign. Did you catch this other, there was a little tidbit in this report by Chris Marshall bell. So at the UCI is world tour seminar in November, if you remember, I think this was the event that Pagacha was at that he had to leave because anti-doping was at his house. So they've already said in like their 20 project, 2026 report that they want to trim the number of world tour races.

So they say at this seminar that they want 14 new world tour races so that means if you just take them at their word they want to lower the overall level but then introduce 14 new races that means if you're an existing race you might be pretty nervous because i guess a lot of them will have to be cut to make room for these 14 new ones that are coming in i don't i don't think i don't think uh they're gonna trim the the amount of world two races because that's pure income for the uci that's her you know the uci owns the world tour and any any event that wants to be in the world tour first needs to prove themselves but especially they need to pay and uh well do you think there's a lot of races that aren't paying up though?

And they might get the boot? No, I think they're all paying. At least they're paying the UCI. I don't know if they're paying the teams or the riders, but the UCI is getting paid, let me tell you. So I'm not seeing that they're going to do less races. And I think that, you know, initially, I don't foresee that there would be a lot of new races anyway in this one cycling.

I think they would probably buy existing races. I've also heard that they want to change the format a little bit, which is not necessarily a bad thing. Basically, you know, to try to make it more attractive for spectators, probably also to be able to charge income. Instead of going, the typical races are going from A to B. It would be from A to B, and then at point B, there would be a few laps, which, you know, I think makes a lot of sense.

So I think that's the first step. Yeah, I mean, there's some of that that I think is welcome for sure. You know, there's like some sort of circuit. If you're a real purist, you're listening to this, just yelling at us like, no, cycling is about A to B. But man, from a business perspective, like we were talking about last week with these cyclocross races, like, wow, those people have it figured out. Very simple, Spencer. look at the tour of flounders the tour before was always typically from a to b no local lap now they do three laps uh they changed the whole i mean there was a big big scandal in belgium that they didn't do the

muir de gramont anymore uh but it's proven that it's the formula uh it's super super nice it's great racing it's great for the spectators um so i think they sell tickets right they sell tickets and there's a there's a lot of vip arrangements available at different spots which usually if you go from a to b you can't do that so and i'm sure you you're belgian you this. People were upset about it at the time. Very upset. And now, I mean, you'll, you'll run into a few in the wild, but there's very few people that even remember. No, it's, it's, it's, it's the, the races are a lot more attractive. They're a lot more spectacular now than on the old circuit, when it was basically, you know, just a run in, just a run in,

into, uh, into Merbbica which was the the usual uh usual finish line yeah yeah i know i totally agree and who knows like what how much modern cycling's changed that but i do think it's a better a better finale have you been watching so we talked last week mat Matthew Vanderpool, unbelievable. And then hurt, I guess, question mark kind of has bowed out for a little bit. Do you know if he's back in Spain training or what's his,

he's in Spain training. Apparently he's put the hurt on his teammates quite a bit. You know, he did crash in, in Luno where I was. I mean, I saw it afterwards. I didn't see it during the race,

but he hit his, his chest with his chest with one of those little posts. But also I think he's just focused on the world championships. You know, if he wins the world championships, that brings him up to seven, which is the record together with Eric de Vlaming. And, you know, whether the ribs are really a big hinder or not. But I think he has seen that his level is so high that, you know, if he just maintains his form, does a good, a few good specific trainings,

he can jump back in straight away and win whatever he wants to win. If he wins two or three more cyclocross races, that doesn't really matter. All that counts is the world championships for him. He can basically not do any crosses anymore and show up at the world and still win

the world championships. He might be able to sit a lap out and still win. I mean, what he's doing is. It always needs to be, it always needs to be written. Right.

But, but yeah, so he, he had a few races that he canceled. Walt Von Aert on the contrary, had two really nice wins two days after each other in, in the mud. The first was in Gullingham,

which was against Eri Iserbyt at the final. But then especially the one in Dendremonde, which was spectacular. It was a mud fest. It was running, a lot of running. And you could clearly see that this was going to be the strongest

guy was going to win. He started from the fourth row. It took him two laps to go to the front and from then on it was basically a one-man show and he won with one and a half minutes on the second. He was really, really strong. And so, you know,

for him also, I think it's nice. It's a nice confirmation that his condition is really good. He looked extremely happy, extremely satisfied with his form. And as far as I know, I think he only does one more race, the race in Benidorm. You just said that there was another race on his program, World Cup in Maasmechelen.

But he's now with his team, with Wisma, in the south of Spain. And I think it's next weekend, the race in Benidorm, where Van Aert is going to race. And so he actually won that last year, I think. Yeah, he did. He was great. And I assume the appeal is you're there already, right? Oh, yeah. He's there. He he's gonna train there with his team and he's just gonna do a few i think two or three like specific cross trainings uh somewhere i mean even on that circuit and it's

you know it's one of the one of the cross races it's not a real cyclocross it's a fast it's like a fast short gravel race basically um and so um but yeah i mean i'm impressed with van art especially you know and then we've talked about it last year we didn't uh we didn't put the picture up we can put it up now i'll send it to gabriel we can put it up here uh of his knee his knee is so damaged so damaged after his crash and the surgery he had after the after the tour of spain crash uh and i'm really impressed with the way he came back and the way he's performing and let me tell you you know to be able to do a cyclocross one hour through the mud to run and that's that's like there's no better test for your knee than this so his knee is perfect yeah i was really impressed with the usually i think i don't

know how much we can read into road cyclist form from cyclocross does it even really matter but in this case the running that was a lot of running on that muddy course the knees got to be feeling pretty good i was impressed um it's good to see that we'll have van art back at some sort of high level in 2025 presumably if he can stop crashing between now and um flanders and ruby i mean how much before while we're on this like how much pressure is on him for flanders and ruby like if he doesn't win it win one of those this year does it start to get a little uncomfortable back at home in Belgium? I mean, you know, everybody expects him to win and he,

he expects it in the first place. He himself, you know, that's, uh, that's basically what, um, what people want. And, uh, I think he's on the good track, you know, um, of course, you know, he has one of the pool, uh, which he will have to beat him. And then in Flanders also Bogacar. Um, but you know, he has Van der Poel, which he will have to beat him. And then in Flanders also Bogacar. But, you know, these races,

it's not pure power to weight, you know, it's, there's a lot of other factors that come into place. And the way, the way he is now preparing the season, basically putting the cyclocross really on a low, low,

low priority. And usually, really on a low, low, low priority and just doing the races in function of his preparation for the spring classics. If he can be saved from any bad luck in the spring, I think Van Aert is going to have a great spring campaign. I hope so. I hope so. I hope so. I want to see. You know, he deserves it.

Yeah. I still don't think people have digested how good he was at that Vuelta. I mean, he would have won the green jersey and KOM jersey and probably four stages. Like that's that's unbelievable. Not easy to do. Next piece of news, Johan. Caleb Ewan is kind of missing. He doesn't have a program for 2025, not doing the tour down under, not at the, not as his Jayco Alula's team at training camp and not on the website, his writer page, or his doesn't have a photo on the website,

but do you have any news on this? Where's Caleb Ewan? What's going on with him? Everybody, this episode is brought to you by CookUnity. Reset your routine heading into the new year with CookUnity, who offer an endless variety of vibrant, healthy meals made by award-winning chefs delivered directly to your door. The chefs you see on TV and in five-star kitchens are the chefs who craft each small batch meal with you in mind, made from local in-season ingredients, sent fresh, not frozen, and delivered directly to you all at a fraction of the cost and time of going out to eat or making it yourself. I cannot endorse this product enough. I'm going to be honest. I'm incredibly lazy when it comes to doing things that are good for me. I won't eat healthy if left to my own devices,

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That's 50% off your first week by using the code move or going to cookunity.com slash the move spelled out T-H-E-M-O-V-E cookunity.com slash themove to get 50% off your first week of meals. All right, back to the show. We don't know. We don't know what's going on with Caleb Ewan other than what we've seen. But it's clear that something is going on. The first news, you know, that he was not on the list for Down Under, that was already a little bit of an alarm.

But then, you know, seeing that he's not on the website, now I've heard rumors that he was negotiating his exit from Jayco to go to Astana. Astana is in need of riders who can score points. They have new money, Chinese money. So I don't know. The rumor is that he was trying to leave and that then the deal, the supposed deal with Astana and Vinukarov fell apart.

And now he has nothing. I checked J. Kualula. They have 29 riders, so they have one spot. But maybe they're taking advantage of the situation that saying, okay, you wanted to leave. Yeah, you're expensive for us. You didn't perform that well. He only won three races last year.

Not great races. Plus, you know, now after some years and changing teams, he's starting to have the reputation of being a difficult guy to manage.

So, Jake Wallula probably says, okay, you wanted to leave, now we can't take you back anymore. So I don't really know what's going on, but it's clear that if he wants to keep racing, he'll probably find a team, but he will definitely have to lower his salary emissions because I think

in total at Lotto at least and then you know combined whatever Jayco was paying and what Lotto was paying for his exit it was around 2 million there's no team who's going to sign Kenny Pugh for 2 million at this point there's no way and presumably Jayco's not paying that full

$2 million. They're getting the discount and they're still not happy with him, but he does have a contract through 2025, correct? He does, but who knows if that contract has been canceled because he was going to go to Astana. We don't

know. The fact that he's not back on the team, and then it know. I mean, the fact that he's not back on the team. And then, you know, then it's also the question, you know, if the team has, you know, kind of voiced their opinion that they're not super happy with him, then do you absolutely want to go back to a place by force, like forcing your way back in. Yeah, okay, there's a contract, but I don't know. I don't know.

To me, it seems like Caleb Ewing, from what I've heard from people at Lotto and the way it all fell apart, he's not an easy guy to deal with. You know, if I would be a team manager nowadays, I would not want Kenneth Buhlman on my team. Well, you can be two of the three. Difficult, expensive, good. Or win a lot. So, yeah, if you win a lot, yeah, sure, you can be difficult and expensive. But you can't be difficult, expensive, and not win.

Because then what are we doing here? Like, why are we putting up with this? I mean, he clearly got the B. I mean, they have it. The weird thing about Jayco is they have a very good sprinter, Dylan Grunewig, and won stage six or seven of the Tour de France this year. And Caleb Ewan was on the B program. So I don't know if they were not super impressed with what they saw there

and didn't want to deal with it for 2025. But it's a strange situation. I mean, this was a guy who finished second at a tour stage in 2023. He's finished third and second. And has been second, I think, several times in San Remo. Yeah, I think as recently as 2022 right and he was climbing incredibly well was that the right year no maybe that was 23 hold on a second everybody yeah ah man i'm losing my mind with age do you remember yes okay 2021 is when he got second and he might have been like

half-wheeling people going up the pojo yeah it's weird to watch this unfold and the fact that he doesn't have a program for the coming year i would love to know what's going on there i mean have you heard anything about this inios that inios was thinking about signing them and then that deal fell apart i haven't heard it i haven't heard it uh i don't think i don't think caleb ewan would be uh would be great for ideas uh i mean i don't know i mean i'm not a fan i'm not a fan i mean he had he had his years where he was unbelievable in the sprints where he came out of you know out of nowhere and left everybody behind. But as a guy to have on the team, and especially at that price, you know, I've never forgotten, you know, the fact that I think

it's two years ago in the tour, you know, he was dropped and then the team made two riders wait for him. And then, you know, at some point, these guys were just waiting for him, dragging him, and then he just all of a sudden decides to abandon and leaves those two guys in the dry. These guys had to ride for their lives to make it into the time cut. Not a team player.

And you know what? I mean, if you win a lot of races, then it's okay. But, you know, if you win now and then, then the days you're not in a position to win, you need to be a team player. And that's usually with a sprinter, it's difficult. But with a guy like Caleb Ewing, it's even more difficult. Also, I mean, the hidden dynamic there.

Can you imagine you're making 100,000 euros a year. You get called back because a guy making 2 million euros a year is dropped. And then you're with them and he just leaves and you're stuck by yourself. You'd be pretty upset about that. Sometimes I feel like UN's not been completely cognizant of the dynamic there. When you're making that much money compared to the rest of your team, like maybe there's some other things you have to make sure are you're taken care of instead of just having everyone be upset with you. But Rimco, speaking of a lot of money, Rimco Evanable back on the

bike on the trainer five weeks after his crash. Is that right, Johan? Well, I saw the report today that he's given the clear to, or he can start his rehab and that he can start riding indoors. Personally, I think that he's, I mean, you know, knowing how cyclists are and how they think, I think he's probably tried it already. You know, but anyways, you know, I mean, he can start riding on indoors on Zwift, which has been proven to be a great alternative

for riders who can't ride outdoors. As long as you have the mindset, have no doubt about the fact that Remco has the mindset to go hard, he will have to build it up. But it's good news that he can start now. And he has announced that his plan is to start mid-April, I think, his first race in Belgium. Has decided already absolutely no Giro. Focus on the Tour.

And probably also later on in the World Championships. But definitely good news that he can start training. Once a guy like that starts to be active again, the recovery process is going to speed up. So, I'm

hopeful that he can be ready for, not for the races in February and March, but April, from May on, I think he's going to be, you know, turning on all his, whatever it is, six or 12 cylinders. Yeah. I mean, we need him back for the tour. That's ideal. I mean, I'm curious to see like what this disruption,

you're just going to force him to change his preparation and the rhythm of his season usually he's so good at those I think it's usually Algarve where he just comes out flying yeah so I'm kind of curious to see like what he has to change it now and I don't know maybe maybe he looks better at the tour the examples are numerous you know of people who have been great at the tour who have been dealing with an injury in the off-season or even in the beginning of the season. So I think for Remco, it's not necessarily a big disadvantage. Knowing how he races and how he trains,

it could actually be an advantage to have to be forced to take some more time off now and then have more energy in the tank for when it really matters in July. Yeah, and then speaking of July, speaking of Remco, the Sudol Quick-Step team announced Tim Merlier signed through 2028 and most importantly, going to the tour in 2025, or at least scheduled to go if he's healthy, if it works out. We were talking just personally, Tim Merlier is a very good sprinter like very good much better than

people think because he often just doesn't get he doesn't get the invites to grand tours so um i believe the tour this year starts on a sprint stage in leo so merlier could win that stage and hold the yellow jersey which i assume was part of the calculus in taking him. Well, yeah, I mean, of course he's not the only one who wants to win that stage, but you know, he's notorious to win, you know, the first sprint stage in ground tours when he participates. And I think it's great. I think it's a great combination. As we said already many times,

Remco is definitely not the favorite for the Tour de France. So, you know, they can have the luxury to take a sprinter to the Tour. If you can win one or two stages in the first week with your sprinter, it takes a lot of pressure off the team. And at the same time, it motivates the team. So I think Merlier is the ideal guy for that i mean he's in my opinion he's one of the most underrated riders he's damn good he's so good with so many races but doesn't have the same charisma or name as you know as a philipson or

or any other sprinters uh but I mean, listen, I mean, the way he won that European Championships was just unbelievable. You know, I'm happy that he can, that he's recognized now by the team, you know, a new deal for him and his, and his lead out guy, Bert van Lerbergen, who is, by the way, his school friend

from like when they're 13, 14 years old. They went to school together and now they're still racing together in the same team. So, yeah, I think it's a good move from Sudak-Quick-Step to take Mernieff to the Tour. And Remco is okay with it. So, yeah, I mean, it's not like it's not like Sudak Quickstep needs eight riders that are exclusively dedicated to the GC and need to control the race. There's other teams for that. And as long as Remco is in good shape and he has two riders with him in the mountain stages, that's enough. You know, you don't need anything else. Yeah, no, it's really true. I mean, I'm looking at it. He won the first sprint stage of 2021 tour.

First real sprint stage, first sprint stage of the zero last year. I mean, I think the partially that happens because he's so powerful, like he's a really powerful sprinter. And then what happens is, is the grand tours go on someone like Jasper Philipson or like Caden Groves. The Welts is very good at this. They maybe aren't doing the same power output, but they get less worse than everyone.

So they get faster relative to other sprinters. Merlier, I did like some, I did a really in-depth, completely objective ranking of sprinters based on their results in the last four years. Merlier ranked pretty low, but only because he just doesn't get a lot of at-bats at world tour stage races you know like phillipson gets so many starts and he did have a bad 2022 which

you know he did the volta didn't win a stage so that sets you back but the guy's really good this makes total sense uh yeah i like he's also he's out there mixing up in the cross so we know he's fit yeah yeah not Yeah. Not a good writer. Really good writer. All right. In to the listener questions. If you want your question to be considered, email us at info at we do dot team. And at least we'll send those over to us.

First one. Hey, Spencer and Johan, if possible, can you discuss missed opportunities in the Peloton? I personally visit the Team Sky Hotel. I think this person saying during the 2017 tour when Mika Landa was on the team in Spanish, I encouraged him to attack Chris Froome. He laughed, but later in the press conference, he referred to my wish. I've always wondered if he could have won that Tour de France. My question, should riders like Landa occasionally prioritize personal ambitions over team loyalty? Kind regards, Pablo. I think I'm pretty sure he's referring to the 2017 Tour.

I remember that Tour well, because I remember thinking Landa should just attack. He's the strongest rider in the mountains. What's he doing? What is he doing? I assume you're going to have strong opinions about this, Johohan because you've dealt with this within your own team before well i mean 2017 was the froom won that tour right he won the tour that was it was a really weird year he wins by 54 seconds over rigoberto uran who won a stage without gears he's just stuck in a gear yeah yeah i remember that yeah yeah yeah but you don't know i mean you

can't uh you know london just can't he was he was never in a position to win the tour um i think didn't he lose that that year the podium to bardet uh with with a few seconds good memory yes yeah yeah so you know he was obviously he was strong but he was never going to win the tour um um you know i think i think lambda has never been in a situation where he's been on the podium of grand tours i think the giro um but but froome i mean it was the last time that tour that from on the tour right it was his fourth tour to fr, right? Yeah, because in 2018 was Thomas, 2019 was Bernal. Yeah. So, you know, I mean, if you have a guy who has won already two or three times, like Chris Froome, he's the absolute leader of the team.

There's not another question that he should have attacked at all. I do remember, I think one of those stages was when, and I think actually Bardbara won that stage uh i think it was even i don't remember if it was not to put a good um where i cracked to where fruit cracked and lana was not waiting for him uh so you know i don't know if he didn't see he cracked or uh but uh but yeah no i mean I mean, you don't, you don't attack. That's, that would be, that would be super unprofessional. And, you know, as a rider like Landa also knows, you know, when he went to Sky, he knew what the deal was. He knew what his position was. And on top of that, I've never seen a race where Landa had even the slightest chance to win a grand tour so no you can't do that pretty pretty harsh on landa no you're right yeah it's stage 12 landa finishes five seconds behind bardet from 22 seconds back didn't wait for him it was pretty chaotic um so

it's a little dicey to like go back and be like why didn't he wait it's like well that's a really steep finish no one knew what was going on. It wouldn't have mattered. You know what I mean? On that, on that finish, it wouldn't have mattered if he waited or not. It just looked weird. But in terms of time, it was exactly the same thing. The room cracked and you know, just had to give it his all to make it to the finish. No,

I think about that stage a lot because Sky was at the front setting a tempo. It wasn't like as hard as their normal tempo. It was almost a false tempo in retrospect because Froome was screwed. You know, as soon as the pace picked up at the finish, he was out the back. Like if someone would have pressed that earlier, they probably would have dropped him earlier on the climb. And I still don't think they get enough time to win. But it does make you think like it it's always like, why is, why are they riding? They know Pagacar is going to drop them.

Like Visma at this year's tour. It's like, you never know. Like, you know, someone could be on the limit. Yeah. And also, I mean, also, no one thinks about it like, okay, you attack Chris Froome and then you don't. What if you lose the race on the final time trial? Cause there was a time trial on stage 20 you're like how embarrassing is that so you always want to take that into account when uh when weighing that up next question nick from denver loved our discussion about uh the top guys coming to lifetime grand prix races like leadville 100 last week when we said yep a got Pogacar would probably clean up.

Tom Pickock would probably clean up. Sorry, Keegan Swenson. But this person asked a question. And the reason I read this is because I feel strongly about how easy it would be for the people he names. So I'm curious on your opinion on how riders like Matthew Vanderpool and Wout van Aert would do at Leadville against Keegan, who in sea level sea level adjusted five watts per kilo for six hours notably i think pagacha is the exception he could probably do that power however i

would find it hard to believe that wouter vanderpool could climb at five watts per kilo for six hours consistently so could they actually win leadville? Yes, they could. Like people don't understand how good they are. Yeah. Because let's say Wild's functional threshold power is probably close to 500 watts. So let's say 77 kilos, you know, he could ride zone three and be five watts per kilo. I mean, Pogacar could do five watts. He said basically in the Peter Attia interview, he could do five watts per kilo all day like as a training ride you know like maybe not even leave zone two so yeah uh vanderpool and wow people don't know i mean think about wow van art

won the double von two stage you know and von two is like close to an hour each time you go. Vanderpoel was third in the World Championships. You know, when he had his yellow jersey in the tour, he was defending the jersey in middle mountain stages. It's not the question. I mean, you know, it's all nice to say, okay, you know, Leadville and this, what's his name? Keegan, what? Keegan Swinson? Keegan Swinson.egan swinson yeah good good rider okay yeah but good rider spencer but then my question is why is keegan swinson not in the world tour because why is he not why is he not an average

rider in the world tour in the pro peloton if he's that good you know i mean that's uh somebody would have picked up on it and uh you uh, you know, any of those guys, any of those gravel riders, uh, you know, if they would have the opportunity to go to the, to the world tour, they take it in a heartbeat. You know what I mean? Look, look, even a guy like the world champion, world mountain bike, uh, Hagerty, it's Hagerty, you know, Alan Hagerty, the South African guy. He got an opportunity to race pro

with Jake Wallula and turns pro. He leaves his area where he's the best in the world to go ride with the World Tour pro. So that's my answer. Why is Keegan Swinson not a World Tour professional?

Obviously, he specializes in those kind of races, but let's not forget that those kind of races and gravel races, it is after all, it's, you know, it's very nice,

but it is a bit where the retired pros get together and try to get another extra two or three years in their career. Yeah, we're not trying to dunk on. I didn't read this just so we could dunk on gravelers, but I just want people to understand how good like these non climbers are. I'm even looking at stage 17 from the 2022 year to tell you, Matthew Vanderpool's in the break. It's a mountain stage with 14,000 feet of climbing. So over 4,000 vertical meters, five hour long stage Vanderpool's in the break. And at times was threatening to win

that stage. So he probably averaged more than five hours, Watts per kilo for, for that stage, five Watts per kilo for, um, for five hours. Like he could go out and do that on a training ride. Like these guys, their, their FTPs are so high, even like Ghana, you know, pushing over 500 Watts for an hour. And he, you know, he could probably get down to like 82 kilos, something like that and have a pretty decent Watts per kilo. So you don't want to underestimate it, how good they are. Like the best climbers now are doing seven Watts per kilo for an hour. So if you're finishing inside the time cut, you're doing pretty good Watts per kilo. Even for a really long time, you'd be surprised to how, when the best guys, when they just dial back the intensity a little bit, how long they can stretch that out for, you know,

they could, they could probably do six hours. Pretty, pretty high. There was actually Pavel Sivakov was on, I shouldn't do this, but plug a competitor's podcast. He was on Garrett Thomas's podcast talking about his training with UAE, how it's vastly different from his training with Team Sky or Ineos, which was really interesting to hear. But basically he said they have them go out and ride really hard for a really long time and they eat a lot of carbs.

And that's the way people train now. Last question. This one's pretty interesting. I think they eat a lot of carbs and that's the way people train now. Last question. This was pretty interesting. I think about this a lot. How many tour de France stages equals an overall tour victory? Obviously there's no right answer there. It's just all theoretical. Meaning did Mark Cavendish or Garrett Thomas have a better career? Follow-up question. If Cavs record beats G isant's one tour victory better than Marcel

Kittle's 14 stage wins. Yeah. Just for context, Cavendish has 35 tour stage wins. Garant Thomas won that race. It's clear to me that Cavendish winning 35 stages in the tour beats Garant Thomas one tour de France victory. I think I'm pretty sure that

Geraint Thomas would agree with that himself. Well, you know, Geraint Thomas, I mean, he was first, he was second, he was third in the Tour, you know, he did all the places on the podium. This is another of those riders who is really underrated, you know, I mean, he's still around, he's still around.

He's still up there. He was still third in the Giro. But he's not that flashy, charismatic champion, right? Which Cavendish is a bit different. But in terms of value, listen, winning the Tour is the maximum. But, you know, winning 35 stages, uh, as Cavendish plus, you know, all the other races he's won, but you know, he won Milan San Remo, he won the world championships. Uh, yeah. I mean, I would rate that over

one tour de France victory for sure. Yeah. I guess the question should be, you go to someone like rimco evanipol and you say would you rather win the tour one time or 15 tour stages you can choose one right now he would choose the tour de france win for sure yeah i mean it's same thing with garrett thomas it's so big in their countries where they're from too that they're legends now if Remco does it, he's a legend in Belgium. Yeah. Well, I mean, Mark Cavendish is sir, Mark Cavendish. And you're right. Thomas is,

what is it? MB, MB member of the British empire. Yeah. Isn't Wiggins though, sir. Well, yeah,

there's three, there's three cyclists that are, sir. It's Wiggins, Cavendish and Chris Hoy. Those are the three cyclists who have been crowned by the queen and the king. It's an interesting, I would almost say like put it in buckets of 10, maybe. Like 10 tour stage wins equals one tour overall win.

So would you rather win four overall tours or 35 stages well maybe that nets out about equal yeah i don't know i don't know uh no but if you look at for example marcel kittel how many how many stages did he win 14 which i had forgotten to be honest with you yeah i i would rate the tour de france victory of gareenaint Thomas higher than 14 Tour de France stages. Yeah. I mean, that's totally fair because I forgot Kittle won all those stages. I will never forget. I'll be on my deathbed.

I'll remember Geraint Thomas winning that tour. I'll never forget it. He was good too. Remember he won two consecutive mountain stages? He was amazing. He said he did 1,400 watts at the top of Alpe d'Huez. Very strong. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, under underrated he's actually getting better i mean this whole style is doesn't flash it's also

doesn't help him if pagacha and vindigo didn't exist it would be like oh my he's he's so explosive but he just doesn't look explosive because they're going faster the crazy thing about this question pagacha is like doing it he's doing the theoretical in real life he already has 17 tour stage wins and three overall victories so by the end of this year he could have four tour overall wins and over 20 stages like he could marry like he know and cavendish's tour accomplishments. It's ridiculous to think about. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well, you know, let's see. It's still, you know, every year it's a new year. It needs to be written. You know, a lot of things can happen. The rumors I hear is that Bogacar is amazingly strong, that he's still going up. His level is still improving. So everybody has their work cut out.

But it's cycling. It's not an exact science. It's not mathematics. So we'll see what happens. Yeah. Something I was thinking about, you were really sick recently and you got sick after a trip to the Costa Blanca. There's probably a lot of pros that got the same illness and might have

half of Europe is sick Spencer. Yeah. Like it will affect the beginning of the year. You'll see people under perform because of that. Yeah. Yeah. If you want a hot betting tip, figure out who's been sick with Johan's illness and don't bet on them to win early season races. But do you have anything else to add Johan before we take off? That's it for me, Spencer. All right. Well, thank you so much. And we will be back next week,

which I believe if you can believe us, that's the first, that's the last week when there's no world tour racing because the week after that, the tour down under, no, no, sorry. There's two more weeks before there's two or down under, but it's, it's coming. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah the seasons the road season started already in in australia with the national championships you know the i think the sixth australian title for luke plop at 24 years old that's pretty pretty impressive yeah if only we could get him a win out of that continent no yeah they just pencil them in for both the road and the time trial the guy's incredible

on those courses but we will be back we'll we'll keep doing the the weekly rhythm through these early races too and we kind of the idea is that it will give us a platform to talk about the races when they're interesting but we don't have to just talk about them. We can talk about other things if they're more interesting. So we'll talk soon. And thank you so much. Okay. Thanks.