THEMOVE - Is Tadej Pogačar Unbeatable? | Il Lombardia 2024 | THEMOVE

Episode Date: October 13, 2024

Johan Bruyneel and Spencer Martin break down Tadej Pogačar's dominant ride to win his fourth straight Il Lombardia and discuss what, if anything, his rivals could have done to stop him at the final one-day Monument of the 2024 season. Afterward, Johan gives his thoughts on the drama between Ineos and their star rider, Tom Pidcock, which exploded into public view after Pidcock was pulled from Lombardia on the eve of the event.  Zwift: This adjustability makes Zwift Ride perfect for anyone in the house to use and at $1,299.99 it’s a game-changer so head to https://Zwift.com now to check it out. LMNT: Get your free 8-count Sample Pack with any LMNT purchase at https://drinklmnt.com/themove Be sure to try the new LMNT Sparkling — a bold, 16-ounce can of sparkling electrolyte water Ketone-IQ: 30% off your first sub order + free 6 pack when you use the link: https://www.ketone.com/themove   ROKA: Listeners can enter code THEMOVE at checkout to receive a 20% discount on their first order at https://www.roka.com/themove   Helix Sleep: Helix is offering up to 25% off all mattress orders for our listeners! Go to https://helixsleep.com/themove. This is their best offer yet and it won’t last long! With Helix, better sleep starts now. 

This is the greatest of all time season, for sure. I've never seen something like this. And, you know, we don't have, you know, me as a young kid, I saw Eddie Merckx race. But of course, I don't remember details. But, you know, if you look at stats, Eddie Merckx had seasons where he won more races, but he's never been so dominant during the whole season on all the different. It's never happened before ever. Everybody. Welcome back to the move.

We are breaking down Tadej Pogacar's incredible performance to win his fourth consecutive Giro di Lombardia tour of Lombardia, e-Lombardia, whatever you want to call it. I think it's a seventh monument of his career. We'll get Johan's take on how did he do this? How is he making everyone look so pedestrian? And how long can he continue to do it? As well as a little bit of chatter on the, I would say, incredibly strange Tom Pickock situation

with his NEOs team pulling him out right before the race. And it just getting spicier and spicier since then. But before we get into that, Johan, should we do a few ads? Who is our presenting sponsor for the show? Yes, Spencer. We have a lot to talk about. First, we want to thank Zwift, our presenting sponsor for this podcast. We all know Zwift.

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for those who are wanting to push the limits. I'm going to sign up for We Do Wednesdays. It's, I mean, it's a no-drop ride. So nobody gets dropped. It's a coffee ride. They call it a coffee ride. Maybe a little bit more than a coffee ride. Spencer, what are you going to do?

We Do Wednesdays or Suffer Sundays. I guess if you're, if you're doing Wednesday, then I might have to cover the suffer Sunday for us. That is a brutal ride. That it's, it's no joke. I was just thinking this morning, I need to get back on the suffer Sunday. You do three, four weeks of that in a row. You're in pretty good place in a pretty good place that we do Wednesdays nights too. Cause it's, uh, it's morning at North America time. Great way to start the day. You need to, uh, you need to go on suffer Sunday, Spencer, because I've checked Strava and you need to catch up on me. I think I know four miles than you do. So you're going to need to do a few suffer Sundays to catch up. Well, we're both young fathers here, Johan. So we're just doing our best to get the miles we can,

um, as we can as we juggle our parental responsibilities. But no, I was just thinking about that this morning. I was like, I've got to, I've got really got to hit October, November, December hard. So I can pass Johan and our yearly mileage. It might could come down to the wire. Who knows? But the next sponsor elements spelled LMNT is it's my favorite electrolyte drink mix. Johan and I were just talking about how we're addicted to it. I was in France this summer without access to it. And I found myself daydreaming about the product. It's a thousand grams of sodium, 200 milligrams of potassium, 60 milligrams of magnesium in each serving, no sugar, no gluten,

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Giro di Lombardia, Taddei Pogacar wins. Yeah, before we start with the, Oh yes. We forgot on our last podcast and I don't want to forget it again, uh, to announce our Ventum trivia, uh, GS one winner. So we had during the Vuelta, uh, we had a few episodes where people could, uh, answer questions. Um, there's a winner who will receive a brand new GS1.

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and shared his name with us. So congratulations, Ray. If they haven't done yet, Ventum will contact you and arrange all the details to get your Ventum GS1, my favorite bike, to you as soon as possible. So good luck and congrats again. Yeah, it's a great bike.

If Ray is really finding out about it right now, that is, he will not forget this for the rest of his life. That's gotta be an exciting moment, but that's a great bike. I'm jealous. I might enter this next year, see if I can win it. But Pogacar wins Lombardia, seventh career monument, 25th win this season, which is unbelievable.

The most since Alessandro Pataki in 2005. And he was a sprinter and sprinters won a lot more races than riders who are climbers slash GC riders slash one day riders like Pogacar. 316 gap Johan over Remco Evenepoel. I believe that's the largest monument winning gap since 1998 at Paris-Roubaix. And then Giulio Ciccone third super impressive performance one is a Gary fourth Enric Moss fifth all those three through

five actually colored me very impressed but the gap over that was you know we had concerns about Remco going into the race I think you were pulled a quote in our preview show about how he said he'd be surprised if he finished a race so benchmarking off that i guess second is pretty

good he did fool us with that yeah that was clearly some sort of misinformation campaign but it is the really the clinicality of this i don't know if you watch started watched it early but there was a strong breakaway you know and you could you could imagine like, oh, this it's dicey. Like there's good riders in there. Tymon Arnzman, Wilco Kellerman, Kevin Bermarca, American from DSM, Danny Martinez. I mean, these are guys like you could imagine this getting out of hand. And there was teams with multiple riders like Movistar and Visma. And UAE seemed unbothered by it.

The gap got out to five minutes with about a hundred K to go. And by the time they got to the big important climb with about, it was like 52, 53 kilometers to go. They had chopped it down to a minute basically. So, and they had guys taking long poles, like 10 K long poles, just like chopping down that breakaways gap. But that's, I guess the advantage of having riders like Mark, Mark Hershey's on the front with 60 K to go on the breakaway back 80 K to go. That's quite the luxury to have.

I think, I think Spencer, so we, you know, we all in, in, in our show outcomes, we, you know, we didn't pick anybody else to win, but Pogacar made no sense turned out to be the right choice. You know, got charred made no sense. Turned out to be the right choice. Going off his performances in the last weeks and throughout the whole season, we already said several times he's on a different level than anybody else and it's only bad luck or mechanicals or a bad strategical choice that could make the victory escape from

him and this turned to be out the case. Um, and I think, um, I think he already, a few days before I saw a quote from, uh, Bob Kamolama, who actually was also in the front of the race. Um, and he said, you know, he said, well, I mean, and Bob Kamolama just came off a pretty good performance for him in the world championships. He was up there in the final. So he's in good shape. He's an ex-winner of Tour of Lombardy. He's at the end of his career, but still, you know, he did, they did a recon and they did a test on this, on this long climb. And apparently

Pogacar did minutes faster, not one minute, minutes faster than Moloma. So, you know, since Pogacar doesn't hide anything on Strava, he publishes his training rights. And, you know, they all knew already. They've all tested themselves during the week and they all knew how fast he's going. And it was basically a numbers game, you know, it was a numbers game meaning what's for kilo. Pogacar, we all knew what was going to happen. And the only variable was, and then question was,

and doubt was, is UAE going to be able to control this big break? And as you said, there was big quality in front, but with the team he had and the confidence they have in their leader, it was unbelievable. I mean, young Christian did an amazing job. Micah did a great job.

Hirschi. And then, you know, last but not least, Sivakov was amazing amazing setting up that attack um he went exactly where uh i think he thought he would go um and we could see that nobody really reacted uh i mean just because they couldn't um you know he just he just i think he went with like 6k from the top, more or less

six, six and a half kilometers from the top. Remco, you know, accelerated from the peloton, but never with the intention to follow. And so Remco also rode within his limits. You know, he knew perfectly what he was capable of doing. Enric Mas, as we said, he's in great shape, was able to follow him. And then, you know, the surprising Leonard van Eetveldt, a young Belgian guy who, as we said in outcomes, had been preparing specifically for this race by not racing anymore after his abandon in the Vuelta and preparing on the Teide in Tenerife was there. But you could, you know, visually, you could see actually on the screen, on the TV screen, that it was two different speeds.

And if you look at, you know, what happened, so he had about one minute 10 on top of that long climb, finishes with 315. I mean, what else can there be said? You know what I mean? Remco was, I mean, surprisingly was escaping from the other guys in the downhill,

which was, which is really, really nice to see because it has been challenging for him. And, and this is actually the downhill. I mean, it's not the same downhill. They came from the other side,

but this is the climb where he had his horror crash, uh, four years ago, uh, or five years ago already, uh, where you all remember when he went off that, that bridge, uh, you know, off the cliff, um, and Remco did an amazing descent. And then basically did a time trial to the finish, uh, your best time trialist in the world, but still loses two minutes extra on Bogacar. So a different level, you know, four times in a row winning Lombardy. He's still not the record holder, by the way. I know. I was shocked to see that. Won it five times, but, you know, just what a way to finish this incredible season.

You know, started with a win in Strada Bianche finishes with a win also in Italy and tour of Lombardy in between. There's only two races. He started for the win that he didn't win. It's Milan Sanremo. We got third and the Grand Prix Quebec in Canada. He got seventh. Every single other race he started, he won, except of course, several stages in, in stage races. But, uh, you know, he did, he won the tour. Not many there actually might just be two or three.

He, uh, he, no, I mean, you know, if a ground tour. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So tour of Catalonia, I think that six or seven stages, he won four stages, plus the GC. Giro d'Italia, won six stages plus the GC. Tour de France, won six stages plus the GC. Basically, every single race he tried to win, except two or three. If we count the stage he lost to Jonas in the Tour, just those three. I personally think that the time trial in the Tour, the first time trial, which was relatively flat, I think calculated

a loss to Remco there. But if you think about that kind of dominance, and there's been so many debates of, okay, where does that put him in terms of, you know, greatest of all times? I mean, this is a greatest of all time season for sure. I've never seen something like this. And, you know, we don't have, you know, me as a young kid, I saw Eddie Merckx race, but of course I don't remember details. But, you know know if you look at stats

Eddie Merckx had seasons where he won more races but he's never been so dominant during the whole season on all the different it never happened before ever so you know we're not going to say I mean you can't say yet he's the greatest of all times and I think actually

we will never be able to say who is the greatest of all times because okay. Everybody says it's Eddie Merckx, but actually, you know, things have changed so much that it's not even comparable anymore, but Pogacar is just incredible. Incredible. It must be incredibly frustrating for, uh, other writers, especially a guy like Remco Evenepoel, who is a huge talent. He's a phenomenal writer. You know, if you look at his palmar, it's incredible too. And then, you know, you're

trying to be and wanting to be and you're obsessed by being the best in the world, which I'm sure Remco Evenepoel, that's his goal. And then you encounter a guy like bogacha who is just showing to be unbeatable i mean how frustrating must that be yeah it has to be frustrating i i wouldn't would you say i think this probably is the greatest season of all

time i guess the caveat being that i can remember yeah because it may be someone in like 1904 was just rattling off winds and we we don't have the footage we don't remember that but yeah yeah you can yeah but you know i mean listen uh i don't know if we said it here on this podcast but you know if you look at cycling now it's a global sport you know there's huge huge champions from every single part of the world, you know, back in the ID Marks days, cycling was a central European sport. You know, we had, we had many Belgians, many French, lots of Italians, a few Dutch, uh, you know,

a few Spanish and a few German guys. That was it. You know, there was, there was really nobody else. Uh, and this, this and was always the same guys who were competing against each other. Uh, now this has completely changed. You know, we have people from Asia, we have people from Central Africa, North Africa, South Africa, uh, United States, name it, you know, uh, Slovenia,ia you know the three grand tours of this year have been won by slovenians uh plus the majority of the of the races so um you know you can't compare um i think pogacar is on his way to becoming the greatest of all times actually

i i yeah and i don't that is kind of a trap argument right greatest of all time like in every sport there's a it's just different eras it's hard to compare but this season i i don't think we'll ever see anything like this this was unbelievable i should say you did a really good job wrapping up the race there summing up kind of everything about it it is kind of the perfect race for them like you couldn't like if you had ai create a course and a start list that was like giving pagacha the greatest chance of success it would be the race that happened on saturday just with the climbs that hard and with the hardest climb topping out around 48k from finish where he can easily solo from there was like really no chance

for because you're just it's boiling it down almost a mathematical equation of like well his team is so strong not only is he the strongest rider he is the strongest team like we didn't even mention adam yates adam yates was working for today pagachar and wasn't even his strongest teammate which tells you how strong that team was pavel sivakov by the way sets up the attack finishes sixth and looks good doing it. You know, it did not look like

he was suffering. He was incredibly strong and he's been strong for a pretty long time. He was already strong, very strong in a few stages in the Vuelta.

And he was the only guy who could follow Pogacar in the World Championships for a while. So, yeah, I mean, listen, if you have a guy like that who is in great shape and is super motivated, the only guy who could follow pogatcha in the world championships for a while um so so yeah i mean listen if you have a guy like that who is in great shape and it's super motivated setting up and when when when sivakov you know was running out of gas there was what it was seven eight guys left there's nothing else you know and when it was there was hanging on for dear life and i yeah i guess my point was a lot has gone his way

this just and think about like the one guy who could stay with him on that climb yonas finn to go just for the point for the moment is not seemingly that interested in one day so until yonas steps up and starts coming to these races it's going to be a lot of the same my one big question for you is rimco evanipole like great great ride to finish second but this is now like it's i would say it's not a rivalry between him and bogacar like when's the last time he beat today bogacar in a non-time trial it'd be the liege where bogacar crashed and broke his wrist and then 2022 world championships which were in australia and it seemed like

epitom really focused on which like fair enough that was a smart decision because then he won a world title so that makes it worth it but i i have to feel like he's seen this enough to know that if he lets a gap go he's but that's just not coming back no one is pulling him back he always seems surprised that your group won't work with them. It's like, yeah, this is how it happens because now everyone's racing for second. And by the way,

that's a smart decision because think of like Chaconne and is a gear, a get massive results racing. They probably weren't even thinking about the wind. Like they're just focused on the rest of the placings. Like, is it possible for him? I know a lot was made up he's got this great steady state climbing that was kind of fond over when he first turned pro that he can just like

almost like a computer dial in a wattage and ride that for a climb it seems clear to me like he's got to whatever it takes this off season like change the training so that he can respond to that snap and then at least just sit on the wheel because the watts like on the training so that he can respond to that snap and then at least just sit on the wheel because the watts like on the climb yesterday weren't that different from his it's not gonna be it's not gonna be easy uh you know especially if you think and that's the scary part you know for for all the rivals um if you look back now on bogacarar, you know, I mean, 2019, uh, I think that's when he turned pro, right. Uh, a 19 year old guy turned pro wins his first ever race does. It's a spring race, but it's, it's a high level.

Everybody is there and preparing for the season. And, you know, there's a time trial, there's, uh, uh, another, not a hilltop finish. He wins two stages and the overall, um, and his first appearance in the pros, uh, wins at nine races in his first season. Uh, and they take him to the Vuelta to try out what he can do in the mountains. Initially, from what I had understood, they would get him 10 days or 12 days in the Vuelta and then pull him out. The guy ends up winning three stages in that Vuelta and gets third overall as a new professional at 19. So this has been coming for a long time you know the thing is if you look okay 2019

and 2020 and 21 he wins the tour and if you look at him physically this is a different guy i mean he was he was so good and he was not uh professionalized yet. He was still, you know, he was not super lean. Uh, he was figuring out his training. Um, we all know that in the off season, he changed trainers, which is, you know, we, we don't, we never talk about this, but the, the, the scary part is that this guy won two times a Tour de France, not being maxed out. You know, it was not professionalized. It was just a guy who trained. And of course, he had a trainer and he was guided. But he did not do his job professionally as it seems that he's now. He's a new trainer, new nutritionist, psychologist, from what I've heard also has been working with him a guy from Belgium

you know not unimportant worked with him and his wife actually in Monaco we can talk about that afterwards offline I have some information on that but you know it looks

like he got the whole package together of what needs to be done around him, you know. And, okay, then last year in the tour, he had an amazing start of the season. But then last year, just, you know, he went to the tour with that injury, carrying that injury from a broken wrist from Liesbos to Liesbos. So he was not 100

uh i don't know if that actually helped him to work even more but we've all said you know when we saw him appear in style bianchi okay this is a different guy i'll you know have a look at this uh at this picture here spencer uh which i found from straight after the finish um in uh in the tour of lombardy and look at his waist his waist is so small i mean this is not the same i mean he just lean lean lean and uh um you know combine that with the power he has and the pedal efficiency which is some also something very unique i think you know, combine that with the power he has and the pedal efficiency, which is also something very unique. I think, you know, he's smooth. He's his RPM, his average RPM in, in almost every single race he has won has been between 92 and 97.

And then the time trials he's around between 100 and 103 RPM. He's unbeatable right now unbeatable i also want to take the opportunity to thank another one of our sponsors ketone iq uh ketones are currently being used in all endurance sports personally i've been trying them out at my level uh i can tell you it works um we often hear that fasting and exercise are good for the brain. HVMN has launched the world's first drinkable ketone in 2017. Ketone IQ is their latest innovation on ketones with approved effectiveness, taste, and cost. Ketone IQ delivers clean fuel that can cross the blood-brain barrier, supplying your

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sleep starts now. And again, that's Helix sleep dot com slash the move. All right. Back to the show. Yeah, I agree. I put out a newsletter yesterday. My first point is Tadipogacar is unbeatable right now. The thing about that, the progression you just talked about. I mean, I guess we forget like in 2019, 2020, he was a child. Like he, not that he had a child's body, but he didn't, he wasn't grown.

He's like, literally wasn't grown up yet. A teenager. And it makes sense that he just physically has gotten better since 2019. When he got a third at the Volta and won three stages, but she'd looking at 2019. I forgot it was this good. Yeah.

Wins Elgarve. Interestingly, 2019, Remco Evenepoel wins San Sebastian that year. It was probably the bigger prospect at the time. More.S., from the U.S., and that was a big race at the time. And that really caught a lot of people's attention. Like, he, like, to see a teenager show up and just win the Tour of California, never seen anything like that. But he also, I saw a picture of him from the 2020 Slovenian Time Trial Championships, and his bike was kind of junky. You know, like, UAE was not was not like a well-run team. And like, I think Tom Boonen was, was saying he's going like 3k slower than he should be. I think that's maybe a bit of an exaggeration, but the bikes like Colin Lagos made those

bikes a lot better over the last few years. As you say, the trainer, that was a big deal in the shortening of the cranks whatever is going on with the cadence is perfect because if you think of high cadences like think of chris from he like high cadence but too high i think like i don't want to get into the to the muck in the mire about the the firm cadence we don't need to relitigate this but just sometimes he looked like he was going too fast and it just looked uncomfortable on the bike. Even when he was dropping everyone, Pagacar just looks, it's a slower cadence, about five RPMs slower at his highest power on climbs. And he's just taking it over so easy. Obviously, if you just try to go out and do that without

being him, you probably won't be carrying enough blood through your body. And you just won't be able to hold that cadence. You have to be like a very special person to do that and in very good shape so don't just try to go do that at home but there probably is something to like everyone should probably be shortening their cranks a little bit at least one size and try to spin a little bit more yeah that's i've been thinking about that i'm going to try it out actually because i'm still i'm still old school you know i come from an era where you know at the end of my career i was riding uh because we were told so you know like the longer the longer lever you have the easier you can move the move the gears uh so i was riding 177 and a half in road stages and 180 in time trials

uh just you know for example miguel so long mig Miguel Indurain was riding 180 all the time, all the time. How did he pedal through corners? All my bikes, I have 175 as standard, you know, because that's what I felt comfortable with. I'll try, I'm going to try to see if there's a difference. I don't think it's that simple though. You know, it's not like, okay, you know know shorten your cranks and you'll be better i mean there's a whole there's a whole working process behind it um you know in my mind mentally i would say it initially it did not make any sense because i was used to you know i grew up as a track as a track rider so i was used to riding 165 cranks on the velodrome especially on steep velodromes

where you know where you would actually it it was because okay you need high cadence but also you were not you know you had to make sure your cranks didn't touch the the the steep bend you know um but i always thought that you know 165 cranks it would be more difficult to move the gears you know to move the big power it turns out that you know if you really think about it because uh the hip angle is more open yeah it's actually the opposite and you know there's a lot of things that are completely the opposite you know i was talking to somebody yesterday about it you know back in day, I come from an era where we had narrow tires, 19s or 21s, with super high pressure, 7, 8, 9 bars. Now they're riding 28s, 30s, and even 32s with low tire pressure.

And the efficiency is the same, if not better. So there's a lot of things that nowadays make sense because scientifically they are proving it and they're able to measure it. We were not able to measure anything. It was just, okay, that's the way it is because it's always been done like this. And, you know, big champions from the past are doing this, you know? So, uh, and so, yeah. Um, I think on that part, Bulacar has everything dialed in, uh, perfectly. Um, I'm hoping for his rivals that he can't improve that much anymore, but I'm not excluding that this, this guy will still get better.

Yeah. And he's optimistic. The team's gotten better, you know, over the years. So if he, if he's on the old EOE on the, even on yesterday's course, it's like at the world championships, things were getting a little hairy because the team was falling apart a hundred K to control it. Okay. I'll just attack and go away solo. But you know, there's a path that he doesn't win that world title. There's not really a path that he doesn't win Saturday at Lombardia with the team and that course. I mean, it just on the, on the cadence. And I do think when you shorten your cranks, you get more arrow, but also someone explained to me, maybe when you're pushing big

gears, there's a little bit more pressure on your knee because the lever shorter. So at the point where you have to push the gear down your, there's more stress just on your knee joint to actually push through that gear. So that is a slight downside that consult your physician before you shorten your cranks is my point. But for the final, not the final climb, but the big climb, second to last climb 30 minutes roughly his cadence is 100 100 rpms you go to like his attack and like after the attack his cadence is 101 you know average so it's like basically the same and even the power like this is a testament to both him and his team and i i have a little computer that i use for the the power based on vam and time and things like that and rider weight bike weight could be a little off especially with drafting but it's just the numbers

that spit out for me 445 watts for about 31 minutes it's pretty good not bad that's just a quick watts per kilo that's 6.8 watts per kilo final 12 and a half minutes. So this is after the attack, 460 Watts for 12 and a half minutes, and then final 10 minutes, 467 Watts for nine 49. So that's obviously very impressive. Like that last 10 minutes is 7.2 Watts per kilo. And that's in a six hour race with, um, almost like with like 16,000 feet of climbing. So there's a lot of fatigue in his body when he hits that climb, but that shows you just the team can keep that pace so high. And so, so steady on that climb. It was like the smallest Peloton look like a end of a mountain stage at the

tour. It was this tiny Peloton when they're on the climb and they can just keep it so taught that everyone's gassed even before the attack comes. And when the attack came, the smart riders were thinking, well, I won't even try to respond to this. Cause that's, there's no point. But Johan, my question is my long winded question is how, how would you stop this? Like if you were Remco Evanipoulos director, you get called out of this podcast,

you have to go direct quick step for this race. Like what's your advice? How do you beat him? Man, I don't know. I don't know. I really don't know. Um, you just have to keep working, you know, keep trying to do whatever he does, try to do it, you know, try to train more, try to do it better. And then hope that, you know, I mean, not every season is the same. Let's not forget, you know, watch our hat the ideal season on all levels. He didn't have a crash. He didn't have a, you know, Bracar had the ideal season on all levels.

He didn't have a crash. He didn't have an illness, although he said he had COVID before the tour. Don't know if that, I mean, maybe he was a slight symptoms of COVID or something. And, you know, no mechanicals, stayed healthy. Lots of his rivals, I mean, his two main rivals, Jonas and Remco had big issues with the crash, you know, uh, in the vast country. Let's not forget

that Remco, okay. Remco is also, he was also, he broke his shoulder, his collarbone had a surgery. Um, you know, so, and all seasons will not be the same, you know, I mean, it's, it's not a mathematical question, you know, so they have to hope that, uh, I mean, they have to do their job and, uh, try to be as strong as possible. And then, you know, just right. Um, I mean, the problem they have is that if he stays the same, his team gets, keeps getting stronger and stronger so you can also not use

a lot of tactics anymore by trying to outnumber him or sending big groups you know and in breakaways it doesn't look it doesn't look very promising but hey cycling is not an exact science you know

we can expect anything and let's see how he deals with the off-season. He's obviously going to be very, very demanded in demand for all different kinds of celebrations and this and that. And when you get to that type of level of stardom and popularity, it comes with a price also that you are in demand. So that's going to become more and more of a burden. And he will have to, you know,

select the, the, the commitments in the off season more and more. But from what I see, and, you know, from a distance, I don't know at allacar at all personally,

but it looks like he has a pretty good head on his shoulders and that he's well-surrounded on the family level. Everything looks really good there. So I'm not that worried that he's going to get drawn into, you know, this, this, you know, stardom and being solicitated from all different kinds of events. If Jonas Vindigo is at this race, is the outcome any different?

In Tour of Lombardy? Yeah. Wait, no. That's bleak. Oh, I think Jonas would be at the maximum. He would have been with Remco. I mean, first of all, he's already not a one day racer. He could be, especially in that kind of race,

but it looks like he's not interested, you know? So. He did have a child, right? In August. So we're kind of judging. Yes. Okay. Yeah, he did. But I mean, it's not really a reason to finish your season. I mean, okay. he did yeah he did but i mean it's not really a reason to finish your season i mean okay he did he did uh race i think he did race and he won the tour of poland right he won the tour of poland uh before the vuelta so pretty impressive considering it's not a great race for him well i mean you know he's a strong rider so he's in the stage but he won the overall. Um, so, you know, but he got his season short, uh, quite early, you know, he didn't race much at all during the whole season. So, um,

I don't really, I don't really know why, you know, he, he didn't race anymore. Um, just to stay active, just to stay motivated to have some goals, obviously, you know, he knows better than we do and his team knows what they're doing. So, uh, I'm not criticizing that, but I find it a very long time to be without competing. Uh, and not just from the physical point of view, but also, you know, you kind of have to keep your points of reference you know where you are at which point with your rivals and uh so so yeah i mean it's it's actually

unbelievable if you think about you know we talk about uh the 2022 and 2023 tour de france and we were all thinking okay j Jonas is just freaking so strong. He's going to win the Tour. There's no way Pogacar can beat him anymore. There comes Pogacar. He just blows everybody away, including Jonas. Okay. He did have, of course, this very, very heavy accident

and these crazy injuries. But, you know, I'm tempted to say, I'm tempted to say that even the Vingegaard of 2023 would not have beaten the Pogacar of 2024 in Tour de France and in other races. No, it has to be like new and improved Vingegaard. What's odd is he's almost,'s almost learned it from you in Armstrong like that's what Lance

would do right just shut it down after the tour and then ramp it back up it's like he's almost following that same schedule I mean and who knows like remember Josh Tarling and we thought he'd be great at the Vuelta time trial and then he didn't do well and a lot of stuff came out that the emotional after the Olympics,

he just emotionally, he couldn't pick himself back up again. Who knows with Jonas, maybe that was so such an emotional rollercoaster at the tour that it was just too hard to keep competing after that at a high level. But just one more thing, Spencer, you know, about Pogacar, you know, and we all, we have seen, and you have seen this, you know, there's certain people criticizing him or, you know, because he's so dominant and questioning the performances of Pogacar.

And, you know, people are saying, okay, is this normal? Or his, you know, or his performance is credible, right? And I've been asked this question today on a bike ride, for example, with, with friends, you know, they all ask, Hey, is this normal? How can this be? You know, I've, I want to go back to 2018. Uh, and I don't know if I thought, I'm pretty sure I already told this story here on the podcast, but I want to repeat, you know, 2018. So Bogacar is 18 years old,

I guess he's 18 then. yeah he wins the tour de la veneer which is the highest level race for 123 riders internationally it's a mini tour de france and he's in the leaders jersey he has a weak slovenian team and the last stage is a mountain stage and they do the Col de Lizerand. And I have the profile. I just pulled up the profile here. They do the Col de Lizerand, which is a big, huge climb. Goes to 2,700 meters.

It's 150 kilometer stage. And then they do a horse category climb, which I don't know, called the Chaussée. And then they finish on the Col du Glandon. Col du Glandon, for everybody who rides bikes and has been in the Alps the Col du Glandon Col du Glandon for everybody who rides bikes and has been in the Alps, Col du Glandon is a big climb you know

doesn't look like they went to the very top but anyways it's a long climb, I remember watching this stage and I remember at the bottom of the downhill of Col du Chaussée which is you know so it would be probably let's see, with 20K to go, he comes down and he misses a turn

and rides into the ditch in the leader's jersey and gets out. The other guys are organizing themselves and they ride like crazy in the valley to the bottom of the Col du London. Gouchard does all the chasing by himself without any help, gets back with the eight, nine riders

at the bottom of the Col du London. And I thought by myself, I remember thinking to myself, okay, this guy's not going to blow up like crazy. He stayed with those guys, didn't win the stage, finished sixth in the stage. But he, I mean, it was that performance really struck me as something unbelievable because it was by himself, uh, doing all the work. And then if you look and I have the results here of, of, you know, so it was, it was almost three hour race.

Uh, I finished at six. So the first, I'll tell you the first seven, because there were seven riders, they are eight riders together, eight riders together. Genomator won the stage. He won two stages in that Tour de l'Avenir. Gino Mater. Second, Eddie Dunbar. Third, Clément Champousin.

Third, Alexandre Blasso. Fourth, no, sorry, fourth, Blasso. Fifth, Ivan Sosa, Colombian climber. Sixth, Pogacar. Seventh, Jao Almeida. Eighth, Tameen Aransman. I mean, those were the best in the world. And this 18 year old guy did something unbelievable. And from then on, I've been following this guy, this guy, I mean, this, this is, this was crazy, crazy. How, how, how how how good he was already very early on and then he turns pro and we all know what we just talked about what he did in his first year and

he just went on and on and on and improved uh i mean it's if you look i mean the results here tobias foss was 10 mark hushy was 11th you know the best in the world at the 123 level, who are still the best in the world now. But there as an 18 year old already, he showed what he was made of. So that's one thing. And then, you know, if you see how he has evolved, you know, physically his confidence, I have absolutely no indication at all to have any doubt about his performances other than that. He's an amazing professional and that he's, you know,

he's a super talent who just is right now on an amazing, amazing level. And he's on a roll and, you know, everything seems to work out unbelievably for him. I mean, I don't know if you saw the picture he put, he posted on his Strava, uh, that goes together with tour of Lombardy. It's the day Pogacar, uh, in his,

you know, world champions outfit before the race. If you look, it's before the race is he's not dirty or anything. And he has a big, huge green fist of the, yeah, I saw this. Yes. Yeah. You know? So, I mean, that's how confident he is. Of course he took the, he took the picture before the race. He didn't post it until after the race, but, uh, it seems to be a game for him. Yeah. It was, I mean, I obviously, I don't know anything. Like, I don't want to stand up on a soapbox and say, he's not, he's clean.

I promise you. And then he's not. But the thing that for this, I've gotten a lot of questions like you have Johan over the last 24 hours, like how is this possible? The thing I would point to is just the line to line dominance every year. Like, you know, he's always been good. As you said, since he was a kid, but just these good from like the first race to the last race. That's not at least historically how profiles of people that are bending or breaking the rules have been like, usually there's some sort of refractory period after you've been naughty or however we want to say that. But just the fact that he's so good and like,

no, maybe he's just, you would not normally even take that risk either like why would you bend break the rules of the tour and then also lombardia like you're not gonna a normal person with a risk calculation wouldn't do that so i don't know anything but that's pretty promising and then even the u23 results you just listed out at lavenier that didn't used to be like that that you'd read 10, the top 10 places, the hardest stage. And all those guys are good pros.

Five, six years later, normally it'd be like, I just have another, another thing here. So he was so 2017. So he was 17 years old, right? You're a Slovenia, his home race, but he's 17. Let's not forget 17 years old. It's a high level race too. Uh, he finished his fifth in the overall, the winner of the race is Rafa. Was that more, uh, second is Giovanni Visconti who back then was at Bahrain third, Jack Hake, uh, you know, very established pro Fort Gregor Mühlberger, who was at Bora also,

like Matteo Catagno was behind him. I mean, this is, he was 17. This is seven years ago and he was fifth

in the Tour of Slovenia already. So, you know, unbelievable. He's kind of the perfect mix of physical. I'm going to take a big leap and say he's physically talented, but then just also the mental component of you're right.

It's a game for him, but he's also a cutthroat competitor. Like someone like, and we'll get into this Tom Pickcock. Maybe this is a perfect segue. I don't know. Maybe Tom Pickcock is just as talented as today. Pagachar is.

He just doesn't have a, the focus on the road. He's doing, he's doing great things on other races, but in like Tebow Pino, you know, so talented. I don't think people quite understand,

like you'd have the level of talent you have to have to be Tebow Pino and to live Tebow Pino's life where you enjoy other things and also just come out and win major races. It's, that's very hard to do. So I do think it's just like a perfect mixture of talent and then focus so you don't see very often but as we leave lombardia in 2024 behind i don't think we'll be doing shows for the tour of guangxi which i don't even think

is televised in the u.s anymore a lot of these right a lot of these late season races aren't aren't televised in the u.s they're kind of taking them off another cash cow for the UCI. Yeah. It's a ridiculous. I also love like, what if Guangxi is amazing? And we're all just like, Oh, tour Guangxi don't want to watch that. And then it's like the best place in the world, but we don't know. Cause we don't bother to watch the race, but Tom Pickock pulled out of the race. I heard someone, I think they were joking and say like, there should be an asterisk on this win because Tom Pickcock wasn't present. Pulled out of the race. Zach Dempster, like the DS at the race, comes out and says, management decision, not a performance decision, which is pretty incendiary.

And then Tom Pickcock's doing multiple posts on his dogs and his own personal Instagram about how it's against his will. And he wants the race and he doesn't understand what's happening. What's going on here johan we talked about a little bit now in outcomes and i'm not much publicly has changed since then other than the dempster comments which i thought were were not not out there but just he's it shows you that there's almost open conflict within the team there is there is uh and, you know, just, just before we started to record Spencer, we had, I, I saw a little clip of of the podcast of J.

Grant Thomas. Yeah. I saw this clip too. I think they were discussing it. So they, you know, he, he, and was it with the plus Lawrence, the plus, I think. Yeah. He said, you know, I didn't, I didn't know anything about it. We they, you know, he, he, and was it the plus Lawrence, the plus, I think he said, you know, I didn't, I didn't know anything about it. We don't understand. Um, what we do know is that, uh, Tom has a huge contract. Uh, Tom is not happy with the team. The team is not happy with Tom. Uh, and then he also said, uh, there's people around Tom who are not acting in his best interest. From what I understand, there's a little group around Pitcock within the emails.

It's like, you know, it's project Pitcock. So he's, I mean, he is a road racer, but he's also a cyclocross racer and a mountain bike racer. So he has like his own little team of confidence around him. I've heard different rumors that, you know, there's one or two people there who are making a bit of problems within the team. For me, it's clear that this is the end of the road for Pitcock at Ineos. I don't think there's any way out of this. I think the question is now going to be, it looks for me from a distance, right? That Ineos wants to cut costs and that they want to get rid of the expensive contract of

Pitcock. This exclusion from Rumberty, I don't know on what it's you know it is from the superior management team uh which um you know made that decision apparently there's seven people in there there's not many people in there who understand who know something about cycling i know of one uh who's in there uh and and and i even think that he doesn't know a lot about cycling. Apparently the person who knows most about cycling. Is this, is this including Dave Brailsford or not? No, it's not in that team.

Brailsford is the head of sports performance, all the project together. And I think he's focusing a lot more on, on soccer. So I don't think Brailsford is... I mean, it's a bit strange to me to see that Brailsford is so detached from the cycling team. It's something that he built. I remember Brailsford being the head of performance at British Cycling and out of that came Team Sky and they did an amazing job. He was at the head

of everything and behind every decision and I think the success of Team Sky and Team Ineos at the beginning was majority thanks to Dave Brelsford. Now, we've already said a few times in different podcasts, Spencer, we don't understand the people they're hiring. Then we see other people leaving, which is a surprise to me. You know, it started to become, I saw some really red flags when, first of all, for still apparently no, no explainable reason, their head DS, Steve Cummings,

got put on the side before the Tour de France. He was the guy in charge of all the DSs. For some reason, I don't know what happened, they said, okay, you're staying home. And then they came out with some kind of ridiculous statement. Yeah. He's Cummings is going to manage everything from home. Makes no sense. And then when you see a guy, for example, like Dan Bingham, their engineer, aerodynamics specialist, you know, the head, the guy who was behind our record of people Ghana, who actually broke the record himself first, uh, he leaves and his assistant leaves.

They both go to, to a Red Bull, um, man, there's stuff going on there, which is strange so uh i think you know something tells me that uh ratcliffe is not that interested anymore in the cycling team or if he is the people around him who are advising him or not and they want to get rid of the team. And to me, this looks like a gradual fading out of the existence of Emineos. I think, I mean, I've seen they have contracts till 2027 with certain writers. And I think now they're looking to how can we accelerate this process to get out before 2027 and save money. I mean, the reportedly there's,

they're still putting 40 million in the team this year. So combined that's pounds or Europe pounds, which is a lot. Yeah. It's still, I mean, even if it's euros combined the money from in a house with all the other sponsors, it's, I sponsors, it's 50 million. You know?

So I think Radcliffe is, you know, he bought a little toy and he's gotten tired of his little toy. And now they're making decisions because they haven't signed any huge rider.

And Pitcock was their biggest talent, or is their biggest talent. Carlos Rodriguez reportedly is on a big contract, and they have signed young talent, but not big contracts. So they did not make any significant investments. And on top of that, they're losing a lot of riders. So to me, this looks like it's the beginning of the end of Timmy nails.

They're definitely going to be around next year, 2026. I'm starting to have my doubts if they're still going to be around 2027. I don't think so. I agree with you. I think they are like the moment Manchester United, which was partially purchased by Jim Ratcliffe, like that was the writing on the wall

that the team's probably not going to be around for a long time. I still can't quite wrap my head around the late pulling of Pitcock. Like why escalate it? Makes no sense. I mean, I guess like theories I've read, who knows if these are true but one

being oh they couldn't risk him getting hurt because they're about to sell his contract and if he gets hurt the other team wouldn't want to buy it like well i guess but at the all said you know they like you need result like what are we doing here like imagine being on the ground and like your best you're there to support pickock and he gets pulled out of the race, like from mechanic to writer, that must've been so demoralizing. Spencer, they're not going to sell his contract. I mean, you know, that most, well, they wouldn't be able to get rid of it. They can read him fleet free. And then at this point, at this point, there is no team who will pay the contract of Tom Pitcock. You know, and because whoever can afford it, they're also business guys, you know,

and they will take advantage of the opportunity. They'll say, okay, you know what? If you make four, we'll pay you two and a half. And Ineos needs to pay one and a half to make up for it. It's still a two and a half million gain for Ineos if they want to look at it purely financially. And, you know, Pitcock's not... If it's true that Pitcock has four million, he will want his four million.

There's no doubt about that. I mean, and he has a good agent, a smart agent, and he's going to make sure that Pitcock gets his 4 million. There's no doubt about that. I mean, and, and he has a, he has a good agent, a smart agent, and that's, he's going to make sure that Pitcock gets his 4 million, no matter if it's all from Ineos or all from another team, or if it's a mix of both, that's what I see. And you know what, I mean, there's, there's not that many teams. We've talked about it in, in another podcast, you know, QTOT 6.5 have shown interest, you know,

from what I understand, there is buying power behind that team that could afford the contract. And so that kind of makes sense. There's obviously going to not going to be any conflict, but any of the riders who are present in that team. There's no competition. You know, you could say, well, if there's another team that could be interested,

for example, it's Red Bull Bora, right? He's an interesting guy for that team. They do have the buying power if they want to, but then is Pitcock going to fit into that structure? Right. They have Primoz for now. There's strong rumors that there may be not next year, but maybe in the future Remco may, may, may move to a Red Bull Bora. So that's not going to work together. So I think that the,

I think that the, the indication of, uh, of Pitcock, uh, first of all, I think he's done with the nails. I can't see that going on unless there's a major shift in the situation. And, but, you know, getting, getting the, the, the information of, you know, being two days before the tour of Lombardy, you're just come fresh out of second place in Tour d'Emilia. You're in great shape. You're the best rider of your team. And you get told, he said it literally himself, I got deselected.

I mean, it's not like I didn't get selected. No, I got deselected. On the team bus. That's not repairable, in my opinion. So that's the end of the road. So maybe the, the Q36.5 option is makes a lot more sense than we think. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the Garrett Thomas, when he said something about the people around Tom that I clocked,

because you've been talking about that for two years now, at least privately with me, where there's, it's just not working out with the team and the entourage around Pitcock. And then the fact that Garrett Thomas would say that, I guess like just trying to be charitable to any of his team. I think most people, most casual observers think like,

Oh, they're just mad at him that he wants to leave. And they pulled him out of the race. I can't imagine that that's true. Like why, what's the, you're punishing yourself. Like you could,

your team could have had a result there by pulling them out. Like I kind of wonder if it's more complicated, you know, maybe Q 36.5, let's pretend they're ready to just take over the contract or just pay Pitcock and agreed upon amount. Any of us can walk away. Maybe they are skittish to let him race because what if he

gets hurt then q36.5 won't want to take them and they can't afford that risk at the moment that makes no sense spencer i mean for that one race that left in the season and two days before the race that's not i didn't max shackman get like remember got like hit by a car there was like a random woman driving on the course you know makes no sense well we'll we'll be back for our weekly show this coming week and maybe we'll have more information to share maybe on the pickhawk news but do you have any anything else more to say about lombardia johan and teddy pegaccia before we go i think we've covered it all. You know, looks that, you know, and this looks like it's going to go on in 2025.

So everybody else in the pro peloton, do your homework. Yeah, get to work now. Start studying about how to have the strongest team and the strongest rider in the sport. Go, you have a few months. Well, thanks, Johan. We will be back, like I said, for a weekly you have a few months well thanks johan we will be back like i said for a weekly show in a few days and we'll i think outcomes is probably will be back until next

year because this is the last race we're really going to talk about in depth at least in 2024 and so we will talk to everyone we will be we will be back we will be back. We will be back, uh, by before the end of the month with, uh, the Toulon France route announcement. Oh yeah. Yes. Yeah. 27th of October, I think they announced it in Paris. So we'll be back to comment on that. There'll be like 400 kilometers of time trial, flat time trial. So that someone has a chance of being in Pagachar. Yeah. I've seen already. I've seen some

sneak peek. It's going to be a nice tour of France. There's some really, really good iconic climbs in it. All right. Well, thanks. And now I'm looking forward to that route announcement. But thanks and we will talk soon. © transcript Emily Beynon