THEMOVE - Milan-Sanremo 2025 Breakdown | THEMOVE

Episode Date: March 22, 2025

Lance, George, and Johan break down Mathieu Van Der Poel's incredible ride to win the 2025 Milan-Sanremo, which saw him win two out of the last three editions by beating Tadej Pogačar and Filippo Ganna in a three-rider sprint after Pogačar re-wrote the modern history of the race by attacking and riding clear on the Cipressa. The crew discusses the key moments of the race, what this performance says about Van Der Poel's current form, and how it could affect his upcoming battles against Pogačar and Wout van Aert in the Cobbled Classics. Pique: For a limited time, get 20% off for life plus a free Starter Kit (rechargeable frother and glass beaker) when you grab the Pu'er Bundle. With Pique's 90-day money-back guarantee, you've got nothing to lose. Try it now at https://www.piquelife.com/themove and feel the difference on your next ride. Ridge Wallet: Right now, Ridge is having their once-a-year Anniversary Sale. Get up to 40% Off at https://www.Ridge.com/THEMOVE. Just head to https://www.Ridge.com/THEMOVE to see their biggest sale of the year! After you purchase, they will ask you where you heard about them. PLEASE support our show. BuyCycle: Head to https://www.buycycle.com/wedu and use code WEDU2025 for an exclusive offer for WEDU listeners! Helix Sleep: Go to https://helixsleep.com/themove for 20% off/

Disappointment of the day for me is Tom Pitcock. I would have expected him to be with these guys. I mean, he's a good enough climber. I don't know what positioning or could have been, but still. Normally Pitcock, I expected him to be with these three guys, at least on the Gepressa. Well, good morning, everybody. Welcome back to the MOVE Podcast.

Talking about Milan San Remo for this year, 2025. I am joined, of course, by Johan Bernal, who, as always, just doesn't disappoint with the backdrop. If you're watching the show on YouTube or in the members portal, got that it's pretty catchy that you press a graffiti when you're watching the race. Mm hmm. I saw that. I saw that you're interested. I have to find that picture. Yeah, that's good. And then.

George Hink happy down there in in Costa Rica, Puerto Vida, also on. I'm coming to you live from. From Cabos and Lucas, so we're both on on spring break. So and we were having a little fun with this. And Gabrielle's on here, too. But you don't see him. He helps us with all our audio. He's also in Costa Rica.

Everybody on the podcast today is in some Spanish speaking country. That's pretty cool. So we do it in Spanish. George and I can do this. In the new auto those Do we do it in Spanish? George and I can do it in Spanish. Bienvenido a todos. No, no, we shouldn't do it in. No, let's not do that.

High level, yet another win for, well, two part answer here. Matthew Vanderpool, incredible, his second, Milan San Remo and also third year in a row for his team, Alpecin. That's pretty impressive for a team to win La Primavera as it's known in Europe and in the cycling world. Three in a row is something and what a way to win. I thought it was, you know, sometimes Milan San Remo can be one of these races, of course. You know, and if you watch the race, I was watching it on Eurosport, which streamed on Max here in the US. They talk a lot about the history and, you know, this race was just

was early days was just for sprinters. And then I guess they then had it in Chepressin Poggio, gave it a little elevation towards the end. And certainly not the case anymore. Certainly not the case this year, the way it was raced. And we're gonna get into all that action. Cause it was different. It was different.

Same characters, same players, same ones we expected. Certainly the one, Johan, I believe you called out Matthew Vanderpool on the episode of Outcomes yesterday, our sports betting show. So for you folks that want a little action on the side, follow Johann Bernal over there at Outcomes. He'll tell you how to make a little money. Today's show brought to you by Peak.

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And when you get to think about it. I never get anything. Well, that's because you're in Europe. Yeah, it's too hard to ship to Europe, but I'm going to see you. I'm going to be with you in, gosh, I'm going to see you this week. going to be with you in a in gosh. I'm going to see you this week. Yeah, I'll steal yours. I'll steal yours.

I'm going to. Well, I don't know if you're going to steal mine, but I'm going to see you this week. I'm heading over to Europe. We'll talk maybe more about that afterwards. But yeah, I'll see if I can bring you one. But yes, it's too hard to ship to Europe. Yeah. Meanwhile, the rich folks are like, no, that's not a problem.

Johan needs a wallet. The thing is crazy about wallets. And you see this all the time. Just watch, watch dudes walking around. They got some old school wallet in there. They got their cash, their credit cards, but you know, business cards, all this crap in there. And it's in, and it's in one of their back pockets. And then they go to sit down. Well, what do you think that's doing to your low back? I mean, that, that just, I've always thought this, I was like, this cannot be good. Just constantly sitting on something that's, you know, a half an inch wide or centimeter wide, it's going to throw your back off. Ridge

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After you purchase, they'll ask you where you heard about them. Please give us a shout out. Tell them you heard about them on our show, The Move. Let's get into the action. Matthew Vanderpool. Excellent. You know, it was interesting in the pre-show,

you brought up a great point of, I think obviously you picked Vanderpool. There was so much expectation. I love it. And also too, they like to build it up. Can Pogajar recover from his crash at Strade Bianche? We haven't seen him. I'm like, please, he's gonna be fine.

But there was this expectation that he would finally win Milan San Remo. And obviously to do that, you have to have a great team, which he does have. You thought team UAE was misfiring today. Well, I think it was no secret. They've said it already since last year, I think, that they were gonna try to do the Chipressa

in nine minutes or under nine minutes. I don't know what the time is, but and then you could still say, okay, you know, even if they do that, you know, they're not going to have a big advantage and they can come back in between the Chipressa and the Poggio, you know, these guys just race whatever traditional rules there are in cycling

about certain races, doesn't matter anymore. They do everything the way they want and it works. And well, I thought it was, you know, when, when they started the cheap, I think it was straight away Tim Wellens on the front. Then there was still Narvaez who was a little bit further down with Pogacar. And my opinion Del Toro was missing. It's very hectic at the bottom of the Cipressa. There was a crash. And he was 30 places back and he never made it to the front. I think the plan was that Del Toro would be the guy after Narvaez. It

was Tim Wellens, Narvaez and then Del Toro. I mean, we've seen that he's in great shape. He won Milan Torino the other day, very, very dominantly. So that could have changed, obviously, in my opinion, if Del Toro puts in a one pull of 800 meters a kilometer, Pogacar could have gone on his own, would have gone on his own. Now, the question is, would that have been enough for him to stay away because obviously, Van der Poel and Ghana would have been together and they would probably have caught him in the stretch between the Chipreza and the Poggio. That's the only thing that I thought that was not the plan, but as we all know, you know, you can make a plan and most 90% of the chances it doesn't work 100% as you want. So still it was amazing, amazing strategy. And yeah, I mean, I loved it. I loved it.

Yeah. No, I mean, it's easy to look back, but the team like UAE being such a dominant team, having such a dominant player on their team, you would think, I mean, with a, with a team of eight riders, you'd see four, three or four of them already at the front of Cacapa Bertha, which stings the legs. It's already 200, I don't know, 30 K, 40 K into the race. Not typically, it's a very tough time, but I can assure you that it hurts a lot after that amount of kilometers. And then straight after that, it's downhill, very technical through tight towns, lots of corners into the suppressor, which we didn't see a dominant UAE there.

It's a very tough section. A team like that, you'd normally see at least five, six guys together going into suppressor. That didn't happen. Of course, that is one of the toughest, most stressful positioning 10 K and all the sport of cycling. I still have nightmares. PTSD, I wake up coming around these corners, you see cars and you're always looking for that train station on the left and take that right hand turn into suppressor. One of the most exciting sections in cycling in my opinion, but we didn't see a ton of UAE guys there. And of course, Tim Wellens, like you said,

hit it at the bottom very, I mean, they were essentially doing one kilometer sprints or even less 500 meter sprints. And like you guys mentioned in the pre-show, we haven't seen somebody ride away from the whole Peloton in on the suppressor ready in a long, long time. And from our guru, Spencer, they did it in 855, the first sub nine minute time ever. Yeah, I would have thought. Yeah, I was, I was trying to find some Strava files that the guys clearly haven't got back and synced it with their phone and uploaded to Strava. But that, you know, with, with, and also historically, and if you believe, and we went and went back and tried to look at the year of 1996, but the coverage said that the race had not been decided on the cheap press since 1996.

So whether or not that's true, we TBD. But if it is true, that certainly wasn't decided in this fashion, right? That was more of a breakaway that got away and stayed away to have a which are as he does, just reinvents these classic races and with his strength, with his ability to attack, recover, attack, recover. And obviously, mentally, just just as tough as he is. Certainly not decided like that. So this is this was a whole new look as I watched it on Milan San Remo.

This is a different race, right? This is a race that unlike any other spring classic or monument, you can always Milan San Remo. You can kind of boil it down to a three or four or 500 meter section where the race is mostly been decided right at the top of the podium. And it's like the kid just shows up and says, well, I've never done it before. section where the race has mostly been decided right at the top of the podium. And he, it's like the kid just shows up and says, well, I've never done it before. This seems like a good place to go. Like it just throws it all out the window and which is amazing.

Now, this is the Vanderpool was, was just that good. And, and, and I don't know if you guys caught this or not, but when, when Pogi was going and everybody was dropped, now Ghana was swinging. I love Vanderpool looked his fingers in the nose. You catch his face. No, it was on the limit. The glance, especially on the cheap press. His face looked good. Yeah. Yeah. Um, I mean, listen, it's fun. The pool. I mean, these clients, um, you know, four or 5%,

you can see, and also that's the, the proof is that the guy like guys there, you know, four or 5%, you can see, and also that's the proof is that a guy like Ghana is there. It's still power over climbing abilities, right? As soon as it's a little bit longer, a bit steeper, it changes, but this is right in their ballpark. And, I mean, you know, you have to think Pogacar went with, what was it? Probably like a little under 3k to go to the top. Yeah, right around 3k. And then he did exactly

what he had to do. He went straight from the bottom of the Poggio. So two times, basically a three kilometer climb that Wanderpool had to respond to. And I have to say, man, he was impressive. I mean, if we see that on the top of the Poggio, even counterattacks, I mean, if we see that on the top of the podge or even counter-attacks, um, well, basically a little bit like he did two years ago. Uh, but, uh, but yeah, I mean, once, I mean, once he got over the G press, I wonder pool, I think it was percent sure that on the podge or he was going to stay with Pogacar. Yeah. A couple of things to point out about Vanennepoel said in his post race interview

that he felt like crap in the beginning. I mean, you think the first 100 kilometers are dead flat. Today was freezing cold, raining. I mean, the weather conditions and the temperature changes that these riders go through in these six hour time period is what it wreaks havoc on your body. I remember doing San Remo many times where it's just like 100K and you're like, oh man, I feel like crap. You get over the climb, you get to the coast road, it starts getting fast. Then you start kind of feeling like a bonking feeling like 200K and you got like 70K to

go. And then you started, the adrenaline kicks in, then you feel pretty good towards the end. But it's amazing to see to watch these guys. Another mind boggling statistic, which our guru Spencer hit me up with is they did the POJO in five minutes, 54 seconds. Let me walk you through this. After doing like historically in Milan, San Remo, you come over the suppressor with 30, 40, maybe 50 guys, still like five, six, seven guys left on

teams. The position battle between the suppressor and the POJO is insane. It's the most intense, one of the most intense position battles that we have in cycling. But the point being that the team guys are doing most of the work. So now we're thinking three guys doing all this work, Ghana, Pogachar and Vanapol in that 10 K sections of present. And they still went almost as fast as anybody's ever gone up the Poggio, which is insane. I mean, they're not, they were not sitting on the wheels. They were going full gas team time trial mode and they still went that fast with poker chart doing most of the work on his own. Uh, it's just incredible, uh, how good these guys are, how strong they are. You know, what else is, it also is incredible is Spencer is sending you all these good tidbits.

Like Johan are sitting here, like just in the door. I just checked my messages. Well, I got technical issues. I called Bolsheviks FaceTime Bolsheviks call Spencer. He hit me up. So since I had his attention, he sent me some statistics and I said, right, but it's old. This is this is. Oh, Spencer playing favorites. By the way, who did Spencer predict?

Who was his, his, uh, he picked by, yeah. I mean, that's where we're, where we're gonna saw it's after we have to say, you know, in, in today's cycling, especially these races and those are two safe picks guys. The, the, the most difficult to predict is Milal Sanremo, but as soon as the races will get harder, it's between three, four guys always. So yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, Ghana road also just rode incredible for him to hang on those guys' wheels up to suppress a chase him down after,

you know, getting dropped on the pojo, keeping his pace, keeping his confidence. Coming back in, it was finishing second place, an incredible, amazing ride. And I'm sure just pushed along by all the Deposti on the side of the road, being an Italian rider, one of the biggest Italian races on the calendar. It was, it was, it was fun to watch that. And a lot of people spoke about the sprint actually, which I think we'll break it down after the next. Well, yeah, we're going to take a little break here, uh, and talk about the sprint and also,

uh, just, just talk about, maybe the enderpool's not old man, but he's had an exceptional career. We'll kind of break down some of the highlights, which are already legendary. Today's show also brought to you by Bicycle. Now is the best time to sell your bike or components. Prepare for the season ahead and sell the bike

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So I, and just looking up Matthew Vanderpool's poem, I was, this was his seventh monument. looking up Matthew Vanderpool's Palmares. This was his seventh monument. Which is, by the way, Pogatar also has seven. He's won Flanders three times, but on sentry mode twice and Perry were bait twice. Seven monuments. Very well, that's that's really incredible.

Interesting, too. I mean, you know, well, that arts got to be sitting at home going, oh. Yeah. Yeah. He was the guy missing today, right? Yeah. He made a choice in changing his program and, you know, time will tell. I mean, soon he's soon going to start his campaign in the Flemish classics. But I think a guy like Van Aert has to be there, you know, in a race like today. He wouldn't be one of those guys. I think a guy like Van Aert has to be there in a race like today. He would have been. Those guys, you know, Wout Van Aert on top of his game, I would say climbs at least the

same as people like Ghana. So I would have been. Fair point. You had the guys coming in from behind, you know, Bling Matthews, who was really close last year, Hayden Groves, I mean, I believe that Blaine Matthews just real quick, it's six years in a row that he's been a top six.

The special honorable mention there for Blaine Matthews. Yeah, those are, I mean, those guys all live nearby there. They know that climb really well. Blaine also mentioned that he struggled a lot in the beginning with that cold weather, but he still had an amazing ride. I mean, the disappointment of the day for me is Tom Pitcock. I would have expected him to be with these guys. I mean, he's a good enough climber. I don't know if it's positioning or could have been, but still. Normally Pitcock, I expected him to be with these three guys,

at least on the G-Presso. Yeah. I mean, we saw Romain Gregoire just the last man standing and, you know, someone like that does not even be able to hold the wheel on a relatively insignificant climb. And we're talking about 5% just getting off the wheel. Today they did a really cool thing in Milano-Saramo, showed me some graphics, the watts and stuff. And when Tim Wellens was pulling at the beginning of the Cipressa, Ghana was already at

430 watts. I imagine what that was when our vice went up, so must have been over 650. Right. Yeah, it's not that Steve there. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I mean, we're talking about three, 4%. Yeah. Yeah. And also breaking it down. Once they hit the POJO and we saw, um, Pogachar attacking full gas out of these corners. I really liked, you saw the cyclocross skills, the Vanderpool coming into those switchbacks. A lot of people don't realize those are really tough switchbacks. He was given the gap, giving them that, you know, two, three seconds,

four seconds of more recovery and coming out right on the wheel. I mean, that you just saw that was intentional. He came in knowing what to do. And, um, and it was a battle of the Titans there at the top. And it was a very exciting finishes to the POJO. I thought seeing Vanderpool attack over the top, trying to go solo. I think at that point, he had no doubt that he was gonna win.

What were you guys thinking? Words exchanged at the top too. I would love to be a fly on those shoulders. What were you guys thinking when Vondelpool started to, you know, take two or three relays on the POJO? That was like, in my opinion, a show of confidence. You know, I mean, like normally you would say, okay, there's no, there's no way I'm getting in front of you because you're going to attack me. Well, I think, I think if what George said is

right, if he's at that point believes that there's no way he loses, then you got to come through a couple of times. I mean, if you really think and and I got this, and you do not take a pull, that's, he's just a guy like him. He's a legend. He's has a lot of pride. He's kind of, even if you just got a soft pedal for the TV, you gotta come through. Yeah, yeah.

I mean, I'm not, I mean, Vanderpump's not a guy that's, he's not a wheel sucker that wins the sprint. I mean, you know what I mean? Yeah. Pochard is not, I can guarantee you, Pochard is not looking back on, man, I should have gotten harder of the Poggio. I mean, he attacked at the bottom of the Poggio after doing a full on three man team time trial,

attacking on the Siprasa. I mean, he did everything he can possibly do. Vanderpool was just too good today. Yeah, I think that that's right. I mean, Pog everything he can possibly do. Van de Poel was just too good today. Yeah, I think that's right. I mean, Pogacar, there was nothing else he could have done. So that's also why I think he was I mean, he was happy with his performance. Van de Poel was just stronger. How many times did you do San Remo? I was trying to think about this during before the show.

Are you just are you messing with me? No, I'm not, but you've done it right once, twice or not. And I'm not messing with you. I actually know this is just a way. Yeah. Hang on a second. Let me get to my point before you answer the question.

Let me just know. Let me tell you, I did 93, 94, 95, 96, Let me just, no, let me tell you, I did 93, 94, 95, 96. I did two and then I would have, yeah, that's the shit, man. I did like 10 of these things. Didn't I, Joel? I did it on postal for sure. Yeah, I hated it. Yeah, I mean, typically the GC guys don't love this race.

It's so dangerous. No, not great for GC guys typically. The difference, the difference back then is that, that I'm pretty sure, I mean, Lance, we would have talked about this when we designed the program, uh, at the beginning of the season is that you actually did a few times that race, especially in the post-tour days as training. Right. Of course. Yeah, yeah, long run. That's not possible anymore now. That's it.

And you can't race anymore for training nowadays. Hmm. Just to go back to Vanderpool for a second, I had a little stress. I mean, as he, it was clear he was gonna lead out the sprint, we all know, Pogachar's fast, especially at the end of a long day like that. Everybody's tired.

He can be really fast. I mean, what a boss. I mean, I think- All three of those guys, Ghana also, I mean, he's up there in these hard field sprints. A sprint after 295 kilometers is a lot different than a 200 kilometer sprint. These guys happen to be some of the

best classic riders in the world. So it was going to be really tough. But like I mentioned, I think once you saw Vanderpoel come over the top of the Pogatar or the top of the Poggio, he has just a crazy amount of confidence. I mean, he started sprinting with 300 meters to go. That stretch after 295K is one of the hardest sprints in the world. I know it from experience. I've been there, done that, uh, to see him go that early, not even look back and raise his hands. I don't know what Poguchar was doing with that, just giving it some distance there. Like he was going to make a run at things. And he gave him two or three bike links.

I'm like, if you're going gonna make a run, get going. Cause I get it. That's not a bad idea. But if he starts like he did, well, it's a drag race and you're two or three bike links behind. But there you also see the pure winner's instinct of Andre Poul.

You know, you need to look back once. He saw that there was Ghana on the wheel and then Poulatel and he went, he got a gap straight away. They had no chance. You know, three hundred meters to go. He said in the, in the interview, he said, okay, I know it was far, but I felt like I had enough to keep it until the finish and never came to the wheel because Ghana, normally Ghana is also very fast. But you know,

with that pursuit he had to do, I think he was basically, you know, he didn't have that acceleration anymore. So yeah, I mean, there you see basically the DNA of the real winner, you know, of under the pool. This looks back, no mistakes, boom, you know, just finish it off. Yeah. Joao, do we see a world where Mathieu van der Poel wins San Remo, Flanders and Roubaix? It's possible. It's possible. I think Paris Roubaix for the moment, I mean, the way he rode last year, honestly, I mean, okay. There's all, there's other factors, right?

Yeah, of course. If we see the same Van der Poel, there is nobody who can win against Van der Poel in Paris Roubaix. Yeah. Because he was, he was flying over those cobbles. Flanders is different. That's actually an interesting point.

The next monument is Flanders. We all know that Bogacar won it already against Van der Poel. Personally, man, I mean, listen, I love boat guys. I'm a fan of boats. I do have a little preference for Van der Poel, because I know, you know, a race to this dad. Oh, here it is. Yeah. But I think, I think if Van der Poel today is able to follow Pogacar on the Chipressa,

there is no way that Pogacar drops Van der Poel into the Flanders. Although it's hard. I don't know about that. that Pogacar drops on the Pulau Tura Flanders. Although it's hard. I don't know about that. Well, George, listen, it's really- It's a different race. Yeah. It's two climbs, right? He needs to stay on the wheel of Pogacar

on the Quarremont and on the Pogacar. Yeah. So it's once again, two climbs that is power over climbing abilities. Yeah, but also Flanders, you gotta gotta remember is more of a race of like the death by a thousand cuts, so to speak. And it's just those, all those little, you know, burgs, cobblestone sections. I think that's kind of like suited, that's suited Pogachar in the last couple of years. We don't even, does he, is he even doing it this year? I don't think so.

Pacha what, planters? Pogachar, is he doing planters? Yeah? I don't think so. Pogacar what? Flanders? Pogacar, is he doing Flanders? For sure. Yeah. Okay. That's great. So we have a great battle on our hands. That's going to be very exciting to watch.

I'll be in Austin with Lance. Yep. I was going to get to that. Yep. Yep. Yep. I think, I think it's what happened to Vondelpool. Was it two years ago?

It's not going to happen a second time. He's not going to let that happen. Um, but it's simple. Gotcha. It was impressive there. You know, I mean, we were listening to remember George, we were at the start and he said, you know, yeah, he said, well, once he puts a number on, there's no, we can't keep it in a cage.

She does whatever. Yeah. And yes, we will all be, if folks are in Austin, we're gonna be together, not with Johan, but myself, George, and Sir Bradley Wiggins will be doing the show live from Melodjani's. So that's a first. And I think we're doing a ride the day before.

That's right. That's right. Yeah. Shaping up to be a doozy. That is the next certainly next monument. Next spring classic. Don't you kind of think too though that Vanderpool just has a five percent easier time than Pogach easier time than Pogachar, just from, I mean, Pogachar's well-prepared. He knows the really important parts. You gotta imagine a guy like Vanderpool just, I mean, like knows every stone, just having grown up, not far from there, grew up racing juniors and amateur,

you know, just really knows it. It makes a huge difference. Yeah, and even, I mean, even if, if Pogacar is probably also one of the top three, four best skills, you know, bike handling skills, Vanderpool is still better at that. I think, um, also, you know, now he won the first monument already, the pressure's off. That's also important. Although it seems like it seemed to affect these guys in any race. But anyways, we'll see. It's still a while to go to the next monument. But yeah,

one thing I also saw, I don't know if you guys saw it after this, after the race. You guys remember when the pool one in 2023 was Ghana and Van Aert and they had this little tiny couch. They were like, you know, there they didn't look at each other. They, you know, they changed that they had a huge couch. Hmm. Social media got some, you know, all the memes, some very young people were uncomfortable just looking at it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Um, all right. Well, hey, here we go. I mean, spring is a classic season has officially kicked off. I kind of don't, you know, all these these other things up to it. I don't even pay attention. But now Darnham, Lonson, Remo, now we're talking. It's all long races, hard races, monuments. Come on. I'm paying attention. Yeah, that's going to be some

getting up in Belgium. I think they all had up to well, a lot of these guys go up to Belgium for the next couple of weeks and trying to get ready for Flanders in two weeks. Yeah. George, when you go home from spring break tomorrow. How about you tomorrow? Yeah, I guess I had a kiddo start Monday. So, you know, and then you're on. I'll see you this week. Yeah.

Although what the fuck is going on with this airport, I'm supposed to connect to Heathrow and it's on fire that can't on the flights. That could that could you and I are just having a conversation we could have on a phone call on a podcast. That's super weird. But it's true. Hopefully that doesn't mess me up. If there are any firefighters in London listening to the show, do you mind just running out there and making sure that fires out

so my connection is not screwed up, please? Thank you. You know what? I bet there is one. There is at least one firefighter from London listening to the show. I'm sure of it. I'm sure. Guys out there getting this stuff on, like, come on, getting his hoses.

Our boys, thanks for doing this. Thanks for tuning in, everybody. We'll see you if you're in Austin again, if you're in Austin. And I just put it on my social media today, my Instagram stories, we are doing it live from Melodjani's. We are doing a ride out of there the day before. And of course, the show will be filmed and recorded so you can listen to it on all your other, whatever,

whatever they call it, avenues, channels, outlets, I don't know. Okay. Okay, thanks guys. All right everybody, thanks guys.