THEMOVE - Milan-Sanremo 2025 Preview | OŪTCOMES

Episode Date: March 21, 2025

Spencer Martin and Johan Bruyneel break down the course, contenders, and likely outcomes for tomorrow's Milan-Sanremo, the first one-day Monument of the 2025 season. Listen in to see how the duo thinks the race will play out, which riders can hope to challenge Mathieu van der Poel and Tadej Pogačar, and who presents the best betting value. Ridge Wallet: Take advantage of Ridge’s one-a-year anniversary sale and get UP TO 40% OFF right now by going to https://www.Ridge.com/MOVEPLUS! #Ridgepod

We all know that Pogacar is very strong. He's in good shape. He absolutely wants to try to win this race. I think it's going to be for him the most difficult race to win. Hi, I'm Spencer Martin along with Johan Berniel and this is Outcomes. Outcomes is for informational and entertainment purposes only. Nothing in this podcast should be considered financial advice. Please gamble responsibly and if you or someone you know has a gambling problem, seek help from a professional resource. Host and guest may have financial interests in the bets discussed. Past performance does not guarantee future results. Everybody welcome back to Outcomes. I'm Spencer Martin. I'm here with Johann Bernal. We are

predicting the 2025 Milano-San Remo one day race, the first one day monument of the year, 289 kilometers. It's getting shorter, Johann, every year. There's shrinking Milan-San Remo on us. But before we get into predictions, who Johan thinks is going to win, how it's going to play out. I want to talk about today's sponsor, which is Ridge wallet. Are you still still carrying around the same bulky overstuffed and let's be honest, crusty leather wallet your grandfather had. It's time for an upgrade meet Ridge wallet, the sleek minimal,

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So please support our show and tell them we sent you and remember ridge.com slash move plus I can't recommend this enough. All right back to Milan San Remo. We sent you and remember ridge.com slash move plus. I can't recommend this enough. All right. Back to Milan San Remo, Johan, just a little bit of background information. If people don't know about this 300 ish K long longest race of the year. What's the classic thing is longest, hardest longest easiest race to ride hardest to win because the course isn't that tough. There's a big

kind of mild, I guess, summit in the middle of the race that frankly I've never even turned the race on early enough to see it. And then you kind of leave Milan, you go down to the coast once you're over that pass. And then they have, you know, these classic climbs along the Ligurian coast into San Remo, which is close to the border with France by Monaco. The two big climbs are the Chepressa, which is the second to last one, which is longer. It's the longer of the two and then the Poggio, the final one. And then you have this really tricky descent down to it's like two or three kilometers of down to flat road in town into the finish line. They call it the sprinters classic. It's not

really the sprinters classic anymore. That's really like the late attackers classic, but all this stuff, the favorites on Unibet and then we'll get your take on who's going to win. Tati Pogacar, the favorite at plus 250, Matthew Vanderpol plus 350. That is the world has gone crazy with Vanderpol that much further behind Pogacar, Mads Pedersen plus 500, Jasper Phillipson plus 700, Philippe Ogana plus 800, Jonathan Milan plus 1400, Tom Pitcock plus 1400, Michael Matthews plus 2,500, Olaf Coy plus 3,300, Matty Mahorich who won this race recently plus 3,300. That is wild. And it goes on and on, but Johan, how's this going to play out sprint,

small group solo and who this going to play out sprint, small group, solo and who's going to win? Yeah. Well, you know, as, as you say, Spencer, it is the easiest monument to write a super difficult to win. You know, if it's, what is it? 289 kilometers you say. Yeah. Two, two 89 officially this year. Like into account the neutral, it's probably 300. 189 kilometers you say? Yeah. Two, two 89 officially this year. Make into account the neutral. It's probably 300. Yeah.

They probably have like a 30 minute neutral. Every rider who has done Milan San Remo, uh, has this vision of, you know, like you start your race full gas for an hour. Uh, you know, like super, super fast for the first breakaway. And then you see all of a sudden, uh, assign 250 kilometers to the finish. That's not really good for the, for the, um, but, um, you know, usually it's, it's, it's, it's, it's also, I think it's the most predictable development, um, until recently when we have a rider like Tadej

Pogacar in the race. He basically, you know, breaks all the traditional cycling laws or traditions. But still, we all know that Pogacar is very strong. He's in good shape. He absolutely wants to try to win this race. I think it's going to be for him the most difficult race to win. Although Paris-Roubaix may also not be easy for him to win with as long as a guy like Van Der Poel and people like Ghana and Van Aert are on the top of this game. there's no climbs in Paris-Roubaix.

So that's why it's going to be difficult. But I agree that I agree he's the favorite because of his status, right? Because of his pedigree. And he will try. We don't know exactly if he's going to try to go on the G-Presse or on the Poggio, from the Cipressa to the finish it's quite far, especially because these climbs you can get away but you can't get a lot of advantage. So I'm going to pick Mathieu van der Poel to win, because van der Poel can win in a lot of different scenarios. He already won Milan Sanremo solo riding away from Pogacar and the other favorites. He was there last year and basically helped Jasper Philipsen to win

the race. But if it's a selection of let's say the three, four, five big favorites, a selection of let's say the three, four, five big favorites, whether that's Van der Poel, Ghana, Pitcock, Peterson and Pogacar, for example, Van der Poel is gonna be there. And he can win a sprint also against all these guys. So that's why I prefer Van der Poel also based on what I've seen in Tirino Adriatico. He did Tirino Adriatico, tested him a few

times, didn't win a stage, but you know, he looked really good. And I've heard that he's in really good shape, that he's really, really, really in top shape. And you know, he's not going to race that much in the spring. He only does a few one-day races. This is one, this is his first big goal of the season. And so yeah, plus three 50. I think that's, that's a good, a good number for Vanderpool. So he's my favorite to win the race.

It yeah, it's, it's actually crazy. He's plus three 50. I agree with you. I think he's the best rider for the race. Like if you just laid out everyone, everyone's attributes, he would be the most perfectly built for this because he can sprint and he can climb. He can win about a small group. He can win solo. But last year it was Pagachar plus 250 Vanderpool plus 250.

So it's interesting to me, he's dropped down to plus 350. To me, this is a bit of Pagachar fever. Everyone a year later is like, Whoa, this guy's the best rider in the world, which he is. He's going to win. But it's like, well, what happened to Vanderpool? Like he looked pretty good at Torino. He's looked pretty good at all his races this year. Why is he dropped down? So just mathematically and logically, I do think that's the smart pick because you're getting a favorite for cheaper than you would get Pogacar. But since you picked Vanderpool and because the guy you normally think is going to win San Remo doesn't normally win San Remo, I'm

going to go Pagachar. Also, we have got some tailwinds coming allegedly rain, some maybe rain, but it's like 25% chance. But tailwinds along that final coast, that could give Pagacha enough because when it's tailwind, you would think like, oh, it's easier to go up the climbs. No, it's harder because it gives the advantage to the person that's just a better climber. Like everything is basically amplified. So if you're a faster climber, you can't really draft on that person. They're going to ride away. And the stretch between, there's a flat stretch like 16 K between the Chepressa and the Poggio. It'd be really hard to stay away normally. And it's still, it's not going to be easy. But in my scenario, UAE makes the race really hard on like as

early as the Turcino. How do you say that climb, Johan? They make it hard there. They go all out in the Chepressa last year. They, you know, there was like this, they weren't really dialed in. It was trying to make it hard. Wrongly positioned. And then Del Toro had to do a lot of work too early. So basically, you know, Pogacar was only left with Tim Wellens at the end. And he had to tell him to slow down. Remember, he's like, this isn't working, Tim. Like

let's just take this to the Poggio. Like they gave up by the top of the Trapressa. But I, you know, because he has a math problem here, just here's some numbers for you. I think he's done the Poggio about as hard as anyone can do it. Like he has the, him and Garner tied for the Strava KOM 531. I think Bogotar technically did it. He got over the line first. So maybe he was further behind, but like my calculator says for Pogacar to have done this time on the Poggio. And this is like half a minute faster than Nibali when he soloed in 2018. Remember when he rode away from everybody? You're like, well, why doesn't Pogacar just do that? Well,

he's going half a minute faster than Nibali was on that climb. And he's still not getting clear. And he's putting out roughly like 590 watts, like nine watts per kilo for five and a half minutes. Ghana, because he's heavier, only has to put out like 7.8 watts per kilo to keep up with them. That's not even accounting for like Ghana's going to sit on the wheels. He's not going to be attacking. Pagache is going to be attacking. It's just, I think it's going to be too hard for him to get away on the final climb. It's only 3.7 K long at around like three and a half percent gradient. Like Vanderpoel and Ghana can stay with him on that climb.

Probably Mads Pedersen too, with the fitness he has right now. I think he's got to go to Tepresa. I think he's got to, you know, if he's away, what is the group doing? Are they arguing? They're probably not all working together in harmony. Maybe they're arguing. Maybe they've they've whittled it down so much that they don't have teammates. I think that's the only way. That's the thing. If, if, listen, if Pogacar gets away on the chipress, uh, well, first of all, we have to see if there's nobody in front yet. I mean, I would assume there's

no UAE in front. No teams will let that happen because that's basically saying, okay, here's what's going to happen. We sent the line in front. But if Pogacar gets away on the Chipressa, that's going to mean that it's going to be, I've been already really hard on the Chipressa and there's not going to be many guys together. And the time between the Chipressa and the Poggio 16k to get back together and organized, if it's tailwind, that's his chance.

I still think it's extremely difficult because I repeat, these climbs are not that hard and the level is extremely high of the top favorites. But if it's tailwind, this is the year. This is the year that it could happen. So we'll see. We'll see. I would love to see it. I know one guy.

I know one guy who won the Milan-San Remo. He got away on the Cipressa, you know, with a few guys then rode full gas in the valley, got caught just before the Poggio and then got away again on the Poggio with a little group and one in the sprint was Paolo Bettini when he won with Alsa Remo. I think he was world champion then, if I'm not mistaken, because he was two times world champion in a row. But that was something extraordinary. Normally if you really put a big dig on the Chepressa and then you spend all that energy in the valley between the Chepressa and the Poggio, it's difficult to win still. But if there's one guy who can do it, it's Pogacar.

I'm glad you brought up the Bettini example because let's imagine he attacks on the Trepresa, doesn't get away clean. Let's say Vanderpals with them, Pedersen's with them, Ghana's with them, Pitcox with them. Those guys are probably going to work with him, right? They're not going to want faster riders to come back. My question is, would that then if he can isolate, you know, it's like in basketball. Now the big thing is that you isolate someone, if you're a quicker rider, you're a quicker player and you can get around them. If he can isolate those guys on the Poggio, could he then drop them?

If they don't have the big group to hide in, like maybe that's another possibility that he, that is the first step. And then he drops them on the Poggio. For sure. For sure. But you know what I mean? Listen, these guys are not stupid. You know, I mean, let's say these five guys get away, right? On the cheap press. There's probably going to be somebody else because there's other guys who are good climbers, but still Pogacar is not going to have any teammates either with him because they're not going to come back.

If it's, if it's the favorites already. And if these, this little group decides to work together, the big weight of the breakaway is going to be on Pogacar because they all know that they're going to, he's going to attack them again on the Poccio. So Pogacar needs to go close to full and the other guys are going to go 60, 70%. Um, you know, so, yeah, I feel like we always think this though. And then when it, the rubber hits the road, you're like, what are they doing? Why are they? I mean, because partly it's good. It's confidence.

You know, Vanderpool might be thinking like, this idiot is going to pull me to a sprint finish and he's not going to drop me on the Poggio. So I'm not going to let this chance go. Yeah. Yeah. Well, usually, I mean, and then if, if, if, if it would, if that would be the case that a select group gets at the bottom of the podgeo, normally the speed is not going to be as high as if it was a peloton coming and then the big guys going away from the peloton on the podgeo. It's going to be a bit slower. So, so yeah, we, I mean, listen, I don't know.

If there's one thing, one guy who can do something, which is not written in the traditional cycling books in a race like Milan Sanremo is the Pogacar. Do you know the average speed on the Poggio last year? This blew my mind. Um, this is uphill. Yeah. 38, 39. Yeah.

39.1 K an hour. Wow. It's just, imagine, it's hard to imagine being able to, I mean, I get my four year old son did point out, well, Vanderpool attacked at the very end of the Poggio in 2003 and got away. Why doesn't Pogacar try that? But 2023, 2023. Yeah, sorry. But I guess Pogacar is not as big, right? So he doesn't probably doesn't have the explosive power, quite the explosive power that Vanderpool has.

And Vanderpool was in the wheels that whole climb. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So it's a, it's a tough race. So one thing too we should talk about that helps Vanderpool oddly is his teammate and defending champion Jasper Phillipson crashed on yesterday. Was that yesterday? Day before yesterday, on Wednesday, he's going to race, but for a guy like that, everything has to go perfect for him to get over. You know, if you rewatch last year, he was just like last man on the Poggio in that group, dangling, dangling, it all falls into place. So if you are at all suffering,

I don't think he makes it over, but that means Vanderpool can just focus on winning, which helps. If you're betting on him helps you a lot because I can't imagine having him last year and then watching him lead his teammate out. Like, what are you doing, man? I have money. I might've had money on him. I think that was me I'm describing, but if it's not Pagatra, it's not Vanderpool. How do we, I mean, there's a lot of strong riders here like Mads Pedersen, Ghana, Milan. Do you think anyone else has a chance? I'm going to pick Tom Pitcock as my second choice. I think he's,

he's plus 1400, no? Yeah, that's 1400. And this is probably one of the better races for him. That's pretty good. I think, you know, normally if Pitcock is the way he has been riding until now, there's no way he's getting dropped on the Poggio. And let's not forget, man, he is probably the best guy downhill in the world. Okay. On a descent like the Poggio, you could argue, okay, Van Der Poel is there, is equal. Ghana is equal. Pogacar is not bad either in the Downhills.

But man, Pitcock has this extra thingy. Plus, I also think that Pitcock, if it's a selection of the four or five guys, we think, could take advantage of the supervision you know, the supervision between, between the big guys and maybe sneak away at the end, you know, that's also a possibility. And he's not, he's not, uh, he's not slow either. You know, I mean, uh, no, he's fast sprinter. So, uh, he's my second choice, especially because of the plus 1400. Yeah. I mean, that's a really good price. Like just to give you a,

to illustrate if you bet $10 on them at those odds, you'd win 150. That would, that would be your payout. So we're talking about one of the, a rider who's probably the best dissenter. He's a good sprinter. He's not going to get dropped in a climb. That's a no brainer in my opinion, to pick them. I mean, if you go back, like think about Stoivin in 2021, you know, you attacks, he would not have been your favorite. He attacks right off the descent. Like it's not impossible to imagine Pickock doing that.

And then it puts everyone else in a bit of a bind because what are you going to do? Like is Vanderpoel going to lead out Pagachar to chase down Pickock? Probably doesn't want to do that. It's kind of like who's going to be the first to attack. This is a long way for me to say, and I've already bet on this person. I bet on him probably a week ago, fleet Bugana plus 800 probably won't get dropped on the climbs. I mean, we saw him in some of his best climbing form last weekend. Stronger than ever.

He was already super strong in the last two editions of Milan San Remo. And I think he's stronger than ever. He was already super strong in the last two editions of Milan Sanremo. And I think he's stronger than then. So logically, I think it's a, it's a good choice. Yeah. I mean, if he, two years ago, I clocked him putting out 650 Watts for five and a half minutes to get over that final climb. That's not too bad. And he's probably stronger now, as you say. And if he can attack that, the nice thing about Ghana to picking him, if he attacks, obviously he can, he's very strong. He could stay away and who's going to chase him. If those guys don't have teammates, like it's game over. I'm thinking more than about an attack on the, in the final three K.

Yeah. Like in the town where, like where, uh, like now I guess my Horwich attack before, but like Stoivin where he attacks in town and holds them off. That's fertile ground. Stoivin attack just at the end and the last 500 meters of the downhill. But you know, we know usually it's, you know, like, okay, they give it full gas on the pod show that it's full concentration. The downhill of the pod show is hard. You know, it's, it's, it takes a lot of energy also. You're not cruising.

You're not like resting or recovering cause you're full gas. And then you get onto the last three, four K towards the via Roma. And there, sometimes there's hesitations and I can perfectly see a scenario where Ghana goes, you know, he gets 20, 30 meters and it's, it's all game over. It's kind of like last year where's Mateo Sabrero attacked in the town, but you don't remember it because Vanderpult polarized them. But if Vanderpult wasn't there with a teammate, maybe that works. I mean, do you see on that note,

kind of the key to winning if you're a spinner is getting over the Poggio with the teammate who can pull attack because of the problem is if you're Jonathan Milan and you make it over in the front group, what's everyone going to do? They're not going to take you to the sprint. They're going to attack you. And then who do you have to pull that back? Do you see any team getting more than one rider over that club? If Milan makes it, Peterson has, has for sure made it. So that'd be the, you know, that'd be the team right there.

Yeah. Um, and maybe someone else, I don't know, but, uh, the thing is, you know, we're, we're now, okay, making, making predictions and stuff. But if you really look on top of the podge, that's probably 20, 25 riders within 15, 20 seconds. So it's just a matter of what happens afterwards. And if it can buck, that's how Phillipson won last year, right? Yeah. Yeah. He was probably like eight or nine back, but yeah, it kind of congeals up at the bottom. If I think, if I'm remembering correctly, it stalled a little bit because Pogacar goes over first, Vanderpool catches them and then Pitcock bridged up to them on the descent. And then once it was those three kinds of pace kind of came off because Vanderpool

knows his teammates coming behind. So I agree that little check is probably the team most likely to have two riders in there. There's a bet. You can bet on which team is going to win this on Unibet little tracks at plus 400 seems appealing, but maybe it just want to bet on Pederson at plus 500 and Milan at plus 1400. If you really liked that because Milan is, I mean, which one of the two do you think is more likely to win you on is more likely to win you on. Oh, for Milan. I mean, listen, he's going to be close, but he's and also, you know, Spencer, although Milan right now is probably one of the two, three fastest riders in the world.

Um, after 300 K, it's not the same thing. That's a good point. This is not going to be a bunch sprint. It's going to be, this is a sprint between, you know, dying guys who are creeping to the finish. I mean, you bring up a good point. There's especially this happened more like a decade ago, the weird sprint, I call it like Matt Goss in 2011. Who would have saw that coming? And even Simon Garant. Arno Demar. Yeah, that was, that was a weird addition.

I've mixed feelings about that edition. Do you think he still has the KOM on the chipressa? He must, right? Or I mean, probably got flagged by Strava saying this is not possible to do it this fast. I never see about it. I mean, he, he, he, he, he kind of, he uploaded it. Um, I guess, you know, some of these guys, I mean, Strava uploads automatically, right? When it syncs with your, with your device. And then he, uh, he took it down straight away. Like, uh,

like within the hour after the race, he took it down because the time on suppressor was not logical. You know, I mean, he was dropped and, uh, had the fastest time on the Chepresa. So obviously he was hanging on the car, which is bad. I don't think that should be pro cycling is this weird thing. We're like, yeah, that's amazing. It is. It is amazing. I mean, the most amazing one is Jared Chalick 2013 over Sagan and Kinchelar.

Like that's not one you would have guessed beforehand. And that's why this is a really tricky race to predict because you can get to that finish. We could be sitting there tomorrow, head in hands, thinking how the heck did Jonathan Navarro just win Milano center Amo? I mean, there's a, it's a weird sprint. These writers, uh, Spencer, there's, there's, there's three, four or five guys who are kind of, you know, really dominant and, uh, these scenarios are, are more unlikely, I think. What if like Axel Zingel wins? That's not even,

this is not even helpful, but I, you know, the rest of these, I think are a little bit like UAE to win. I don't, I don't think that's even worthwhile. It's plus two 20. You might as well just bet on Pagachar. Alpecin to Conax plus two 75. You might as well just bet on Vanderpool because what other Alpecin riders is going to win. But the last thing I want to ask you on the, we were doing this last year is I think there's a really interesting one. This is the margin between first and second. So essentially this is the question. Is it solo or not solo less than a second, which is a sprint is minus two 84, one second or more plus 200. I think it's a sprint. Interesting. I mean, the tricky thing about that one second or more is like member of Inchenzo Nibali,

that was not technically a solo win because he's counted on the same time as everybody else. So you could have a scenario like that. Stiven was the same. Stiven was the one and then he was, it looked like he won in the sprint, you know? So you could really, you could think you've won that and then you haven't won that. Yeah. Probably. I don't know. I don't know. I guess for interesting, for interest sake, I would say sure. One second or more, but this is one of the harder ones of the year.

I don't really have much else to add Vanderpool is probably the safe pick. I would, it's, I don't have a really logical reason for doing so, but Pogacar, I think he will win this race once in his life. The question then you're then asking yourself, is this the year that he does it? Well, you know, his chances are becoming bigger and bigger because he's getting better and better. And he, he, he, he now gets to know how to race these races. His team gets stronger and stronger.

Um, so, you know, if he doesn't win this year, it's also possible. He never wins it. You know, that's why, that's why I think like, you know, these, okay, obviously it's different times, right? But didn't Eric Zabel win this race four times? Four times. Yeah. And Eddie Merckx won this seven times, not being a sprinter.

Okay. Different era, you know, but it was also the sprinters race back then. And the Zabel one is still crazy. I mean, that's, it's hard to imagine a modern sprinter winning it that much. Yeah. Yeah. Almost all sprinters, you know, like the sprinters who can get over the, but they all they, they, they want it once, you know, like cheap or cheap.

Polini wanted once Cavendish wanted once. Bonin, for example, never won, never managed to win it. And he was like the ideal prototype of the guy like the sprinter plus the guy, you know, he never won. That's a good point. Did Sagan win it? He never won it, right? I don't think he ever won it.

Hold on. Oh my, I think he lost to a la Philippe. No, so the Chalic year,ier bike throw and then the craziest edition 2017, remember it was Kievkosky, Sagan and Alaphilippe with their touching shoulders on the bike throw and Kievkosky won that one. Yeah. Yeah. But he never won it. Peter Sagan, perfect rider for this race. So good luck betting everybody. So our wild cards are Philippe Ogana, me plus 800. And then, I mean, I think this is the, probably the cheapest rider on here relative to how good they are.

Tom Pitcock plus 1400. That's the craziest odds to me. Right. Also, he's having a great start of the season. He's in great shape. Yeah. I think Pitcock has, is also has the qualities to, you know, he's not going to get dropped on the podgeo, I think pitcock has is also has the qualities to, you know, he's not going to get dropped on the podge. Oh, I think. And then either gets away in the downhill or takes advantage

of the control between the other guys or even in the sprint. I mean, look, if you look saga and all of it, even in what Kovsky, who would have thought that? I know. You know, and actually they kind of remind me of each other at the moment. Those two writers like, cause Kivkowski was, I mean, still is probably fast, but he was fast back then and not very big. So he's not going to get dropped in these climbs. And yeah, but you get weird things just like bank, bank on yourself at the end of this race. And you can win it in a sprint. Um, I mean, even like a la Philippe in 2019 over Oliver Nassan and was that solo? Was that out of a group? I think it was out of a group. I think it was solo.

Oh, hold on. I'll tell us this ball sprint of small group. Oh, okay. Crazy. So yeah, that goes to show you like, and I mean, maybe there's something to be said for being smaller, that you're, there's less fatigue on these climbs, like building up over the course of the day. So you're fresher at the end, but, but we will hear, here's the last question. What about Pogacar? What if he doesn't do anything, Johan? What if he sits in the group and just sprints? Like, could he win that way? No, no, that is because if Pogacar doesn't make it hard, there's gonna be... Yeah, you're right.

No one's gonna be like, let's crank the pace up here. They're making it that, you know, that normally wouldn't make it. You're right. If Pogacar's team doesn't make it hard, this might be the slowest edition ever of Milan Ascent Ramo. Because if it's tailwind, if it's tailwind or something, maybe not. We'll see. I mean, there's also light chance of rain. So let's see. Let's see what happens. I'm excited. I'm excited too. Yeah. This is, is, I think it used to be a boring race, but because

it's almost like Pagache and Vanderpool have gotten so good. If the race is any harder, it's boring, but now it's like everyone has a chance. So it should be a great sun. If you're listening in the U S it's on max. The streaming service starts at like three in the morning mountain time. So 5 AM Eastern time, but you really just need to watch the last 45 minutes. Like that's where all the action is, I think. So anything else to add before we go, Johan? That's it.

Can't wait for tomorrow. First monument of the season. Yeah. This is when the real season starts. Yeah. We'll be off from here. Thanks so much. And you'll be back on with Lance and George tomorrow, right after the stage for the move.

Exactly. All right. Talk to you later. Okay. Thanks. Thanks for watching!