THEMOVE - Pogačar's dominant 2024 season has changed the landscape of modern cycling | THEMOVE+

Episode Date: October 8, 2024

Johan Bruyneel and Spencer Martin discuss the recent reports of Tom Pidcock potentially making a blockbuster transfer from Ineos to the second-division Q36.5 team, what it means for the future of the Ineos team, and how Tadej Pogačar's dominant 2024 season has changed the landscape of modern cycling. Hear.com: Right now, at https://www.hear.com/move our listeners can sign up for an exclusive 45-day no-risk trial. So, you can hear the difference for yourself. So, what are you waiting for? Go to https://www.hear.com/move

Do they really think that way? Or is Buona Jusso thinking, I'm the best rider in the world? I think until not long ago, he did think that. And I think that he thinks that he can become it. In my opinion, mine, for example, I mean, I'm just saying this from a distance, right? But a guy like Remco Evenepoel, for example, he is so ambitious. He's such a winner that he will not accept defeat against Ugachar. I mean, he's accepting the defeat now, but he will want to get at that level.

Everybody, welcome back to The Move+. This is a special series that Johan and I are going to be doing in the offseason. We know it's technically not the off season yet. We have Lombardia coming up this weekend, but I will sit down with Johan at the beginning of every week. We're going to go through a few topics that have come up over the week, the week before, and then answer a few questions. We will be taking you, not user,

listeners submitted questions at info at info at we do dot team. Just send those and title them something like the move plus questions. And we'll get to them when news gets slower in the off season. But Johan, just to jump right into it. These Tom Peacock to Q 36.5 rumors from Ineos. I, at first it makes no sense. The more I think about it, it makes no sense. Can you make sense of this for us?

Like, what is going on here? A lot of it is being made of, oh, he's going from the biggest team in the sport to a second division team. But not only would he be going to a second division team, he's going to one that would even be having a chance at a grand tour, like maybe a Giro. It just seems like such an odd step for him that it makes me not even really trust that the information not not that the information isn't

correct but that the move is actually going to happen like what have you heard on this and what can you share well i mean you know um i'm going off what i've been reading right uh and uh the And the Italian journalist Ciro is quite famous for starting rumors. I would say 60 to 70% of the rumors have been true. There's a quite significant part that have not been true. But he's famous for launching rumors. So my takeaway is that, well, first of all, we have seen that Pitcock has publicly expressed his unhappiness at Ineos for certain reasons. He says it's not the same anymore.

He says he feels, I remember, I think he said he he doesn't feel like he has he's been paid attention enough um so you know an unhappy tom pitcock um i think that's probably the reason why this is why we're even talking about this and then i think the big question here is, you know, who can pay Tom Pitcock or who can pay the actual contract of Tom Pitcock right now, even if Ineos would be willing to let him go for free without a buyout, because he does have a contract until 2027. Let's not forget this. A really long-term contract so uh let's say

he knows wants to save money which we all know that they they they want to you know cut their budget um i've heard several several amounts i think i think pitcock is i mean one of the highest pace riders in the peloton uh definitely i think he's probably the highest-paced rider in EOS. I've heard 4 million pounds, which is a big contract for a rider who's not a Grand Tour winner. So let's say that's on the table. Then how many teams can, at this point in the season afford a four million euro or pound contract because you know he's not going to go he's not going to go for 50 percent of that contract somewhere right so that's that's one one thing to consider there's another another

scenario you could say well maybe uh maybe somebody's willing to pay a certain amount of money and then um and then ineos probably i mean they pay they pay they pay 1 million to pitcock just to let him go they still save 3 million right that's that's doable now to see tom pitcock go to q36.5 in my opinion it's a bit of a stretch. I'm not excluding it, because it's probably a team where he would get the freedom to have all the disciplines, cyclocross, mountain bike, and road. Personally, if I were Pitcock and the people around him, I would, I mean, he's one of the biggest talents in cycling. Let's not forget that. I just think it's a shame that he is

only part-time road rider. He focuses on mountain bike. He's double Olympic champion. Let's not forget that. Okay. It's not, there's not a lot of people who can say that. But I think for Pitcock, it's time to forget about cyclocross, to forget about mountain bike. It's not an Olympic year next year. So it's time to focus on the road and what's his possibilities, how far he can get on the road. We already know he can win classics. He won Hamstel.

He won other important races, one-day races. But how far he can get in the Tour de France. Because I still believe that a guy like Pitcock, if he focuses on a project like Tour de France, and it takes more than one season to make that shift. But I think if we're looking at, okay, who else is there to rival with these top guys like jonas and today and remco and primos it's pitcock right now he has the talent uh i think it it requires a switch of

mentality and and uh you know i i it's one of the guys that i i see that he has the physical capacities to do that now then the question is is 36.5 q36.5 the the ideal environment to do that you know my first my first uh uh thought would be no uh but then also maybe they have a long-term vision and they want to grow with pitcock towards being a ground tour contender and if it's a three-year project then you, you know, I'm not excluding it. Now, to see it happen, I think it requires that all the pieces of the puzzle fall together. And especially the money. I think that the money needs to be there.

And I think that's going to be the big issue. You know, who can afford to pay the contract of tom pitcock right now yeah that is a big question i also think chiro scondomilio and then also daniel free freeba were the ones that broke the story which i heard i heard five million pounds which due to the strength of sterling at the moment would make him probably the second highest paid rider in the world. Four is a little easier to work to. That's still like, that's gotta be close to 6 million euros. I don't know what the pound to the Euro is right now, but I mean,

and maybe it's, maybe it's 4 million euros. I don't even know. Still, I mean, it's a big contract. And I personally think it would require kind of a big bike brand to get involved you know because pitcock isn't interesting i mean if you look at for example if you look at uh at vanderpool you know for canyon he is the ideal ambassador because he wins yeah they're different bikes pitcock is the other guy, uh, together with maybe Walt Bonhart or, but Pitcock is the guy, right? So, uh, that would be, but then again, you know, if, if you look at, uh, Q36.5, they're on Scott. I don't know if Scott is the bike brand who could afford this. Um,

right now he's on Pinarello. Uh, I think Pinarello does have certain financial, uh, leverage. Um, but, uh, and I don't know, I mean, it would make most sense if, if, if Pitcock makes a move to a team which is unspecialized, then I can see it. Is it the owner of Q36.5, the owner of Pinarello, the bike brand? I think so. I think so.

Yeah. So that's obviously. Yeah. But then Q36.5 would need to switch to Pinarello. From Scott. From Scott, which is also doable, I think. But then what's going to happen with Pinarello and Ineos? Yeah.

My, my, this is is i have no information on this just me sitting around thinking you know you you watch manchester united like they're making cuts like jim ratcliffe didn't come in and it's not like oh daddy jim is here like we can spend all the money we want like they're being pretty tight um around the ground there and so if you they just looking at their expenses, like what are we spending money on every year? And then look at this big line item in cycling. They say that's a lot of money, a lot of money. We could reinvest that into the soccer team, the football team, however you want to say that. And get a lot more return for our money.

Maybe, maybe they think that. I kind of wonder, like, how long is this team going to be around? You know, Tom Pickock has a contract through 2027. Is any of us, the team, the cycling team, around through 2027? And are they just kind of scrambling to clear the books? They're not really bringing anybody in, Johan. Like, if Tom Pickock left, sure, they might save some money. And this is the thing I don't fully understand.

I asked someone about this. Like, why would they want to get rid of him? And they said, well, he costs a lot of money. He's not going to win the tour. That's two pretty good reasons. But then, okay, so money. He's not going to win the tour. That's two pretty good reasons. But then, okay, so Tom Pickock's not going to win the tour in 2025. Who is? Like, this is just a money-saving maneuver?

That seems, that to me kind of seems like. I think Ineos is making some changes, and they know that the changes are not going to happen in one year. You know, it'll take two to happen in one year you know that that it will take two three years to you know i've seen they they did sign some really good young talent uh a few a few really good guys but um at the same time you know 2025 the results are not going to be dramatically better in my opinion than in 2024. so well and this is my i'm i worry i say this too much but my big thing that i can't get over is okay young talent young talent young talent they've

been signing young talent for a long time those guys never get better like ben turner what is he has he gotten any better since he joined the team ethan hater is leaving the team he was like their young talent they signed. Even Magnus Sheffield, very good rider. You kind of wonder, is he a better rider than the day he arrived at the team? That, to me, is the big red flag with NAOs. And then the fumbling of Pablo Castrillo. They had him signed to a pre-contract, and now he's going to Movistar on a three-year deal.

Talking about Pablo Castr, so, you know, obviously the sensation of the Vuelta, it was clear he was going to leave Kern Pharma. I had information that the deal was basically done with Ineos. And now it's public knowledge that he signed the three-year deal with Movistar, which actually makes a lot of sense to me. That's the guy that definitely that they needed, that Movistar team, Movistar needed.

Now, is it the best team for Castillo? We don't know. But it's definitely, I mean, it's an upgrade, a big upgrade for him in terms of a team. And I think Movistar needs Castillo more than Castillo needs Movistar, to be honest. But the fact is that Ineos loses out on this. And so, yeah, I mean, it's not...

I mean, there's been years that people would have killed to go to Team Ineos and they would have taken any contract, even 30%, 40% less money to be able to go to Ineos rather than to another team. But those times are gone. You know, it's not the benchmark team anymore. It's still an amazing team. Don't get me wrong.

But yeah, I mean, and Pablo Castillo, obviously Movistar or team movistar uh needed was in in high need of of you know the sensation of of spanish cycling right now um because you know they do have enric mas uh which you know who did an amazing uh vuelta and uh has a really good end of the season but you know enric mas has been around for a while and, you know, he's not, I wouldn't say he's the most, he's not the most marketable guy for a team. Right. So I think, I think the move of Castillo makes a lot of sense.

I'm not surprised that that happened. Well, you get the, I assume he gets to be a leader or some sort of leader of freedom, which maybe he wouldn't have. Did he really need to go to INEOS to work for Garrett Thomas? Probably not, right? Well, I don't think that was the purpose. I mean, even in INEOS, he would have gotten his chances.

But obviously in Movistar, he will be more of a leader. And then, yeah, I mean, we're going to have to see also, you know, the confirmation still needs to come, right? I mean, we won't say he came out of nothing because Pablo Castillo has already. I mean, last year, he had a pretty good season with a limited racing program. This year, before the Vuelta, he had a few good results, but you know, winning these two, uh, mountain stages,

uh, and especially that, that last one was, was, was incredible. Um, now it's going to be, the question is,

can he confirm the high expectations? That's the next step in his career, right? So, um, I'm confident he can, but it's, it's an unknown for the moment.

So the last, my last two thoughts on INEOS Tom Pickock. Do you know how many career wins on the road Tom Pickock has? I was stunned to see this. Not many. How many? Five. Five, okay. Daddy Pagacar might have that since we've started recording the show.

He might have five wins in the last 24 hours um i think i mean i've said i've said all along it would be a really good idea if tom would finally put his mind to becoming a full-time professional road racer uh you know he's been world champion cyclocross um it seems like he has lost some interest there. And I can understand that. Okay. Double Olympic champion mountain bike. That's huge, of course.

It's huge. And, you know, it is a discipline that these multidiscipline riders seem to favor. Even Van der Poel says that it's his favorite discipline um but you know now it's time for the pitcock to get his his focus on the road honestly uh and and you know if i would be a team uh either whether it's his existing team right now or a new team that would be my first thing hey you need to commit to be a full-time pro on the road. That's, that's what we want to go for. You have the, you have the qualities and so let's go for it. Yeah. I mean, I couldn't agree more. I think he's a huge talent. I didn't mean to be like slamming him with the five wins comment, but yeah, he either needs to focus on the road or I guess

just make a lot less money because sure he can win he can win all the cross and mountain bike races he wants but like that french i forget his name the french guy who got second at the olympics on the mountain bike i doubt he makes four million pounds a year you know like it's just a different income bracket that you're in when you're an off-road rider and so either you have to start making that money or you have to he's getting paid tour de france contender money so one of those things he's getting paid tour de France contender money. So one of those things, he's getting paid ground tour winner money. I mean, he might make more than Remco Evidentepoel. They're up there more or less the same. I think.

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That's H-E-A-R.com slash move. Not the move. Move today to get that offer. All right. Now back to the show. So moving on from that, I'll believe it. My official stance is I'll believe that when I see that. I kind of wonder.

I think that the terrain has been explored of where he could go to. These rumors don't come out of nothing. There have been talks. Now, between wanting something and making it happen, there's a lot of steps to be made. So maybe 2025, he's still on Ineos, and 2026, who knows? Maybe Q36.5 gets a bigger sponsor and maybe they switch to Pinarello and then Pitcock. Yeah.

That could be a possibility. And he leaves with a year left on his deal. The thing is, he has so much power in this negotiation because if he doesn't do anything, he comes back to Ineos next year makes really good money and the person he allegedly has the biggest problem with steve cummings isn't there so like he's kind of just on gardening leave at the moment just well i don't know something must have happened there i don't have any information but it's it's it's been strange it's been strange um you know um i i think there's a personality conflict of personalities there and the team also and and not just not just pitcock and and cummings i think there's there's

more that we don't know about but uh you know it's just a guessing game so the next topic we will go to today pagachar who i who i planned would win another race today but the race uh was canceled i guess after it called off after it started trey uh maybe johan can yeah exactly um the three valleys but he wins on saturday at giro dell'emilia which is a hard race which is kind of funny because i they just raced up that same climb stage two of the tour de France. It was funny to see them back there in quite a bit different weather, very cold, very rainy. He wins easily. And it was like rim coven to pull their Tom pickups. There looked good. Actually. Um,

Primoz Roglic who's won the race three out of the last six years, I believe. Yeah. And it's not, it wasn't even, I kind of thought that it would be a last climb attack from pogacar or second to last climb attack from pogacar he attacks the first time they do the climb five times he doesn't he doesn't really i mean the the attack i don't know if you know what we've seen so far and from pogacar is that uh he does a lot of things that are not on the plan. I personally can't think that that was his plan

but if you look at the race the first time of the climb of San Luca it's called San Luca, no? It's Remco Evenepoel who accelerates to kind of test his legs and test of the competition.

Sometimes it happens that you feel okay and until you don't go that little 2-3% faster, you don't really know. It was clear straight away that Remco didn't have the legs that he thought he would have. And Pogacar just accelerates. And I think we're having a combination of different factors here like you know we've all seen that Pogacar this year

is on a different level all year long he's stepped up one or two levels compared to the past you know fresh comes fresh off this amazing demonstration of the world championships where he did something crazy attacking with 100k to go

so he's of course still of the world championships where he did something crazy and attacking with a hundred K to go. Um, so he's of course still in the same shape. Um, the rainbow Jersey on the back, the confidence he has right now is through the roof. It's like, I can do anything. I can do anything.

And, and then on top of that, you have on the other side, you have the competition who's now seen every single time that whoever tries to follow that epigachar blows up and explodes right so that combined it's like okay it's a race for second you know as soon as he goes nobody tries uh matteo jorgensen tried a little bit, but on his own rhythm, you know,

and just for background, you know, I got information that in Montreal, the Grand Prix Montreal, where Bogacar attacked just before the world championships, Matteo Jorgensen tried to follow him for a bit. And he was pushing 912 watts for close to 30

seconds until he blew up trying to follow. I mean, of course, he's bigger and taller. Yeah, that's like the line of sprint. I mean, what the hell? I mean, it's like it's, you know, so he

tried to follow, but he didn't make the same mistake in Emilia so he got his own tempo but you could straight straight away see that that tempo his tempo on his threshold was far from Pogacar so um I mean Lombardi is going to be the same thing I mean I can't see who can follow him and and you, I've seen some images on his social media. It's like he's flying. He's like he's floating. Even his training rides, his pedal stroke looks easy. He is in this flow of, okay, you know, everything goes so smooth.

And, of course, the other guys see that, and it must be very demoralizing to see when he attacks he looks smooth he looks fluid they're working the bike uh they look labored and they can't follow so it's game over yeah i will we'll do an official preview of lombardi on friday on outcomes so we don't have to get into that too much today, but I will just say bad news for everyone. It is the harder course, like the harder finish at finishes in Como. So yeah, I don't,

it's not great signs for other people that I don't hate McNulty. Cause you could say like, man, like again, you followed him and you blew up. Like, why'd you do that? But if he gets over that, obviously we know he didn't, but if he gets over that climb with Pogacar, sorry, Jorgensen, I got mcnulty on the on the on the mind because he's winning races again but

yeah because jorgensen if he gets over that climb with pagachar and it keeps potentially looking at the second place there so i don't hate that decision um the thing i don't know if you listen to this peter attia interview with pagar, but he said a few interesting things. One, he said he just started watching his diet this year. So, wow. Yeah. That would explain why he maybe looks a little bit smoother, has ironed out some of the problems also went into like some.

He looks lean. I mean, we've said it from the very first time we saw him in Estrada Bianca. I said, you know, he looks to me, he leaner, and it's been confirmed that he's lighter. And now when I saw him in Giro d'Emilia, I don't know if it's the rainbow jersey or what, but I mean, it doesn't look that much different from the UAE jersey. And he, I mean, his waist is like this. It's so small compared to how he was before. So he definitely lost weight uh and he will keep that weight off uh you know when he was i don't know if he was

66 or 67 kilos in the past he's probably 64 65 right now uh and and let me tell you he won't put that weight back on so So bad news for the competition. Yeah. Well, I thought that was the most interesting part of the interview because he said he's racing at 65 right now. Tour is 64. So only having to lose a kilo for the tour, it's a huge advantage. The most interesting thing though, he said biggest off season he ever gets, biggest he

gets in the off season is 68 to 69 kilos. So he's only cutting from like Christmas day, just started the tour four to five kilos. That's a huge advantage over the other riders. Like you think how hard Rimco having to pull a Matthew Vanderpool of work to get lean for this world championships, but got sure I can just roll out of bed and he's at his raceway. That's a massive advantage.

And then he also said when he's at zone two on climbs or I Monaco, he's, he's pushing like a 340 Watts for 20 minutes in zone two. So when you're that light and you're that strong, you're very hard to beat on these, on these climbs. I just want to mention a few, a few facts before we move on from this. So he wins his 24th race of 2024 on Saturday. I thought he would have 25 today, but I think he'll have to wait until Saturday to have 25. If, let's say that happens, that's the most wins of any rider in a single season since Alessandro Pataki in 2005. It's even more impressive when you consider Pataki was a sprinter like these sprinters can rack up a lot of wins you know like Cavendish would have 19 20 win season I

seasons I believe because they just get on a roll there's a lot of opportunities for them GC riders don't have this like Vincent Vincent Zaniboli wins a lot I think he had 54 wins in his entire career so Pogacar is like basically half of that in one season it's i would say i know eddie merckx probably wouldn't agree with me i don't want to get you in trouble with him johan but i would say this is the most impressive season of any rider ever because when you go back to the other two treble winners uh stephen roach and merckx like i think merckx won the zero by 12 seconds in 1974 or no and i didn't check that but i think it was like close a close zero and then roche was not like dominating like pagachar is and we've

been talking before recorded it's not even the wins that are impressive it's like the races he didn't win how many races did he try to win this season that he didn't win you have san remo which is a race for sprinters you have montreal which is a race for faster riders or not montreal quebec city which is for faster riders there was a stage the time trial stage of the tour where remco beat him and then stage 11 where yonas vindigo beat him and then you could say george steinhauser with that third week giro stage but he wasn't even really trying to win that stage. It's unbelievable. Like even the kilometers total that he's been pressed this year are minimal, like minimal. He's been riding his own pace all season long.

I don't think I've ever seen anything like it. No, it's impressive. It's impressive. But at the same time, you know, I have seen these debates and discussions about, okay, the greatest of all times. And I think it's, you know, we can't compare. You know, I personally think it's what Eddie Marks did in his career. It's never going to be done again.

But at the same time, you can't compare the era of Eddie Marks where cycling back then, you know, was the elite cycling was a Central European matter. cycling back then you know was the elite cycling was as was your central european matter you know it was belgium france holland italy spain and and you know a german yeah and maybe one scandinavian or something um you know that nowadays i mean who would have thought that you know the three grand tours would have been in one season would come from Slovenia. And on top of that, the competition is worldwide.

I mean, they're coming from all over the place. So you can't compare. I think what Pogacar is doing is unique. It's impressive. This dominance, you could say, I mean, I've called him the new cannibal. Eddie Merckx was the cannibal've called him the new cannibal. Eddie Merckx was the cannibal.

He's the new cannibal because he wins everything. He puts his mind to, you know, but I mean, Eddie Merckx won 525 races in his career. So already that, I mean, imagine the amount of races you have to do to win that many times. Nowadays, they don't even do 525 races in a whole career, right? So that's, you can't compare the eras. The season of Pogacar 2024 is an amazing season.

I've never seen it in modern cycling. He's the best rider of modern cycling. And then it's up to us to decide, okay, what is modern cycling? I mean, I don't think you can even compare, uh, the early two thousands, uh, with, with nowadays. I mean, it's 25 years ago. Let's not forget, you know, so a lot of things have changed. Um, and it's, i think what's impressive is to be that good and that dominant with that high competition you have to face that's the impressive thing yeah i mean i was gonna say you can't even compare it with the with the 10s the 2010s yeah i mean the comp like i bet roman bardet is as strong if not stronger now than he was when he was finishing second at the tour in the mid 2010s.

And he's not even a GC contender because that's how high the level has gotten. It is. I mean, I guess, I guess we should wait to see if he wins Lombardy. But yeah, I've never seen anything like this. The fact that he's gotten, even if you go back to 2022 and you look at results, he's so much better than he was in 2022. Yeah. You look at like how he's gone from like, wow, he's so much better than he was in 2022 yeah you look at like how he's gone from like wow he's really good he wins a lot he's maybe one of the best riders

riding today too like now it's not even a question and he's winning an absurd amount of races and then just never losing like yonas vindigo who you would say minimum second best stage racer in the world has 36 career wins tata pagacha is 24 currently so he's not far off yannis's career i've seen his stats somewhere i mean it's been surpassed since you know there's this battle for you know the the the beat in the world tour uh in 2000 yeah the points battle and so the the points of Pogacar right now, him alone without any other teammates, he would qualify for a world tour team title. Just his points.

If you only have his points, you are in the top league already. You don't need any other riders. So, you know, I mean, that's impressive. And then on top of that, you know, the team, you know, I mean, that's, that's, that's impressive. And then on top of that, you know, the team, you know, I mean, the team, uh, UAE, they, uh, they have 80 wins this year, 80, eight, zero, uh, with a lot of different riders. Uh, so it's not just Pogacar. Of course, Pogacar has won all these important races, but they, they are winning all the

time, all the time. Um, and you know, it doesn't look like they're going to slow down because they keep adding quality to the team, and they're going to lose Mark Hirschi, which is, you know, obviously, I mean, he's won some important races this year. But a part of that, they don't really lose any top riders, and they keep adding stronger riders to the roster yeah i mean just to put into perspective 2019 pre-covid like remember that

was when quick step used to win the win total every year they won 64 wins so and that was a lot we thought wow that's unbelievable second place was bora hands grow it's 47 so 64 is like wow how does anyone do that? And then they, they've won 80 races. The season's not even over. That is wild about whatever Pagacar is being paid is actually a deal because by himself, he's a, he's a world tour team. So if you add up, like he has the same number of wins this year as Red Bull Bora.

So like what's red bull bora's budget you know if it's less if it's more than pagacha's entire contract pagacha is a deal um it's it's incredible i mean even just this weekend uae won mark hershey wins on sunday copa agostoni yeah and then brandon mcdolty wins crow race i guess tour that essentially was tour croatia yeah but my big question here is how do you like let's say your director of not a team that is not uae like are they frustrated by this just like so are you kidding me like every week it's just uae winning every race and it's for, you know, not just like Visma is getting some wins in, like Little Trek's getting some wins in, but behind those teams,

like it's slim pickings. It is. It is. I mean, I think, you know, I mean, right now, if I would be a team manager, director, and I'm sitting down with my leaders, the first thing I would do is, okay, which races does Bogacar not go to? Let's focus on those, you know, and then as for now, you know, we've, and I've said it already in many occasions, you know, the biggest competition for Tadej Pogacar is himself.

You know, the, the, the way he loses races is by being too generous attacking to, you know, the way he loses races is by being too generous, attacking too early. And for example, that stage he lost against Lingergaard was his own mistake, you know, by going too early and not feeding properly. And he continues to make those small mistakes. And actually, it's good for us because that's actually the only unknown factor. You know, we know his level. Of course the competition know that, know his level. So they only hope, okay, let's see if he does something crazy and you know,

breaks down and runs out of energy. That's the only hope they have for the moment. Yeah. You kind of like are rolling into my next question here. So it's like Visa Melissa bike, you know, they're unstoppable in 2023, 2024. It's not like they've had a terrible year. I believe they're second in points and maybe a lot of bad luck. Forget, well, let's not forget Visma. First of all, Roglic is not there, which was one of their three top riders.

And then Van Aert and Vingegaard had bad accidents so having that in mind it's kind of logical that they're not the top team but at the same time whenever when they were the benchmark team and the reference team

in 2022 and 2023 they have been surpassed by UAE, for sure. And other teams have come up to their level. One of them, for example, is Little Freck. You just named them. They're doing really well. Well, and maybe it was just natural, right? You're at the top.

Roglic isn't going to stick around to play second fiddle. He's going to leave. But I guess the lack of depth has surprised me a little bit like if you think about their zero and vuelta gc strategies it's like really you just rolled out utah brooks and said good luck kid hope you and like with sep kus like they knew you know that's a team that doesn't leave anything up the chance like they knew heading into the vuelta that he was not going to be good enough to compete for the win for sure and they just didn't have another option you know if i guess that's what rog but rog ledge solves all those problems because he can plug any gc holes that you need but yeah maybe it just gets too hard maybe uae will have this problem in the future

like all these like how long does juan ayuso stick around yeah because we're talking about how good pagacha is and i think eddie merckx is right on one point okay well he's great he's potentially the best season of all time if he wants to be the best rider of all time he needs to do this for a decade well he needs to do it several times he needs to do it several times i mean he doesn't need to do several times the triple crown but he needs to be dominant during you know several years which you know there's no reason why he won't be doing it for, you know, three, four more years. And then he will be the greatest of all times for sure. And, but let's just assume that happens. Obviously anything could happen, but let's

assume that happens. Like how long does this, we're seeing it with Hershey, like great, good year. Mark Hershey's secretly quietly had a very, very good year. And like, how long is Aiso sticking around? Like even Brandon McNulty, that's a weird situation to me. Like how is he not getting more race starts? Yeah. I don't see the same issue with Brandon McNulty. I don't think he's the same character. You know, Brandon McNulty is an amazing rider.

He can win. He can win a lot of races for the moment. You know, he's not, he's not, I've never seen him being a Grand Tour contender and not even a Grand Tour podium contender for now. Ayuso is different. Ayuso has, you know, from the moment he started, he was third in the Vuelta. I think he's been fourth or fifth also last year, if I'm not mistaken, after a crash. And he has this mentality of being a leader. He's a leader's mentality. This guy's not a

Gregorio. Whenever we've seen already in several occasions, when he was put in that position, he does the minimum. He does the job, but he thinks that he's going to be there in case the leader fails. So obviously, you're going to have these kind of situations because the stronger you want to make the team, you can't just take away all of the ambitions of the other riders.

I was surprised to see him at the Tour de France. By the way, UAE already announced that 2025 Juan Ayuso is not selected for the Tour that cannot be that cannot be good for morale there like before camp even starts no but if Ayuso

is logical and realistic I mean he should know that that's the best for him. He needs to focus on the Vuelta or the Giro. He can be podium in those races. Do you think big, I mean, you know this better than anyone, like big stars like that, you And that's why we always say, you know, great riders elevate their level. We've always said that Van der Poel and Van Aert have made themselves so good

because they've been rivals for such for decade for a decade now. Pogacar is this example also they all want to get there and they will get closer you know he will not stay that dominant I think this dominance is probably not now we'll see Pogacar staying at this level and I think he can stay at this level. I don't imagine he can be, he can be get much better. Otherwise we shut the sport down a different league, but you're going to see that other writers will get closer to that level in the next two, three years.

I'm pretty sure about that. Yeah. And there's the missing man that we're not talking about. Jonas Vindigo clearly just takes an entirely different approach to the season, more of an old school. I'll try at the tour. I'll do a few other races. And then I got my feet up in the fall, doing whatever Jonas does. Very private guy. We don't really know, but it, it'd be one way. And like,

I think George and Cappy was talking about this at the end of the tour on the move are you saying like it's over like everyone should give up because who can beat pagacha but the thing is george said that last year about jonas vindigo think oh pagacha can't beat him but these guys so much can happen between year to year in modern cycling it's like one of the cool things it's like well uae or visma was unstoppable now ua is unstoppable we don't know what's going to happen in 2025 let's not forget that vingergaard had this incredible bad crash uh in the bus country almost a miracle he got to the start of the tour and actually a real miracle the the level the level yeah uh and, for example, his performance on,

for example, Plateau de Bay coming out of, you know, from Vingegaard himself, this was his best performance in his career based on the power numbers. So if you think, okay, if Jonas can get to, he can achieve his best performance ever after having this, this really problematic approach towards the tour. How good can he be? If everything is perfect,

if he has a perfect season, is that, can he be at the level of, of Pogacar? I think the answer is yes. Um, but of course this also keeps Pogacar on the top of his toes and he say he's not stupid he knows that you know that okay jonas didn't have a good preparation so if okay i beat him

i'm not gonna say easily but comfortably but i need to keep working i need to keep improving and so they both will keep improving i mean one thing yonas has gone for him is pagachar even said this on the t interview he just he wants to win a lot of races like he's going to try to win perubay at some point so but vindigo focuses on the tour and like that's the thing that's the difference that is the thing in his advantage so i don't think we should just throw our hands up and be like the 2025 tour is already decided. Don't even bother watching. I think we'll be surprised next year how different

things look. I think these guys, they're very short-term vision. I'm pretty sure that in the very near future, Bogacar will want to win the Vuelta

to have all three on his Palmares and then he will go for that very, very near future, Bogacar will want to win the Vuelta. So to have all three on his Palmares, and then he will go for Melanson Remo and Paris-Roubaix. Those are the ones that he needs to win. Yeah. I actually kind of can't imagine that it keep you like, I'm going to win the Tour every year for seven years. Like that's crazy focus. Like I don't think most writers or any other writer, I don't think any other writer ever

will, will be that focused for seven tours in a row. So things will change quickly before we go. Gravel world championships was this last weekend. I don't think anyone, I don't know. I'm just, the winners are not surprising. Marianne of us from the Netherlands wins the women's Matthewne Vos from the Netherlands wins the women's. Matthew Van Der Poel from the Netherlands wins the men's. I guess it's surprising that Belgium, which as you mentioned in our pre-show, was dominating the start line, like an unbelievable number of Belgians.

It was in Belgium, in Leuven. So not shocking, but they come away with no wins. There was a little bit of, I was actually surprised by, I know Jasper Stuyveny, I'm sure he was just frustrated at the finish line, was complaining that his Belgian teammates that are on Alpecin were helping Van Der Poel. And it was a weird race. Was it Florian Vermeesh attacks? Van Der Poel goes with him.

Belgium seems okay with that. Vermeesh pulls Van Der Poel. Obviously, he's gonna lose vanderpool drops him vermice kind of just seemed like he was riding for second which is that's like a strategy it's not a bad idea just to ride for what i need to get in front of these other belgians because they're gonna beat me in the sprint so i gotta get out here now he's got second place that's a pretty good result behind like in theory in the perfect world he would have sat on vanderpool his teammates would have chased behind they would have used their numbers but realistically how does that work the

belgians on alpecin are like you get to the line you're like sorry matthew we chased you down it's like he's essentially their boss this is completely different i mean listen it's the gravel the gravel with all due respect for the discipline right it is it is not uh i mean it's it's elite because these guys have decided to participate yeah yeah other than that it's not uh it's not the elite it's not the best riders in the world um and uh and on top of that it depends on the circuit but you know i mean it would be it would be stupid to assume that the the Belgians are going to ride as a team. You know, first of all, I mean, and this is a wild guess, but if you look at the elite participants, if there were, I don't know, 300 guys at the start, there's probably 80 Belgians. I mean, they're not going to all ride as a team.

What's that team meeting look like? It's like an auditorium. There's no team meeting. There's no strategy. There's no team support. There's nothing. It's an individual sport, right? Yeah.

Of course, if then you have several riders of different teams, I mean, and we go back to the old discussion of even the world championships on the road being with national teams. It's already very unnatural that these guys work together during that one day for a jersey that's going to be won and worn by a rider who is 364 days out of the year, their rival. So it makes no sense. I'm not surprised at all when you saw... But anyways, with or without the team support, Van der Poel was going to win this. When he went, he was really better.

And then when he went from Florian Vermeersch, it was like, okay, hey, enough now. I'm here. He was a good rider, too. He was second last year in the world championships. I think he was third. Was he third at Roubaix at some point? Second.

Second. He was second at Roubaix, yeah. Another addition to UAE, by the way, for next year. He goes to UAE. That's a good pickup. That's a really good pickup um that if you look up on the pool i mean it was it's another discipline that he wanted to be world champion in so you know he's now been he's not been world champion in mountain bike yet so he's now announced that

that's a focus for next year uh you know he's been cyclocross multiple times, road, now gravel, and, you know, just misses the... Oh, yeah, he misses the track. He still needs to be on the track, world champion also. That's not going to happen, I think. And then in women,

the women's race, Mariana Vos, you know, definitely the greatest of all times. Van der Poel takes his 11th rainbow jersey in his career. 11 out of 24 participations, and he's been 16 times on the podium in all the world championships he's done, all categories and all disciplines combined. Mariana Vos wins her 14th rainbow jersey in her career

37 38 years old and she has actually she hasn't been world champion in mountain bike but she's been cyclocross road gravel now and on velodrome world champion

it's super impressive. My first thought was, other than wow, that's, I mean, she roasted Kopecky. Kopecky couldn't even sprint. And that's technically the best rider in the world right now. My first thought, though, was, oh, man, maybe they shouldn't have dropped her on the final lap in Zurich. Because if she goes up against capecchi she might win that sprint and i just could not get over in retrospect the the side i don't think we talked about this johan i mean i don't think we released a move on it but with volaring

accelerating with vos like five meters off the back just dangling like i still can't get that out of my mind in this the dutch team the dutch team and the world uh in the women's race horrible horrible team tactics well thanks johan i think we will call it there this week but we'll be back next week and every off-season week after that to talk about the topics of the week and take your questions when we get deeper into the off season, send those to info at we do dot team, just a subject line, something like the move plus questions for the show. And we will try to get to those. Have a great, have a great week, Johan. We will talk soon. Okay. Thanks Spencer. Speak next week. All right. Bye.