THEMOVE - Roubaix Wrap-up, Seixas' €8M Question & Amstel Gold | THEMOVE+

Episode Date: April 17, 2026

Spencer Martin and Johan Bruyneel go through a few lingering thoughts and questions about Wout van Aert's incredible win at Paris-Roubaix, as well as running down the recent rumors of drama between Paul Seixas and his Decathlon-CMA CGM team, and speculate about whether his agent's €8 million per year asking price is worth it. They also run down some of the recent racing, from O Gran Camiño and De Brabantse Pijl, before predicting who will win Sunday's Amstel Gold race. Become a WEDŪ Member Today to Unlock VIP Access & Benefits: https://access.wedu.team Caldera Lab: A small habit with big results. Go to https://CalderaLab.com/THEMOVE and use code THEMOVE for 20% off your first order. Hims: For simple, online access to personalized and affordable care for Hair Loss, ED, Weight Loss, and more, visit https://Hims.com/THEMOVE

I think on the other hand, on the other hand, Spencer, what people also liked about Rubet is that, you know, for once Bogacha did not win, which is, you know, I mean, I'm also a Bogacha fan, but, you know, I know that somebody who's dominant and then doesn't win, that kind of gets to everybody. Okay, finally, you know, finally somebody beats him, you know. Yeah. That's also exciting. I almost like from a per. like a perverted perspective. I was like, I just want to see Ken Pagatra win every race he starts in 26.

Like I want to, like how ridiculous can get this get. But you're right. It's nice that he didn't win while it wins. Great race. Everybody, welcome back to the Move Plus. I'm Spencer Martin. I'm here with Johann Bernille. We are going through the last week in professional cycling,

a little bit of lull after Perry Rubet, the exciting race on Sunday, Johan. We've had some stage racing at O' Grand Camino with Adam Yeats winning today on the stage 4. uphill finish, taking control of the GC. We had De Brons appeal, which was kind of the ceremonial shift from the cobbles to the pavement for the Ardennes classics. One, by a rider, frankly, that I don't know if I'd ever really seen win. Anders Foldhager from Jaco, Alula.

Great to see them get a win. We'll also talk a little bit about the tour of the Basque Country, which we didn't get a chance to talk about because Roubaix was so exciting, as well as predicting Amstow Gold, which is on Sunday. Yohan, what do you want to talk about first? What have you been waiting to talk about since we haven't spoken in a few days? Well, first of all, Spencer, the aftermath of Paris-Roubet. I think, you know, what I would like people to understand is what it meant for Walt Von Art. And what it has meant for the Belgian fans, it's been unbelievable, unbelievable.

I've seen some numbers from the TV. the audience crazy crazy crazy it looks like all of Belgium has been watching and the newspapers it was all wout, wow, walt, everywhere. I mean

he was already the most popular writer but this has brought him to another level. He's the king of Belgium right now, Wold van Art. I think well deserved we were all waiting for this again I think he was very

strong. I could say Bogacha was maybe stronger. But Van Arte was playing it really smart. I think personally I still believe that, you know, that Maty van der Poul was the strongest rider in the race. But you know, Padilla is what it is.

And it put him all of a sudden in a position where, you know, when you have two minutes of delay after the Arnberg forest, that's should be game over. And you know, it was game over, but he came really close. But anyways, you know, the Belgian fans, the Belgian media have been all week talking and writing and

broadcasting about Wolf von Arte. And yeah, he's the most popular person in Belgium right now. Yeah, I'm actually glad you bring up Peter Rubei. A few things I wanted to ask you about. I do agree. I think Vanderpul, the hot take is Remko Evanapult ride of the day at Flanders. That guy was by himself for like the last two hours. And then right of the day at Flanders, Matthew Vanderpull.

Because that guy, it's, I went back. back and rewatch the race. I couldn't believe A, how far back he was, B, how much it had to work and see how close he got. He almost won that race. Like, he was closing down on them. In the end, he actually kind of wonder if, because Pagotcha tries to drop

Van Art and Van Arr, I was looking at some power numbers. Van Arr had to do 1,300 watts seated on the cobbles to respond to that attack. You said in his Flemish interview, you could tell he was hurting to respond to that. It spooked him a little bit. So then he started, that's why he was skipping turns because he wanted to go into the cobbles

behind Pagachar. Probably a race winning decision right there because then Pagachar couldn't attack him. I couldn't surprise him on the cobblestones. I'm sure that was the plan. But Fagacart drops him there. I wonder, does Vanderpull reel him in? And because you have to imagine it helped to have Van there. Great win. Super impressive win. I would assume year made, right? Van Art doesn't win another race for the rest of the year. Is this? Yearmate, listen, I mean, it's, it's, he's, he's, he wants to win Flanders and Rubei, right? So he wants, he won party Rubei now. That's definitely a big one.

We don't know if he's ever going to win Dura Flanders. We don't know. You know, as long as Pugachar keeps going for it, it seems unlikely. Right. Two Flanders is a much harder race. But still, you know, you never know. There's a recent circumstances, but not year made. I think, you know, but definitely a huge weight of his shoulder.

shoulders, he can be more relaxed now. And I personally think he's now going to prepare for the tour. Obviously, you know, Vizma counsel von Ard to be the master domestic, but with his own opportunities. And I think we're going to see a great law of one art for the rest of the season. Even, you know, he's even going to prepare fully for the world championships in Montreal, which I think is also a course. that could suit him really well.

We could say again, logically, if everything goes okay, it's Pogacchar. But, you know, Montreal is not, it's a mix, right? It's a bit like, it's a bit like Zurich. You know, Zerri, they all say, okay, it's for climbers. But, you know, you could see, I mean, listen, Van der Poole was third. And so, listen, I'm definitely, definitely super happy for Walt. But I think this for his confidence is super important. And we're going to see much more of him in what remains for the season.

Yeah, I mean, he should have won it. He should have won Flanders in 2020. That would have been the easiest path before Pagachar started doing classics, that bike throw. If he could have that back, I'm sure he'd do it differently. But you never know, right? Like, what if Pagachar has a year where he's off? He's not at.

Oh, he doesn't participate. Yeah, like anything could happen. So it's like kind of reminds me of Sagan. Like he won one Flanders, one Rubei. and that's like that a career that a career makes i mean very obviously wins a lot outside of those spring classics yeah yeah yeah great to see him win someone like i got i got a lot of inbound questions of why aren't they running puncture resistant tires why are they running these fast tires and puncturing because we saw a lot of flats on sunday i'm gonna i talked to some teams about

this you tell me if you agree or disagree really the consensus is okay that sounds great from the keyboard. In reality, the race is so fast. If you don't have fast rolling tires, you're out of the race before you even get to the part of the race where you might flat. Is that correct, you think? I think so. I think so. I'm trying to find here. Wait, let me just see. I have a message here from a team mechanic. Let me see if I find it. Here we go. It's in Spanish. But anyways, first of all, I think, I think the speed, the speed definitely, you have to have fast tires otherwise. You're screwed.

I mean, 48.9 kilometers average. You know, if you have a tire that's that has more rolling resistance, there's nothing you can do. I mean, imagine the first 100 kilometers, they did an hour, one hour 50. That's about 54 kilometers average, I think. Yeah. That's fast, by the way. Yeah. Yeah.

That's crazy, crazy. Yeah. But so, um, a lot of people say that it's also because. because of the lower tire pressure. And actually, some, I mean, this mechanic here, who was on all of my teams and is now with another team, let me see what he says. He says, I don't think it's actually punctures, real punctures,

because most of them don't have an inner tube. Only one team this year had had an inner tube. but they're so low in pressure, entire pressure, that sometimes on the cobblestones, they kind of, I would say, they open and the air gets out and then, so they lose a lot of air. It's not really flats,

but they all of a sudden lose a lot of air. And it's like a flat. Interesting. He thinks in 80% of the cases, that's the case. So this comes from within the peloton of a mechanic who I, there's not many, there's not many mechanics in the pro peloton right now

who has that, have that much experience as this guy. So that could be, I mean, if you think about it, it kind of makes sense. If you have low tire pressure, wide tires,

the impact, all of a sudden, you know, the air can escape. Yeah. I don't know how many, this is another thing we don't know. we don't know how many teams but I assume there's still quite some who have these hookless rims

which is I'm really not a fan of that but obviously it doesn't hold the tire in place as a rim with a hook or some some have now mini hooks but like the hookless rims it's basically just the tire pressure that keeps the tire stick to the walls of the rim right now I can't stay in hookless rims they do it because it's cheaper to make because you can form the carbon without when you put the hooks on the carbon sometimes you get imperfections you got to throw the wheel away do it again it's not great though i heard i even heard some teams were gluing the tires onto the rims so that if they got a flat they could keep riding it no no no um i don't think i don't think that's uh i think they they were gluing they

were gluing the side walls to to kind of prevent uh like like really like cuts or something I don't know if you can glue a tire to the rim. I don't know if you can do that. I don't know. I would try. It actually freaks me out riding hookless because if you flat, you used to see it more at Rubet actually. They flat and then they're just like the tires exploding off the rim.

Not a great place to be. Johan, if only there was a technology where you could glue the tire directly onto the rim and you wouldn't have to worry about that. It exists. I know. They did it for like 100 years. For some reason, they stopped doing it. But someone else, I mean, I'm on these fast rolling tires on the UAE team bike, and I'm not in shape at all.

And I went on a ride with some ex pros and pros the other day. You cannot believe how fast you're rolling on these tires. It's shocking. So I can imagine. What are the tires? Is it Conti TTIT tires? Okay, yeah, those are fast. Yeah.

But these are, these are, I mean, you can puncture quite. easily. Well, yeah, as you and I are aware with these fast, remember that you're riding the archetypes and yeah, yeah, I have like five punctures in four days in, in, in, uh, in on the Costa Blanca. They're gone. They're out. Gone. No, I yeah, for your, for personal consumption, I would not recommend doing this. But I think if it's 54k an hour, you got to be on super fast tires. You're not even going to make it to the cobblestones if you're not on them. Someone else asked why is Rubet so hard to recover from like we have amstall gold coming up on. Sunday. There's almost no crossover between the start list. We saw Pagachar, probably had the worst

race of his year last year at Amstel Gold, I think, because of Rubet. Why is this? I mean, it's a hard race. And then I assume you're, you're just physically beat up. And then your body's probably using muscles it doesn't normally use. You're broken. I mean, after Pari-Dubet, these guys are broken. It's like, it's, yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's unlike any other race, you know, recover. physically like because you're tired, but on top of that, you know, you're all the vibration. It's, it's yeah, you're destroyed, man. You need three, four days to come back. Then in that week, you can't train properly. Uh, and on top of that, Amsterdam gold there is a whole different exercise, right? It's, it starts to be hilly. It's not super hilly,

but it has nothing to do with Flanders and Roubert and definitely not with Rubet. So, very, very rarely have you seen somebody who does, uh, the cobbled classics and then is a really good at Amsterdam gold race, almost never. I mean, I think Bogacha is the first one who won it. Yeah. I don't know, actually, if, you know what? I think Miseu won Amstall Gold Race once in a sprint, if I'm not mistaken. I'm not sure.

But I don't know if he did the, I think he won Amstall Gold Race. You know, I think Jan Ross maybe did it in the same year, too. Yeah, Jan Ross. Yeah, Jan Ras were like five or six times the Amstool. Because back in the day, they used to call it the Amstool Gold Rass. But, you know, Amstall Gold Race back then was not of the prestige yet. It has now. You know, it was a new classic and it was kind of, it was not at the same level in terms of, you know, recognition.

Yeah, yeah. Did you win the same? I'm not sure, but I see the world of green. Hold on a second. I don't know if you did. He won it. 1994. Yeah.

But did he win? Did he win Roubae in that same year? We will find out in one second. He did not. He definitely did not win Bruebe on Lotto, but he was on Lotto, I think. When he, was he on Lotto still? No. He was on GPM.

Map. Oh, GBMG. GBMG, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He did not win Rubei, but he won it. He definitely, he definitely raced Rubet. He raced Rubet.

I think one of the best recent doubles, I believe that maybe was last year that Van Arr got fourth and fourth and fourth and, fourth in. No, I mean, I guess Bagachar got second and second, but Bagua'i, I mean, that's, to me, the fourth and fourth and second and second, people don't understand how crazy it is that both of those guys did that. That's nuts. Was this with a few days between, you know, the race and now, do you think this was the best race you've seen, like, is this the best race of the year?

Or how are you ranking this, Rubet? I think so. I mean, listen, Milan Saint-Rémo was amazing too. Flanders was great to me because you have the five best riders coming in one-by-one. Yeah, one-to-three-four-five, yeah. Although, you know, you don't, we knew who was, you know, quite, I mean, we knew before, before the end of the race, who was going to win, but it was still very nice. But I think, I think Roubaix was, first of all, because there's always drama at Rubet, right?

I mean, and you're never sure what's going to happen. Even if you're the strongest guy, you can, you can puncture until basically the second last, I mean, you're not going to puncture on the last one, because that's close to the developed room there. But until the second last sector, you can puncture. And then, you know, the way it happened, you know, like the drama with, with, first with Pogacar, then with Vonderpool, Van Ardard had. punctures. Pederson had punctures. They all, I mean, we're gone. I got punches. And, you know,

I would say in terms of, in terms of suspense and excitement, for me, and maybe it's also because it's still fresh in the mind, but because Belan San Remo was amazing too, but I'm going to pick Pari to Be as the most exciting race of the year so far. Yeah. I mean, people, people love, I love Wow. Benar. He's my favorite writer. I think him winning, you know, makes it, it's fun, but it's funny to investigate why, why did that connect with people so much? Why is he such a popular writer? I mean, part of it probably, I didn't realize this had to go back. A, he broke his ankle this year, if you remember that, had surgery on his ankle in 2026.

Yeah, yeah. And he's missed seven months out of the last three years with injury. So incredible story. He just seems like a nice guy. I guess people imprint upon him because he's a nice guy. So cool to see. Very talented writer. It's not like the little engine that could winning this.

Frankly, I kind of liked San Remo more because it felt like it was, it builds into a crescendo versus Rubet. I was like, okay, let's fast forward to the fellow drone. I think on the other hand, on the other hand, Spencer, what people also liked about Rubet is that, you know, for once Bogacha did not win, which is, you know, I mean, yes. I'm also a Bogotcha fan, but, you know, I know that somebody who's dominant and, and then doesn't win, that kind of gets to everybody.

Okay, finally, you know, finally somebody beats him, you know? Yeah. That's also exciting. I almost like from a perverted perspective, I was like, I just want to see, can Pagatra win every race he starts in 2026? Like I want to, like how ridiculous can get this get, but you're right. It's nice that he didn't win while it wins. Great race.

Other race happening that we just completely skipped over because Rubei eclips the sun. Paul, I'm going to try to say his name as he says it. I've listened to this a million times. Paul Success wins the tour of the Basque Country. Portuguese. Portuguese name, by the way, yeah, Portuguese name. Is that interesting? I was wondering about that.

Yeah. Yeah, it doesn't sound like a French, doesn't look like a French name. He's got an accent. But first French rider, this is crazy, crazy. And Bradley Wiggins just kept repeating this every day of the Tour de France because we couldn't believe it. First French writer to win a major one-week stage race since Christoph Moreau in 2007.

Seven. That's wild. What did he win, Dauphine? The Dauphine, yeah. 2007. Wow, that's 19 years ago, almost 20 years without. And they've had great riders since then. You know, Julian Al-Filippe, Thibopino,

it's wild that none of those guys won a one-week stage race. But he looked just to give people a brief over. of this. He was dominating the first few stages. Running up the score, you could say, why is he taking this much time? And then an interesting thing happened. So Tobias, um, sorry, Tobias Holland, Johansson. Is twin brother? Is that his twin? Others, yeah, yeah, they're twins. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah, they were racing very well. So he is a terrible first two days. Loses a lot of time. The last four stages, he gets in the

breakaway, three of those stages with like a full suite of Unox teammates. And they just start taking chunks of time, chunks of time. And the last day was miserable, like hard to overstay how miserable this was. And UnoX tends to ride pretty well in bad weather. They stack the breakaway. They're minutes ahead of Paul. But he, I mean, it was kind of an interesting thing. 50K left.

Paul Sixth just attacks. He just leaves the GC group. You're like, well, I don't know if I would recommend that because now you're by yourself chasing. I wasn't mistake. And you're with guys who are. were incentivized to chase, right? Exactly.

Exactly. Yeah, that was a mistake. You know, I mean, he got caught. I mean, he initially went away and that kind of stagnated a little bit. And I was thinking, you know what? I mean, if that happens and especially in a stage with cold and such bad weather, this can be, this could be fatal, you know, this could be like 10, 10 minute loss. Not literally fatal, but fatal for your chances.

Yeah, yeah. He recovered quite well. and could keep it, you know, he could easily stay with the other. I mean, the way he went away was impressive. I mean, nobody could have a chance to stay on his wheel. He just, you know, it was like he had two other gears. Shows how good he is.

But first of all, he should not have done that. And secondly, they should not have allowed him from the car to do that. It makes, it serves for nothing. It makes no sense whatsoever. No. And Johansen moves from. 11th place overall to third. Misses second by three seconds.

We were hammering Floreen Lipowitz last show we did. But actually the move he did by polling with Paul Seas shots, he secured second place because he wouldn't have, he needed that time over Johans. The thing that I just, I don't know if I've ever seen a team do that in a one week race. Like, okay, we had a bad first two days and just clawed their way back into third place. Super impressive. but shows why in a stage race, when you can, you got to take time.

Because if success does not take that time early in the race, he potentially loses. He wins by two and a half minutes. He might not have had enough time to win, basically. Yeah. He was the strongest. He was on another level, Spencer. Nobody was close to him in the vast country.

You could see it already in the time trial, But then, you know, stage one, stage two, that was it. You know, what he did there was just, okay. And everybody knew, okay, this is the winner. On stage two, everybody in the Peloton, all his rivals knew, we already knows who's winning the bus country. No matter what happens in the stages, it was just on another level. And then Andrew August wins the final stage with a super-impressive attack out of that front group with Johans.

his second big win of the year behind if you remember all the way back at valenciana he won a stage sat on and then sprinted yeah won that stage he's it's funny he's only 20 20 years old he's this is his third year professional 30 year in the world tour it's crazy potentially went pro i believe was his first pro race peri ruby and you were there no but no it was not his first race but he had, he got called up last moment. He did a few races, like two or three races. And then in his first year pro, 18 years old, he got called up last minute to do Pari Roubaix and finished it.

And I remember because that day I had a group of guests from the US. And last minute, his parents had flown over. And I think it was George actually asked if we had passes and space. So we took them with us in the van. And I was with them in the velodrome waiting for him to arrive. So he finished and then he got declared out of the time limits. Oh, that stinks. Yeah.

But he finished Pari Roubaix in his first, as an 18 year old. Wow. That was impressive. It's a little young to put someone, it was three years ago. It was 2024 Roubae. It's wild how early he turned pro. I heard a crazy stat today that Peter Sagan's winning time in what was that

2016, something like that? It would have been 50th. It would have been 50th. Yeah, outside the time limit. Yeah. No. Are you, hold on a second.

We're going to, so the winning time is. You know, Spencer, listen, you can't compare time. Yeah, you can't really compare them.

Listen, it was tailwinds the whole day, right? So otherwise you can't get those speeds, but still. Well, he was, he was 38 minutes behind

Benard. But also just shows you how fast the equipment is. They are flying on this new equipment. I've seen videos like little clips where you watch it and you say, okay, this is speed up. It's like accelerated video and it was not. It was real time.

It's crazy. Well, let's take a quick break and then we'll talk about the Brunt appeal today and then Amstel gold on Sunday. Hey, everybody, this episode is brought to by Hymns. You know the moment when you catch a reflection and notice your hairline creeping back? Well, Hymns makes it simple to actually do something about it because Hymns offers convenient access to a range of prescription hair loss treatments with ingredients at work,

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Are you on, Johan, we are back. Before we talk about, I said we were going to talk about the classics. Just quick on O'Grang Camino. My takeaway here, but just to just to, shout out this guy. Julius Johansson on UAE wins the opening time trial. Really impressive ride. Like destroys everybody on the opening time trial.

I wasn't even really aware of him as a writer. He's not overly young, but it just shows you how many good riders there are out there. And then Carlos Canal win stage two. Movistar gets a win in a Spanish race. Impressive. Movistar wins again on stage three. Ivan Romeo. I don't know if you watched this stage yesterday, but really an impressive like dismantling of a front.

group in stage. He like he got he split the front the front breakaway, the front group into a group of three. They were rotating through and he just kind of rode off the front. Like someone left a little gap and that was it. Big powerhouse, big powerhouse. Big powerhouse. One and one Ruta del Sol, if you remember this year.

Pretty good year he's having. But then things got serious today. First summit finish, Adam Yates says, all right, guys. All right, kids. sit down, he wins, he destroys everybody. Jorgon, Yorker, Gorgon, Nordhagen, on Vizma Lisa bike gets second. Alessandro Pinterello gets third on NSN.

It's kind of an interesting grouping. I've enjoyed watching these young GC riders that you don't normally see like at the front, at the front. So I thought that was interesting. Adam Yates is still good. Surprise, he's 33 years old, but he's still a great stage.

North Hagen, by the way, we spoke about him, I think a couple of years ago on the up-and-commer show, until he turned pro. He was already on the development team of Visma, and he was combining world elite level Nordic skiing with cycling. Crazy. I didn't know that. I don't even,

I even think he was world champion juniors Nordic skiing, but I'm not sure. But he was a high, high level Nordic skier, which is very compatible with cycling, by the way. But yeah, big talent. Big talent, doing well.

Alessandro Pinterrello. Always nice to see a good, a nice young Italian rider coming up 22 years old. But then it's all the nice name to be a bike rider. I know. They got to get them on Q36.5, Penrello.

It's right there. And then today at DeBronz Appeal, which is kind of a warm-up race to Amstow Gold. Is this Norwegian invasion? No, I guess he's Danish. He's Danish. It's crazy, too, that there's a team.

team specifically dedicated to getting those riders. And then there's so many good riders from those countries on other teams. So Jaco Alula gets a big win, you'd say. Did you hear that the rumor too, Jerry Ryan's leaving the sport. So the pressure is kind of on. Like they're in the shop window, really. But he gets the win over Quentin Herman's Benoit Cosnoffro. Roman Gregor,

impressive that Cosnafra and Grigua were both in the breakaway. They got caught inside the last kilometer, I believe. So third and fourth in the sprint, it was super impressive. I couldn't believe it was them up there. It was a sprint, you know, it was a slow sprint uphill. But still, yeah, they must be very strong. I mean, those two names, we're going to talk about Amselgold Trace in a bit. But yeah, let's note those two names, Kosovoire and Gregor.

They're going to be a actor in the final of Amstleville race. And Quint and Hermons, maybe also. Yeah. Yes. actually that was very interesting to me that he popped up there oh i forgot to mention this on basque country but you're at a europe sports spain report comes out a little bit of a wedge opening between the decathlon team and there's their star rider paul six us so much so that the president macron has been has like been drafted into convince him to stay with the team instead of going to a non-french team

do you know that and there's also a report here about what is manager or wants from a team per year. And I assume this is going to be a long contract, minimum five years, if I had to guess. What does, try to guess what his agent wants per year? I mean, listen, I mean, it's Yona Lauca. I mean, I'm not specifically a fan of his way of managing writers. But I wouldn't be surprised. It's something crazy.

Like, I mean, I would say right now, Paul says Sass, of course, you know, the value is also the potential. But if you look at the top salaries of Bogachar, Jonas, Remko, and so on, I would say what he has done right now and the potential. And, you know, and this would be on the high side. But I'm sure I'm going to be below what Loka is asking. I would say six million euros per year. It's lower than I would have guessed 10. I think with the country he's from and how good he is, he might be the most, at least his future potential, the most marketable star in cycling. But it's 8 million euros a year.

So let's say five years, that's a 40 million euro investment. It's too much. I mean, that's what Bogacha makes. That's, that's ridiculous. It's too much. Is it too much, though? Because if he's, let's say he's just as. Why would Spencer, why would it not be too much?

If Bogacha makes $8 million in salary, how can you justify a salary of $8 million for? what Paul says us. Well, this isn't, this is not this year. It would be for two years from now. It would be for 2028. Yeah. So is he better than Pagatja in 20208 would be the question? I mean, he's not going to be better.

He's not going to have one then what Pugaccio has won when he signed the $8 million contract. Yeah. But here's like the, here's the problem though, because let's say a writer that's It's not nearly as those guys. Good as those guys make $6 million a year. At a certain point, let's say you have a good rider that makes $6 million a year. You'd rather just be paying $8 million for the rider that's going to win the Tour de France. Like there's no...

We don't know Spencer if he's going to win it. You know what I mean? It looks like... It looks like it looks at it's on the good way. But hey, we've seen so many young riders, you know, like... Okay, some of them have won one tour de France when they were young. oh, you know, now he's going to win three or four or five, never won it again. Not saying this is the case for Saisas, but I think it's really, really early days to talk to talk about that kind of contract.

The thing is that obviously Loka is not stupid. You know, he knows all the managers. He knows what's going on. He knows the, you know, the hunger for the next big thing. And he's going to play into that, of course. And somebody's going to come up with a number close. to that, right? But I'm not excluding,

I'm not excluding that Decathlon can make that offer. They are a big company, the secondary sponsor, what is it, CMA? We can never get it right. They need to spend more money because we don't know their name.

They have five times the money of Deccatloan as a business. it's a matter of just having one guy decide okay you know what Blanco check let's just spend whatever we need to spend to keep this guy and this is what's going to happen I mean if the rumors are true I don't know if it's true or not but you know they're looking to move from France to Switzerland to register the company that owns the team in Switzerland

in order to be able to compete with all the other teams because that's another thing if you're in a French team the team needs to spend 50% more, if not more, to be competitive of what the rider remains net in his pocket. So I think that's the first step. If they want to be competitive, they have to get out of the French jurisdiction. It's an easy thing to do. You can register as a company in another country. That's where the license is, even if your sponsors are French.

but, you know, I think for the moment, Decathlon is still in a good position. They have the means, they have the resources. Now, I was actually talking to my son about this today in the car because, you know, he follows the juniors and the young riders, you know. So I assume that one of the candidates, and they've actually been public about it already, would be UAE, right? they would want POSACHS for when Pogacar ultimately decides to stop.

We don't know how long Pogacch. This Pogacra has a contract until 2030? Yeah, 2030. Yeah. I hate this idea, by the way. Well, let's assume that Pogacar goes full gas till 2008 until the Olympics, which I think that's what's going to happen. Now, UAE is in the mix, you know.

and man, they're smart. So Paul Seychas has a younger brother, racist juniors. I forgot his, is it Nino or Nuno Zichas? Nino, I thought could be Nuno though. I think Nino. Okay. Guess where Nino Seishas was this winter?

He was at the UAE team training camp. He was at the training camp with the development. right to come model I don't know he's not part of the development team yet no but because oh he's because he's I think I guess he's junior or under 23 I don't remember no he's yeah he must be junior

if he's younger he's got to be junior yeah but so wait I'm looking about this guy's only 17 years old but he's on like a a U-19 club he's not okay so

so anyways if he's in the juniors right he's a junior now, right? Junior, 19. Okay, so then the question is, why is Nuno's, or is it Nino or Nuno? Nino.

Okay, why is Nino Stachas not on the junior team of Decathlon? That's a good question. Well, apparently his agent, Sajah, we got to figure out to say this guy's name. Seik Saz's agent does not like the new management at DeKathlon. He was buddies with Vincent Lavanoe, who was. Yeah, pretty sense. Pretty cruelly pushed out of that team.

Yeah. So I don't even know if Yona Lauka was not at AG2R at some point as a cyclist. I don't remember now. And just to give people, let's say, let's just use the $8 million a year for five years, example. So that's 40 million. So that's what UA would have to pay. DeKathlone would have to pay $60 million for the same money.

That's how big of a disadvantage they're at. Yeah. But I guess, Johann, my thesis would be you can't afford, if you're DeCathlian, you can't afford to miss out on this. Like, let's say you cheap out, you say $8 million too much, he goes to UAE and he wins five tours. You look like an idiot, right? Yeah. I mean, listen, I mean, I think at some point, I mean, the thing that actually goes for Deccatlon also is that they have improved tremendously as a team. and they will keep improving.

You know, they are one of the super teams right now. You know, they have changed the whole, you know, all the staff. You know, they brought on board a lot of international people. I know, for example, they completely went away from the French, pure French identity. You know, for example, I remember speaking with Matthew Ricotelo in the offseason or just after the Vuelta and he had signed with Decathlon. and he was specifically told to not learn French because the meetings need to be in English. That's for a friend team, that is unthinkable. Yeah, it is wild.

So, you know, they, in terms of equipment, they are top. Like the von Riesel bike, Spencer, is incredible, apparently. I mean, everybody who goes from another team to that team and rides the Van Raisel says it's, it's incredible how fast these bikes are. So, you know, that obviously, If he goes to UAE, he will also have the best equipment. But, yeah, I mean, I don't know. I don't know.

But we're speculating. But I would say, I would say, let's rediscuss this in September after the tour and see if the enthusiasm is still the same. I would say this. The enthusiasm should not hinge on his tour. Let's say he thinks the Tour de France, you should still rate him as he is maybe the best prospect I've ever seen. I've never seen anyone do this. For sure.

Right now he is definitely the coming man. But man, it's so fragile everything. It can change in a heartbeat. You know, if he does, I mean, I think if he does the tour, I think he will write really well. But if he doesn't, perception will change. You will see. It's a lot of pressure on the kid, you know, it's still a kid. Is DeCathlun going to overtrain him, send him to the tour so he staining them lower the market value?

I, you know what I can say, Spencer? And this is probably one of the things that, I mean, I'm a bit skeptical. because if I mean it's just my impression from listening to his interviews I think and this is just my opinion from the little information I have just the gut feeling I think that right now on decathlon it's already Paul Seych is calling the shot the shots it's already he's deciding on his program he's decided on the team tactics and so that's something that I don't know if that's good or bad for his development. It may ultimately not matter because he's so talented. But it's something that I kind of, that's my takeaway, you know, seeing how he is super confident and he should be super confident. But listen, he's the coming star.

So let's see what happens. First of all, on going to UAE, I hate this because you know big champions. you know in 2028, Teddy Pagatra's not going to say, I've done enough. Okay, Paul, it's your time. No, they're going to clash. In fact,

I had a friend at Bass Country who was talking to Mr. Primas Roglich after the stage of Floyd Lippewitz was polling, and Roglich was finding it hard to be in a position where he was not the team leader any longer. He was not very happy about that at all. So these guys, they're so competitive. There's not going to be some seamless transition

between, he shouldn't go to the same. team as pagetra don't do that but this this blew my mind pavl syvakov's going to dekathlon next year guess what he's getting paid per year at decathlon is he already is it already done deal i mean it's not it's not it's done deal it's not public but it's a done deal paville syvakov uh 1.5 million it's pretty close two million euros a year for i mean that's a he's a good writer but that's it's over money it's overpaid it's overpaid it's you know he's a great rider but it's overpaid it's overpaid it's You know, he's a great rider, but it's overpaid.

You know, it's not. And would you say is having a rider that potentially can win the two or four times the value of a Pavel Civicov. Probably, right? Well, yeah, but I'm just saying it's overpaid. So it does feel a lot. I'm not going to say overpaid. I like to see people making money. I support labor.

It's great for Bobel Civic. But, you know, me, it is a lot of money. I just think it's, you know, anyways. If you know, if you hear. these transfer amounts of some of the riders, you know, 10 million for Ayuso, 6 million for Oscar only. It's, that's crazy.

It does show you how expensive mountain support is, though. Yeah. Because that must be roughly the market rate. Speaking of Mountain Source, mountain support and decathlon, they got second and third behind Jordan Gagat at the Besson-Dubes race.

Is that? Bez-on-Bes-on-Dubes. Really good ride from both guys really good ride from Jay Gott. It's his first race of the year. He must have had a problem. Good to see him back. He looked amazing.

On Total Energy's, I assume he's not going to retire at the end of the year, so he's probably going to go to a different team. I would have to imagine. He was 10th in the Tour de France last year. Yeah, crazy. Really good rider. Oh, yeah, good rider.

Good rider. He's not going to have a problem to find a team. I mean, like, FDG or Deccatlon or Kofidis. For sure, he can go there. or even, you know, why not UAE, for example? I mean, well, let Pavel Sevacov go bring in Georgesi God. I mean, it's not, he's the moneyball version of Pavel Civacov, actually. Like, that's what you should be going after.

I mean, that's supposing that the total energies won't find a new sponsor. I mean, they may still be. Would he really go back to that? I feel like he's done everything he can at a team of that level. But, you know, French, French riders and French environment, French teams, you know, it's not easy to get French riders away from French teams, man. There's, there's very little French writers who leave French teams. No, and usually when they do, they're very successful.

Just think about all these French riders who go to, like, Christop's report, you know, his career has been amazing since he left. Lenny Martinez. Lenny Martinez, yeah. I mean, I love total energies. They operate out of a castle in northern France. I get the appeal. I would stay there too if I was French.

So, Joanne, let's talk about Amstelgold. 257 kilometers in the Limburg region of the Netherlands. Am I right on that? Very hilly. You think the Netherlands is flat. It's not flat. It's incredibly hilly. If you look at the map, Spencer, you will never see a bigger labyrinth.

No, absolutely. It's crazy. You cannot memorize the course as a cyclist. You cannot know where you are. It's impossible. It's so, it's left, right, you know, it's crazy. But it's a hard race.

And yeah, it's quite hilly. I mean, I don't know what the total elevation is, but I'm going to guess it's over 3,000 meters, right? Yeah. Yeah. And it's all, I've never done it. It looks miserable. I would never want to do this race because it,

there's hills. They're all short. So you're over threshold for all of them, pretty much. Yeah. And you're like turning into the hill. So you're never carrying speed. It's just looks brutal over and over. Like you try to count these categorized climbs.

You can't even count them. It's a lot of passing through neighborhoods also. Yeah. Lots of. Yeah. Traffic islands. One particular disadvantage of the Amsterdam of the Amstall gold race. And I've already spoken with the organizer.

I mean, Loe Van Vliet is a good friend of mine who's been organized. It's his last. year he just it's his the 30th year he's the race director now uh from next year on officially will be tom dumoulin the race director of his home region right yeah but uh they do not have the authority for parked cars to not be allowed yeah on the course it's crazy it's it's it's unbelievable yeah and it yeah you see that all over the netherlands every race there's parked cars so the there's the cobberg which is like the big famous climb it's not But the stats don't blow you away, one kilometer at 6%.

But you have to remember the climbing all day that tops out with about a kilometer to go. And then it's this flat to downhill final kilometer. You get a lot of interesting sprints. Like last year we had Matea Shkomoza out sprinting, Rimcoevinapult, and Taday Pagachar, after Pagachar was reeled in. This is this this year's field lacks the star power of last years. If we're being honest, I would say we, we have narrowed down the top contender. to Remko Evanapole, Quinn Simmons, Mateo Jorgensen, Mateo Schalmoza,

Juan Izegere, Quentin Hermann, Quintin Hermanns, Benoit Koznafra, Roman Gregor. I would guess the winner comes out of that group. Did you say, did you say Matthew Jorgensen? Yeah. Both Quinn Simmons and Mattio Jorgensen for America.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I think the heavy favorite is Remko, Spencer. He's, you know, I mean, Skelmoza won it last year. I don't know if Skelmosa won't the same condition as last year he was he did the bus country he was like up and down he's not bad and one day race is always different uh but you know normally ramco should be the heavy favorite uh and but of course you know if you're the heavy favorite it's also not easy to win because

everybody is looking at you and umstle gold race as you say the clans are short so it is accessible to a big range of riders uh but if everything goes okay, I think I predict Ramco arriving solo for the win. I really liked Koznafrat today and Gregor. They were really strong. They were both in their breakaway. They were still able to sprint. Kosovozegovra has been second already in Amsthal Gold Race, losing very, very narrowly to,

I think, Michael Kiyatkovsky a few years ago. But yeah, Ramco needs to be the final. five-star favorite and then below that it's the names you say keelmosa kossnafrass simmons grigward jorgensen yeah yeah isa guiree um did a great tour of the boston yeah don't yeah right is a gearre off he could win this race the thing about but ramco ramco's a level ahead of them above them yeah you would imagine he wins this um perfect perfect for him at first i thought he's unbeatable but then think about last year at amssela gold even if pagetra's not there, he doesn't win the race because he toes

Skilmos alone. Last year, Amsterdam gold race was the second year race of the season for Remko. He started his season in Brabantzapel, won it against Walt Von Art. And Hamstle Goldreys was his second race only. Well, it's funny you mentioned that because I went

back and watched that Burbankapal. And that was one of the most impressive Remko performances I've ever seen. It was, he rode Wavonart right off his wheel. I was going to just say, if he rides like that, he's going to win this race because no one can hold his wheel when he's that strong and he's offers no draft it's also it's already extremely difficult to hold his wheel in an enormous

circumstances spencer because as you say there's no draft i mean a guy like like walt von art looked like a freaking monster behind ramco is so tiny on his bike yeah yeah it's a fun little race but yeah um yeah let's see if uh belgium can win two big races in a row that would be good. I haven't found any odds on this, but if I do bet on this race, my wild card might be Quinn Simmons. I could, yeah, I know he's been preparing specifically for this. And this, he can compete for the win with this start list if Remko is marked.

Yeah. He did a really strong race in the Basque Country the day before, two days before. Yes. He did the Grand Prix, McGill, Indyne. and he was super strong there. He got smoked by Izegira in the final. The final climb was a little. He was very strong.

I saw him close a gap. Initially, he was not part of the winning move. And the way he bridged up from the Peloton to, to the breakaway was impressive. So he's, I think he's in good shape. Yeah.

And then don't forget Mattel Jorgensen. I mean, he's specifically preparing for the Ardenza this year, not doing the Kava classics. Where has he been? He hasn't been racing. He's not been racing, but let me look it up. I should be able to remember this.

He did a race and was good. It was San Remo, Torano Adriatico. He was very good. Okay, yeah. He was second. He was second. Yeah, overall. After falling and losing time on the second stage, I believe.

So the last time we saw him, he was good, which is a good sign. He's been training specifically for this. We'll see how he goes. He's been on the day, I'm assuming. I would, yeah, almost. I would assume that's, where he is. And it's a Flanders classics race. I believe they acquired the race. It was independent for a long time. So that means it's on flow bikes in the U.S. if you want to watch it on Sunday.

Men's and women's are both on Sunday. Okay. All right. You're there. Anything else? We'll be back on Sunday to talk about this race. Sunday evening, we'll be back to recap to the recap. Remko's win. Don't let us spoil it for you, but that's probably going to happen. But with Remco, you never know. This could be the most exciting race we've ever seen. He never disappoints. I think his confidence after Flanders must be, after Tour of Flanders must be through the roof. Yeah, you'd imagine.

We know that Remko, I mean, he didn't race today on purpose, you know, because it was too close to Amsterdam Gold Race. We know that he can prepare really well without competition. So I'm, plus, you know, Red Bull, they have a very strong team. They're really riding like a unit. So, yeah, Ramco's, yeah, my candidate to win. And then on Wednesday, the flesh will own, Paul, six us, coming out. Then he's going to be there at Leage.

So we're getting a new and exciting week, that's for sure. And thanks, Johan, and we'll be back on Sunday to break down Amstow Gold. Okay, thanks, Spencer. Okay, bye.