THEMOVE - Storms Ruin the Day & La Vuelta's Controversial Influencer Partnership | La Vuelta a España 2026 Stage 3 | THEMOVE

Episode Date: August 24, 2026

Johan Bruyneel and Spencer Martin break down the Vuelta's anticlimactic third stage, which saw Tadej Pogačar's UAE team split the peloton in the crosswinds and set up a mountain assault before an extreme storm caused the race's abrupt cancellation heading into the final climb. They also discuss the Vuelta's strange partnership with a controversial influencer, how the odd stage will, and won't, affect the GC battle tomorrow in Andorra, and predict the outcome of tomorrow's Stage 4 mountain showdown. Become a WEDŪ Member Today to Unlock VIP Access & Benefits: https://access.wedu.team Ultra Pouches: Ultra is the ultimate guilt-free pouch — delivering instant focus and mental clarity, without nicotine or caffeine. New customers can use code THEMOVE to get 15% off at https://TakeUltra.com. After you purchase, they will ask you where you heard about them. PLEASE support our show and tell them our show sent you. Eight Sleep: Use code THEMOVE at https://eightsleep.com/themove for up to $350 off. 30 days to try it at home. Free returns if it's not for you. Keeper Security: Right now, Keeper's offering 60% off personal and family plans at https://Keepersecurity.com/THEMOVE. This incredible offer is only for podcast listeners! And if you're running a team at work, check out Keeper's business plans! Just make sure you use our link, so they know we sent you.

Why is it the riders who have to make that call? Why can't the organizers make that decision already a bit earlier? Because let's not forget, you know, we have the race going on. The riders get to the top of the climb, but the race organizers, they have cars 10, 15 minutes ahead of the race already. So, you know, there's a whole chain of information that should come to the race director, who's the guy just behind the peloton or behind the... the breakaway.

So that's the only thing that I have a bit of criticism of. Why didn't the race organizers decide that immediately? At the same time, you know, these things do happen really, really quickly. So it can be, I mean, it started to hail all of a sudden, right? It can be that 10 minutes ahead, it was not hailing. When the first cars went up to climb, it was raining, but not hailing. And then all of a sudden it started to hail very heavily. But there was no way they could have gone on this race.

The downhill was super dangerous. You know, hail on the road. It was super slippery. The right call. A bummer, of course. But the right decision was made, in my opinion. Everybody, welcome back to The Move. I'm Spencer Martin.

I'm here with Johann Bernier. We are breaking down stage three of the Vuelta, and it might be a short episode because State Treaty of Vuelta was canceled, was neutralized with around 17 kilometers to go. When right when stuff was getting good, UAE was on the front hammer and the pace on the first of the final two climbs of the day, the only two climbs of the day, a massive hailstorm hit.

It was, they were right to stop the race, but Tadipagachar, not the race organizer, came to the front and said, we got to take shelter and they went into a hotel bar, hotel cafe. And if you were watching the race,

you knew right away that they were not going to be able to restart it. Kind of a funny, odd turn of events, strange to an event so because the race before that was it was on there was a 6th rider breakaway up the road Ethan Hayter was in it he was getting green points that were later nullified so he was

in the green jersey virtually the race ends he loses those points retroactively not in the green jersey even though he's still wearing it because Tida Pagatra is in the lead and the major racing news of the day was 90k to go there was strong strong winds up the ocean yohan I don't know if you saw this

like almost 40k an hour UAE goes to the front starts accelerating through the road narrows through a French little French town. We know what's going to happen here. They leave town. They just start hammering. Enios and UAE are at the front. Split the peloton.

The only major GC rider caught out was, well, I guess Joal Omeida was back at the team car when it happened. U.A. probably said, sorry, Shuwa, we'll get you later. You'll come back. But Felix Gall was caught out. His decathlon team had to chase pretty hard for like 10K to catch back on.

but Johann, it's kind of an odd eight-sleep move of the day. And if you want to get an eight-sleep mattress topper, which UA will be sleeping tonight on tonight, Tedda-Begachar specifically, we'll be recovering with this throughout the entire Valta. If you want to get $350 off through the end of this, well-ta, on your own eight-sleep mattress topper, go to eight-sleep.com slash the move today.

But, Johan, what is the toughest eight-sleep of the day, I think, for the Valta? What is yours today? Yeah, a sleep move of the day. day, Spencer, let me give it to ASO to get the size right of the green jersey for Ethan Hater. Yes. We saw him in the skin suit and apparently it was the right size today, on the contrary to yesterday where, you know, I still can't get really my head around what happened yesterday with that skin suit. But no, I think, I think, you know, the event of the day is probably Pogacar going to the front and, you know, acting as the boss, taking responsibility and say, hey, guys, okay, we're not doing

this and everybody was of course straight away in agreement it was kind of a bald move you know because there were two riders in front you know so i didn't think about that you know what happens if the race organizers don't agree and they let these two guys go you know and they get like 45 minutes everyone's they would have gotten half an hour they would have gotten half an hour i didn't think about that okay so you know of course we know that's not going to happen but uh I think it was the right call. If we saw the images, it was already, you know, very obvious from the footage. But, you know, you can only imagine what happened, you know, how these guys felt on the bike.

I mean, that hurts, man. That really, really hurts. So, yeah, the right call. A really good initiative, I think, of Bogachar. And nobody has protested. And for sure, even the race organizers. The only thing we can ask ourselves is, you know, we talked about it briefly before we started recording. You know, why is it the riders who have to make that call?

Why can't the organizers make that decision already a bit earlier? Because let's not forget, you know, we have the race going on. The riders get to the top of the climb, but the race organizers, they have cars 10, 15 minutes ahead of the race already. So, you know, there's a whole chain of information that should. come to the race director who's the guy just behind the peloton or behind the breakaway. So that's the only thing that I have a bit of criticism of. Why didn't the race organizers decide that immediately? At the same time, you know, these things do happen really, really quickly.

So it can be, I mean, it started to hail all of a sudden, right? It can be that 10 minutes ahead it was not hailing. when the first cars went up to climb, it was raining but not hailing, and then all of a sudden it started to hail very heavily. But there was no way they could have gone on. This race, the downhill was super dangerous. You know, hail on the road.

Super slippery. The right call. A bummer, of course, but the right decision was made, in my opinion. Yeah, I live in a climate almost exactly like the finish of today's stage. and you can get these. If you're going to be kind of the race organizer, it's you can get these crazy storms that roll through

and they don't hail. And then in five minutes, it's perfect, like perfect weather. And you would look kind of silly, I guess, if you called it off, just because it was rain. The hail did come in very fast. Again, if you watched the race, it deteriorated so fast. It was shocking how quickly it went from like, yeah, it's probably raceable to the roads literally looked like ice rivers.

It was like the stage of the tour that got called off in 2019. But I think, you mentioned it, Johann, UAE, a lot of work today. Like, they were on the front, you know, they're splitting. First of all, why, why did they split the Peloton with 90K to go? Because realistically, they were never going to hold off DeKathlon for, you know, what, 60K until the start of the climb. But do you mind just telling listeners, those of us who are not like nine time winning

Twitter fronts, winning directors, why would a team do this in the crosswinds? I think, you know, first of all, you know, if you're surprised, nowadays, nowadays, in today's cycling, with all the information that is out there, if you're surprised by Crosswinds, it's because you've not done your homework. So, you know, you can only think that Felix Gall was sleeping, didn't pay attention, or just doesn't have the legs, we'll have to find out. You know, he lost time yesterday. Not a lot, but, you know, sometimes it's an indication of, you know, even if it's a climber,

if you're in top shape, you do have the strength to move up when you see something's happening. I don't think personally that this was a move to put Felix Gall in problems. It was a consequence of the initiative of UAE. And, you know, if you get to, if you're the favorite, you have a strong team and you get to these areas where it's crosswind and you know this already since the morning, it's just better to organize your team and, you know, take the initiative yourself rather than having to react to another team or sometimes two teams. It happens sometimes that with Crosswinds, two teams make a deal.

They talk to each other. They say, hey, you know what? I mean, before, okay, nowadays, everybody has the information. But before, let's say 15, 20 years ago, we didn't have all this information. You know, it was just the beginning of the Internet age. We didn't have weather apps. We didn't have Velo Viewer, of course. We basically relied on people going up front with the car.

We had scouts going up front and, you know, scouting the conditions. and then it got relayed to. And at the beginning, only the biggest teams did that, because let's not forget, cycling has evolved so much that now there's an overflow of staff, but back in the days, we were tied on staff. So you had to have an extra person, an extra car, which sometimes was not the case for a certain team.

So then it could happen that two or three teams had information and they say, hey, you know, and they talk to each other, let's go together. Of course, that doesn't happen anymore. nowadays. But still, in the case of UAE, they just went to the front and did what they had to do. It's the best way to stay out of trouble because you don't have to react. Normally when a team starts to really put it in the gutter and go fast at crosswinds, you have to try to organize your team, go to the front. It's chaos. You lose one or two riders that don't get to the wheel.

So I think it was the right thing to do. It was more because of out of safety than out of the intention to take time. I don't think Pogacar doesn't need to take these opportunities to take time on his rivals. There's plenty of opportunities for him to take time already in the climbs. So I think it was obviously Felix Gall not being in the right place and maybe not having the legs. I don't know. We'll see tomorrow if Felix Scal has the legs. I hope so. But yeah, this is the safest thing to do, Spencer, to just go to the front. and organize. And then also hopefully, you always hope that another team or two teams will join

because then you share the work. It's easy to organize. And if you have two or three teams, it's very difficult for another team to get in there, in that mix, in that rotation, right? Because if you have one team of eight riders in this case, okay, Almeida was in the back, so you're only down to seven. Pugacar is not going to pull. It's down to six.

You have two climbers that probably are not going to be very strong in the And so you're very limited. So you actually want and hope that another team or two teams will join. Yeah. And if it's UAE by themselves, then you're going to get to the final climb and you're not going to have Almeida because he's off the back. And your guys are tired. And then have you hurt yourself because then there's no one to set a pagachar on the final climb? But we should say, even back it all the way up to the beginning of time, the easiest place to ride in crosswinds.

It's very counterintuitive is on the front, right? Rotating through. So, yeah, if you're in the crosswinds, And you're ever in doubt about what to do. Someone always just told me, just start rotating through. Get to the front right hard. Absolutely. Absolutely.

Yeah. I mean, listen. It's a less risk there. Yesterday I had this same example with my son. My son did this four-day stage race in Ribeira del Duero. And yesterday was a crosswind stage. And so I had told him, you know, I told him that where the crosswind were going to be. And these guys, these juniors don't, especially in Spain, they're not used to ride.

They're not used to ride in Ashuland, right? So I told, okay, so you know, you go to, you make sure you in the front. And as soon as you feel the crosswinds, you rotate, you know. So, yeah, 20 guys went away and that was the, that was the race. So you have to be always rotating. If you stay behind the team or you try to skip a few turns, you, you are at high risk of getting dropped. You may be a strong, maybe super strong. You can't do it on your own in the crosswinds.

You have to rotate. Yeah, if you try to sit in, you'll get dropped. Like sure is day that's going to happen. It was interesting to say, just a weird day in general, though, because now poor Ethan Hater, I can't believe they did this to these guys. They just nullified everything where you'd have, I mean, I guess they can't, right? If they, if they neutralize the day, does it not allow them to keep the points? Spencer, let's wait until we get the official.

Yeah, I guess we don't have. The official information, you know, like we're, it's, it's very recent. And so I would think logically, whatever happened on the road until that moment should count. On the other hand, you could also say, well, you know, he got the opportunity to get the points. And then the guys which are going to go for the results in the final didn't get the opportunity to score the points. So it's kind of even, right? I mean, with the points of today that Ethan Heder took on the. the road. He should be officially in green, but Pogacar didn't get the opportunity to get the

score points, which he probably would have. So he wouldn't be in green anyways. Ethan Hager. That's a good point. So it's maybe it's maybe it's maybe a fair decision. Actually probably helps him because it was 30 points for the win, 20 for the intermediate. So he would have lost 10 points. And then now he doesn't let's take a quick break to talk about our presenting sponsor. And then I'm to ask you a few questions and then we'll get into the stage four preview as quick as we can, but we'll be right back. Everybody, this Volta-Aspania coverage is brought to you by Ultra Pouches. If you're someone who needs a coffee every couple hours just to feel normal, you know the

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It really helps the show. Okay, Johan, one. So just just quickly, imagine the stage finishes. What do you think happened? Who wins this stage? I mean, I haven't seen the last climb, of course, but I think Bogacha would have won. No, they clearly they had the intention.

they, they, you know, they didn't have to chase that break back. Of course, you know, if the break stays ahead, then he's not in red. But I think Pugachar would have won the stage. And more and more I start to think, it's only stage three today. But I think he really wants to win this, to wear this leader jersey from start to finish. I think so too. By the way, I think yesterday I said 1991, the Gero is 1990. that Johnny Buneo was in pink from start to finish, 1990.

It's almost 40 years. 37 years, 36 years ago, yeah. Wow. Well, I think so, too. I also saw something on the road where Almeida, you know, he's more banged up than I thought. I guess he had a crash, what, at Poland. Yeah.

But, you know, he was really, him and Pagacho were talking, and they were like, you could tell they're very close and, like, work very well together. And it's like, Almeida's here full on for for Gajar. And I do think you're right that he's trying to take this leader's jersey line to line. UA worked a lot today for nothing. Obviously, they didn't know the race is going to be neutralized. So you can't fault them for it. But it doesn't really affect the race probably because they're loading fatigue into their rivals as well. So it's like, well, everybody was riding hard. But they did spend a lot of time on the front and got nothing for it. Does that matter at all?

I mean, it's, I mean, they're strong, you know. And I mean, it's not like they destroyed the team. I think that the pace of UAE was, was, I'm going to say, I'm not going to say comfortable, but it was well within their limits. They didn't kill anybody on the team. Their climbers didn't do any work today. It was, who was it? Novak and then, and Vermark, Kevin Vermarkernerck did a lot of work.

Civikov. who else, and Ruizuela or Ivo Olivier. This is a strong team, actually. You just going through that. Actually, I heard today, I mean, I didn't realize that. I mean, funny story about Olivera, the Olivera twins. So we just saw Ruy Olivera winning his first win ever at the pros, right,

in the two of Portugal. Eve Olivetta has won already a few races in his career. But did you realize that for the Paris Olympics, they were scheduled to do the Madison in the Olympics. The Madison raised together, the Olivera twins. And Ruhrie Olivaida, the guy who's here in the Vuelta, got sick a few days before the event and had, couldn't participate.

And then another Portuguese guy of the track team came in. He's called Yuri Laitao. And they won the Olympics. So they won the gold medal in the Olympics. And so normally it would have been the Orivela brothers. Imagine how nice that would have been. They're twins, right? They're twins.

Yeah, they're identical twins. Yeah. And they could have won. That would have been. What a bummer. Yeah. But there's footage out there. There's footage out there of, of Evo Lever.

later filming his brother and the other guy winning the Olympics. And yeah, I heard this today. I heard this story today. So that's, I mean, we have to talk about something because there's not much to talk about about the stage. But that's a nice story. You know what fascinates me, twins? We could just do a spin-off podcast about twins.

So twins, pretty similar people, right? And same thing with the Yates, the careers can be quite different at what they're, the specifics of what they're good at can be quite different. though they're essentially the same person. Very fascinating. Like Evo seven wins. Rui just gets his first win. Evo Olivier, two-time Portuguese national road race champion,

Portuguese national time trial champion. It's just really fascinating to me. But even with the Yates, their careers were so different, but they kind of ended up with the same number of wins when it was all set and done. Quite interesting, fascinating stuff. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. twins,

call into the show. Are there any other twins? Any other twins? Because the Van Deke, the Van Deke brothers twins? There might be. Yeah, I think they're twins. I think they are.

Yeah. Well, here we just have to look them up, see if they have the same birthday. Micah Van Dyke. What's the other one's name? I don't know. Do we know? Tim, Tim Van Dyke.

Tim Van Dyke, yeah. And also twins on different teams. Like how do twins make decisions about what teams to be on career decisions? There was a pair of twins in the NBA that I went to school with actually had the same bank account. I just shared a bank account. Yeah, the Van Dyke brothers are twins. Yeah. Interesting stuff.

But before we do the stage four preview, the big story of the day, Erola Jones, never heard of this person, extremely popular Spanish Instagram influencer, millions of followers on social. social media, invited by the VELTA to kind of like get, she got crazy good access, too good of access if you ask me, but to popularize it with young people. It's not a bad idea. I saw the Tour de France Femmes. Tour de France Femms did an amazing job of this. I, for some reason, was living in the influencer district in London. And every influencer went south for the Twitter Frens Femms.

They were posting about the FEMS all day, every day, but it looked kind of organic. The ASO did a very good job with that of getting, you know, like popular London influencer involved with the Tour de France Femmes and then amplifying it to their audience. There's a good way to do it. This is probably not a good way to do it because this woman was like you could see. I don't know what the circumstances were, but Pagotcha was getting fitted for his red jersey with press officer Luke McGuire. He's kind of an intimidating guy.

I probably wouldn't be bothering Pagotcher when he's with Luke McGuire. He's a very nice guy, but he's a good. He's a very nice guy, by the way. He's very nice guy, but he's like, he means he, he kills them with softness. Like, he's, you know, he's, he's very nice, but he knows how to put a barrier, which is what you need. He's a super professional guy. He's very good at his job, we should say. You know when he says the questions are up, the questions are up.

He commands the room. He has a great presence. But she's kind of like hassling them inappropriately, if you ask me. And then he, yeah, Bagachar comes out. She asks him like a really inappropriate. question of like why do you blush every time you see me no why are you she said why are you hip hyperventilating hyperventilating yeah yeah and he you tell he was really upset but really caught off guard and upset by the interaction and like what do you think of this is this a good move for the volta i think it's

ridiculous spencer it's it's a so also okay so i don't know if there's different people making these decisions but i i would say you know the the idea behind it is definitely not bad because if you, you know, invite influencers, it's a good move to attract the younger public, a new generation. You know, whatever these people do go viral. But the fact that she got so much access that nobody else gets, she gets, I mean, she literally gets in almost inside the camper where the guys change at the end of the stage, right?

And then she starts to ask these stupid questions. I mean, it's ridiculous. I think it's disrespectful. And I mean, on the one hand, I think it's a good idea to take those initiatives to have these influencers. But you need to put rules. And I'm sure, Spencer, I mean, if it would be the Tour de France, it's still ASO, but it seems to me that in this Tour of Spain, and since it's more relaxed, different rules apply to the Tour de France. The Tour de France is a rigid, well-run machine.

You know, these are the rules. The Dura, Spain is more, okay, let's see, whatever, you know. But man, I think she's, she's, she's going to get called and, and, and, and, they're going to put some, some barriers, some filters on what she can, what, plus, plus, I mean, I, I, if I saw that interview, when I saw that interview, I would need to check, but I think it's actually published on the Lavuelta official channel. It is, I think it is. Yeah.

Which is, which is, which is even more mind-blowing, you know, like, how can you publish? this. You know, like, okay, say, okay, you know what? Okay, from tomorrow on, this is what you can say. This is what you can say. And whatever doesn't pass or filters does not get published, right? I mean, you can't imagine at Wimbledon, they hire some influencer to come in and kind of hassling the players and they publish it. It probably wouldn't happen. I'm thinking back now, Spencer. I mean, I don't know. I mean, I would need to check if it's

the same person. But in Monaco at the team presentation, there was this singer. it was a couple actually but I think it might be the same person they gave a performance it was horrendous I mean she couldn't sing it was false it has to be the same person

I think it's the same person I don't know but it was really bad and I saw a lot of comments about it that say wow what the hell is this so yeah that's that's not good man and I saw this I saw this reaction of Laura Messiger who

was a super professional journalist for Eurosport. She's at the Vuelta. And I know, I mean, she has worked her way up during many, many years. Yeah, like busted her butt for years. Yeah, for 20 years. I think I remember Laura as a young girl being at the Vuelta. I want to say 2007, 2008, maybe I don't remember. So it's been a while.

So she's a very well-respected journalist. has a really good relationship with all the writers. She gets interviews because she has these relationships with them. And it's always super professional. And she made a good comment. She said, you know, this is unacceptable. We are in a man's world. We had to really work hard to be accepted.

In this man's world of cycling and cycling journalists, the majority have always been men. And this basically is a huge step back. You know, it takes away all the credibility or a bunch of credibility of female journalists. So at the same time, we all know we have to take it with a grain of salt. It's done on purpose. You know, it can't be taken seriously. But I don't think it's a great, it's a great view. I don't think it's, yeah, they will have to do something about it.

I'm curious to see how this is going to progress now for the next three weeks. I think she's going to get called into the office and we'll get a mouth guard or something. So disrespectful to people like Laura, too, you know. She gets better access than her. Like, what are we doing here? Yeah. I do think Christian, your son pointed out probably directionally is a good decision. Like bringing someone like this in is probably good for the Vuelta's awareness with young people.

Just the execution of it could have been done a little bit better. Yeah, I mean, there's only one way to look at it. Take this as a joke. You know, it's funny, but at the same time, it's not funny. And, yeah, it will probably attract interest of young people. I mean, she does have 3.2 million followers on Instagram. I just saw. So, I mean, on TikTok, it's probably a lot more.

So, yeah, that's probably the reason why she's there. But, man, they need to do something about it. it about the content about the kind of content she puts out the brief should have been hey make sure our most famous guy looks good don't try to embarrass him on camera you saying luke mcguire's nice reminded me of this story i said i was at having breakfast sat down at a coffee bar had breakfast stood up to pay they said you can't pay someone's already paid for you and it was look mcguire secretly got the tab nice guy but let's take uh an ad break and then we'll preview tomorrow's stage four, which is a crazy, crazy good day.

Kind of wild, they put this in here on stage four already. I'm quite excited for it, but we'll be right back. All right, Johan, tomorrow's stage four, 104, 104.8, let's call it 105 kilometers with just under 3,000 meters of climbing, starts in Indora, finishes in Andorra, starts and finishes in the same place in the capital, which is one of the, you live there, I've never lived there, one of the lowest spots of Andorra, like around 1,000 meters. But we climb up to high points. Like the first climb at the day tops out at 2,400 meters, which is very high.

And we really just have the, it's a simple course. It goes up the valley, 23 kilometers of climbing. The last 10k of it is at 6.5% so really hard. That's a cat one climb. Then we descend down. We come back to where we started, but we do a detour up at extremely hard climb, 6.5 kilometers at almost 9%. And then we descend down sprint point, climb back up.

10K at 7% descend down. And then we take a little detour before the finish, a 4K long climb at 6%. The last K and a half is a close to 9%. So we got some steep pitches here where attacks could come. And then we descend back down into town for the finish. A neat 105K. It's going to be done fast. I think it's televised start to finish.

I think the TV coverage starts around 240 p.m. Local time. How do you think this is going to play out, Johan? And instead of who do you think is going to win, where do you think the winning attack is going to come from? Yeah, I think that's the question. I think Pugacha already said before the Vuelta, that stage four was, you know, a crucial stage. So he's definitely going for it. I think he's winning tomorrow stage.

I can't see anybody else win. The question is, that's two questions I have, Spencer. Where will Pugacca attack, number one? I mean, we don't know the answer because, you know, he can go. I don't expect him to go on Invalida after, what is it, after 20 kilometers, 25 kilometers. Probably not. No. But after that, you know, we have this climb Coyala the Big Salz, which is with, with, with, with, with, with six to go.

So with six, after 60K. So 45K from the finish. That's doable. It's the hardest climb. The question is, does, does Pugacchar need? the hardest climb to I expect him to go honestly I expect him to go and call the ordino which which is 9.9 kilometers at 7% that's a hard climb it's very regular you get to the top with after 79 kilometers so 25k to go that's I mean most of

it is downhill I expect him to go there that would make a lot of sense and then the biggest question is, Spencer, who, if anybody, will try to follow him? I think that's the question of the day tomorrow, right? I would say probably anybody who is in their right mind, nobody tries to follow him and just write their own pace and try to be the best of the rest and hope, which we have been hoping for the last two years now, Pogacha goes too early and runs out of energy. That's actually the only hope they can have, in my opinion. I'm guessing Pugacres in, you know, more or less the same shape as he finished to tour

the France with. So, and with this field, there's, there's, it's, yeah, there's going to be a huge difference. I think he's, I think he's winning tomorrow with, with two minutes at least. That's usually what he wins with when he does these attacks. So, yeah, I think that's going to be what happens. Well, this stage layout, like you might just look at this and say like, it's not a summit finish and then gloss over it. But this is the most lethal layout, in my opinion for Pagacchar, similar to stage six of the tour, where I think that was his biggest G.C gap he pulled out where he attacks at the top of the tourmalet. And he's most lethal when he attacks before the final climb, because then he can, for whatever reason, you know, like, Vindigar goes over the tourmalet about 30 seconds behind.

And Pagotra can just stay on that gas. He just keeps on the accelerator and he can turn a 30 second gap in a two and a half minute gap on a guy that's probably the second best stage racer in the world. So what's he going to do here? That's a little scary to think about. Where is he going to go? The climb, you point out, I've actually never seen this. You know, you can look at these profiles and it's a color for the steepness and it's the same color all the way up. So it's extremely regular.

That's a good place to attack. That tops out 25K from the finish. The only other place I might think is the climb before, which is, steeper, more irregular, tops out about 45K from the finish. If we look at the longest attacks of the season, solo attacks that are successful, Tata Pagacar, number 1, 80K at Strata Bianchi. Tata Pagacra, number 2, 70K, tour to Swiss stage 1. Probably won't see that.

Tadipagat char number 3, 42 kilometers through to French stage 6. So that would kind of... What about... Oh, that's maybe more than... What about his attack in Zurich at the World Championship? That was 100K. Well, yeah. Well, that's just this year.

Okay. Okay. It's crazy. It's crazy. That's just from this year so far. Okay, okay. That 40K figure is a, he does that kind of regularly. Yeah, he has done 100K attacks.

I don't think we're going to see him a tag on first time of the day. That would be a little much. No. What we can also see from Spencer is that there's, you know, I think it would make a lot of sense tactically for both him and whoever can be with Pogacar is that there's a selection on the on the Coyado de Bezos on that second climb. Then he uses these guys in the downhill because it's in the interest of these other guys also to take time on eventual contenders for the podium and then goes on Ordino by himself.

I think that's the most likely scenario goes with two. or three guys, you know, on the Koyala Bay Salz, and then goes by himself on the next climb. And who are those two or three guys? Well, you know, before the start of the, before the start of the Vuelta, we were all talking about Felix Gall, right? And starting to have a bit of doubts now, although we're going to see tomorrow. I'm going to say Carapas Karapas will definitely try to go with him

on the Koyalo base house if it's not a full-on attack let's say this is this is not a full-on attack of Pugachar but it's still enough to get away with three, four guys which is perfect for Pugachar and these three other guys have all the interest in the world to collaborate with him after the, if they can make it to the top of that climb to collaborate at him and a part of Ordino, because if they get over Ordino with a separation

on the rest behind them, it's a good, it's a good step towards the podium already, right? Yeah. In stage four. So I think that's probably the strategy that I would try to use both in the case of UAE and Bogacha and also in the case of these other guys who are contenders and hope for a podium place. I don't know if I would write Felix call off yet. No, because he was so good. of Burgos. So good at Burgos.

Hard to forget about that. Oscar only should be there also, I think. Oscar only should be there. Yeah, I don't know who else. Enric Maas, Rogglich. I don't know about Rockley. I mean, Rogliss is an unknown, right? I think Rogglish needs a bit more time. He looks all right right now, but tomorrow, obviously, it's a big day. It's short, it's aggressive, it's fast, and it's a lot of climbing.

I mean, 3,000 meters of climbing in 100 kilometers. That's a lot. So I don't know if Rocklitch is ready for that right now. But maybe he surprises us and he's there. I hope so. I would love to see it. Yeah, he, you know, it's crazy. Daniel Freebo on this podcast was like,

I'd love to see Roglisch Roglify Pagachar and a finish here. And I like, it's not, you forget so, everything changes so fast. He's like, yeah, I guess a few years ago that could have happened. But it's almost like hearing someone describe a dream. You're like, what? The rockification. The roglification is not going to happen, but every gotcha is there.

No. No. I don't think so. Yeah. Probably not. You're probably right. I do think you named him. I think it's Carapas on like all.

Go with him. Yeah. And get dropped. And then if you, if they're smart, but Carap, you know, Carapagin, I'm worried. Was Carapagos is going to like stay with Pagacha until he explodes and then loses 10 minutes or. But if they're smart, they'll just focus on working together and holding it. It's really going to be about holding off the riders who miss that move.

It shouldn't really be about following Pagacchar. That's a fool's errand, in my opinion, on the stage. Yeah. And if Pagachar is really like smart and conservative, I mean, I'm stressing on the word conservative, which he most of times he's not, then he would actually not go 100% on that second climb with the intention of having some company. Yeah. You know?

Yeah, this is so the top 15 longest successful solo breakaways of the year. How many do you think Pagatra has of those 15? Six. Seven. Half of them basically. Crazy. Crazy. He's pretty good.

He is pretty good. And then Vanderpil has two of them. Wow. But yeah, I think you're right. I think that's exactly how it's going to play out. Pagotra was around minus one. I think he was like minus 160 to win today. I bet on it, but didn't get paid out, obviously, because there's no finisher.

Are they going to refund? You get, yeah, you get a refund on your bet, kind of disappointing because he probably would have won. But he didn't burn, like, he would have had to burn a lot, right, to win that. It would have been a hard thing to do. Now he doesn't have to do it. Let's see they don't have the odds out for today. But I would bet it's going to be significantly worse than minus 160. Like we could be looking at like minus 300, probably still worth it, because the only way

He doesn't win is what you said. He attacks too early and blows up. When's the last time we even saw that, though? Yeah. That's, you know, that's wishful thinking, man. That's wishful thinking. And especially so early, also so early in a grand tour, you know, he's still, he's still super, super fresh.

And even later in a ground tour, it doesn't happen anymore. So, yeah. By the way, Luke who came to say, hello, Spencer. He's back. Bobby's back. Bobby's back. at the general request. Some people have heard him in the background.

But here he is. He's not that impressed with the Vuelta. He, uh, look, he's, yeah, he's, uh, yeah, he's not interested in the Vuelta, Spain. So, but anyways, he's here, as always. Bobby's there. The Valta Spania yet to go to Spain, kind of, you know, like even tomorrow we're not in Spain yet. We're not in Spain yet. That's true.

It's true. Yeah. Not in Spain yet. Yeah. I keep forgetting, I'm like, you know, because you look at the scorched landscape. You're like, oh, there it is, the Spanish landscape. It's like, wait, we're still in France. It's going on.

Do you think the, does being in France affect the racing? Is it more chaotic than when they get to Spain? No. It's the same. No, no, it's the same. It's the same. I mean, you know, unfortunately, it's the VALTA, you know, and hang on, Bobby. Unfortunately, you know, we don't see a huge crowd.

crowds yet. I mean, today, obviously, people wanted to shelter at the finish. But that's the difference. You know, even with the Giro, there's never huge crowds unless it's a weekend and a mountain top finish. That's a bit the struggle that there's still people on holiday. And then, yeah, most of the people are back to work. So it's difficult for the VWELTA to draw attention from the public. Yeah, I guess a lot of the places the stages would be like let's say in a normal velto where you're in cantabria like you're probably not getting a lot of local it's just not a lot of people live there right exactly it would have to be people coming in from somewhere else to watch it like what do you think about this

costa blanca stage though will there be a lot of spectators or no is that a cycling hotbed or just a place people happen to ride a lot no but you know in summer there's less cyclists you know that this is when the least cyclists are there like july august yeah End of September, it starts again. But there's going to be a lot of people. I mean, there's a lot of people. There's a lot of foreigners there who actually live there permanently. So I think there, there's going to be quite some spectators.

Okay. Like these stages like now in the, you know, like north of Spain, France, Hondora, there's never been people there. Never, never. It was deserted sometimes. You know, it was basically, you know, the people from the organization and a few family members. That was the crowd. Those were the crowds at the finish back in the days and it's still the same. It's always a little weird, too, and it's the Vuelta in Spain.

Italy was a little less weird, but like the, sorry, the Valta in France. It's like the tour of France just finished. And now there's another grand tour. It's like, you're doing this all again. And it does, it feels so much more muted. I thought Monaco actually was great. Like the crowd level was perfect. And then, yeah, as we've now gone to the more rural areas,

like, ooh, there's not a lot of people out here. We've got to get back to somewhere that they have people. Yeah. And Doors not very densely populated. Is that true or not? There's a lot of minutes per square meter. I guess it's very populated. But it's all concentrated into Andoralea, which is,

Andor, La Vea is the old town, La Vieja, La Vieja, is the old part of the town. So that's basically, that's Andorra. You know, all the other little towns around it, it's remote mountain towns. There's almost nobody there. Although it does change a lot in the winter. There's a lot of skiing going on in Andorra. Yeah. For example, Envalida, you'll see tomorrow.

That's a ski station, you know. I'm looking at the population of the start town, start, finish town, 22,000 people. But yeah, it is very dense because there's not a lot of flat lanes. Yeah, interesting. I'm excited for the race and we'll be back tomorrow to break it down. By the way, there are tomorrow in Andorra, there are 32 local riders, 32 riders who actually live in Andorra in this Peloton. Wow. And then so the total number would be around like one seven.

180. I don't know how many, but yeah, between Monaco and Andorra, I think half of the Peloton is a resident. Yeah, and it's, Indora's becoming more popular. I was talking to a world tour team who's moving their base to Andor really the Cote d'Azoor. And it's, I, it's very, a very attractive place to do business. Yeah. There's not a lot of red tape. The taxes are very low. But I think it's getting more popular because you can you can just live at altitude all it's a lot easier to do outstitute camps you know there's a far less logistics if you want to live at altitude you basically have to i think i'm i'm i can't confirm that i've seen somewhere that i think pitcock has a place on the top of invalida yeah which is and then 2 000400 meters that's interesting you know and i guess if you're

especially if you're a high earning rider you could have a separate place in gerona and so you could split your time if you have a family though like you could be living in and dora they could be going to school there and you're living at altitude i mean you live there though there's downsides there's no there's no well i lived i lived i lived there in 96 and 97 so one of the first guys it was different then you know i lived there uh occasionally so uh it's changed a lot um i think nowadays you have to be to be able to consider the an and dora resident you have to be there 160 days during the year. Basically, half of the year, you have to be there.

Yeah. So, so, yeah. And then I just found out, actually, last week, there is actually, there's flights into Andorra. Yeah, I didn't know that. You can fly from Madrid to Andorra, to La Seudurgel, which is a small,

I mean, with a, with a, Iberia flight for 100 euros. Huh. Yeah. I would bet, though, it's like Aspen. It's like, oh, yeah, the flight exist and then any weather moves in, you're not, that flight's not making it. High risk flight.

We'll see. Yeah. The success rate of that flight could be low. I am shocked that, you know, I live in Boulder, Colorado, at least part of the year. It used to be like the center of, especially like trathlon and running training because you can live high. It's not too high, but you're in a city. I'm shocked at the number of professional triathletes and runners, especially not Americans,

who do all of their training that they used to do in Boulder and Indora. Andorra's gotten incredibly popular. It seems like it's done a good job of capitalizing on its strengths and great facilities there. And I guess the finish we saw today was that the French version of that where they have a lot of training facilities. And if you can go there and you get a track and you can have. Yeah, but the finish we didn't see today. The finish we did not see today. Yeah.

We saw the buses ripping away from in an extremely high speed. Yeah. Well, Johan, we'll be back tomorrow. Thank you for joining us. And we'll see. what happens. Where Pogacar goes. We can't wait to see.

Thanks, bye.