THEMOVE - Tour de Suisse 2025 Breakdown | THEMOVE

Episode Date: June 23, 2025

Johan Bruyneel, George Hincapie, and Spencer Martin break down João Almeida's impressive Tour de Suisse victory, which saw him win three stages during a methodical comeback to take the overall title over Kévin Vauquelin and Oscar Onley. They discuss how the win could affect the balance of power at the upcoming Tour de France, as well as the announcement of George's new professional cycling team. Pique: For a limited time, get 20% off for life plus a free Starter Kit (rechargeable frother and glass beaker) when you grab the Pu'er Bundle. With Pique's 90-day money-back guarantee, you've got nothing to lose. Try it now at https://www.piquelife.com/themove and feel the difference on your next ride. NordVPN: Get your Exclusive NordVPN deal here → https://nordvpn.com/themove It’s risk-free with Nord’s 30-day money-back guarantee! Tushy: Over 2 million butts love TUSHY. Get 10% off Tushy with the code THEMOVE10 at https://hellotushy.com/THEMOVE Helix Sleep: Get 27% off all orders as part of Helix's Fourth of July Best of Web offer. Visit https://HelixSleep.com/TheMove and make sure you enter our show name after checkout so they know we sent you! OneSkin: OneSkin is the world's first skin longevity company, keeping your skin looking and acting younger for longer. Get started today with 15% off using code THEMOVE at https://oneskin.co

Young kid like that, obviously super talented, is on a smaller team, big fish in a smaller pond. You actually can excel in environments like that. So for him, I don't think it was necessarily a bad thing. He was able to have free cards to play in these races, win the stage at Tour de France, super successful in Tour de Switzerland. I don't see that as a negative being part of that team. I don't see that as a negative being part of that team. Everybody welcome back to the move. I'm Spencer Martin. I'm here with George Henkappy and Johan Brunel. We are breaking down the tour of Switzerland won by

Joao Alameda with Kevin Voelklon and second Oscar Anli in third. And we'll talk about the implications that has for the upcoming tour to France and we'll also get into George Hincapie's new team, announced today. But first, let's hear from our sponsors, and then we'll let George talk about his team and its goals for this coming season. Everybody, this episode is brought to you by Peak Poorties. As cyclists, we've all learned the hard way energy, endurance,

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But if you're feeling confident with your spelling, NordVPN.com slash The Move, check it out today. Check it out before the Tour de France. Fun to be honest, because you're going to want that VPN if you want to access anything but the American television version of the tour coverage. All right, let's get into the show. All right, George, before we get into the tour of Switzerland and the thrilling action that I'm sure everyone on the show and listening to the show watched line to line, let's, you wanna talk about the big announcement

that actually came out just earlier today about your pro team, second division level professional team for this coming season? Yeah, thanks for bringing it up. We're starting a team called Modern Adventure Pro Cycling Team. We want to sort of invigorate US cycling. We have so much top talent right now that are on teams scattered all over the world tour. My ultimate goal is to try to get them all back under one team and be America's dream team. I know it's going to take several years

to get there, but I finally have a long-term commitment and room to run way to grow this project. And it's based in, fully based in Europe, correct? Like service course in Girona. Yeah, we're gonna have a service course in Girona, but we are gonna try to tackle the gravel scene here as well because it's becoming more and more important for our equipment suppliers.

So we do wanna have a presence here in the U.S. Whatever that means, there obviously is not that many races in the U.S. But we'll be doing whatever the gravel racing scene is with a small portion of the team, like probably 15 and 20 percent of them. And then the rest will be focused on getting into as many races that we can in Europe and trying to grow the brand and the team that way. And what's what is Modern Adventure, George? Modern Adventure is a really high end boutique travel firm. They curate trips all over the

world, food and wine trips, and ultimately now cycling trips all over the world. And that's kind of what they focus on is travel and food and wine. I think it really resonates with our sport as well. As you know, we have a lot of travel enthusiasts, wine enthusiasts and food enthusiasts that are part of our world, so to speak. And I think it's a great partner to have. Good. Any, I mean, I don't know if you can say with any names that we would know that you have signed for the moment. We're close to signing LOIs with about 10 Americans right now. We'll be announcing those in the next few weeks. OK, OK. Exciting. Yeah, very exciting. Thank you.

Are you expanding that to North Americans, maybe Isaac del Toro on your list? Yeah, we are we are not limited to just Americans, but so obviously we need 20 rider. We have a 20 rider minimum. So we'll be signing people from all over the world, but we are quarter. So to speak is for at least 10 Americans. Okay. Well, they need it because I would, Quinn Simmons pose, pose this, uh, not really a question, he just said, it's great to win the note in the national champions Jersey after his stage three win at the tour of Switzerland, because

he said, it hasn't been done in a long time. I asked chat GPT that had point out, I think this is right. Taylor Finney winning in 2012 in the Giro d'Italia in the time trial, like in a prologue wearing the U S national champions Jersey. But according to chat GPT, I don't think this is true. They're saying it hadn't happened before Quinn Simmons, but the fact that we can't even really remember it shows that us cycling probably does need a leg up and it's good. You're starting an American focused team, George.

Thank you. I agree. Well onto the tour of Switzerland where American cycling was on full display. Um, you know, there was a day where there's a four rider break, three of the riders were American. So we are making some noise, but stage one, just to, I'll do like a quick 45 second recap of this race stage one, terrible weather, big breakaway Roman Gregor wins. Zsuala made a knot in the break. He's loses three and a half minutes by the time the race finishes.

So he's automatically down on riders like Ben O'Connor. Um, Kevin Bucklon, I believe was in that move. He gets the yellow Jersey and then he gets the yellow Jersey. Eventually stage two won by Vincenzo Albanese after Quinn Simmons launched a sprint a little bit too early, blew up the entire sprint. EF profited from that with Albanese winning stage three, Quinn Simmons. Oh, didn't, didn't get the win the day before. Not a problem.

I'll just get in the breakaway right off the front. Hold off everybody. Super impressive solo win from him. Stage four, Joao Alameda, another impressive solo win. The climb crested like 50K from the finish line. He just kind of, he didn't even really attack. He just rode everybody off his wheel, held him off, won the stage, gets closer in the GC.

Oscar Onley wins stage five with a sprint with Joao Alameda. Kind of suspicious looking sprint, but we've been assured that was not, there was no shenanigans stage six, Jordi Meyos wins in a bunch sprint stage seven, Joao Alameda wins on a mini summit finish. And then stage eight, Joao Alameda wins his third stage of the tour of Switzerland.

I believe the first rider since Peter Sagan to do that and takes the yellow Jersey on the final day, the last possible time to win the overall, which means he's won his last three stage races, the Basque country, a rum in D in tour Switzerland, doing, doing pretty well, running pretty hot going into the tour to France. But Johan, what was, what was your take on this race and how it affects the upcoming tour? Well, I mean, we've talked about it in the other podcast, Spencer on Friday, you know,

the fact that we didn't know yet that Joe Almeida was going to win. We had a suspicion. But the fact that he comes back from three minutes 30 after stage one, gets little bits of time back and then basically kills everybody in the time trial shows that he's on amazing form. You know, he had a team that could protect him. They were not, I mean, UAE was not dominant as a team, but they kind of always put him in a good position.

And whenever he decided to go for the stage when they could keep the break within control. So already that is definitely very impressive. Other than that, I mean, I don't think we should be surprised. I mean, Almeida was the heavy favorite, the only big favorite actually before the tour of Switzerland. The fact that, you know, they weren't paying attention in stage one made it more exciting,

but it's still the same winner. I think nobody would have thought that Kevin Voeckela would have been in that position until the time trial, not even himself. He said, you know, he didn't know where he was with his form. He didn't even think about top 10. He came there to get some rhythm for the tour. And he did amazing. You know, he got the yellow jersey of Romain Grégoire in the first hard stage and then

held on to it. And, you know, I think he was just unlucky to, to meet an extraordinarily strong Joel Maeda in that last time trial, because the time he took on everybody was, was incredible. But you know, the confirmation that Kevin Voquelin is still, you know, it's still a young rider. We, we saw him last year when a hard stage in the tour stage too, if I'm not mistaken. And yeah, this guy is a complete rider.

He can climb, he can time trial, he moves teams now. So as we all know, Arkea, Airbnb hotels, they don't have a sponsor for next year. So most likely that team is going to fold. He already of course was on the wish list of a lot of teams. And as far as if my affirmation is correct, he goes to Ineos. So I think this is a rider which definitely is developing into one of the big names of cycling for the future. And not only that, but I love his racing style.

I mean, in the yellow Jersey, I don't forget what stage it was, but does like an, a massive attack was 600 meters ago and essentially almost wins the stage. But for him to still have that aggression and that desire to win, even being in the yellow Jersey, where you should most likely be in a protective, you know, defensive role, I thought it was quite exciting to watch. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, we, and we talked about any of us. I'm not in love with that destination. I just feel like we've seen this movie before, but you, and why I'm confused. Why did he come back this year to our K of B and B hotels? Like, I mean, this is, maybe this is like as good as he would have done anyway, but he was, he was, he was on RK. I know, but he was on RK last year, did amazing. And then just like, could he not have jumped

to a bigger team already? Well, he obviously had a multi-year contract and he was probably, I mean, the biggest paid rider of the team after, what was it? Champoussin and there was, there's a few guys from RK who they let go. So I think they used that money to give them a raise and be the leader of the team.

A lot of people don't see, like, young kid like that, obviously super talented, is on a smaller team, big fish in a smaller pond. You actually can excel in environments like that. So for him, I don't think it was necessarily a bad thing. He was able to have free cards to play in these races, win the stage at Tour de France, super successful in Tour de Switzerland. I don't see that as a negative being part of that team for these last years.

Let's not forget also Spencer second in Fleche Wallona. Yeah. After after Pogacar. Yeah. And also he, I think he won, um, I don't remember the stage raise. If it was Bessage, it was the Bessage. If you won that every year, but yeah. Yeah. Well, it's one of these early season races in France. It's like a tradition. He's only 24 years old.

I feel like he's one of the last four years, but yeah, you're right, George. There's a lot of guys on Movistar currently, the Romeo, Romo, like doing well at that kind of level. Team Mateo Jorgensen as well did really well coming up like that. And then just quickly, let's touch on these guys before we go back to Ameda. Oscar Anli in third from Picnic Post-Donell.

I mean, kind of the interesting thing here is you have UA winning, biggest team in the sport, best team in the sport, second and third are, are KB and B hotels and then pick, which is a second division team, picnic posts and out, which is a first division team, but is doing incredibly poorly this year. So those are big results for them. Interesting to me that these days, these are two young writers like Oscar. Only is only 22 years old.

So that's a really good result. Third place for a 22 year old on picnic posts. And now. Yeah, but he's, you know, he's, he's a 22 years old. So that's a really good result. Third place for a 22 year old on Picnic Postonel. Yeah, but he's a good climber. He's been there for, I mean, last year already, he was quite often in the front. And now, I mean, and you can actually see, I mean, he's really young and you can see the way he, I mean, I don't know if it's his personality, if he's shy, but his interviews are incredibly careful.

He's not used to be, you know, in the, in the spotlight, but this guy, I mean, he's a really good climber and big talent. I mean, I'm a, I'm in the UK right now, like on the BBC morning news, they had like Oscar Onley's third place at Switzerland. So the spotlight is probably, it's probably a little uncomfortable for him, but is he staying at Picnic next year? Is he going to a bigger team? I haven't seen anything.

I haven't seen anything. So I think he's going to stay unless they get relegated. If they get relegated, then automatically he could get out of his contract and then and find another team. Yeah. And that's like a very fluid situation. Like currently they're not relegated. They've jumped ahead of Kofidis and then Uno X is also closing in on both of them. Then also if they get relegated and then they're in the top three second division

teams and they are safe and they don't have to worry about it. So yeah, we will know what happens, I guess, at the end of the season. But to go back to Ameta winning it personally big for very big for Joao Ameta, like before what? Bass country. It seemed like he was struggling to kind of close the deal on these one week stage races. Now he's winning them consistently three in a row. It's a huge deal. Three world tour races. That's really big.

It's kind of, I think we talked about on Friday, Johan, I think it's confirming his position as like maybe best of the rest behind Evan, a pole, vinegar, Pagachar, but also for UAE you mentioned on Friday, if your Visma watching this is thinking, Oh, we've got a pretty good team, pretty strong team. It's like, well, this guy's coming to the tour to work for Tadej Pagachar. And he's just won three consecutive stage races. I'd imagine that gives him a little bit of a boost internally. Well, let's not forget last year, he was questionably not working as much as we thought he should have been working in similar positions during the tour. So hopefully

that's changed. I would assume it has, but yeah. Well, I think, George, I think that, um, I think that he was there whenever he was needed, you know, he obviously got the permission of the team. Let's not forget he finished fourth in the Tour de France. So, uh, that's one of the things that I think has changed, you know, drastically in the last, in modern cycling is that you, you know, guys who actually can go for a GC when they're done with their job, they keep going. Which is something I still don't really fully understand because nobody can tell me that once you've done your job and you need to be doing it again the day after, if you take it easy for the last five, six K, that's just going

to be a massive advantage. So anyway, he was fourth in the tour and whenever Pogacar needed him, he was there. Pogacar was never isolated or alone. So I think, I mean, listen, let's see also, you know, it's not, I mean, last year he was also strong in Tour of Switzerland. I think he, I mean, he didn't win the Tour of Switzerland, but I think he was actually the strongest rider, especially in the second part of the Tour of Switzerland. Adam Yates won and he was second. But you know, it's not because you're flying in the Tour of Switzerland that you're at the same level in the Tour de France.

We've seen guys flying in Dauphiné and Tour of Switzerland and then not being on the top of their game in the Tour. I expect to be, Jawad made it to be really good though. But if you look at his season, you know, it's, he didn't take that many breaks. You know, if he started in Algarve, then he did Paris-Nice. No, Algarve, no, first Valencia, Algarve, Paris, Nice, and then Romandy, but Basque country, Romandy, Switzerland. It's a lot of races.

Yeah. You can't tell me he's going to go into the Tour de France, not hoping to better his performance of last year. I think, you know, wanting to be on a podium, which makes it a very interesting tactic. I don't, I don't get, I don't get that. I don't get that. He's definitely's definitely going to want to George is right. He's going to want to be on the podium.

You finished fourth and then, I mean, he probably, he probably could be. I mean, the thing is also, I mean, for you, this is, I mean, if you have a guy like Almeda, if you take away Bogacar and Jonas, he's a threat to win the tour, this guy. So whatever happens in the first part of the tour, if he's in the in groups, I mean, he's not, he's not famous to go into big groups and sneak away. It's rather the opposite. He's rather always caught on the back foot. You know, but, but you know, having a guy like him is definitely strategically

a big advantage because he's maybe the third or the fourth strongest rider in the world right now. Yeah, I mean, it, it can make for some really, really interesting fun tactics in the first 10 days of Tour de France is you have a guy like Simon Yates on Bisma, Duval Almeyde on UAE. I mean, they can play with, with those guys. And then all of a sudden you have the,

the top 10 teams that are not going to be able to let them go. So it will be a lot of action in those first 10 days of this work. George, here's a question. What would you do? So let's just imagine there's a scenario in just before the mountains. There's a stage which is difficult to control, you know, rolling terrain. Um, and there's a big group that goes and, uh,

Visma has Simon Yates in it and UAE has Jawah Mada in it. What would, what would both of those teams do? Will they put all their money on their guy? Let's say it's, the race gets out of control, right? And they take 10 minutes, which is, I mean, it's, it could happen. Yeah, that's, I'm not sure, but I do envision something like that potentially happen, like you said, but you know, the, the quick steps and the other teams are going to have to take over right away because that could potentially be their spot. So I think those other teams that are, you know, second, third, fourth, fifth place, sixth place scenario teams, they will have to work right away before, you know, UAE and BISMA

cancel each other out. But somebody else will step up. Yeah. Uh, Johan would, I would say if that was the case and George is right, people would chase it down. But if that was the case, I think UAE should feel confident in their ability. Like, okay, Almeida is now your leader and he's taking a bunch of time. Yeah.

But you know, I mean, listen, Simon Yates is a double Grand Tour winner, you know? Yeah. Let's not forget that. But this guy knows what it is to win a Grand Tour. The Tour de France is the only Grand Tour he didn't win. Hey, listen guys, Joao Almeida only knows winning. Okay. This guy is, and I've never said anything different,

but just to put this in context, this final TT, it doesn't look like much on paper. It was what, like a 10K long, it was almost 30 minutes, which is probably one of the longest I've ever felt. No, it was really hard, Spencer. It was really hard. So 9% average for the last 9.5K.. Jamala made a dozen, 26 minutes, 37 seconds, VAM almost 1900, 1896 VAM. If you assume 65 kilos roughly,

that's like 440 Watts at like 6.7, seven Watts per kilo. So that's pretty good. After eight, after eight days of racing and him be racing really aggressively Yeah, and last year at Swiss stage six He did put out seven watts per kilo for almost 20 minutes but if you remember that was a goofy stage where it was like a It was like a 40 kilometer stage or something where they had to cancel most of this. I remember. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah Yeah, so that's about as good as you're ever to get. So the fact that this was like a real 30 minute effort and that was 10 minutes shorter, there's

like a 30 minute effort at the end of eight days of racing, seven days of racing. That's, that's pretty good. But yeah, as you say, Simon Yates double grant tour winner. So nothing, nothing to scoff at before we move on to Quinn Simmons, someone sent in this question. I thought it was very good. It's from Corey and it's relevant to what we're talking about. If you're the manager of Visma, this is at the tour and you've decided podium and stage wins don't matter at all. It's first place or nothing. Your only goal is to beat Taddei.

What would your strategy be? George, you want to go first? Sure. I mean, the team has got to go all in for his first place top step on the podium. What does that mean? That means they have to risk losing second and third pretty much every day and making UAE do all the work at all times, sending their guys in breakaways to make UAE even work harder. I mean, those are really the only options is they

have to, they can't race to protect second or third. They have to be willing to risk it all and lose top 10 for that matter in order to win the race. Yeah. Yeah. And they have to, you know, they'd have to be really very attentive in, you know, in the first half of the tour and play with Simon Yates and Matteo Jorgensen. Those are the two guys they need to send in breaks and groups and then hope. And also, I mean, that's one thing you can hope, you can think, okay, we're gonna let UAE do all the work. But as we all know, George, in the tour,

you always find allies for whatever reason it is. You know, the tour is so important. There's so many parallel classifications or, you know, you always find allies. So it's hard to be in, you know, in UAE position that they're gonna be all alone. It usually never happens. There's always some help.

10 days before they get into the real mountains, they're starting in Lille, France, you know, small roads exposed at times. We've seen what happened during Roubaix or the stages that went through Roubaix that could be echelon. So a team like Guzma is going to have to look for every opportunity they can from day one because they have such a long way to get to the mountains. And it's a Tour de France. I mean, anything can happen. There could be a 10-rider split on the first stage

with somebody not paying attention and they're gone. Yeah, but also, George, you know, it's it's it's a it's a knife that cuts both ways. You know, I mean, if you if you you have to pay attention, I mean, with all respect for Jonas, but, you know, he's not the best maneuver, the guy to maneuver within the bunch. And so if you, usually when you, when you put the herd on the Peloton and in those kinds of stages with crosswind or stuff, you, you can, you can have a split, but you have to pay attention that your main guy is there. Right.

I have two things for that. One, you saw how good he was in the first stage of Dauphiné relatively flat stage. Yeah. Punchy climbs. He was the guy that ultimately made that split. So it makes me very optimistic of his flat rolling power right now. Number two, Wout Van Aert. I mean, the best guy in the world in the wind, in short punchy hills. They got to use to go all in to use him. And you'll be guaranteed stuck to his wheel in those first 10 days and you never know. Maybe they can make a difference and find a place to, uh, you know, gain some time.

It's going to be interesting to see Jonas, you know, he's so tiny seeing him behind, but the behind of an art, a Feeney and Matteo Jorgensen. That's like a wall. That's like a wall in front of you. You know, Jorgensen is well, Van Arte's good classics writer. And to Jorgensen is one of the best classics riders in the world. You kind of forget about it. So you got two pretty good classics riders on your team.

And Afini. And Afini. And Afini. You could just be a one man team. Tispenot as well. Tispenot, Victor Campenaerts. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, this is where they have to, I wouldn't be surprised.

You know, they try to make a huge split in the crosswinds. Obviously they're going to be expecting it, but guys like that, you got to use them, use their strengths in those first 10 days of the tour. Yeah. The thing is also George, you know, I mean, nowadays there are no surprises anymore. You know, they all know the course. I mean. With today's technology, every single detail is available. They have plenty of scouts out front, plus they have VeloViewer and whatever else platform application to see. Basically, they have virtual reality in the car. It's difficult for somebody, I mean, to surprise somebody,

which also brings me to another point. I mean, if we're talking about the Tour de France, you know, we're getting a bit off topic from the Tour of Switzerland, but this year's Tour de France, the first 10 days, man, that's gonna be hell. Because, you know, there's so many different factors and with the stress that, okay, we have to be in front, we have to be in front.

It's always the same thing. And at the tour, there's the added pressure of, you know, okay, this is the most important race. That's a bit my fear that in the first part of the tour, we can lose one or several favorites due to crashes and we're going to lose some. Yeah, I agree. It's going to happen. Especially with how strong the sprinter teams are now, the amount of work they're

going to do, the amount of work and the risks they're going to take to win stages. The, it unfortunately can mean collateral damage to some of these GC guys as well. We all know in the first 10 days of the tour to France. Should, should pretty much just drop out now? Go to the Vuelta? I don't know. I still like Primos. I'm hoping he's at his best and maybe

get through the Tour unscathed. You know, maybe it's the one opportunity now that he doesn't start as the favorite. Nobody's talking about Primos. Nobody expected him to be on the podium. We're always talking about other guys. Nobody's talking about Primos. No pressure.

If he can sail through the first week undamaged, let's not forget about him. He's a strong rider. I mean, it's not inconceivable. He's a strong rider. Yeah. I mean, it's not inconceivable. I mean, this first 10 days is nuts. It's not crazy to think that, not evinible, Pogacar and Vinogarde suffer misfortune and Primos makes it through.

It is a little luck based for my taste this first 10 days. But to answer the question, yeah, like you could imagine Pogacar racking up actually a nice lead in the first 10 days because he's more of a puncher But if your Visma you look for a way to maybe turn that on its head and have him on the back foot in the crosswinds Get some time. I mean it happened right in 2020. He lost some time in the crosswinds Like he doesn't lose time at some point. Maybe that was because of a puncture Spencer Hope that happens again.

We're talking about the best guy in the world. We're just, you gotta like five things have to go your way to try to meet them. I mean, the time trial, Jonas, he can take time in the time trials. You would look at the time trials. And then also I would say UAE's, how they manage the beginning of stages,

I would probably zero in on that. Like they often are very poor with even accounting for who's in the move. Like when Jay Henley got in that move in 2023 and it got out of hand too quickly, like something like that you might want to take a look at. But long story short, not going to be easy at all. Speaking of not easy, what first we should we should pause for to hear from our sponsors, and then we'll get George's thoughts on Quinn Simmons at the Tour of Switzerland and what his future should be as technically

the best American rider because he's the national champion. Everybody this episode is brought to you by TUSHY. What if I told you the most luxurious seat in your house? To listen to this podcast might actually be your toilet. Well I've been using the TUSy Cloud Plus bidet and it's completely changed the game. Installation took me less than 10 minutes, no plumber, no drama, and I can't do anything around the house.

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Like physically, and then it was important for him emotionally because it was nearly the two year anniversary of Geno Maeder's death, not exactly on the dot, but he was quite emotional about it. But Quinn Simmons, I mean, he proves, I mean, Johan pulled out a number that he averaged 430 Watts for the last 36 minutes of that stage. And that was not uphill the whole time. That's super impressive for rolling terrain.

It's not clear that he's going to the tour even. And like just seems like little Trek can, it seems like it's kind of a good fit for him. Like he's performing well when he gets chances, but he's just like struggling for big chances on the biggest stage. Like what other than going to your team, like what would you suggest for Simmons's future? Well, that's funny. I actually sent him a text jokingly.

I'm coming after you in three years. He's like, all right, bring it on. But no, I'm a huge fan of Quinn. I, in fact, you know, he was, a lot of people don't understand how hard it was to get, to recover from essentially watching the death of genome data. They were descending down the mountain together and he made the corner and the other one didn't and didn't survive. So I mean, as a young kid, imagine how mentally difficult that would be to get past that.

He came to Greenville to train before nationals, kind of unaware of what his next steps were going to be. I mean, it was a very traumatic experience for him. So I'm super proud to see how well he's bounced back. And I mean, the power this kid produces is insane. He's been doing it for a long time. And yeah, just like you said, the numbers he did in that stage in Tour Switzerland

were incredible. The day before the essentially lead out he did with 600 meters to go, I mean, they almost couldn't even go around them in a pro tour stage like that. Did you be able to produce those kinds of watts in a sprint finish? And then again, in a long, long breakaway. Very, very impressive. So hopefully we can see that the Tour de France.

But like you said, it's not confirmed yet. Now I would take him to the tour, man. I mean, he's you know, he can First of all, he can win a stage. Plus, he can do anything. They have Skjell Mose on the team, right? So, Quinn Simmons, with that power to put him in front of Skjell Mose and drop him off at the crucial moments in the first half of the tour, that's a guy. I would take him for sure.

He has proven already that he is a good teammate when he has a job to do. Schkomo's a two-wheeler, we talk about him being sick. He just won a race yesterday too. I mean, there was some rinky-dink race in Andorra, but really hard course and good riders, like Inric Maas. He's been on a mountainous course. So yeah, and I mean, you would go back to Wiesma at the Giro. They showed you can do both. You can have a rider for stages.

That rider can then help your GC rider. I mean, I would take them. I actually don't, I don't understand why he's not in the classic squad. Maybe he just doesn't quite fit in with. I think that's probably, it was another, I think that was a personal choice in my opinion. That's like the first year he raised, they put him to the, you know, the Flanders types of classes, second year, I think he was injured or not really quite there. But I mean, he, he's a young kid. He's got plenty of time to figure out exactly which ones he likes, but he can go up those short steep climbs like nobody's business.

We saw it at the world championships as well. I mean, first race he did in a while and he was just top 10 with ton of power. Um, very, very, he was the guy to follow a Boca. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Probably could have, I, I think that's good that he did that probably could have gotten a better result had he not, cause he's the only one crazy enough to follow up. We got you eventually.

I think that does probably make you better. There's some writers that I think like, maybe you just try to follow and see what happens. So that's good that he's doing that. Before we take off, I mean, we should mention Jordy Meyers because he won a stage at this race on stage six. He was the best sprinter at a non-sprinter friendly race. But did you guys watch Tour of Belgium? I mean, the last stage, Tim Merlier, holy smokes.

He makes yes for Phillipson. And we say this every year, Tour of Belgium. Like it's not the Tour of France, but he always makes Phillipson look, for the lack say this every year, Tour of Belgium. Like it's not the Tour of France, but he always makes Phillipson look, for the lack of a better word, kind of slow. And I think like, this is the year of Merlier. And then Phillipson is just the best Tour de France sprinter in the world at the moment.

Yeah, but Merlier, man, Merlier right now, he is like, when he gets a free road, it's crazy. I mean, stage two, he didn't win because he was boxed in, but every time he got the room to sprint, there was, there was nobody even close. You're right. You know, Phillipson, when the tour gets there, he's, he's on point. He's on point. Plus he has a great team. He has Matthew Vanderpool to lead him out. And Merier is, I mean, the two sprints he had, he won here. I mean, he lost his train, just, you know, looked after himself and okay, it's the Tour of Belgium. It's not the Tour

of France, but the difference with which he wins those sprints is crazy. It's 10th win of the season, by the way. Yeah. 10 victories already. Yeah. And like you said, Philipsen will have a much more dedicated team to his sprint sprints where Malir will have to sort of sell on his own because half the team will be there for Remco. Yeah. And like you mentioned, Spencer, Jody Muse won the stage in Switzerland and then went on to win the new pro tour race in Copenhagen. So yeah, he's clearly on form. It's matching up, making up for a good sprint, get some good sprints battles in the first couple stages of the tour.

How's that allowed you on? Yeah, they gave him, they gave him, they gave him the permission. You have to have the permission of the race where you were in, which you abandoned. And so tour Switzerland gave him the permission to, to start in, in Copenhagen. Yeah, yeah. That makes sense because why would he stick around and do a 30 minute time trial uphill? I do think Jordy Maez, don't sleep on him for the tour. He's a very good sprinter. Obviously, he's one of the Champs-Elysees before, biggest sprint in cycling probably. But so Tim

earlier, you think like unbeatable, right? Really strange grand tour career. Like, do you know how many grand tour wins he has since Mads Pedersen won his first grand tour stage? Two? In 20, he's three. So he won three stages in 2024. The craziest stat is that's the only grand tour he's done since 2022. But he won a stage in the Tour de France also. That was, that was now five years ago. Okay. Which is wild to think about. But he just hasn't been on the start line of many grand tours in the last three years. So I think, I think it shows also the fate that Sudar Kvickstap has in him. You know, the fact to put him on the team where, you know, where Remco was third in the tour last year, the leader of the team, you know,

putting a sprinter in the team, obviously, you know, diminishes the, the strength of the team overall, because it's not just going to be Merlier, he's going to have his lead out guy also with him. And of course, you know, then this lead out guy will also be be able to do work on the flats when when the tour advances, but and even Merlier, I think Merlier is I think, you know, he's a good enough teammate to also, you know, the stages where good enough teammate to also, you know,

the stages where he doesn't have a chance, he will do something, but you know, then you have to consider a sprinter. They actually need to save all their energy and in the stages that don't suit them to be able to have their full potential in the stages that a sprint is possible. Okay, he'll got plenty of time in the mountains to pedal along at 350 Watts for six

hours, nice little recovery pace. Before we go, did you guys both, I mean, Johan famously, famously raced the tour of Switzerland with great success, multiple stage wins, meeting Sean Kelly and one of them very impressive. That's a long time ago. But George, have you done the tour of Switzerland? Yeah, I did it a couple of them. Very impressive. That's a long time ago. But George, have you done the tour of Switzerland? Yeah, I did it a couple of times. A couple of times with Lance, a couple of times on my own. But yeah, I'll be at it as many times as I did the Dauphiné.

Did you guys... I have another stat, which is unthinkable. I actually won a stage in Tour of Switzerland. No, no, that was Dauphiné, sorry. Nevermind. Scratch that. One year, my last year Pro, I did Dauphiné, Tour de Swiss, Tour de France. That's insane. That's like a scheduling error or something. Did you have to drop out of the Dauphiné? No, I finished the Dauphiné and I was completely dead in tour de

Switzerland. Had to abandon the tour de Switzerland on the last day. And I mean, imagine Dauphiné tour of Switzerland, back to back. And yeah, tour de France was shit. So, well, yeah, I actually, this was your last, those were your last races, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I didn't race anymore after that. You had a yandere fill. I actually, this was your last, those were your last races, right? Yeah. Yeah. And then I didn't race anymore after that. You had it. You had your fill.

I said, okay, that's it. But how do you guys as riders rate it to the Dauphiné? Like, is it nicer to do? Is it not as nice to do? I think I always found it a nice race. You know, the roads are great. Uh, the only thing that sometimes, I mean, this year not, but except the first stage one, but normally you have always one, one or two stages where the weather can

still be a factor. Uh, but I think it's a great, it's a great organized race. Um, always nice hotels. Um, it's great for the speed. I mean, I don't know what it is with the Swiss roads, but you know, the, the, the climbing speed you get in a tour of Switzerland, you don't get that anywhere else. Yeah.

I don't know. Speed too. I remember I think I hit the fastest ever gone on a bike was like 112 K an hour in Switzerland and you don't get that anywhere else. Cause the roads are so good. Like Johan said, um, very, very nice roads there and great hotels. Yeah. It almost, it's almost like the roads are too good.

As a spectator, it's like, I might be my least favorite world tour race of the year. No tour of Guangxi is my, this is my second least favorite where you're like, okay, yeah, it's all pretty. It's all very nice. And it's just, I don't know, maybe it's a me thing, but the climbs are like, they're all so well engineered that, I mean, it's a me thing, but the climbs are like, they're all so well engineered that I mean, it's a perfect race for Zola Mehta. Like he just made it look easy going up these things.

All right, well guys, do you have anything else to add? We're gonna take a little sabbatical actually. The last time we, next time we will do a show, Johan and I will do outcomes the week of the tour debut, and then we'll all be together in Aspen. So we'll be away for a little bit getting ready for it. And let's not forget this year, you guys do the move, George and Lance and Bradley,

and straight after every day, Bradley and I are doing a separate show where we're gonna talk serious cycling business. It's gonna be good. Yeah, very, very exciting. So we will be back. It will become sooner than we think, but thanks guys for joining and I'll see you soon. Thank you.

All right. Thanks guys. Thanks guys. Bye. Thank you.