THEMOVE - What is Going on With Maxim Van Gils? | THEMOVE+

Episode Date: November 21, 2024

Johan Bruyneel and Spencer Martin break down the situation surrounding Maxim van Gils rift with his Lotto-Dstny team, the legality of the young Belgian breaking his contract, and where he could be heading before answering a few listener questions.

I'm pretty sure that Herlo is not happy. He is not happy at all. It must be super frustrating because one thing is the money, but as a team manager, at the end of the day, you want to build a team to have success. And Longhills was perfect in that picture of getting success in the future. Everybody, welcome back to the Move Plus. I'm Spencer Martin. As always, I'm here with Johan Bernil. We are going through the big topics of the week, which is Maxine Van Hill's drama contract drama with his Lotto Destiny team. Johan has a few ideas about where he might be headed after breaking his recently renewed deal. Very strange situation. And then we'll get into a few reader questions. If you want your question read on the

show, email info at we do dot team with that question. And we will read it in the next few weeks. Yo, on, before we get going, you just got back from the big training camp. Um, we were in a big straw, like a Strava competition to see who could ride the most before the end of the year. And then you just absolutely crushed me. I guess there's a reason that you've won two or two front stages and a bunch of big races. And I haven't, um, you, you, you definitely humbled me. How was, how was the training camp? Now, when he got, you know, it was a little cycling trip with two friends. We went for four days to Altea, which is Calpe, you know, the Alicante region, where a lot of cyclists are living there. Van der Poel is living there.

Even the pool, Wal von Aert is currently training there. So we obviously saw a bunch of riders. It was good. I just got back like an hour ago. So we had to hurry, hurry, hurry to do this podcast. So it was really good. Weather's great. You know, the roads are fine.

Everybody's used to dealing with cyclists on the road. There's a lot of coffee shops, which are, you know, catered to cyclists. So it was great today, this morning, actually, I, uh, I run into, uh, by surprise run into Fabio Jacobson and, uh, wrote a bit with him. So that was, that was nice. Um, but yeah, all good. All good. Uh, I'm, I'm afraid Spencer, I mean, unless you pull something out of the bag, like last minute before new year, I'm, I'm afraid that I'm going to win the competition between us of, uh, most kilometers. Uh, but you know, listen, it's still, still a month and 10 days until, until the end of the year. So, um, we never know what happens.

I'm like, I'm like Vindigo, like 10 minutes down with a week left in the tour. I'm thinking about next year, 2025. How can I get a good start? And it also, I mean, I've been on the road. I'm in a replica of the hotel room. I was in the last time we recorded last week, but on a different continent. So that's not helping my mileage either. But Johan, you were talking days ago before it was public about rumors. You heard Maxine Van Hills. How old is he? He is 24 years old on lotto destiny. Um, I'm looking at his biggest results this year. I mean, actually crazy year. Third is Charlotte Bianchi seventh at Milanis and rainbow fourth at Liège

best on the age third at flush alone, um, wins Ashbourne Frankfurt, who doesn't remember that race. Um, but that, but that was a big win. And that is a world to a race fourth at, uh, who doesn't remember that race? But that was a big win. And that is a world tour race. Fourth at GP Montreal. So really talented young rider. What's weird about this is he just renewed. If you remember this, it was in the spring. He renewed with Lotto for more money, I have to assume, through 2026.

Then you're telling me a few days ago that he's, you know, rumored to be breaking his contract and leaving like relevant information is in between renewing his contract. And now apparently he signed with the new agency. I heard it was the same agent as Taddy Pagacar and Tyne Uterbrooks who left. If you remember, he left for last year to go to Visma. So clearly went to some sort of agency that has the skills to get riders out of contracts but right now all we know is it looks like he's leaving the lotto we don't know where he's going you have a lot of background on this what can you

tell us about it well first of all uh he's you know he's a Belgian rider riding for a Belgian team so that's that's the start of the whole thing and there's a law in Belgium it's a Belgian writer writing for a Belgian team. So that's the start of the whole thing. And there's a law in Belgium. It's a law. It's a very old. I mean, it's very old. It's from 1978 already, which is a law that says that you are there's a free transit of employees. Basically, you know, there's nobody who can hold you, force you to stay in your working place if you want to move on to somewhere else under the condition that you pay the remainder of your contract.

That's the start. So basically, in this case, we know that Maxim Van Gils did renew his contract at the beginning of this year for 2025 and 2026. So a better contract. Reportedly, I don't know which contract he was on, but this was before obviously he had all these good results. But I think it's 500 or 600,000 per year so let's say roughly a million or a million two which is not a bad contract but of course I think he

outperformed this year with results what he was negotiating in the spring and obviously these kind of negotiations it's a knife that cuts both ways, you kind of negotiations it's a it's a knife that cuts both ways right you kind of negotiate and you you want a multi-year deal wanting security and if you have a good agency you uh you make provisions in your contract saying okay you know

if there's bonuses attached to it and if i perform so and, then I have these kind of bonuses that are added to my value. Van Giels was with Wasserman. Wasserman bought an agency in Belgium. And so it's called Wasserman Management or Cycling Management. I don't know. It's a guy. The name is called Dries Smets. He has a lot of experience. He has a lot of relationships with teams. And from what I can understand, he is

pretty straightforward, quite fair for all the parties. So I know that there's several teams who like to do business with him because he is always correct. This is the thing. There's a lot of teams that like certain agents and then don't like other agents because they don't keep their word or they negotiate multi-year deals and straight after they shop around with other teams. This has been going on for a very long time.

When I was still a team manager, there were already some of those guys. And they're still around, by the way. So that's the start. Van Gils gets this new contract, is obviously happy to sign that contract. And from my information, one or two months ago, all of a sudden Lotto, the management of Lotto is contacted

by the new agent of Maxim Van Gils, Alex Carrera. If I'm the manager of Lotto, I would say, why the hell does this guy contact me? Let's say we just negotiated a new contract. So Carrera says, okay, from now on, you need to talk to me. But there's nothing to talk really,

because you just signed a new contract for two years. Now it turns out that Alex Carrera is also the agent of Tadej Pugačar, but also as you say, Kjan Uyttebroeks, who is now also known to have broken his contract with what was then Bora, now Red Bull Bora, to go to Wismar Lisebäck. Obviously, Bora was not happy with that situation. First, they said, well, he's with us and he's not going anywhere. Turned out that finally, he did exactly the same as Van Gielsen is now doing. So it's a bit ironic, I think, to see that you have Carrera first taking away Oitebrooks from an unhappy Bora against their will, and now takes away Van Giel's and brings a new rider to Bora. You know, there you see that it's pure business and the agents are there. Some are

liked, some are not liked, but the teams have to deal with them because ultimately those are the guys who are calling the shots. So the case of Van Gilds is, I think it's pretty straightforward, actually, if you look at it. I just, I read an article of a Belgian journalist

who does always a really, really good research, Jonas Kretter, for the magazine KNAK. And I just read the article, and he interviews a specialist in sports rights who explains it very well. He talks about the law of 1978, which makes these kinds of things possible. So in this case, if you look at the contract of Van Gils, let's say if it's five or 600,000, he can break his contract immediately, like today,

and needs to pay the remainder of his contract. So basically 25 months, like December and the next two months, that would come to a total of between 1 and 1.2 million. And that's obviously in the case that he gets a lot bigger contract somewhere else. I've done some rough calculations. In my opinion, I think that Carrera is probably estimating the value of a rather like Maxime Van Giel's 2 million a year. If he signs a new deal somewhere for 2 million a year, that's 4 million. So 1.2 million, subtract that, it's still 2.8 million.

So it's still a pretty good deal. In the case, he would have to pay his contract himself. Now, it's also possible that the new team will pay part of that contract. So that's the situation legally in Belgium, right? Then, of course, the next question is, well, what about the UCI UCI could they prevent this from happening because the UCI rules state specifically that in order for a rider to change teams

during the term of his contract there needs to be an agreement between the three parties the old team the new team and the to be an agreement between the three parties, the old team, the new team, and the rider. Obviously, this is not the case here. And the UCI rules stipulate that they can fine the rider. They can fine the team. They can try to prevent him from racing for three months or six months. Those are UCI rules.

Now, I can tell you already, this is not going to happen. They're not going to do anything because if it's about this kind of, like say, higher profile rider, and then we can go into, okay, which team could it be? They say Red Bull Bora. Some people say Eneos, and so obviously it must be a team with relatively deep pockets at this point of the year. But anyways, UCI won't do anything because most of the UCI regulations, if you test any of those regulations in a normal court of law, they're illegal, they can't do nothing.

The European law would straightaway say, well, you know, there is this free transit of employees. You would always lose, the UCI would always lose. Well, they could make life difficult for the rider and the team, but they will lose the case. So I don't think they want that. Then on the other hand, Lotto could also try to sue the new team. In any case, they will have to let the rider go

if the rider doesn't want to stay. And they will get the remaining amount of the contract that they had destined to fun hills which was you know over a million um and sporting wise it's not great it's not a great situation for the team financially uh it's it's a bit better. Let's not forget that Lotto Destiny this year is called Lotto next year because Destiny is pulling out. I've read somewhere that Destiny was responsible for about 5 to 6 million in the budget. That's not there next year. So obviously Lotto as a company would need to put up some money, not 6 million,

but maybe half of it. So, you know, the extra 1.2 million that they would get for Van Gilds would be welcome financially. So Lotto as a company is probably not too sad about the situation, but about the situation, but for the team, it's, it's, it's a big loss. I mean, it's one of their three big performers, performers. They have invested heavily in trying to renew the three young riders, which are Van Gilds and Van Eetveldt and the Lee. The whole team is built around those three guys.

And now in the month of November, getting this news that one of these guys has all of a sudden decided to leave. I can understand that they're the team management is super frustrated because there's no alternative. You can't say not sign nobody else to replace or to counter and compensate the loss, uh, on the sporting side. And, um, um, I found it, I found, I mean, I've been looking a little bit from,

from a distance in the last few weeks. And I, when I saw the news about Van Giels, I remembered, I saw Van Giels. He was on a trip on a visit to the Orbea factory, which has become the bike, the bike sponsor of, of Lotto and also a pretty important sponsor. I think their financial contribution is quite significant. And they had, uh,

one Hills present there. I would say two, three weeks ago, probably. And they were planning to do a whole marketing campaign with him about new bikes. And, um,

but there's nobody who can tell me that Van Gils didn't know three weeks ago that he was staying with Lotto. He already knew that he was not going to stay there. So he also went last week to the team gathering, actually. There was a team come together, the first one after the season, to plan for the new season. He sat down with all the team managers to talk about the plan. And then a few days later, the team gets a certified letter saying that

he has decided to break his contract immediately. So that's a bit strong. But I've also read in the article of Jonas Gritter that Lotto could sue the new team if they can prove something which is called third-party complicity. It's something like unfair recruitment, but they would need to prove specifically what the exact commercial and financial damage is to the team with the loss of Van Gielsen. To put a number on it, it's quite complicated,

and then it's still really unsure whether a judge would rule in their favor since they would have had already the compensation of the remainder of the contract. So I think they just have had already the compensation of the remainder of the contract. So I think they just have to sit and, and swallow it. Unfortunately it's you know, it's now we have seen out the books we've seen wrong. I would, I'd love to see, I mean, that's,

that's something that I actually don't know yet. If it's just the Belgian law. I know that the Belgian law of 1978 specifically states that there's a free transit of employees and that anybody can decide at any time to change employer if you compensate your employer with the remainder of your contract. Something tells me that European law would more or less go in the same direction. I've seen something in soccer. It goes into the same direction. It could be maybe a bit more complicated legally,

but the end result would be the same. So I think that this is, you know, we have these two cases now recently. We've had them in the past already um it's very old i had i had the same i had exactly the same situation in i don't know if it's 2001 or 2002 with tom bornen actually tom bornen was on my team as a new professional on obviously a very small salary new professional salary and uh exactly the same thing happened. Uh, after one year, he decided that he didn't want to stay. I could understand his reasoning, uh, but we have a

contract. And when I was presented with those facts that this law stated that he could leave, I just, I couldn't do anything. He just had to pay a small amount, which was the amount of the remainder of the contract, which was nothing. So, um, there's nothing, nothing you can do. And it could potentially be a sign that we go towards a situation where writers sign contracts, they have the right agents and these agents straight away start to if you have a young talent with a three-year contract you sign for it because you sign for that security but straight away you start shopping around to see if you have better deals and then you know you could always buy the contract uh even if you have signed a multi-year deal yeah because there are uci rules

as you said that protect teams against this it's all a bit theoretical because uci rules are always trumped by laws actual laws from countries sovereign countries that exist and are believe it or not more powerful than the uci and but all, is this a little, is this like a little, I don't, I think Hulot would disagree with me, but it's a little convenient for Lotto. So they re-sign them. And when you re-sign, when you give someone an extension like that, you're basically, it's an insurance policy because then if they want to buy out of their own contract, they have to pay more money to do so in the future. They're cruising to promotion. Like they don't need a lot of points in 2025.

They're going to be world tour in 2026. They have a budget shortfall. They're going to get a nice check from whoever is acquiring vent Hills. And it's going to let them invest in like new young writers for the 2026 season when they will need to start. Like they've essentially completed their cycle. The new cycle starts in 2026. They almost have an off year next year.

They, they have like that many points and they have so many young talented Belgians. They'll probably stay in. They have Arnold Dali as well. They'll still continue to accumulate points in 2025 with or without Van Hills. It's actually not a terrible situation for them. as well they'll still continue to accumulate points in 2025 with or without vin hills it's

actually not a terrible situation for them i guess it starts to seem a little dystopian as if you say like you can have a contract but you can always buy yourself out but i guess it it will just incentivize teams to lock people down like if you had signed tom boone into a million per year year a million euro per year deal before he left, you would have gotten a big check from, from quick step who signed them. So I guess it wouldn't, they wouldn't have paid for that.

They, they, they, they got born because one was on a salary of a new, of a new professional, which was super cheap. I think, I think your reasoning Spencer is a bit far fetched.

You know, if it's convenient for Hello and Lotto. Yes, there is the financial aspect, of course. But let's not forget that these are the three main young Belgian riders that they wanted to build the team on. Van Heels is 24. You've just stated all his results. Pretty impressive, actually, if you look at it.

So that's what they want to build around. How can you now find next year for 2026, a new Belgian talent of the same stature? It's going to be difficult. So yes, financially, it's not terrible, but I'm pretty sure that Herlo is not happy. He is not happy at all. It must be super frustrating because, you know,

one thing is the money, but as a team manager, at the end of the day, you want to build a team to have success. And Van Gils was perfect in that picture of getting success in the future. So I think it's above all also the disappointment in the human aspect, right? You sit down with the writer, you talk about the project, you try to motivate your team around these three guys. And then you sit down with them. And then two weeks later, you get the certified letter saying I'm leaving the team. I would not, I would not be happy if I'm going to go at all.

I could really understand if he's pissed off and frustrated. It's, it's well, you know, there's, there's the financial aspect. There's the sporting aspect and there's the personal and human aspect. And I think that sports and personal are

completely uh you know gone through the mud now yeah i yeah i guess though like one of the most important things about a rider is do they want to be on your team or not if they don't want to be there they might not perform that well and you see a lot of these riders that leave in this manner, like don't actually go on to perform better than when they forced their way off a team. Look, it's the clear example. It was,

you know, one, the tour de l'avenir, huge talent, when all these races had a very promising, uh, first year as a professional, uh,

then, you know, goes to his dream team because he absolutely wanted to go to Wismar because that was the other side of the hill where the grass was so green. It's not been

very green this year for him. Not saying that he doesn't have it in him, but he was better at Bora than he was at Wismar. Is Van Gilds going the same way? We don't know. Yeah, I mean, it's true, but, you know, I think he was super, super happy to sign that

new deal in the spring of 2024. He was super happy to sign it. He thought that was his value. And then again, you know, I cannot imagine that the new contract didn't have any provisions to compensate him for good results along the way. Knowing the guy who has negotiated the contract initially, that would have to have been in there. I think what happened is that finally you have this great season and then you come across somebody in this case, for example, Alex Carrera, who probably has told Valdez, hey, I think you are worth a lot more because all the managers know more or less in big

lines what these riders go for, what the value is of their contracts. And I've said, Hey, you're, you're, you're an idiot. If you saw, if you write for five or 600,000, you're worth 1.5 million. And then, you know, as a young rider, he said, Oh, you really? So, and he says, okay, well, I can fix that for you. That's probably what happened. It pretty appealing pitch. I have to say. Yes, it's true. It's true. But you know, I'm trying to see it and listen, let me tell you something I'm talking. I mean,

I've been a professional cyclist. I've been on moto in my young years and I have broken my contract with Lotto. I have broken my contract. I signed a new deal, but in those times it was different. I signed a new deal for two years and I negotiated a buyout clause. So Lotto signed me for two more years and there was a buyout clause. If I paid so much, then I could leave and I found a team who wanted to pay it. So it's not like I didn't rely on... Actually, if I would have known that law was already in place then, but probably not known yet back in those days. But

I mean, it's never fun. It's never fun. Listen, the rider looks for their own interests. In the case of Van Gils, if he's signing for 500 or 600, so he signs for 1.2 in total, and then all of a sudden he sees 3 million in front of him for the next two years, you would have to, you know, you'd have to be stupid to sit and not look into it. Right. But it's, it's, it's a dangerous precedent that we could see more and more. I think the big question is who is he worth 4 million euros to,

but before I ask you that it's, so if we just like agree the contracts mean nothing now in cycling is this open the door for a team to say well we just sign a giro d'italia winner to a big contract oh he just got injured and he's not the same rider anymore can they just cut him or no that's the thing spencer it only works one one way, which is not fair. Right. So it's always the same, you know, writers are getting their agents. They are pushing, pushing, pushing for three-year deals, four-year deals. And, and as soon as they start to perform, they're asking for raises,

but if they don't perform, they never asked for pay cuts themselves. Yeah. Yeah. You give someone the big extension. They don't perform. No one's offering to buy that out. You're stuck paying that. That's the thing. So anyway, that's the way the law is. And you have to deal with it, but it should be, it should work both ways. Right. Yeah. And the thing I worry most about is, you know, over, over on your side of the pond, everyone always talks about like, Oh,

soccer is the worst, you know, oh, soccer is the worst, football. That's the worst case scenario for cycling. But cycling is currently, it's the worst for small teams because at least for now, I heard there's like a court case going on that might disrupt the transfer market and football, soccer, whatever you want to call it.

But right now, like if you cultivate a young talent and sell them, you make a lot of money. It's like Dortmund in Germany. This is like their whole model. They, they cultivate these big talents. They sell them on, they get new ones in cycling. I, I worry that there's not even that structure and these small teams can really get picked apart by these big teams. I was just going to say, it'd be hilarious if he's going to UAE, you know, that would just like absolutely demoralize everyone. Like, but it could be, you know, it could be technically like UAE could come along and just say, Hey, you're good. Why don't you come ride for us? We'll triple your salary.

Like whatever, it doesn't mean anything to us like that. That's where I actually start to worry about this quite a bit. As great as it is to see these young riders making a lot of money yeah it's it it is i mean and you're right in cycling it's not the same because you know you have development teams and you can put certain clauses in those contracts with those development riders but i think legally it's very hard to enforce those if you have these kind of laws of labor law, basically, or, you know, working law, whatever you want to call it, employment law. So, but I think we're going towards the model of soccer that riders can be, you know, transferred from one team to another. And then, you know, you will have to look at, okay,

what if teams start to get together and they start to have their like parallel markets and starting to trade riders amongst each other, like, like it's happening in soccer right now. We kind of have a homebrewed version of it. I thought that one of the savviest moves of the year that no one talked about was Alberto Betty all when the EF let him go to Astana, I believe in August. But if you think about that,

they saved on what almost six months of salary that I'm sure is a substantial salary, but he generated. Plus for sure. Plus for sure that Astana had to pay quite a bit to get him too so you get a nice little kicker and you save on he didn't race that much from

August to December so you're like getting him off the books the points that he was planned to be getting for the team for Astana I think it was kind of one of those panic moves, you know, of Astana to try to, I mean, I think it looks, it looks, it looks not good for them to stay in the world tour.

A miracle would need to happen. And it's not going to be with Beto or with any other of those riders that they got on the team. Now they're not all of a sudden gonna start to perform and score that amount of points that they all of a sudden go from 25th place or something wherever they are now to uh to 17th or 18th place that's not gonna happen yeah no i thought that was like ef laughing all the way to the bank on that one but i think we we could see that codified and you actually can trade and transfer riders in the middle of the season but i what cycling lacks is there's no league you know like

if you're dortmund you're in the bundesliga and there's bundesliga rules and there's a structure cycling it's like a soup without a bowl you know it's just all over the place without a professional league that is harder to do but we're kind of seeing it happen it's it's it's concerning but on one hand but fascinating on the other just to kind of watch this play out i'm sure it's frustrating for these small teams and i do worry for them that like how so what happens to delete like it like so anyos they don't have a sprinter why don't they just stop they should just roll up to the Lee and say, hey, how much money do you want? You should come race for us next year.

I think the Lee is on a higher salary than Van Giel's. That's for starters. And he's obviously, I mean, for the moment, he doesn't have the same agent as Van Giel's and Houtenbroek's. So I don't think the Lee will move. He's's Belgian champion he's quite Belgian

centered also but yeah where do you think he's going to go Van Gilds that's the other question right who can afford him and who wants him and where is he going to end up I was going to ask you that question. I, I think one of the, the, you know,

I feel like people just say the same teams over and over again, when something like this happens, like, Oh, Remco is going to Red Bull. Van Hills is going to any O's, you know, they're just, you're repeating the same teams over and over again. Cause there's not that many teams that have the money. The problem. So any else has been a team that's mentioned. My issue with is they're full they have 30 riders in a contract not impossible as you said i think we did a show last year where you talked about you could buy riders out send them home send them to another to go pay for them to race for another team we looked at their roster

you know before we did this show it's not a lot of like obvious candidates there to do that for my biggest thing with any of us is not spending a lot of like obvious candidates there to do that for my biggest thing with Ineos is they're not spending a lot of money right now I don't see them especially with Pitcock they're paying Pitcock monthly I don't see them rolling up if they were afraid he's going to trigger bonuses at Lombardia are they going to pay Ben Hills three to four million euros to come over the thing about Lombardia I'm still not buying that story, Spencer, by the way, about Pitcock. But I think in EOS, yeah, it's like you said, they would need to move at least one rider away or to another team. That's doable.

Doesn't fit into the whole story of them wanting to cut costs and rebuild, right? And then, you know, we've heard about Red Bull Bora. That's a possibility. They have deep pockets. They have space on the team. I just checked. They have only 26 riders. It would be a great fit, I think, for a rider like Ron Hills.

I was just thinking now while we were speaking, what if, what if it's, uh, what if it's a stop? And didn't we say this last week about, you know, for some reason, we have heard that we've, I think we spoke about it that they're going to double the budget. That's not going to have a double budget. Uh, and let's say if it's 20 million, it's going to be 40. I don't know. I don't know if that's going to be straight away the case, but, uh, this new company, this, uh, this bike manufacturer or frame manufacturer company, uh,

is obviously a rider who can score a lot of points, uh, next year. Uh, not saying that if he's on Astana, he's going to happen, but, um, it could be one of those moves, right? Um, if I would be Von Gills, I would not take that deal, would not recommend that because it's not very, I don't know. I mean, I'm not even sure if he's going to get paid all that money. Even if you sign contracts there, I'm speaking from experience.

Yeah, I was going to say. Leave it at that. I don't know if we want to talk about that. We can do a few episodes on that. So Red Bull Bora makes most sense. Then, you know, who knows? Maybe next week we're going to say, hey, it's Ineos after all. Who knows?

Yeah. Or is that how it's not going to not be in lotto that's for sure the thing if you're on lotto and maybe this is easy for me to say because i'm not turning the money down i don't know if any else is an upgrade like a lot especially if you like if you took me to the lotto team bus after the tour and then took me to the inios team bus i would say much would rather be on lotto you know just the tour and then took me to the inios team bus i would say much would rather be on lotto you know just the inios they looked miserable it's like miserable you can feel the misery just like coming out of the bus seeping out of everywhere i don't know like i just am not

convinced that would be a move that he would want to do but yeah red bull bora i think i think the same spencer I think for, especially for a rider like Longhills, Lotto is a better environment for him than Ineos at this point, for sure. Yeah. And if let's say he goes to Ineos, you know, the results

I just listed off, that's not moving the needle for Ineos. A podium at Liège, that's big for Lotto. That's not what Ineos is looking for. They Liège, that's, that's big for Lotto. That's, that's not what Ineos is looking for. They're looking for home runs right now. I guess Red Bull board kind of makes sense. You know, they only have 26 riders in their contract,

but whoever is at that team is going to have to do a lot of work, you know, in a grand tour, maybe, maybe he would have freedom in, in the one days i'm trying to like their one day talents i don't think they would sign him for the for the tour you know they would not sign him with the purpose of going to the tour uh maybe he has a place in the tour team but it's the main purpose for ron hills is to win one day races and he's pretty good at that yeah i mean he's he's very good if that's what you want to do i mean i'm trying to think of who's the best one-day racer on red bull like hilly one-day racer is it like laurence

yeah he does i i don't know if he's doing that anymore though yeah it's kind of it seems like as he ages and i think this is smart He's like very targeted about what he does. Like he clearly wasn't the same one, one week Primo's as he was in previous years. So we saw Perry niece and things like that, but we're, we're, we're just guessing. Like we have no idea. And anyone that says they know doesn't know that that would be my words of wisdom in this situation. But the India, I think that any us, there's too many obstacles.

I just think that's too hard. I do think Astana, the only thing about Astana is if it's a two-year deal, he has to be okay with going back to the second division in 2026, because they are going to get relegated. I don't think there's any way they can really save that. Yes. Yes. But he's, he would be on the same level as Lotto this year. You know, if Stana gets relegated, they're going to be normally first or second in the second division.

So they will have automatic entries in all the big races where they want to race. So it doesn't change a lot in the program. Well, honest, Stana, moving on to the next topic, Mark Cavendish, been in the news recently. I know this is not not these are not like confirmed reports but cavendish the whole the whole thing about cavendish has been a little strange to me it feels like he's being purposely vague i don't think he's coming back to astana even though they

do suspiciously have a roster spot available i i saw a report that he's maybe going to any OS as some sort of, in some sort of front office role. I, I don't like, you have a personal relationship. So like we're tainted. We like, you shouldn't listen to us talk. Like we were going to say, Mark Cavendish would be fantastic in that role, even though I have questions about this, but let's just assume that that's true. He's going to any OS. Who is, who is he teaching how to sprint at that team?

Now that was the strangest thing about that report to me. Like, okay, like what sprinter is he helping there? Or is he just hanging out with his Garrett Thomas, just hiring him to like hang out with them? I think, I think that report is BS. I mean, I can't see it. Not saying that he wouldn't be a value to the team but I don't think

I don't think Mark Cavendish just wants to be in that situation right now I mean he's late 30s wants to spend time with the family doesn't want to be bothered that much makes no sense makes no sense

I mean those rumors about you know an open door at astana that's definitely not going to be the case unless there's all of a sudden a shitload of money coming from the chinese uh but would make no sense either so he's listen he's done his last race. He said he's retiring and not coming back as a cyclist. That's for sure. Having a management role on, I mean, he could be, he could be some kind of whatever consultant, external advisor, whatever. That could be the case. Although I still don't see that happening.

I think, I think right now also the way things are moving at the NAOS, it's extremely corporate. It's extremely, extremely planned and like really business moves. I don't think it would work for Cavendish. Yeah. You don't see many big stars. How many big stars like either become directors right after

they retire or go to be a some sort of special advisor you know that's you you kind of want the content or role like right like where you're on tv but you're at home a lot it seems a lot nicer yeah yeah um no i i i i think I mean, it comes from Italy. I think it's Beppe Conte, an Italian journalist who came with that rumor. We know there's always a lot of rumors that come in from Italy that turn out not to be true. It's their biggest export. Yeah. So I'm not buying it. I'm not buying it, Spencer. I can't see it happening. I can't either i would i would

look for some sort of tv situation but he's i don't know why he's being so do you see this like botas video where it's him and about three botas just being like what's next what's next what's next it was like he clearly wants us to think something's up um i don't think he's gonna work for a team i would i would look for some sort of television role. I mean, maybe, but I don't think in his first year of retirement, probably not.

I mean, he has, I don't know how many kids he has four or five kids. I don't remember now. Yeah. Like maybe five, you know, spend some time with them,

you know, that would be pretty bad. It's like, all right guys, I'm off. I'll be gone 300 days a year. Hope it works out well here. Hey, hon, I'm actually working more than I did last year. Is that okay? But let's get into two listener questions and then we will dip out for the week. The first one on another podcast, this is from alessio alessio on another podcast a

respected commentator maintained that the role of traditional domestique has changed a lot with traditional support riders now being less sought after due to a different style of racing and the fact that everyone is after uci points what's your take on that johan also bonus question what's your favorite cycling biography mine is charlie wigelius's domestique the role of pure domestiques from the past i i kind of agree that the role has changed before um like 10 15 20 years ago there were a lot more riders that were purely in a helper's role, but we're never talking, thinking about their own results and were purely dedicated to a leader. And usually their career was starting and ending with that same leader,

or they were hired to work for another leader, but always in that same role. There was a place for that. There was some really super, super good domestiques that were sought after and had a lot of value to teams. There's still some of those, but I can also see an evolution in towards what our listener reader says, that you start to expect some results from some of those guys, uh, in other races. Um, and also probably because there are a lot of really good riders who are

for specific occasions, ready to take that domestic role. Uh, and sometimes you can see that a rider who's a domestic who who's been a domestique for six seven years all of a sudden gets into a situation hey i don't have a team uh i have no points nobody wants me so i i think it's it's it's a trend from the teams that they want more results, but also riders start to know also, Hey, okay, I'll do this. I'll do all this work, but I have to make sure that I have a cushion. I have to have some personal results in case something happens. And all of a sudden in last instance, there's no room for me on the team. Another, so another team wants me. So I think that's,

that's the trend that's going on. Yeah. I mean, I picked this question for a reason for today, because what you're, what you're talking about with the domestiques, like think of the best domestiques you can remember from the season. Um, just what comes to mind for me is like, Joao Almeida and Niels Paul at the tour. The thing is like Niels Paulet got second at Amlub. The guy, he's an incredible rider.

He's won a Tour de France stage. And Joao Almeida won the Tour of Switzerland or is second at the Tour of Switzerland. He was fourth in the Tour de France, by the way. Yeah, fourth in the Tour. He's an incredible rider. One of the best GC riders in the world. And those guys are domestiques in certain situations.

So you have this, and it's what we talked about at the beginning of the world. And those guys are domestiques in certain situations. So you have this, and it's what we talked about at the beginning of the episode, everything is being sucked towards these big teams. So you have a situation where the domestiques on the best teams are better than the leaders on the mid to low level teams, which means if you're a domestique on a low level team, like you could really be having a hard time. And a lot of these domestiques on the best teams are scoring points on accident. Like just by existing at in the fitness levels,

they are, they're going to score a bunch of points. We should say though, I do think people don't mention this when they talk about the, the race for points, only 20 riders, the points only count for your top 20 riders. So you could have 10 riders that never score any points and it doesn't

penalize you at all. So there are riders you can, I'm thinking of some right now, but I don't want to say their names, but there's riders that are just not scoring points and they are career domestiques. It probably is harder for them now, because you know, if you, if you want to avoid relegation, you want to get riders that can score points. But I guess my zag would be, there will always be a market for someone who won't cause trouble and will just be a domestique. But with Van Hills, if he goes to Red Bull,

like he could be in certain situations working as a domestique. So that role has changed a lot where it's almost now like part-time stars work part-time as domestiques and they're the best domestiques when they do that. Yeah, that's true. I think UAE is a great example of that. Actually, they have, they have a very diverse composition of the team and, uh, they have some really, really good writers who are then the domestiques

for the uh the top leader but you know it's also a unique situation because they have the best rider in the world and so there's no discussion that whenever that guy is in on the team that everybody else needs to be at the service and a domestique. So yeah. Second part of the question, what was it again? Your favorite biography? I have none, Spencer. I have none because I haven't been reading cycling books. Definitely not been seeing any cycling documentaries or movies. So no, I can't, I can't make any recommendation because, uh, I haven't found anything that, um, I mean, I've, I've been told,

I've been told that the documentary about Mark Cavendish is actually very nice. I haven't seen it yet. Uh, so that's maybe one I would like to see because it's, it's an interesting story and but i haven't any recommendation i don't have any recommendation of a cycling biography i've heard the dumbest i didn't read it but charlie's book charlie realis's book is supposed to be good um i was watching also i don't know if it counts as a biography but daniel freebase book on yano rick the best there never was is very good would highly recommend it but that might maybe that is a biography it's

not an autobiography but i was watching the jan orick documentary this morning on a plane and you were in it johan in the first episode they interview you yeah it's like really surreal i was like why is why am i on a call with johan oh wait he's on he's in the movie we have one more question and then we will have to run um this is from chris would it help or hurt would it help or hurt cycling to do away with three-week grand tours reason this came up in my head pickcock i don't think he's a three-week grand tour type rider physically he could but in terms of mindset and what seems to be, he seems to be best at, it's not his thing. Totally fine. Everyone has their niche, but to not, but to not be considered as one of the greats because you're not winning three week races, is that fair? Um, and then they

go on to, there's a second half of the question, but I just wanted to get, I thought that was quite interesting. Um, mainly because I do think there should only be, I think there should be one three week grand tour and it should be the tour to France and the Giro and the Vuelta should be two weeks. I think the same thing, Spencer, um, three week tours is three week tours. It's a different way of racing. It's pure, uh, a race of attrition. Um, three weeks, not the same as two weeks. Um, you know, back in the days you had the tour of Switzerland, which was 10 days or

11 days sometimes. Um, but, but I think especially, uh, I'm not saying that the tour of Italy or the tour of Spain is not worth being three weeks. I'm just saying that in the actual way, the cycling now with such a full calendar, uh, that it would actually favor cycling to have the tour de France, the tour de France, whether we like it or not will, and it will always remain the most important and most iconic race. So let's give them three weeks.

Yeah. It's long. I think if it them three weeks. Yeah, it's long. I think if it's two weeks and the course is proper with the right amount of mountains and time trial, whether it's two weeks or three weeks, the winner would still be the same.

But I would definitely be in favor of having a three-week Tour de France and then two-week Giro, two-week Vuelta. It would also make it easier to combine several ground tours for riders. Yeah. Yeah. Um, and, uh, so yeah, I'm all for it. I'm all for it. Um, three weeks is long, man. It's super long. Uh, it could, you know,

shortening the ground tours could contribute to making the race more attractive, more dynamic, less boring. If you really want to cover a whole lot of terrain, two weeks would probably even bring more transfers. That's not good because you would always have to have an open point a to b so less stages means more transfers right but uh but i think in the end it would be beneficial if the tour de france is three weeks and the zero on the tour and the gira and the vuelta would be two weeks i'm i'm really in favor of that yeah i mean i i don't know if it would actually if a different type of rider would be better i'm trying to just i'm trying to go through a list of my head like you know maybe like adam yates is

someone that has won quite a few one-week races but i don't believe he's ever won a grand tour but i don't think that i think that's more of just coincidence that you know the form he was on at the 2023 tour if he's at a standard zero he wins the zero with that form like i don't yeah i think if you're good if you're a good stage racer you're usually just good at one to two to three weeks yeah now i think the winner would be the same if the course is right if there's the proper balance between time, trialing and mountain stages and some difficult stages, um, you know, we would have one less mountain stage for sure. Maybe only one time grossed out two time trials. And because you,

you have to have a bit of everything. I have to have some flat stages for the sprinters and some, some stages for the punchers or the breakaway guys. But I think the overall result is still the would still be the strongest guy who wins a dewey grace yeah and it's kind of an uncomfortable thing that no one wants to talk about but whether it be a grand tour one day it's all the same riders winning these if you look at monuments and grand tours you have a few ones you can swap out like matthew vanderpoel doesn't win

grand tours obviously he doesn't even really win stages at grand tours but that's more about i think he's made some sort of calculation that he wants to train through those he could if he wanted to obviously win a bunch of stages but it's tati pagachar primus roglic jonas vindigo rimco who can you know he got third at the tour he He can win one days when, when they suit them. It's really just the big difference between, is it a really hilly race or a flat race? And if it's flatter, it's either going to be Wout van Aert or Matthew Vanderpoel, or yes, for Philipson, if it's hillier, it's going to be Jonas Vindigo,

Taddy Pagaccio or Primoz Roglic or Remco Evenepoel. Like that's those are the two types of races that happen in professional cycling right now. So it's quite interesting to see, but I'm not sure that if you, you would get like a different assortment of winners if you mix the races up a bunch. No, I don't think so.

I don't think so. Well, that is, we have two more questions, but we'll kick that to our next episode which will probably be after thanksgiving we probably won't do one next week just because of the holiday but you guys you guys have the move as a show coming up next week so don't panic everyone well do you have anything else to add johan before we take off off? No, that's it for me, Spencer. All right. Well, thank you so much.

And we will talk soon. Okay. Bye. Bye.