THEMOVE - Why Did Ineos Sign Caleb Ewan? | THEMOVE+

Episode Date: January 24, 2025

Johan Bruyneel and Spencer Martin break down the racing action from the opening stages of the Tour Down Under, dive into Ineos' surprise signing of Caleb Ewan, and debate if it is a good idea for the embattled team before getting into a few listener-submitted questions.   Zwift: Zwift just released Zwift Ride, an all-new smart bike that is changing the indoor game and making it easier and more affordable than ever before at only $1,299.99 to get started riding indoors. https://www.zwift.com/events/tag/wedu And join WEDU for our rides on Zwift. WEDU Wednesday is our casual, no drop ride and SUFFER Sunday for those wanting to push the limits. https://www.zwift.com/events/tag/wedu Maui Nui: Maui Nui offers the only 100% Wild-Harvested meat that's completely stress-free and responsibly sourced. It's perfect for anyone looking to elevate their meals with delicious, high-quality protein. Maui Nui Venison is offering THEMOVE+ listeners a limited collection of our favorite cuts and products. But...supply is limited by the nature of their work, so don't wait. Check them out. https://mauinuivenison.com/lp/MOVEPLUS?utm_medium=podcast&utm_source=show_notes&utm_campaign=MOVEPLUS&utm_term=MOVEPLUS&utm_content=landingpage Hims: Start your free online visit today at https://hims.com/themove for your personalized hair loss treatment options. Results vary. Based on studies of topical and oral minoxidil and finasteride. Prescription products require an online consultation with a healthcare provider who will determine if a prescription is appropriate. 

With the information I have about Caleb Ewing from his time at Lotto and, you know, talking with some people in the Peloton, I'm not a fan. I'm not a fan of Caleb Ewing. I think his best days are behind. Hey everybody, welcome back to The Move Plus. I'm Spencer Martin. I'm here with Johan Bernil. This is our weekly show where we go through a few items, news items of the week. We'll cover a little bit of the tour down under if you want them read email info at we do dot team and we will get to them as quickly as we can. But Johan, before we get into the news, let's talk about our title sponsor for the week. Swift Swift just released their Swift ride and all new smart bike that is changing the indoor game and making it easier and more affordable than ever to get started riding indoors. I think you all know that our colleague,

Mr. Lance Armstrong is not a fan of riding indoors. He would never do it until he got his Zwift ride. And now he's on there. He's maybe fallen off the Wednesday. We do Wednesdays and the suffer Sundays, but he has been known to do it. Keep checking them out. You never know who's going to show up on those. I think we had Matthew Vanderpool's dad on one recently, Johan and Johan

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out now and again join us on our we do Wednesdays. That's Wednesday morning, U.S. time, evening Europe time. They bill it as a casual no-drop ride, but it gets hot. It's about an hour long. And then Suffer Sundays, which are the longer two-and-a-half to three-hour Sufferfest over three climbs in the Zwift universe. If you really want to get in shape, that is a good place to start. But Johan, we're back to racing, which is crazy. The world tour season 2025 has started with the tour down under. I think the script writers, they copy and paste it a bit from last year.

We had Sam Wells for starting off hot one stages, one and two really convincingly. And those sprints on stage two, he crashed, looked terrible, beat up, had to chase back on, still wins the sprint with showing everyone a clean pair of wheels. I think he won stages one, three, and four to start the race off last year. So it was a little bit of deja vu there. And then Javier Romo on Mobestar, who you talked about on our show Outcomes, I believe at the Tour de France this year, you picked him as a wild card to win one of the breakaway stages. He just started riding racing bikes recently, was a triathlete until after COVID, but he won stage three with a really good late attack. Now he's the overall leader. stage four which happened last night us this morning europe time was won by brian kakard who

actually won a stage at this race two years ago in 2023 fun fact about brian kakard i think he has like 53 pro wins only three world tour wins all three of those have come since he won that stage at the tour non-under in 2023 but jan, what is your take on this race so far and what are you reading into it? Yeah, well, as you said, you know, the beginning was obviously Sam Welsford Festival. He also won the prologue to the Tour Down Under, the crit. It's not an official race, but anyway,

it's three victories already for him. So that was not a surprise. They had a great uh, I mean, anyway, it's three victories already for him. Um, so that was not a surprise. Um, they had a great team, you know, great lead out team also, um, the stage win by Javier Romo, however, was, was, was amazing. Uh, I watched that final. And, um, as you say, you know, this guy, uh, started racing, uh, just during COVID or after COVID. I think, if I'm not mistaken, I think his first race ever on the road,

a road race, was the Spanish Championships Under-23. And he won that. I mean, the level in Spain in Under-23 category is pretty high. So he won his first ever road race. Then went to Astana. And last year he was already on Movistar

did the Tour de France. Huge potential. You know, we'll see if he can hold that lead. And, you know, it's, what's it called? Willunga? Willunga the climb? Yeah, Willunga Hill, mate. That's tonight, I guess, stage five.

We don't know what the time and space continuum is. It's weird when they go down under. But yeah, it's the next stage that's going to happen. Yeah. So it's going to come down to the bonifications, I think. Him being the favorite now and the leader, it's probably going to make it a bit more difficult for him to win. I think the big favorite for the overall is Jonathan Narvaez.

He's four seconds down. He can take bonifications. He's in great shape. Luc Plapp is still there also. And then let's not forget, one rider I really was, I mean, I like to see him there in stage three, I guess. Yeah, stage three was the young 18-year-old Albert Witkin Philipson. You know, the guy who everybody talks about. We'll talk about him in our next Up and Comer show also. Multiple world champion over different disciplines. I think cyclocross, road, I don't know mountain bike, So multiple world champion over different disciplines. I think cyclocross, road, I don't know mountain bike, but he was probably last year also going to win the juniors.

Was it the juniors? Yeah, the juniors world championships. He was in the front. He crashed and then he didn't win, but, huge talent. I've heard, you know, he has,

uh, performances of, you know, between 6.8 and seven watts per kilo. Multiple times. He's done that over a long period. I don't know how long, if it's,

you know, 15 minutes, 20 minutes. I don't know. But anyway, uh, obviously a big, a big talent.

Um, and to see him up there with the big guys already, the first big appointment, I would say, the first time there's an uphill in a race, in his first race, you know, at 18 years old, that's pretty incredible. And then, you know, today, Brian Cocar, or was it yesterday? Yeah, we have no idea. The last stage to occur. Here it was early in the morning. Brian Cocard, great win for him. Second stage win in the two-run under.

And as you say, 50-something races, 50-something wins already. And for him to start off the season like this and for Cofidis, I think it's uh it's it's important um i i saw his interview after the race and he was he was super super happy and um yeah i mean i think it's a rider who has who is a bit unknown to the big public a bit undervalued but you know each time there's a sprint and it's slightly uphill today was not the case but uh he's always one of the candidates to win. So great to see him take the victory today.

Yeah, he's an interesting rider. He's someone, I mean, he's won a lot. 53 pro wins in his career, 32 years old. I kind of wrote him off as, you know, not like a, not like camp champ, but someone who won a lot at smaller races and then would be hyped up at world tour races as an outsider and then could never actually convert it but it's almost like you know he's on this team like let's be honest that's not like the highest quality and also if you look at some sport if you see today spencer if you look if you look at the

sprint from the helicopter he he was by himself. Like the last day, he had nobody. He found his way and he started the sprint quite early and kept it to the finish. So yeah, he must be in great shape. He seems like he's getting better. If you remember back, I feel like big turning point for him. 2022 Vuelta a España, stage 13. He very nearly wins the stage uphill sprint is beat by

Mads Pedersen you're like oh that was maybe his chance to win a world tour world tour race shows up next year tour under wins a stage wins a stage a tour of Switzerland last year now he appears to still be on that form so someone to watch as we get into like b and c level sprint finishes and tours this year um i am quite curious it's funny talking about the gc because it will be settled in i guess like 12 hours so we don't want to talk about it too much but so roma has four seconds on nervias patrick conrad who's now at little trek 10 seconds back it's interesting it'll comeback for him. He's had a tough few years, I believe, at Red Bull or Bora, whatever it was called when he was on it. And then here's another interesting one.

Finn Fisher Black, 10 seconds back as well. Now on Red Bull Bora, out of UAE, has a little bit more freedom. Someone interesting to watch, Magnus Sheffield from Ineos, 15 seconds back. And then a writer i've frankly never heard of bastian truncheon yeah he's pretty good yeah 12 12 seconds back and fifth um yeah and then you have jay vine 15 seconds back um albert phillipson 15 seconds back pretty interesting little gc cluster we have there i do think it's going to come down to bonus seconds we're not doing outcomes but if I had to pick a winner,

I think this is Narvaez's revenge. I think he wins this. He's been so good at picking up these. You know, all the other guys like Jay Vine and Luke Platt, they have to attack and win with a gap. You know, because the bonification will not be enough.

Narvaez doesn't need a gap, but he needs to stay in front of romo and take the bonifications but uh um so see interesting um observation i had also about stage three spencer was that um there was a very select group you know all the strong riders and there was five riders of little track in that uh. Five. I mean, I think the teams are seven, right? Yeah, everyone

from their team, basically. I think there was some confusion, you know, because also Bagioli was there. Bagioli comes from Sudal Quickstep. He's a strong rider. Bocca Moloma was there. Bagioli usually is pretty fast. So I

don't really understand why there was no straightaway reaction. I mean, they could have... I think they only pulled at the end with Boca Moloma. I don't know. Maybe

a lack of communication or obviously, you know, it's difficult also for the, for the cars to know what's going on in the final, but, but, you know, with, with a guy like Molo Mader, who's an experienced, I mean, road captain, they shouldn't even need the instructions from the car. You know, they should have at least tried something. They did, but it was too late already. I guess my only defense of that would be

i agree that's not ideal and it is early season so maybe they're just they're not dialed yet but jaco alula at this race if they were like a peacock they're like they're as peacocked up as you can be you know like anytime there's a hill they're on the front they're attacking who's it chris chris hamilton chris harper chris harper is attacking every time he has a chance They're on the front. They were attacking. Who's it? Chris, Chris Hamilton, Chris Harper. Chris Harper is attacking every time he has a chance. Luke Platt is walking around like this is his race to lose. Like, I kind of wonder if they're like,

well, if these guys are so keen to pull this back, maybe we just let them burn themselves out. And they probably thought, I mean, I don't know the, the lack of response when Romo attacked really, especially on rewatch,

like there was no response whatsoever from that field. Obviously they regretted it, but maybe they didn't know as much about him as you do, Johan. You know, I think Romo really went on a moment that everybody was just, you know, they needed to sit down and take a breathe, you know? So, I mean, it was a really good attack at the right moment. But anyways, independently of whether Jake Oluwole is the favorite or you could also say,

well, Narvaez is here, he's going to beat us anyway. But you know what? I mean, if nobody pulls then there's somebody away, you can't win. So having five riders there, I think it was a bit unorganized. But anyways, you know, it also shows that, obviously, they've done really good work in the offseason, and they have a lot of riders who are super, super fit at the beginning of the season. And I guess that's why they're here. Yeah, I'm looking it up now.

Baggioli of 2023 wins Grand Piedmonte like in a sprint over Mark Hershey, Aaron Burrow. Ghana was 11 seconds back, but those are not slow guys. So clearly, I mean, maybe he would have had a chance against Narvaez. And yeah, good words of wisdom. If there's someone in front of you, you're not going to win. Maybe get that person back. Step one. Yeah. On Wellsford, I saw an article. I mean, Sam Wellsford, what he can do in Australia early season. I think he also won the national championships, Australian national championships. Yeah, crit championships. And there's been a few other crits he's won.

The guy's just like absolutely flying. He can like haul himself over these climbs. Like he's still in the front group when Garrett Thomas is getting dropped. I it's still wild to me that Garrett Thomas, like, you know, we're watching just a wholesale evolution of the sport. Like tour down there used to mean nothing. I mean, you went with Lance like three years in a row, I believe. And I don't think you guys were like, okay, this is going to reflect the rest of our year. But I looked it up the last, the top five writers in last year's edition, all went on to have the best years of their career. So there's clearly like a correlation between success here and how you do later in the year. Garrett Thomas is just still on this.

Yeah, clearly it's working for him, but it's just funny to me how different his program is than everybody else I'm just here getting some miles in it's clear he goes there to get the racing going the races are not very hard, they're fast but also in his defense

I read somewhere that he was sick the day before the race he had stomach problems so he started straight away a bit weakened. And normally, you know, I mean, in that heat, it's difficult to recover. You know, not that he cares about the result. He's there to, you know, to get the kilometers in and the speed in the legs. But he knows what he's doing, you know.

And then just to push back on what I just said, before we crown Wellsford like new sprint champion of the sport he won three stages here last year and then only went on to win one more race which was the two stages the tour of hungary so wellsford's very good at at figuring out how to win at the down under it does not mean we need to uh dethrone caden groves is the best I think that Welsford was if I'm not mistaken I think he focused

basically his whole season on on the track in the Olympics last year okay which would explain the lack of I mean winning the state of short Hungary that's like not nothing. He can do better.

He can do better than that. He's fast. Super fast. He's definitely fast. I don't know. We'll see what's on his program. He's also on a funny team where he's on Red Bull. Clearly, Primo's GC is going to be the objective at two of the three Grand Tours.

Doesn't leave a lot left for a sprinter. So it is kind of the paradox of Wellsford's situation currently. If you had to pick a rider right now, who's going to win the Tour Down Under, who would it be? Narvaez. Jonathan Narvaez. Yeah, I like that a lot. You also mentioned before we recorded because of romo's win on stage three movistar now has more as has as many world tour wins in 2025 as they had in all

of 2024 yeah yeah that's pretty good about yeah pretty good to start yeah i mean obviously they were they won a lot more because last year was not normal they only had one world to win it was stage in the giro palio sanchez um but it looks like uh it looks like they've done you know they've done a good winter and they're ready ready for the season so we'll take a quick ad break and then we will talk about a big australian rider who is not at this race who we just had some news about this episode is brought to you by maui nui the only source for mai's exceptionally healthy wild harvested axis deer meat. When you order from Maui Nui venison,

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See website for full details and important safety information. All right, back to the show. All right, so we're back. Johan Caleb Ewan, who was the king of Detour Down Under for years. Wasn't at this race. There was, we talked about this a few weeks in a row. Wasn't at the Jayco Alula pre-team pre-season training camp. Wasn't on the website. Clearly something was in the works.

The rumors were he tried to move to Astana. That didn't work out. Jayco would have preferred to move past the current structure of their relationship. And then suddenly, and then Garrett Thomas gave kind of a telegraphed, I guess, that he was okay with the move when he said on his podcast that he wanted Caleb Ewan to be on the team.

Lo and behold, three days later, Caleb Ewan signs for Ineos for 2025. What do you know about this deal? I don't know much about it. You know, I heard the rumors. Now, finally, they're confirmed. It's a bit strange. Obviously, listen, Ineos need riders who can win races. They don't have that many riders who win races.

They have good riders, but I've said it already. I don't know him personally, you know, but with the information I have about Caleb Ewan from his time at Lotto and, you know, talking with some people in the Peloton, I'm not a fan. I'm not a fan of Caleb Ewan. He, I think his best days are behind. He was at one moment, when he was on form, he was really, really fast. But as I said, he's not a team player. I've never seen him do anything for the team.

I think we've talked about it in a former podcast. When Duda France, he was dropped and he made two teammates wait and then he dropped out. I've heard that he's not easy to manage. Apparently, it's something that has changed with him in the last few years. But listen, I hope it works out for him. I hope it works out for Ineos, but I would not hire Caleb Ewan. I think it's going to be difficult also now to get back to the level he was.

You know, it's been a few years since he was like super, super good in Milan Sanremo. The sport evolves faster and faster. And, you know, I've been told that he's not a great fan of a lot of training that's not really good when you're a professional cyclist nowadays yeah i never quite understand that yeah it's like you know sprinters they don't like training it's like well they should like training more than everybody else because they have to fight you have to watch this man fight to finish inside the time cut every grand tour he does.

That should motivate him to train. I don't fully understand that. He can get his things back together and get motivated with the new team. I think the relationship at Lotto was obviously very bad at the end. That's why he left. And they loved to see him go. They even paid to have him go. Went back to Jayco, you would say, okay, Australian team,

you know, back to the roots because he was there before. No, he was on GreenEdge at the beginning of his career, I guess. Quite a few years. And, you know, that doesn't seem to have worked out. Um, the relationship within the team with him and with teammates was far from ideal. I've been told. So, um, hopefully at the nails, you know, he gets his head clear again and he gets motivated. I think it's the motivation, basically the motivation, uh, the problem with,

with Caleb Ewan. Uh, the thing is that Caleb Ewan is a writer. Um, you know, when he's good, he can, he can be in contention for a sprint.

He needs the whole team around him. Um, you all, We all know with a sprinter, if you're not top, top, top like Philipson or Merlier or Milan, it more often doesn't work out than

it does. To keep a team motivated around the rider who's always third, fourth, or sometimes when he sees he can't win, stops pedaling, that's not easy. And then on, fourth, or sometimes when he sees he can't win, stops pedaling. That's not easy. And then on the contrary, on the days he's bad or he's not good, he's dropped and people have to wait so he can make it in the time cut. So it's not a great situation.

I'm not a fan of those kind of riders. I mean, a sprinter, it's great to have sprinters but you know the sprinters also need to have a value when they're uh when they're not on sprinting duty and and caleb yoon has not duty it's really interesting even setting aside everything like about you know your feelings about him his his maybe professional behavior if you set all that aside and you just showed me numbers, just I didn't know who this writer was and you gave me their age, 30 years old, their win profile,

hasn't won more than 10 wins in a year since 2019. That's five years ago and said, they're going to make, I guess the big question is we don't know what he's making. He's making rumored to be 2 million euros in 2024, was probably owed something around that 2025. So if they picked him up for that, if you said, I'm going to sign this writer for 2 million euros, I'd say absolutely don't do that.

That's a terrible decision. Plus it would make no sense at the nails, right? Because if they're letting these guys go to cut the budget, I personally think it's going to be a very reduced contract. Uh, and it's like, you know, the,

the, the contract of the last opportunity, right? It's also, it's a one year deal that also says a lot, right? It's a one year contract nowadays in cycling to set, to have somebody agreeing to signing a one year contract.

It's not easy. It's like, okay, this is my last chance. Hopefully I, he, he takes it. Because what was his alternative was sitting at home all year. So he probably did take up

some sort of sweetheart deal, but who's the king of this, Johan? This is like the LaFevre special. You get the washed up former star who no one believes in. You give them a bonus heavy contract and you revive them and then you look like a genius. So I don't know.

I, I, and I do kind of agree with you, the pure sprinter like this, who can't really work for the team outside of winning. It's almost like a pure center in the NBA. Like, has that position been, is that now an inefficient position that you should like not dump a lot of money into and you'll regret it you do like, even think I'm trying to think like, like Caden Groves is very versatile. You can have him do multiple things. They're Jonathan Milan. Like that guy can do anything for the team and is probably a better pure

spinner than Caleb Ewan. So it's getting harder for that type of writer, but stage four tour and under who had the most beautiful lead out of that whole of every team in the race it was eneos and then you know they have sam watson get fifth which is pretty good for sam watson but if they had a top tier spinner like caleb ewan they'd probably win that that's the thing with with you and at the nails you know he he does have a team now where they have a lot of riders who can ride very hard, very long. I'm always surprised that Ineos does these lead outs without having the big favorites. They do have really strong riders.

So from that point of view, he's going to be on a good team. I mean, Garen Thomas maybe could lead him out instead of Mark Cavendish now. So like Garen Thomas has given these great lead outs. I think, I think Garen Thomas wanted him. I mean, they're probably buddies or neighbors in Monaco, you know?

So that's probably why he, why he would have liked to have him on the team. I mean, normally I would say this is a terrible idea, but just looking where Enioos is, they're not going to win a Grand Tour in 2025. They need wins. Who can get them

wins and who's available? That's not a big list of people. If you can get Caleb Ewan for not a big investment, cash investment, maybe that is a good decision. I guess we'll see. Time will tell. Time will tell. I'm not very optimistic and one more piece of news before we get in to our questions you alerted me to this alejandro

valverde is now the new coach the national team coach of the spanish team this is this is correct yes this was announced yesterday. There's been a lot of talks here in Spain about it for a while. There was an interview with Oscar Freire, triple world champion. Milan San Remo,

he won Milan San Remo multiple times also, I think. Maybe like four times or something. By the way, his son is also really good. Marcos is on the development team of UAE now. But anyways, there was an interview of Freire who was, you know, he was complaining that he was basically given the promise that he would be the new coach of the Spanish team. And then he read in the newspapers that they would prefer Valverde.

So I've been following that a little bit. I don't know. Obviously, Valverde, listen, I mean, he's, you know, the guy's a legend. You know, he's a super huge champion. He's won basically everything you can think of for a very long time. Personally, I have my reservations that he can be a good coach because he was such a strong rider. Now, the advantage of Valverde is that he was tactically incredibly smart. So that could be a big advantage for a coach.

But, you know, to have a champion, a big champion as a trainer or a coach or director, it's not easy because these guys don't understand when you're in trouble or when you're suffering. Now, the national coach, of course, it's a position. It's once a year or twice a year if it's the Olympics or maybe three times when it's the European Championships. And then basically you bring a team together and you try to form a group. It's also going to make his job a bit easier that they have a few good really young riders. They have Juan Ayuso, they have Carlos Rodriguez, they have Pablo Torres now who is the upcoming talent in Spain.

So if you have good riders, it's easier to be a good coach. Yeah. Yes. That's good to help. Yeah. And then there's the other thing that I've been reading is that he's still the ambassador and advisor and gravel rider for Team Movistar. So, you know, I don't know if that's going to be a conflict of interest, right? That's a little bit of a debate now whether he can stay in that position or not. He wants to do both. I think it's perfectly wants to do both. I think it's perfectly possible to do both. But yeah, I mean, I was, I don't know who was, oh yeah, it was, it's a guy

who was not very well known. I mean, it's not, he was not like an ex cyclist or not an ex pro Pascal Montparlaler, who was the coach. But now there's a new president. And so there's a lot of new positions also who have been attributed to ex-cyclists. And yeah, Pau Verde is the new Spanish coach. So we'll see. I mean, his first big appointment is the World Championships in Rwanda. So with Juan Ayuso and Carlos Rodriguez and Pablo Torres,

three great climbers, they normally will have a very strong team. Yeah, I mean, they could win worlds. Normally, I hate this. Like you don't see in any sport, I guess outside of wrestling, you don't often see top, top stars slot in and become good coaches like at all because it's like what's the problem like just just win what do we like what what's the hold up here like they just don't have an ability to emphasize with empathize with struggles or never had to think about things. I had, I had, uh, you know,

when I was a young, young cyclist, I, a young professional, I had, you know, three different huge champions as a coach, you know,

like, um, my first director was a guy called Ferdinand Bracke. Uh, he's now in his eighties, but also, you know, he won,

he had won the tour of Spain. He was third in the tour. He was our world record holder. Then I had Eddie Merckx as the national coach. You know, we can't, we can't name everything he's won. And then at Rabobank for some races, I had Joop Soutermelk who also won the Tour, was multiple times second in the Tour de France, was world champion.

These three guys had the same in common. They had good advice, but they could not understand when a rider who's not a big champion was suffering or getting dropped. I remember Soutermelk once, we did rider who's not a big champion was suffering or getting dropped on.

I remember Zutomelk once, you know, we did, we did a race and then, you know, it's, I think I told the story already on this podcast, but I'll say it again, you know, and I was rooming with, I actually was rooming with Adrie Vandrepoule, Mathieu's dad. And there was a state race in, in France, Tour de Limousin, which was, you know, not, not mountains, but climbs. Always up and down in the second category climbs. And we were doing very well. And Joop Suttema could not understand that there were three riders of the team

who were getting dropped on a second category climb. He said, how the hell can you get dropped on a second category climb. He said, how the hell can you get dropped on a second category climb? Well, you know, I mean, because he was always in the front, you know what I mean? The guy was, I think he was world champion when he was 38 or 39 years old. Um, and won the tour. Um, you know, it's, uh, he was, he was, he was first against Max and then against, you know, and, and then when, when both didn't participate, he won, he won the tour. Finally, I would say, having said all of that,

having trash for Alberta for five minutes, I do think like, if you think about trade teams, like the best kind of managers are like guys that just smart people like Mark reef, not a decorated racer, but clearly smart at Visma. Moraine Zaman just like has a plan, a really intricate plan and gets people to buy into it over the course of many years. Cause you're, you're managing people every day for years. I do kind of wonder with a cycling national team, if just having a star come in like Valverde, who is good at tactics, he knows his tactics. He can manage these big egos because he himself is a big star.

They'll likely respect him. And that's like, I used to, I was so young. He doesn't even know who he is. Like, but then he can like pre-ride the course with them. He's kind of like an active participant, like maybe in that respect. The thing is that he was able to ride with them. You know, he's in such great shape that he can still ride with them on training rides. But we'll see. We'll see. Listen, it's an interesting choice.

He seems to be very excited. And, you know, it's also I mean, things have changed so much. Like the, you know, the organizations are so broad now that they have a team of people around them you know because before i remember the the director or the coach he was the guy who was in charge of everything now that has changed of course so um he'll just be at the head i mean he will have a team of people around him or under him that um that are very qualified so uh we'll see we'll see interesting Sometimes people can overthink these national team races too.

Like if Valverde was the Belgian team coach for the last world championships, what do you think he would have told Remco? Probably he would have told him, don't lose Tadej's wheel. Whatever happens, don't let that wheel go. If he attacks, you attack. It's like sometimes you just need that simple advice

yeah well those those guys can really give simple advice let me tell you because everyone everything was so good dropped yeah it's like how are people getting dropped well who did you think was getting dropped when you were when you were up front there's people back there suffering have some respect for the rest of us but oh one quick thing before we get into questions. I saw that Q36.5 was invited to La Fleshe, like Fleshe Wallone and Liège-Best-en-Liège. I assume they'll be invited to whatever one-day races they want to be invited to because they have Tom Pitcock. And as you pointed out... With Pitcock.

With Pitcock. That means Pitcock can't do all the races, right? Yes, yes. They'll get an invite whenever Pitcock is at the start. Because if you look at these one days, they have a lot of teams. I was shocked, actually, when I looked at how many teams they have. 25, yeah. Versus a Grand Tour, which only has 18 plus three.

21. 21, yeah, I think is what they've nailed it down to. I mean, now that you're talking about that, Spencer, I don't know if you've seen that there's... I don't remember which ground tour it is, but anyway, if it's one, it's going to be all.

They're now trying to get the UCI to make exceptions and give an extra wildcard. So instead of 21, 22 teams. I think you called that like a few, it was like a few months ago. You're like, yeah, they'll probably, they'll probably try to get an extra wild card,

which touchy though, because then they've like set the whole system up where they really penalize teams. I'm sorry, we're wrong. So the 2024 Giro giordattia had four second division teams it is yes because because uh lotto for faded their place but even if lotto was there i guess there would have been israel lotto and then two wild cards but instead there was three wild cards so i guess there still is two wild cards, two top performing for a total of 22, I believe.

Yeah. Okay. Yeah. 22. Yeah, exactly. It's the two wild cards that are automatic plus two invitations. Yeah.

Two discretionary picks. And then I saw a headline. It drove me insane. It was like Tom Pickock reveals he's skipping Twitter friends in 2025. It's like, well, he's not skipping. He's not invited. It's like, well, he's not skipping it.

His team's not invited. It's not his decision. Yeah. Obviously, Q36.5 is not going to be invited if Pickock is not at the start. That's a given. Yeah. I mean, they have a long road to go before they could. I mean, it gets difficult with the Giro is probably the one that's open because the Vuelta famously, I mean, and they've got a lot of good second division teams in Spain.

So they're like, they can only really give two. They don't have, they're not in a position to invite a Swiss team. The tour usually likes to stick to French teams, but I guess what they showed with Uno X this year, that they will throw a wild card to a well-funded foreign team. The Giro, a little bit looser with those rules. That might be the grand tour that was lobbying for an extra spot. But only one question today. I don't fully agree with the premise, but I thought it was an interesting conversation starter. It's from Chris. Is the world's core selection really giving us the best rider year after year? I feel like it's turned into a climbing fest. And if we have a 60 kg,

60 kilogram rider riding at six watts per kilo and an 80 kilogram rider doing the same, should gravity be deciding who gets the rainbow Jersey for a whole year? Is there a better way to do this? I guess it's true that like last year a climber you could say a climber won the world championships but that would is a little disingenuous because you could also say the strongest rider on in the world won the world championships and probably would have won it on anything but just a dead sprint finish yeah i mean obviously next year is going to be different because this year will be different because different because it's 5,000 plus meters of elevation. It's going to be a

climber. Last year, you didn't necessarily need to be a climber. Mathieu van der Poel was third. If you, for example, look at the course in I think in the under-23, I think there was two guys of more than 80

kilos on the podium. Uh, you know, if you look at, um, the world's, what was it? Was it, was it Glasgow when 2023 was Glasgow? The thing is that these guys gave it was on the pool, one art, a Peterson and a pol. You know, those are also the best riders in the world, right? If you look independently of the course. This year is going to be different. This year is pure climbers. For example, a guy like Guilherme has already said that he doesn't even know if he's going.

You know, he's going to go, you know, to represent Eritrea, but he already said, there's nothing I can do there. Usually, it's one of the best riders. If we go back, I mean, let's... We had

Mats Pedersen who won in... What was it, was it, where was it? Was it, was it a garage? Yeah. Yeah.

You know, I mean, he was, he was not the best rider in the world, but he was one of the best. You know, he was there with Trentin, Van der Poel got dropped

that day. So, so he was the best that day and he has proven that ala philippe you know twice world champion well the second one at luvin on different courses only 2200 vertical meters you know yeah yeah so not not that climbing of a course and al philippe wins an interesting one to 2022 rimco ebonypo wins on a circuit a lot of climbing because they you know any course you do for 270 kilometers it's going to add up to some vertical probably because you're just covering so much ground but the longest climb on the circuit was 1.1 kilometers long so you wouldn't say like a climbing specific course room car was just the strongest rider that day yeah he was a strong i mean if you remember i think the second was christophe laporte in that race who you know was yeah kind of a sprinter all-rounder right so it's a mix it's a

mix yeah the two outliers that i have mixed emotions about are yeah what you said kagali this year 2025 like it does automatically rule out so many people like benyam germai i mean maybe it's too hard for but like matthew vanderpool could have beaten tate pagachar two very different riders on the 2024 course which makes it good in my opinion you want to probably want some sort of hybrid that a lot of riders can contest so you have this climbing one that i'm not in love with but i guess if it's once every 15 years remember the colombian one where alano had a flat tire or something it's like a very climb heavy world championships and then 2011 and copenhagen

almost no vertical meters everyone knew it was going to be a sprint finish mark cavendish wins matt goss's second andre greipel third it is a kind of a world championship for sprinters i guess like if that's every once in a while that's that's kind of fine and different i mean i guess that's cool that mark cavendish had a chance to be a world champion i mean here's an interesting question for you johan if they did did the Copenhagen circuit again, are we sure that's a sprint finish in modern racing? I think so. Yeah, I think so. I mean, you know, it needs to be really, I mean,

there needs to be some, some difficulty to, to, to have separation because everybody's so good now, but, you know, coming back to the, to the World Championships of this year, you know, I mean, it's hard. It's in Rwanda. It's in Africa. You know, you could say it's too hard for the majority of the peloton. And that's true, especially at that distance.

I don't know exactly the distance, but it's more than 250K. But, you know, here it's more than 250k. But here, it's clear that this is a political decision. This is the first time Africa La Partida has been pushing for this for a while because this will help him

to get votes from Africa for his candidature for the president of the IOC. It's all linked together. The riders in the end here are just pawns in a game. They don't really care about how many riders can finish the race. The importance is that it's in Africa and and it's in rwanda you know and there's a lot of criticism around that also because of the political climate in rwanda and

doesn't really matter it's it needs to be there and and he just needs to get the votes there i got that there's a long tradition like like soccer, football, great sport. I mean, some of those locations aren't picked for the sporting reasons, shall we say. And I mean, whatever you think of the Qatar World Cup, it was weird. It was in the middle of winter. I actually kind of thought it worked out pretty well. I'll just have fond memories of watching that World Cup. So you can just have these races that are different. It's not what you envision the World Championships being. maybe it's going to be a great race i don't

know if it was if they always had 18 000 feet of climbing on the course i think that's kind of lame but it's also spencer it's also if you see i don't know if you've seen this but there's there's plenty of federations who actually use federations are struggling financially uh i think especially in the year post Olympics, because I guess there's less money. And I think it's Denmark, the Netherlands and Belgium have decided that they're not sending juniors to the world championships because it's too expensive.

I mean, I saw this. that's three big cycling countries you know yeah i i kind of understand the decision and i was reading some quotes on it and they're basically like we're not going to send riders if we if we don't think we can meddle like what's the point yeah plus that is apparently super expensive uh like there's there's there's a little bit the good hotels like i'm sure it's absurd yeah it's 500 euros plus per night yeah so i i i kind of totally if i was running a federation i'd make the exact same decision like we're not going to burn two years worth of budget on sending

a bunch of riders who are going to dnf in the first uh three three circ three uh passes of the circuit i guess another one i'm thinking about is like rimco evanipo winning the olympics that that was not a climb court that was not even a really a rimco specific course and he just won because he was the strongest rider so we might be getting what you would consider climbers winning these races but it's not necessarily because the courses suit them it's just because they're the strongest. Yeah. Yeah.

Like, you know, we'll see who knows like LA, we don't know what the course is, but like LA Olympics, 2028, like maybe Vanderpoel wins that even if it has some climbing, it's just,

we're in a small, a small man's game right now for international races and it could swing back. Well, Johan, do you have anything else before we take off? No, that's it for me, Spencer. All right. We'll have a good weekend and we will be back. You'll be back early next week for a, an up and comers show with George and Gary and Lance Armstrong on Monday.

And then we will make sure, make sure you watch your Walonga hill battle because we'll we'll do our tour down under wrap up thoughts next week and then i think we have uae tour uae tour coming up soon like really soon so we will be talking about that as well thank you for listening thanks for joining us johan and we'll talk soon okay thanks