THEMOVE - Will The 2026 Vuelta Route Attract Tadej Pogacar Themove

Episode Date: January 11, 2026

Spencer Martin and Johan Bruyneel break down the recently released route for the 2026 Vuelta a España, dive into whether the brutal route will entice Tadej Pogačar, and wonder if the organizers have truly thought through the route, or set up another underwhelming GC battle. They also discuss Derek Gee's impending move to Lidl-Trek and the rationale for the substantial contract buyout, the UCI's new rule change on rider contracts, and Ineos' new kits. Become a WEDŪ Member Today to Unlock VIP Access & Benefits: https://access.wedu.team Helix Sleep: 20% off + 2 FREE pillows for all mattress orders. Visit https://HelixSleep.com/TheMove Huel: Huel makes healthy eating simple. They also just launched into Target stores nationwide! Try both products today with FIFTEEN PERCENT off your purchase for New Customers with our exclusive code THEMOVE at https://www.huel.com/THEMOVE. Rugiet Ready: Head to https://rugiet.com/THEMOVE and use code THEMOVE to get 15% off today. Caldera Lab: Upgrade your routine with Caldera Lab and see the difference for yourself. Go to https://CalderaLab.com/THEMOVE and use THEMOVE at checkout for 20% off your first order  

And again, I say this with the utmost respect for Derek G. But, you know, Derek G is not a rider that you can really build a team on with guarantees of a podium. And, you know, Spencer, there's nothing worse for a team. Or nothing worse. It's extremely difficult and complicated for a team to build your team for a grand tour around the round. rider who can be podium, but most likely won't be podium. Everybody, welcome back to the Move Plus. I'm Spencer Martin.

I'm here with Johan Bernal. We are back to remote shows. I'm back in Boulder, Colorado with no power. I found a conference room in a we work in Denver that has Wi-Fi and power. So we can get the show to you. Johan is back home in Madrid, Spain. But we're going to go through the Volta-Spania route, which was just released for 26, kind of a, we're a little flummoxed at some of the decisions they made. Go through the

ongoing Derek G. Mystery, Drama, same thing with Oscar Onley and a few other things. But before we get into that, get Johan's take on it. Let's take a quick break for our partners. And we'll be right back. Everybody, this episode is brought to by Helix Sleep. You know the feeling when you've been on the road for way too long, hopping between airports, hotel beds, rental apartments, and you finally get home and crash in your own bed? I definitely know that feeling because that person's been me and I had that moment just last night and it reminded me of why I'm obsessed with my Helix mattress. You too can know this slumber bliss. All you need to do is take their online sleep quiz and get a mattress tailored to how you actually sleep. I've had mine for a little over a year

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15% off with code the move at Hul.com slash the move. That's Huell.com slash the move for 15% off. Okay, Johan, the Volta Spiner Route, 2026 came out. 21 stages, as you would expect, starts in Monaco with a short time trial. Features is I count it eight mountain stages, six flat-ish stages, including the final stage in Granada, which does have a tough uphill finish, five hilly stages and two time trials, including that. It's technically not a prologue, I guess, but it is a 10K time trial to start,

and then they have a 32 and a half kilometer time trial on stage 18. The big takeaway, though, the thing you pointed out to me is this race, unlike last year, which was almost all north of Madrid, this is nearly all south of Madrid. And as someone that lives in Spain knows, it is very hot south of Madrid in the summertime. This will take place in August and early September. What were your initial impressions from this route? The same thing as you just said, Spencer, when I saw the map, actually, if you take the map of the Vuelta of 2025 and you put that on top of the map of the Vuelta of 2006, then you have a tour of Spain. Yeah.

But this is, I mean, start in Monaco, okay, it's becoming a habit that, and especially the Giro and the Vuelta, are looking to have starts outside of Spain. Of course, you know, it's a financial decision. You know, who pays, gets the stages. And I mean, the Monaco is fine. And they go, they come to Spain. They go a little bit to Andorra for one stage, I think. But when I saw that after stage seven, they are in Valencia or south of Valencia, I thought, wow, you know, that's, I mean, I don't know who designs these courses.

Of course, you know, there are, it's ex-professional cyclist. I think it's Fernando Escartin now, who is the chief of the course. But, you know, he's not deciding on the cities, right, who hosts, which hosts the stages, the starts and the finishes. And I feel sorry for the riders, man. South of Spain, last week of August, the two first weeks of September, it is really, really hot. Anybody who has been to Granada in the summer, and you can, I mean, beginning of September is still summer. It's going to be extremely hot.

And then also, you know, what I don't really understand is that, you know, if you look at, I haven't gone in detail through the stages, but I've seen information there's 58,000 vertical meters in the Vuelta of 2006, which is the hardest three-week stage race of all three. And I'm thinking, you know, why are they doing this? Because every race becomes harder and harder and harder. And of course, you know, a grand tour has to have decent amount of climbing, but 58,000 meters. I think that's like 6,000 meters more than the Tour de France, if I'm not mistaken. It might be, it might be 8,000 more than the Tour of France.

I think the tour was 50 on the dot, which is a little suspicious. How could that be 50 even? But, you know, I mean, knowing how, I mean, the Duvalta is the third grand tour of the season. And anybody who is in cycling or who runs a team knows how difficult it is to have eight super motivated and fresh and in shape riders to file a team for the Vuelta. You know, usually people are tired by that time of the year and, you know, I've done a lot of races already. And yeah, okay, it's true that, you know, teams nowadays, they have 30 riders and they don't race that much. But still, the last grand tour is motivation-wise, it's a challenge. I'm making it so hard, man.

I doubt that's good for the suspense of the race. I don't know if that's really a smart decision. But especially the heat. I'm worried about the heat for the riders. I mean, they made the decision to not finish in Madrid because it clashes with the Formula One. Next year, there's a new Formula One race in Madrid. So no finish in Madrid, but, you know, there's also other ways. And, you know, okay, finishing Granada is one thing, but, you know, everything below Valencia, it's, I don't, I don't, I mean, personally, I don't like it.

I absolutely don't like it. Why do they do this clustering, like all north and then all south in a year? Is it to reduce transfers? I mean, obviously, you know, whoever pays. gets the stages. But I think there's there's other ways to do it. You know, the north of Spain traditionally, that's where the nicest and the most beautiful mountains are. And, you know, and also it's obviously going to be five degrees cooler than in the south. Yeah. So it's a bit strange to not see, you know, Asturias and Galicia and Cantabria and the Basque country featured in the course.

It's really weird, especially since, man, I feel like they didn't learn that lesson. This year's course will be remembered for the protest, but without the protest, the protest hid the fact that the course was awful, truly terrible. The monotonous nature of these, you know, it's a hilly and then it's a single climb finish. did that over and over and over again. And there was no dynamism to that race. I mean, can you think of a single, is there a single racing moment that you can think of in your mind when you think of last year's race?

Maybe the Basque Country, but that race technically didn't finish. So we have no winner, but it just seemed like it was a really stale course. And then this is another pretty monotonous course that they've served up. Yeah. That might be too hot and too hard to race. It all depends also who participates, of course, right? What we do now know is that for sure Primos Roglidge is going to be at the start. I don't think Primo really cares about the course.

You know, he's a fighter. You know, he goes to win his fifth Vuelta. And then the question is, I think, will Pogacar be at the start, right? Yeah. That kind of breaks or makes the race. I mean, if he starts, he's obviously most likely going to win. unless something happens. But in that point of view, it would probably be easier for Pogaccio.

If it's a hard race, he has statistically more chances to win. So I'm not excluding Pogaccia at the start of the Vuelta, you know, especially if you look at his program, you know, he has only 16 race days before the start of the Tour de France. He could then do the Vuelta and then the world. Yes. Yeah, well, just on that calendar, when he set his calendar at the media day, right there, you're thinking, well, there's not a lot of stage racing, really, outside the Tudor Suisse

before the Tudor France. It seemed like they're leaving this open for the Fualta. And even his tone when he was talking about the Vuelta, it seemed like he was going to go. But if you're coming off a Tudor France, and then you're trying to win the world championships later in September, is this a good course for you? It seems pretty hard. Yeah, but still, I think, well, I mean, it's not, it's not too hard for Pogachar. Even in Pogachar at 85, 90%, he can still win the Vuelta.

But is it going to damage him to the point that it hurts his chances at worlds? Well, does he care about that? I mean, he's already two times world champion. He hasn't won the Vuelta yet. I want to see him win it three times. He hasn't won the Vuelta yet. You know, so it's not always going to be, I mean, on the course in Canada, it's hard, but it's not un, I mean, it's not, it's doable for a lot of guys.

It's not like Kigali, where it's really super, super hard. The course in Canada is accessible for other riders too. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, for Slovenia, it's not an easy race tactically, you know, to control. championships yeah yeah but we say that about pagetra a lot never seems to stop them and remember we said that about sagan all the time yeah it's like well how's slovakia you're going to control this yeah exactly three in a row yeah but it yeah it is

i i i was shocked you on with how hard it is yeah well anyway to come back on the vuelta course spencer i mean bottom line is i really don't like it i feel for the riders um and it's i think it's just it's a stupid course it's it's you know i mean it's it's it's too hot it's too hot to have two weeks in the south it's too hot especially if you just if you keep racing the if you start the stage at i don't know 1 p.m 2 p. that's also another thing as part of the day yeah yeah between 1 and 5 or the stages and we've done this before this isn't theoretical we were here two years ago and everyone said wow this is too hot. We're going to have to do something about this. And now they're showing up and it's

going to be too hot again, probably, most likely. One thing I was thinking about, so if Pagaccio does the tour and does DeValta, what does Del Toro's season look like? Is he not contesting a grand tour next year? I don't think so. No, I think he's going to do the two. He's only going to do the tour, in my opinion. He's not going to do two grand tours. I think Del Toro is probably going to be given freedom in a few other one-week state races, which would make sense because he can win most of them. He could win the dofine in theory. He can win the dauphiné, he can win Tereno, he could win the Basque Country, he can win

Catalonia. Yeah, he could podium at the Tour de France. Yeah. And then it would be focused on world championships, I guess, after that. Yeah, I think Del Toro, you know, he's, I mean, he's a lot younger than. than all these other guys and he has time. So I personally think it's a smart decision to have Del Toto doing the tour and at the service of Bogacha and the team because, you know,

any other race he does now after being second in the Giro, it's all the pressure on him. He kind of, his next step is when he, when he's the league, he has to win either the Giro or the Vuelta. He has to win. Yeah. And so taking that pressure off by, you know, having him ride the Tour de France with Bogacha.

I think it's a smart move in his development. That is a good idea. That's a good point. Have you managed a team before or something? That is like I wouldn't have thought about it that way, but that is pretty clever. And I mean, he does have time, but do those guys think that way? Is he sitting around thinking, I've got a lot of time or are they going to have to tell him like, hey, chill out, you don't have to win a grant tour this year? Yeah, probably.

I mean, I think he has a long-term contract. right? I don't know how many years, 2008, probably. Yeah. So, yeah, I think he's fine. Yeah. And as you say, a lot of, a lot of chances for one-week stage races, which are important to win are a big deal. Plus, let's not forget.

He's a great one-day racer, too, Spencer. He's a really good one-day racer. He's a better one-day racer at this age than Pagacha was at the same age. That's not easy to do. If Pagacra is here, who is he competing against? In the VELTA, you mean? Yeah, in the VALTA. Well, Primos is going, we know.

Doesn't look like Jonas is going to be going. I think there's still talks, right, about combining Giro and tour. I think he'll probably do the Gero. Yeah. Well, we don't know. We don't know yet. But you can never say about the Vuelta, Spencer. And compete, okay, the first question is, who is he going to compete against Pugachar?

My answer is nobody, because he's above everybody else. But Bernal, Bernal has said that he is there, if there's one race he cares about doing, it's Devuelta. I think at this point, you know, we can't say, you know, honestly that Bernal is a contender for Pogacar. But, you know, he's a candidate. for the podium in the Vuelta. And then, I don't know, any more, for Carapas, maybe. I don't know. I don't know what they're going to do.

I mean, yeah, I guess I use so, potentially. Ayuso does the tour, focuses everything on the tour. So he's going to be the leader of little track for G.C. at the tour of France. So I don't, I don't see him do the Vuelta. Well, I guess, okay, now that we're talking about it, the absurdity of even talking about the Vuelta is, what if Faiser crashes out first stage of the tour?

Then he's focused on the Vuelta. Vuelta, you know, everything. That's what happens with the Vuelta, Spencer. I think, you know, except for example, if you see one, okay, Roglidge has said, okay, he, he wants to go for the Vuelta. That's clear, that's set in stone that the Vuelta is on his calendar. But the Valta is traditionally the grand tour that everybody says, okay, we will wait and see what happens until the summer.

And then we will address the situation and see, you know, if we have succeeded, if there was bad luck, if there was crashes, if there was injuries. And that's why the Vuelta, in my opinion, is the most difficult race as a team to get a motivated team at the start because it's late in the season. And usually everybody has attained their goals already before the Vuelta. So it's an extra. Well, an extra or a need to have. Or you've not attained your goals and you've got to recover a season. But let's take a quick ad break.

talk about any news you have on Derek G. and where he's going next year and when he come back. Everybody, this episode is brought you by Ruggiat. Here's something most doctors know that most men never talk about. Stress from work, money, and family doesn't just disappear at night. It follows you into the bedroom. You can be lying next to the person you love and suddenly your mind will not let your body do what it has always done naturally.

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I don't want to speak out of school. Do you have any information on where he's going next year? You have seen him, you have seen him training with Little Trek, right? I didn't want to, I didn't want to tattletail. But you've said it in the other, you said it on Monday. Okay, yeah. So, yeah, he's been training with Little Trek. It seems to be joining that team.

So, you know, nobody who, I mean, if Derek G is trained. training with Little Trek, he is not, it's not because he's not going there. There's no other way. Little Trek has added Derek G to their roster. I think it's a great move for both. Yeah, I don't have the detail. So, you know, we had heard, you know, rumors that, well, first of all, Sylvan Adams was going to sue Derek G. for not respecting his contract because let's not forget Derek G. unilaterally and personally terminated his contract with the team. Now, we don't know if the fact that the team has changed the name, if the team has

changed paying agent, I don't know. I think the paying agent is still the same. What that does with the contract, with the validity of the contract that Derek G had in place. And then I've also heard that Adams had said or let teams know that who, whoever was going to sign Terrick G was going to get sued by him personally. And we said last week that, you know, little is definitely a giant company. They probably have more resources than Sylvan Adams.

But anyways, I personally think there's been an agreement. No lawsuit, common agreement. I don't know if it's Adams who gets the money or if it's the money. the new team who gets the money. I don't know about it. Or is the company. It might be the same thing. Yeah.

Well, we don't know. We don't know that. Adams might be passing that money on. Yeah, we don't know that. Well, I mean, you know, he's probably going to pass it on. But it is definitely if that money goes, if the, let's let's make one thing clear that little track has paid an amount of money to get Derek G out of his supposedly valid contract and get him on the TV.

without any legal problems. Probably seven-figure sum, if we had to guess. Yeah, yeah, for sure. For sure, yeah. Which, you know, we don't know if it's one, two, three million. We don't know. Still, you know, it is, as I said, you know, like seven million for Remco buyout and 10 million for Ayuso. That's, those are big numbers.

So I don't know what the buyout for Derek G would be, maybe two, three. I don't know. I think it's still a lot of especially, I mean, with all due respect, you know, Derek G is not Graham Coavenapult. He has finished fourth in the Gero, right? Third in the Dauphinet, top 10 in the tour, I think. Yeah, two years ago. Yeah.

Yeah, 2024 is ninth at the tour. Yeah. Okay. you know, definitely a good rider and a rider that a team as little track can use because, you know, they want to be competitive in all three grand tours or in the grand tours or in other GC races. At the same time, you know, and again, I say this with the utmost respect for Derek G. But, you know, it's Derek G is not a rider that you can really build a team on. with guarantees of a podium.

And, you know, there's nothing, Spencer, there's nothing worse for a team or nothing worse. It's extremely difficult and complicated for a team to build your team around, for a grand tour around the rider who can be podium, but most likely won't be podium. Yeah. You know, that's like, okay, he can be third, but he can also be seventh, right? that's that's a complicated situation you have to have more more players to do you have to combine that with a sprinter at least in an underground tour that goes for stages or somebody for the points jersey now little track could do that for example they can do their G for gc in the Gero for example

and Jonathan milan for the points jersey right that's that but but it's still it's it's not a great situation because a rider that goes for the podium also needs the support of a team and you have to divide your team in two. You know, you need three guys, at least three guys with your sprinter and then three guys with your GC guy. And that's it, right? So it is a gamble. I don't think Derek G will win a grand tour next season. He could be third, maybe, in either the Gero. or the Vuelta. But that's, I think, worth the buyout? Well, that's the thing, you know, it's, it's, yeah, I mean, you can also say, well,

is, is the 10 million worth the buyout for Ayuso? He has been third in the Vuelta in his first year pro. Definitely not worth it. And, and then, and, you know, so obviously this is, this is a different project, Ayuso because he's young and it's a long, Derek G is not the youngest anymore, right? He's what, he's what, 28, 28, 29? 28. Yeah. So, you know, he can still improve, and he probably will because, you know, he came later to the elite level.

I seem to remember he was a track rider before. He was a very good track rider. Yeah. So, you know, that that's obviously something to be taken to account. But I think quality wise, I think the podium is the maximum reachable for Derek G. and is a third place in the Giro or the Vuelta, is that worth that effort, right? On the other hand, you also have to say, okay, what's available, right? Who's available to strengthen our team?

That's not many guys. So you will see. We'll see. It's definitely a courageous move from Little Trek to invest that money. It also tells me that they do have a really big budget and are ready to see. spent a lot of money to develop and strengthen their team. You rarely see these big teams now go to any grant tour and just say, yeah, we're here for stages.

They always seem to have a GC writer. So if you want that depth, that is going to come with a lot of money. You're going to have to pay a lot of money for that to get that depth, which I guess is what we're seeing here. Remember Vizma, it was like 20, 203's, Yeritaia maybe, and they just had nothing going on, like nothing going on. It doesn't seem like there's room for that anymore amongst these big teams. They have to have something.

Derek G. Oscar Unley, they will join teams at some point. They will wear jerseys. I assume Anli's going to Ineos at this point. Yeah, I mean, it's too quiet. You know, it's too quiet. He has not been at the training camp. Obviously, that's not because he had to recover from his Australian trip. There's something going on there.

I think they're just working out the details of the transfer. But, you know, it looks, I mean, I don't know if you know more, but it looks like Ineos is the place to be. He was not at the training camp. For L. He was not at the training camp of his current team, picnic post-N-L, and he was not at the Ineos camp, right? Yeah. Suspicious. But they will wear jerseys at some point.

And this is relevant because the UCI is changing. I think this is like a rare win for the UCI because now we were talking about it in the pre-show. This has always been the case, but it only is evident this year because big stars have changed teams. But Remko Evanapole is at the Red Bull team camp in a Sudol quickstop jersey because he contractually has to wear it until the end of the calendar year, which makes no sense whatsoever. The UCI is going to change the rules so riders can wear the new team jersey November 1st. And that's when their contract is going to go from November to November, yeah. Which makes something, Spencer, we've been pushing for this for 25 years already. Since I was the team manager, it's always been the case.

It is, it feels very unnatural to have, you know, riders on your team. You go to the first training camp. They're all on the new bikes and they still have to wear their outfit from the year before. We've seen it. We've seen it now in on the Costa Blanca, right? all these teams riding and we saw i mean i saw decathlon uh and then all of a sudden hope two to two yellow jerseys popped out of koi and and and tis benot um you know the whole mismatch of the lotto riders and the inter marcia riders um we don't we don't even know what the

what the uniform is going to be and someone else is paying you to go to this camp for another team yeah makes no sense yeah Yeah. You're on the payroll for somebody else. And on the topic of kits, I, is Enios, new kit, orange top. I actually think the orange, when you see their new bus and everything, it looks good. Orange. Apparently, Total Energy is like one of their new title sponsors. I was reading that they have a branding rule that their logo has to be on a white background, no matter what. So the top of the kit is orange. The bottom of the jersey is white for totile.

And fine. It looks good. And then we go down and I just feel like they went off track a little bit because then the gray pants. Like, I mean, they look white, but they're not really the same white as the jersey. Yeah, they look like they're dirty kind of. Yeah, I don't know. There must be a thinking behind it, but I don't know what the thinking is. It looks a bit strange.

I mean, I guess we're going to get used to it. You know, I think a team like Ineos, they have professional people around them. So I don't know. I don't know. Initially, it feels it looks strange to me also. They're definitely going to stick out. We're going to see them. We're going to see them.

I think if their shorts were the same orange or they were black, it would look really good. Yeah, black would be good. I mean, why not the same white? Why not all white? Spencer, the same white as the jersey. I mean, okay, it's not great for when it's bad weather, but this light gray is more or less the same, in my opinion. Well, the all white can, yeah, you can have problems in the rain.

It cannot look so great. But, Johan, I've got to take off, but that's all I have time for this week. My power allotment's going to be over. But thank you for doing this and I'll see you next week. Okay. No. Actually, we won't do a show next Friday because it's Boxing Day. we're going to do it the Monday after that.

Okay. Cool. Okay. Thanks. All right. Bye.