Are Injuries to Key Rivals Setting Up a Pogačar & Van der Poel-Dominated Spring? | THEMOVE+

I've just listed two of Pogaccio's biggest rivals. One in Classics, one in Grand Tours. Both suffering crashes. One with very intense injury problems. Wout van Aert already had surgery on his ankle. Where is Matthew van der Poel? Because if he gets hurt, we might be hurtling towards the thing I predicted in our end of year show where I said Pogaccio is going to sweep the Classics and win the Tour of France. The last footage I've seen of Mathieu van der Poel was he was going down the ski slopes in Livigno. I don't like to hear that. That's not good. Everybody, welcome back to the Move Plus, our weekly show where we go through all the important cycling news and now some of the racing results that the racing has started. In earnest, I'm Spencer Martin. I'm here with Johan Bernil, and we are breaking it all down. Johan, I'm going to ask you about Volta Valenciana. It's Walde Bessej, the Mads Pedersen injury, Jonas not racing UAE, more. And we're taking questions from members. And you can watch this live if you're a member. And if you are on the members portal, click through to the YouTube app and you'll see the live chat. You can throw questions in there and we'll get to them at the end of the episode. But first, Johan, instead of hearing from our partners, let's hear from our most important supporter that's there with you. Yeah. we got some uh here's my assistant he's he's been a few weeks off the move plus but here he is mr bobby bobby bruniel is back he's changed a bit so he's not a tiny tiny puppy anymore he's he's a teenager now so here he is bobby say hi to everybody look bobby hi members hi everybody you're gonna go back you're gonna go back to take a nap okay are you taking bobby on the trip next week or does he have to stay home he comes everywhere nice everywhere yeah i mean that's what's underrated about the smaller dog he can travel yeah he's uh you know he's either it's crazy he's either next laying next to me when I sit down in the bed, he's either with me or with Christian, with my son. He sleeps with us. And it's, yeah, it's, I cannot even go privately to the bathroom anymore. He's just sitting there and just, it's crazy, crazy. But he's a really good dog. Hey, Bobby. It's like having little kids. They'll just follow you into the bathroom. No privacy. Back to your main occupation, taking naps. well johan we so we had our up and comers show on on monday and we talked about we we didn't he's been named previously so he's not eligible for our draft but we talked about 20 year old aj august on an eos and we said he had not he had not won he had kind of stagnated in his second year as a professional what we were looking forward to seeing what he could do this year and then sure enough we we turn on both the valenciana stage three and aj august wins it first pro win big that's a big win for him the uh he fought it's also just a it was smart i was really impressive with it wasn't a just a feat of strength there was a really tense moment remco's attacking while amada's attacking there's a descent florian vermish is on the front and who's on his wheel aj august andrew august just follows him and they split off the front of the group some other people attack up like a rider from uno x and then uh aj does not take a poll the entire time like a smart person and then wins the sprint because i believe he was probably thinking i have teammates behind like ben turner who wants to win the sprint uh maybe other teammates going for the overall in gc like magnus sheffield so i am just gonna sit on and then wins the sprint super impressive uh i i was really i mean this is a race with some good people like for stage one was won by Binyam Girmay, opens his account with NSN, and then Remco Evanapol, the world champion in the time trial, wins the time trial in stage two. Unfortunately for him, it did not count for time in the GC because it was windy, and I'll tell you, it was very windy. It was probably the right decision. And Johan, why were they on road bikes in the TT? Is that just a rule for the race? First about AJ August, Spencer. I think I said, I don't remember exactly what I said, I said, you know, he started really young, got, you know, thrown away and thrown into big races straight away. And then we didn't see yet his potential, what we saw when he was an 18 year old. But you know what? Talent doesn't go away overnight, you know. So we don't know what happened with AJ August, if he had injuries, if he was sick, if it was difficult for him to adapt to the life of a professional cyclist overseas. I'm going to guess it's a combination of all of that. But, you know, first of all, to win a race nowadays, there is no more luck, right? For him to attack in the downhill towards the finish, that means that you have to be with the first guys on top of the climb. That's the first, because a guy who's hanging on for dear life is not able to attack in the downhill. He's busy coming back, right? So, no, I'm really happy to see that. You know, it's good to see these young kids and, you know, especially American talent materialize with results. And it's this first race, first win as a professional. It's a very important one. The first one is always important. And it's not easy nowadays to win races. You know, there's not, I mean, there's a few guys who win a lot of races and then for the rest, there's not that much opportunity. opportunity so uh great win great win by him um so you know that was really really nice to see what's interesting since we talked about you know we talked about aj we talked about all these like he's 20 years old and his 30 years of professional that's crazy that's crazy crazy and quinn simmons we talked about i we were talking about this decision that do you skip u23 i cited quinn simmons as a writer that probably was helped by that interestingly enough quinn simmons was talking about this in an interview just this week with garen thomas and luke row he was saying he was basically saying in a he was trying to say it with modesty but he's like i i was maybe one of the best junior writers of all time is what he was saying he was and he went pro and he said i struggled quite a bit and he can't he said he could not imagine being less good than he was and going from the juniors to the pros, and he did not recommend it for other riders. So, yeah, I think someone like AJ, obviously he's adapted, he's racing well right now, but it just means you're spending the first few years of your career just getting up to speed. And getting beat up all the time. Beat up. I mean, that's exactly what Quinn said, like beat up. He decided that, you remember the breakaway with Wout Van Aert in his first, yeah. I saw the interview. I saw the interview. Yeah. 650 watts and that wow just rode away from right well done on on a you know false flat just gets out of the saddle and rides away yeah you know johan i was wondering why was wow in the breakaway that he was in the yellow jersey he could have won that stage why was he up there oh he won the stage no no no no he got caught and then pogaccio won right did he okay i don't remember i don't I don't know. It was the year that Walt was flying. Anyways, back to what you asked me about the time trial bike. So because of the wind, I mean, the weather in Spain is, for the moment, it is not great. I was on a bike right yesterday with a friend of mine, with just the two of us. We had parts where it was sketchy. It was, you know, like, and that's just with a normal road bike with 35 or 40 millimeter profile wheels. And we had sections where the bike was literally like this. In the south of Spain, it's been raining a lot. There's a lot of flooding. But yesterday, there was a small hurricane, maybe a little hurricane, a small hurricane. So the commissaries and the organization decided that they were going to do the time trial and it was not going to count for GC because safety. And I'm going to guess that's a common decision. I don't have, but for safety, everybody on a normal bike instead of a time trial bike. I'm not sure now because I didn't watch the time trial, but was Remco on a disc wheel? That's a good question, man. I should have paid. I don't think he was. I think he was. You think he was? i think he was yeah let me as a time trialist man it's difficult mentally i'm looking at a picture of him on a non-disc okay regular wheels but i wonder did they let people race on discs well i mean that's probably uh you know it was probably a decision made you get normal bikes no disc wheels i mean it's it's it's it's like a sale you know when when you in those conditions. So anyways, he won. It was just a victory because of his pride as a world champion, of course. But man, what a start for Renko, man. He has not lost a race yet. Four wins. Well, technically he has because stages one and three of Valenciana. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Sure, sure, sure. yeah i i had the same thought before the show i was like man he's undefeated i'm like wait a second yeah but uh but yeah four four wins including the team time trial um and you see i mean again yesterday uh in the time trial vlasov second i mean how long is it ago that we've seen a top three result of of alexander vlasov um you know it's definitely the remco effect at Red Bull. You know, there's, you know, and I think it's also Remco made it, I think, a big objective to say, okay, I'm getting here. I'm showing straight away that they can have faith in me. There's a new sheriff in the house at Red Bull and it's called Remco Evenapool and it has an effect on the whole team because if you also, if you see their behavior in the race, the way they take control with super confidence, the team dynamics have transformed. It's a different team. Yeah, I mean, Flassif only eight seconds back, too. Pretty impressive. You know who had a sneaky good time trial? Ben Turner on Ineos. Ineos, 21 seconds back, fourth. I thought he was a sprinter. And then he's turning in really good time trials. Ben Turner, if I'm not mistaken, he was... Is it possible he was world champion in cyclocross juniors? It sounds right, but there's also so many British riders with a similar variation on the name Ben Turner. No, he was a top, top, top junior cyclocross rider because I remember when they, a few years ago, him and Tom Pitcock were often with Ineos in the Belgian cyclocross circuit. Um, so, um, he's a very, very versatile rider when Turner. Yeah. I'm looking right now. He was second at the national championships. You 23, 2021 beaten by Leo Hader, who I believe is now on Georgia's team. But yeah, very versatile, versatile rider. Pretty impressive from him. I'm curious to see how this GC plays out. It's it. There's not a big climbing set piece. And so Remco probably won't win, but I guess don't count anything out. I mean, it's a really tricky day tomorrow. There's still one stage where they can make a difference. I think Remco wins this. Interesting. I mean, he's going to have to get away solo, which he can do. But I think the neutralization of the TT actually makes it a far more interesting final two stages that I'm excited to watch because now Remco has to make time up versus defend the lead. Yeah, sure. And so the next – just shout out AJ August. We just want to make sure you know we appreciate you. That was an impressive win. Also, Binyam Girmai. I mean, that's a big win for him. He did not win a single race last year. Yeah. And he wins his first race with NSN. And also, same thing as Remco. Get to a new team, start signing. I was I'm going to say I'm I'm pleasantly surprised I I had I mean I don't know why I don't know why I thought I thought that Binyam would not be that for me it's okay we have to put it in context right it is Vuelta Valencia the big sprinters are not here but still you had to be there because it was only half of the peloton and before there was about 60 riders together and before that there was 30 or 40 riders and he was also there so um yeah i mean that's you know another another big signing for a new for a new team and uh straight away deliver that's for the i mean for him his status within the team and the trust and the confidence of the teammates and the whole staff around him that's it's a great start for It is. Yeah, it's not the biggest race, but it's not nothing. It does make me wonder how much outside cycling things were weighing on him, specifically around his team last year. And then now he comes in. They got these great-looking jerseys. The world is his oyster. I mean, I like them. They look pretty good. Strange, but in the bunch, actually, they're also very nice. They stick out. You can really see where NSN cycling team is. Yep. And then the other race going on this week, well, there's also the Muscat Classic, which if you're waking up early in the U.S. to watch the one-day race prior to the Tour of Oman, you might need to find your local Racing Anonymous meeting and go there. We're going to gloss over the Muscat Classic. I have not gotten to watch it yet. But the other European race. one two by jake walula no yes j no no no no no maro schmidt wins adam yates second on uh but didn't they get away him and luke plapp didn't they get away together luke plapp got away and then was four seconds back so i assume he probably took some massive pull for schmidt oh yeah yeah the tour romant i will say it's a pretty good little race um i couldn't tell you what channel it's on to watch in the u.s but if you can find it it's uh it's a good race kind of an interesting looking country it looks like you would want to go ride there after watching the race which i guess is the point of the race but etoile de besage in the south of france near marseille i believe or like avignon it's been the weather's not been good it looks miserable it's actually some super interesting racing stage one looked like there was confusion confusion at the end uh lucas cubas from Unibet Rose Rockets, who I believe we were talking about just recently. It looked like he did not know that the finish was turning and he was in the wrong position. Allowed Tom Crabbe Crabbe on Team Flanders 20 I believe he 20 years old So keep an eye on this guy it got it got to be the smallest team in the race wins the first stage that was pretty cool to watch that's not the smallest team in the race spencer but who do you think the smallest team in the races uh i guess there's i don't know i mean cic pro cycling academy yeah yeah yeah yeah i guess elite foundation cycling team that could be a small one too that's uh actually you know what that's actually a team that is run i i just found out that's it's uh i i didn't know he had a team that's actually an ex-teammate of mine who's the like manager director of that team is called laurent dufo from switzerland oh really yeah he's the he's it's his team yeah wow it's a lot of good little teams in Europe. Go figure. This European continent, I think this could be a good year for them in cycling. And then it's weird because Unibet has been having to race like the favorites and they usually are the underdogs. So they miss out on that stage one. Stage two got to be one of the weirdest sprints I've seen so far this year. But in a while, like it was a really hectic sprint. They almost don't catch the breakaway. Matthew Cockleman from Lotto Intermarche. Luxembourg. i yeah i i found out about him yesterday uh it must also be a young rider no he is 22 okay so pretty young he won a stage last year i think in the tour of luxembourg i think you know what that's correct yeah yeah and that that was a stacked field actually t-ball de corrasso was in that stage yeah there was some that was really good riders in tour of luxembourg usually yeah but But hey, what a start. I mean, I was happy to see Team Flanders, what do you call it, Flanders-Baloise now. Yep. Because my good friend and ex-colleague, ex-assistant, Dirk Dumont, changed teams from Lotto to Team Flanders-Baloise. He's the sport director there. And so in his first race with the team, they straightaway win. And I think it's since 2024 that that team won a race, actually. I don't think that last year they won a single race in the whole season, if I'm not mistaken. Interesting. So that is really big for them. Yeah, yeah. Big, big. I mean, yeah. And, you know, they race a lot of races, but they also do a lot of smaller races in Belgium. So for them, Etual de Besège, it's like, I mean, it's a big race for them. It's not the biggest race, but because they're also in Tour Flanders and because of the automatic invite for local teams. But yeah, great start for Dirk and for the team. And actually also run by the son of my ex-coach, Patrick Sercu, who was my idol when I grew up. He became my coach. And his son, Christophe, is running this team already since more than 20 years. So it stays in the family. Whoa. And your nephew was on that team, right? No, he was not. No, he was not. What team was that? That was Bingo. Bingo. Yeah. Is that still around? No, the team has folded. That's too bad. But this sprint, Mr. Matthew, he really, because they were catching the breakaway, and he used the last breakaway rider as his lead out. It was his teammate. Yeah, from Lotto. Yeah. They had that under control the whole time. That was planned. And then there's this new innovative lead-out plan where you send riders up the road at the beginning of the race. You catch them in the last 200 meters. It was perfect. Grunewald has got to be frustrated about that. And then stage three, another super messy sprint. A German rider on Alpesen Premier Tech beats Lukas Kubis. I don't think I'd ever heard of this rider before. Henri Ooglig? You know what? The Rotow Brothers, man, they are freaking... Where are they getting these people? They find guys that you say, hey, you know, who's that? And then you see that they're actually really strong riders. I mean, do you know how many riders are not going to win a race this year? A lot. Yeah. A lot of them. The majority. Yeah. Vast majority. Majority of the peloton will not win a race. Yeah. And this guy's a win in February. It's pretty impressive. Yeah. Yeah. Talk about pulling rabbits out of your hat. That is super impressive. The big news, we're going to go to our first break right after this. But the big news from this block has been, so Mads Pedersen started, he usually goes to Etual de Bessege and does well. But he raced Valenciana, crashed on stage one, broke his, I believe, his left wrist and right collarbone. So that's awful to the use of either hand. That's not good. And that's not going to be good for his classics preparation, I assume. No, no. Obviously, I mean, we need to check the severity of the fractures. But anyway, Broken Bones, beginning of February, he will probably be able to get to the start of the classics. Maybe not Milan-Saint-Rébou, but probably Flanders and Roubaix, if we will see. But obviously, the whole preparation is derailed now. It's not good. Unless it's the same like Walt Van Aert, who broke his ankle and a week later he was already back on the bike after surgery which is pretty impressive yeah well you wouldn't think an ankle injury would be good for cycling but it seemed to have been perfect like clean enough that the recovery has actually been seamless wrist is tough man yeah yeah yeah and collarbone i mean and i know and on both different sides it's that's not good yeah no no it's definitely not good um yeah that's a bummer that's a big bummer because Mats was obviously, you know, the only guy who was getting close to Pogacar, Van der Poel, Van Aert. He was always around there. You know what I mean? We all remember his unbelievable victory and in which fashion he did it in N'Gantt-Wevelgem. That was incredible. And then he was up there in Flanders and he would have been up there with, I think, with Mathieu and Pogacar if he hadn't have punctured in Roubaix. He was one of the guys. He was up there with the four or five guys and he punctured at a really bad moment. So, yeah, I hope he can recover, but it's obviously not the best preparation. I think he cannot be at 100% in those classics, which could be having then hit its benefits for later in the season for the tour. yeah yeah that's that is a good point you know as an ex-cyclist and as the next director and next manager i'm always thinking that way okay whatever happens now that's just energy that stays in the tank for for july it it does often work out like that though i mean he was really good last year in the classics i went back and was re-watching this and had forgotten how good he was but let's take a quick break and then i have questions for you about how little trek if they could potentially transition their schedules to recover from this for the classics. And then Jonas Finnegard, why is he missing UAE Tour? But we'll be right back. This episode is brought to you by Gusto. So quick business confession. There was a stretch where running payroll and handling paperwork basically ate up my entire afternoons. I'd sit down to do one simple admin task. 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Okay, Johan, we're back. so that interview you referenced listening to quinn simmons he said something where he said he was not going to the spring classics in belgium because he wanted to ride for himself and he didn't want to work for matt's peterson didn't think that was a good use of his time did he said did he literally say he didn't want to work for matt's peterson or is that an interpretation of the actual quote would be that's not the actual quote the actual quote was that's let's make sure But he said that the team, he said the team, Mads wanted riders around him who were just working for him. And I didn't want to ride the front going into the last pass of the Cuermont when I could be preparing for Amstelgold. Was something along the lines of his quote. The only thing I can't quite, and Garrett Thomas and Luke Rowe pushed back on this. Like, well, having both of you there is probably good because how do you beat Vanderpool and Pogacar? That's not an easy task to begin with. And then having two leaders is probably helpful. But the risk of having the one leader is now the one leader might have a subpar preparation. Do they then think about transitioning Quinn back into that program? I mean, I don't know. I can't speak for them, but it's definitely going to sit around the table, you know, and with Quinn involved in these discussions and see if he would like to step in. I think, first of all, they need to assess the severity of the injury of Mats Pedersen and see what the recovery is. I'm just checking their roster here. I mean, listen, they have a strong roster, man. I mean, obviously, listen, Mats Pedersen is not replaceable, right? There's nobody else on the team who is of that caliber for those spring classics. That's for sure. There's not many people on the level of Quinn Simmons. I mean, he is like unbelievably strong. Yeah, yeah, he is. He is. But, you know, this is now an opportunity for other riders to, you know, like, for example, I'm just saying, for example, Matias Vacek. Okay, it's not that level, but it's, you know, I mean, this is probably not going to win Flanders, but they'll have to do with what they have. Ibonese, I assume? Ibonese. Ibonese. It's not on his schedule, oddly. No, normally not. I think last year, Thibaut was trying to go for Flesch Wallonne, no? Yeah. Yeah. And that might be on... Nope. Yeah, he's doing Amstel Flesch Liege, which kind of makes sense. Yeah. You know, but the funny thing is Flanders is changing. And maybe it's just a Bogacar thing, but it's becoming more of a climber's race than... like you even wonder someone like Mateusz Schalmoza, like, could he win Flanders? Maybe that's just an oddity of Pogacar being so good. No, no. No, I think, I think, let's not, Pogacar is just unique. There's, you know, the writers of the, I mean, the Schalmoses and, you know, the lighter guys, no, they can't win Flanders. No. You are right about Vacek, though. This is his time to step up. I mean, this is perfect. he's the perfect rider that you would have right there's there's another ride for example tom squeans you know he's been up there yeah with classics you know it's it's so it's listen they can't replace smart so they can't say okay you know what we're doing the whole race around this leader and we want to be on the podium which would be the objective of little track right they can't do that with these riders but if these riders have their own opportunities now and they don't have to spend all the energy for the leader, they can get at best a top five. And, you know, we'd say, okay, top five is not good enough for a little track, but it's what it is. You know, I mean, you can't, if the leader is, if the top leader is gone, then it's the secondary, the shadow leaders, I would say, who have to step up. Quinn Simmons, I mean, if I would be him, I would maybe consider it. Although I do think, though, that Quinn Simmons, and especially, man, listen, I saw those numbers again from Tour of Lombardy last year. Almost six hours, I mean, five hours, 30 or 40 at 350 watts. That's madness, madness. so you know i think probably quinn himself will see himself with better chances at amstel and liesh to do a good performance then yeah i mean his i think his logic was that he expressed in the show was i can win amstel but i maybe can't win flanders yeah i agree he could win him still I mean, actually, it's the perfect race for him. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, God, he could win. He's not, he doesn't have a liege on his, on his, it's not on there. I have to, I do wonder if he's doing it. He also has a funny, he mentioned that the, I don't know, I don't know why USA Cycling does this. They move nationals around every year, but it's during Tour of Switzerland this year. So he changed his schedule to do the Dauphiné, which is not the Dauphiné anymore. fly back to the US race the national championships and then fly back to Europe for the tour so he has already his spot for the tour I mean in theory his theory yeah well that a big change for Piquen Simmons because remember last year he only got that in the Tour of Switzerland Yeah, he was back racing national championships, won and then went to Tour of Switzerland. Yeah. It was good enough they selected him for the tour. Yeah, he was amazing in the Tour. I would say if you're off the front of Lombardia for the entire race and finish just off the podium. yeah yeah yeah for me that performance is is that the the confirmation of the type of rider he is you know he's a big and uh yeah yeah i saw those numbers a few days ago i said and i just i was discussing with my son you know he's uh he's 16 i mean he's turning 17 in april and you know know his best powers uh or uh like for 15 20 minutes is what win simmons is doing for five hours that's crazy wow yeah that puts that in perspective no that's that's i mean i i i can put it in perspective so it's it's it's it's yeah i mean yeah that's that's a big freak stuff what he's doing the forgotten result too is he got third at montreal pretty good little result right there yeah behind the the uae guys so um yeah take them to the tour probably would be a would be a safe bet um yeah i mean maybe that's right maybe you've convinced me that if he can win am still gold maybe it's worth putting everything toward i think so i think so yeah yeah and we don't know you know we don't we don't know how mad it's gonna do i do i would bring up you remember mads petterson worked over vanderpoel at the 2024 gent wevelgum with the help of jonathan milan and to me that like perfectly encapsulated like how you defeat these guys and that's what i just can't quite understand how like i would just take every writer that is the best for the course that we're facing them on because we're we're dealing with a five alarm fire here this is not a normal situation like normal tactics will not work against these guys you've got to start thinking weird if you want to beat them in my opinion like you can't just roll up and say yeah we'll try to beat we'll try to beat Matthew Vanderpool and Pogacar by going to the base of the Quermont and riding faster than them. Like, I don't know if that's going to happen. They have to do something else. They have to do something else. Yeah. Drop someone in on a blimp mid race to anything. Anything is needed at this point. And then this kind of takes me to my next point. Jonas Vinegard crashed training recently. And then on a descent hit his face, I believe, which no broken bones, but that can really throw you off. not racing the UA2 Oregon's from Coevinapol. A little disappointing because I was quite excited to see that showdown. They didn't mention, I mean, Wisma plays this so close to the vest for, like with the injuries, I would say too close to the vest sometimes to the fact where it's confusing. But what do we read into this, Johan? I don't think it's such a big deal. I mean, we never know when videos are taken, right? but I I'm under the impression I've seen already other videos from him training again. Uh, he's, he's, he has a place in, in Malaga, Malaga, I think in that area. And I've seen other videos, uh, from after the reported crash, which I don't know when there's, when those videos were taken, but I seem, I mean, it was raining and he was, you know, in full rain gear and it's raining now. So I'm going to, I'm going to assume that he's already back on the bike. I don't think it's such a big deal. So let's just say he's fine. Put him in the fine bucket. Nowadays, Spencer, especially and also with the crashes that Jonas has had. Remember his crash in Tour of the Basque Country. Remember his crash in Paris Nice. Didn't he broke his wrist there also? He did. He did break his wrist, yeah. having no broken bones after a crash, it's a success. Unless you have a severe concussion. But other than that, it's fine. Yeah, we're trending in the right direction. But I've just listed two of Pogacero's biggest rivals. One in Classics, one in Grand Tours. Both suffering crashes. One with very intense injury problems. Wout Van Aert already had surgery on his ankle. Where is Matthew Van Der Poel? Because if he gets hurt, we might be hurtling towards the thing I predicted in our end-of-year show where I said Pogacar is going to sweep the classics and win the Tour of France. The last footage I've seen of Matthew Van Der Poel was he was going down the ski slopes in Livigno. I don't like to hear that. That's not good. The day after his world title, he was on the skis in Livigno. I mean, you know, he's obviously, uh, he's not gonna take risks, but Hey, skiing is a dangerous sport, man. It's skiing is a very dangerous. Yeah. Yeah. I, uh, I am, I am, I have the consequences of a big ski crash, you know, since 10 years ago for the rest of my life. And it's not, not, uh, it's not good, not good at all. Um, so, um, obviously, you know, these guys are, you know, they're young there, you know, they crash and they jump up. They're like rubber, you know. But, yeah, I mean, it's a risky activity. I mean, I think it's part of the special relationship that Van der Poel has with his team and with the team managers and with Christoph Rotoft. You know, they're very close. And so they allow him to do certain things for him to stay focused when he needs to stay focused and decompress when it's time to do that so i think it's part of the whole picture of you know having him feel good uh riding at opposite premier tech and um yeah let's uh let's let's hope that he doesn't go off piste and uh the results have been pretty good you would argue like whatever they're doing it probably is a good idea to keep doing it yeah yeah i mean i think pogacar is skiing too easel of 2000 up there oh maybe a little training on the bike maybe some skiing but i did see oh for sure they're on the bike if they're not outside their own zwift that's for sure that's for sure you know it's it's decompression and at the same time it's altitude training also right so um yeah and if you're up there altitude training it would kind of make sense that you might day off maybe go out there and ski yeah yeah yeah well actually that's exactly what i talk about but let's take another quick break and then i'm gonna ask you about this and get to our questions at the end of the show. 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That's q-u-i-n-c-e.com slash the move quince.com slash the move for free shipping and 365 day returns quince.com slash the move okay johan just before this kind of set up the first question we have bobby is back bobby is back bobby is back huge i so we were talking about altitude camps people skiing it does seem like it's a trend now you go up to a ski resort this time of year and even if it's snowing you just train inside like uno x is that it seems like they are their second altitude camp of the year they were where are they are they in sierra nevada now they were in the canary islands but as you know the weather's been awful like it's just dumping snow there so they're on zwift every day for like six hours a day oh yeah i mean listen okay spencer let's i think we should differentiate there um i i haven't followed that but i can tell you uh the whole of unix team is is not six hours on Zwift. I think it's Abrahamson, Jonas Abrahamson, who is a freak. I know my son follows him, and he says, Abrahamson did today on Zwift. I mean, let's not forget Abrahamson had this crash last year in… Was it Switzerland or something? No, no, no, no. It was… It was… That's a great question. It was a race in two of Belgium. Two of Belgium. Yeah. Yeah, Tour of Belgium. Broke his collarbone, had surgery. The day after surgery, he was on Zwift in the hospital. He made it to the start of the tour, which is probably two weeks later. And very later wins his stage. So, yeah, I mean, I think that's not the norm for Uno X. But anyways, if you're at Sierra Nevada right now and you want to do altitude training, you're going to have to be on Zwift because the weather is horrible in the south of Spain right now. I mean, people have sent me, I have my sources on the ground who have sent me videos and you can see there's like eight of them in the corner, like on these trainers every day. Yeah. I mean, it does make me wonder, and this probably won't be a trend, but are you better off this time you're just going to an outstu camp and riding indoors versus riding outside? not at altitude i mean yeah i mean mentally you could imagine it getting kind of hard no this is great i mean i mean there's almost nobody who can do this mentally like you can do this once for like okay you know i want to show off and i want to do six hours on swift whatever but hey you can't do this regularly you go crazy um abrahamson doesn't seem to have a problem with it uh what a writer man what a what a what a what i mean he's strong as an ox crazy winning winning mentality i did uae at their uh when uh juaron swart and then javier solaire were talking solaire solaire solaire they were they were saying they're trying to scale back their altitude camps and then someone actually asked them like well unox is scaling up their altitude camps and they basically swatted the question away. This does make me wonder, is Inno X thinking, hmm, this is a lot of outdoor camps in the coldest part of the year. Maybe we shouldn't have done this. Well, I think they haven't, obviously they didn't plan on being the weather so bad in the south of Spain. It's alert, Spencer. I mean, Andalusia is flooded. um granada that's the bottom of that's the bottom of sierra nevada right granada is so bad it's really bad so uh if if you're stuck up there then you have to make the best out of it and luckily nowadays the the indoor riding technology is up to point i mean you can perfectly do any training you have to do on whatever zwift or platform or ruvi or whatever my whoosh you can do it uh to perfection actually it is like shockingly better it is unbelievable how well you could train indoors now i mean i was yeah i was thinking if i was a professional i probably could stay in boulder quite a long for like the first two months of the year probably just do altitude camps from my house and if it was bad weather you just do zwift we didn't we didn't used to have that technology go on it was not as easy to ride inside back in the day but on this topic this is the first question i thought this was kind of interesting this is from mark in sydney jaco all the way is how he signs his email but he says his question is more of a theory sparked by recent crashes of ua riders at the start of the season and they yes would you agree with all the focus now on training camps and individual riders riding to their power meters and the art of and would you agree that the focus on this means the art of racing has been diminished if teams like ua spend so much time in a controlled environment focused on outputs are their riders more vulnerable to crashing in chaotic environment in the chaotic environments of a live race kind of an interesting question yeah i mean i think i think there's something to it man um obviously listen any professional cyclist they're they're they're masters on the bike right they their skills are unrivaled um there are some riders who maybe i mean i would say you know the lack of racing sensations instinct the feeling you have in the bunch um maybe i think maybe going down uh they don't race that much um and and i'm not going to say that that's the reason why there's more crashes but uh it's definitely i mean if you're used to be in a bunch a lot there's a lot of reflexes that you know that's it's automatic you know oh i mean i was i was talking i don't know who was talking to the other day um about this but uh you know i think it's a combination of a lot of a lot of factors That may be one of them. I still think the bikes are super fast. Everything's optimized. The disc brakes have their pros and their cons. I think braking-wise, it's amazing. It brakes better than any other system we had in the past. At the same time, I think that disc brakes also are a reason for certain crashes where they know it breaks so well that everybody's used to just break at the last moment. Yeah, I do think that's a big component. You don't have to anticipate. With rim brakes, obviously it didn't break. Sometimes it didn't break at all, rim brakes, because you were there. But at least you had this automatic instinct installed that you always had to be aware and anticipate and always looking and you were breaking already before you actually came to the spot when you saw something in the bunch. I think those automatic feelings are gone within nowadays cycling. Anyways, I'm not saying that, you know, this brakes are obviously, if you look at the overall picture, I think it's a lot better. It's safer in the downhills. You know, when you have to stop, you stop. you know i still have nightmares sometimes and especially when at the beginning when the carbon wheels came into the into the peloton and we didn't have the proper brake pads i mean you go down a climb a mountain and it's raining and you have you had no brakes man it's just general slowing you just you kind of slowing down yeah yeah yeah lining up to do a wet crit Everyone got carbon wheels Yeah Oh my Lord Yeah There just no stopping Yeah. For the followers who know, I mean, you can look it up on YouTube. My famous crash in 1996 in the Tour de France when I went off the cliff on the descent of the Cormier de Rosolland. that's a typical crash of uh new um new technology uh carbon wheels back in the day so it was the beginning of the lightweight what year was that 96 that was early carbon wheels uh and not have the proper brake pads no yeah wow yeah wow geez and it was and i have to say it was a personal decision yeah it was not a team like i didn't the team didn't ride on lightweight i asked permission to the team if i could use the lightweight wheels and then you know it was my decision my responsibility but uh that was the cause i mean the main cause of the crash is that i didn't have enough brake power when so i i yeah i went over i went over the cliff yeah what how what what were the injuries obviously you're here today so you were i guess in a big picture we should post the link of the of the of the in if we can post it in the comments or something uh i'll find the link the injuries were it was a miracle nothing i mean i had i had uh i had a few uh thorn fibers in my cough which three days after forced me to abandon but it was crazy i went i fell more than 10 meters down uh over like you know you have those in the in the house of those concrete blocks uh like you know you went over it uh i remember go going you know like over my head and uh no helmet no helmet spencer and i came out of there i had it was a bad day it was it's the stage it's the famous stage is the first time that we saw in the Rheincrack. It was... The finish was on... You know, I didn't know those were the same day. Le Dues Alpes or Les Arkes. Yeah. Which one it was. But anyway, it was that same day. So bad weather. And I had a... I rode for Rab. I had a little cycling cap on. And so I went over, fell, and I came back out and I still had the cycling cap on my hat. On my head. That's how, you know, lucky i was dude you could have here and be able to tell this story you could have cracked that noggin yeah easily yeah that is very lucky um what year was that 96 96 yeah you know what's crazy about indorain and the reason i think he is a baller 96 first year he cracks just goes home like i'm out no no he finished the tour well he finished the tour then he and then he had he was Forced to start the Vuelta. Well, he won the Olympic Games in between the tour of the Vuelta. Yeah. Yeah. So he was forced to start the Vuelta because of Manesto, his sponsor, and he abandoned and said, OK, that's it. I'm out of here. And we never saw him again. Yes. That's awesome. That is like quite the way to go out. But the second question, someone in the chat asked a question that I was just about to ask. You might have noticed like Rimko wins four races off to a great start. Mads Pedersen crashes. Those are kind of the two big stars that we've had appear so far. Obviously, Mads Pedersen crashing maybe supports the theory that people should be at training camps, but everyone else is at training camps. The question is, why is Pogacar's first race Strada Bianchi? Is that a little risky that you're just jumping into that? Maybe that's they think it's not a challenging race. It has worked the last few years. He won last year and the year before being at his first race. Ah, listen, these guys, I don't think we can compare, you know, these big engines, you know, Pogacar, Wanderpool, Van Aert, Mats Pedersen, you name them, Remco. They show up and they're just on top of their game. They don't need any races to get race fit or whatever. So I just think it's, if you look, for example, if you take Van der Poel, you take Pogacar, and let's take, let's say, Remko. And even Jonas. Wout, maybe to a lesser extent. I think he's still a little bit more old-fashioned thinking in terms of getting races in. But these guys do not race when they think they can win. They don't race when you think they can. They only race the races that they think they can win. Yeah, that's a good point. You know, I mean, obviously, listen, if Pogacar would race Tour of Valencia, he would win it. If he would race Tour of UAE, he would win it. But, you know, he has such a specific set of goals and ambitions that he just, you know, he just shows up whenever it's a big goal. And, you know, usually he wins. well so pagachar did race hua tour last year before strata oh he did okay so it is you're thinking of 2024 the zero year he comes in and just drops a bomb 81k solo see you later first race of the year i guess he's i guess he's not too worried about it but i i was thinking this month i was like man i there's not many my wife is like who's racing this race and like you don't understand these guys are pretty good you don't know them but it's that's good racing um and yeah made me think there's not a lot of big stars out there racing right now um there's a someone asked a question and i'm gonna i'm gonna tell them we're going we can address it but we're gonna wait till we stop recording so if you want to hang around we can talk about that that's what you get for your membership um the next question is what breed is bobby oh he's a uh he's a uh tackle um so he's a Dachshund, uh, and it is a long haired Kaninchen Dachshund. There's definitely, there's different sizes. And so Kaninchen, Kaninchen is German for a small rabbit. Uh, and so apparently this small breed, they, they, you know, they, they are basically around to, to chase rabbits, to, to hunt rabbits. they go in rabbit holes or that's what they were bred for initially so it's this it's a long-haired caninian dachshund or tackle or whatever you call it maybe bobby in our yard we got big big rabbit problems the next question is it's funny i just had to do this in a race um do riders prefer taking a nature break while riding the bike or pulling over they they prefer to stop that's what i would say yeah yeah i i was i was at the tour of tucson and the group was too i couldn't if i pulled over i was never going to see it again i had to pee off the bike oh wow like it is not it is not a comfortable experience i would say i mean it depends you know listen if you have usually you you try to find the you know a false flat not not too not too much descent like a false flat one two percent downhill you go to the side of the road very important check the wind you have to go bad enough i don't know how much you care yeah yeah yeah and uh yeah but they they they if whenever they can they they stop for a nature break if if if you do it on the bike it's because it's too fast. There's no time. You can't wait. You can't wait to... Or maybe, you know, you think it's never going to slow down. I mean, you saw Tom Pickock. Remember, it was between the Poggio and the... No, Trapresso and Poggio. Two years ago, when he peed off the bike in the front group at San Remo. If you got to go, you got to go. Well, listen, you know what I mean? There's very little things that Tom Pickock cannot do on a bike. And yeah, peeing on the bike is definitely not one of them. Yeah. And actually, if you want to get really good at peeing off the bike, I had a friend who would practice it on group rides. Really? It kind of makes sense. Like if you want to be good at it in a race, you got to practice in training. But usually like when you see these breakaways have big gaps, it's because the fight for the breakaway is intense. And then someone makes the decision that everyone's going to pull over and take a pee. Yeah. And then the breakaway gets the gap. So yeah, preferably you would do it then. Yeah. Yeah. I remember Victor Campnards. I haven't seen it happen for a few years, but there was years where he was peeing like all the time. He'd just be in the break. He'd just be peeing. Like he was peeing five, six times a race. And I'm like, hey, he's got probably a note from his nutritionist. Stay hydrated. I guarantee you. Yeah. It was some sort of push of like ultra hydration. And like, I got to drink all these carbs in the end of pee. The last one. This is a good question. isek del toro's training and home in his hometown i assume this person means in mexico how is this reviewed and checked by uae is it just through training peaks basically yeah yeah i mean it's the i mean it's not it's not uae it's the personal contact you have with your trainer so they are i'm gonna guess in uae there's probably five six trainers or more you know everybody has four or five riders and so that's the communication you know uh and then every usually normally everybody also has one designated uh ds who stays in touch with a group of four or five or six riders which he checks in with and um so yeah that's the way i mean i don't think it's not that they have to check it it's you know these guys know what they're doing man they they do the job you know they do what they have to do and there's a i mean you're a you're not away that long it's not that long of an off season and b i mean in between major races they're they're probably training by themselves anyway yeah so it's it's and it's like a normal i guess i mean i don't know where isaac del toro lives but he's probably at altitude in mexico uh he's from Ensenada which is on the coast oh so it it's kind of it's basically San Diego south and if you're in San Diego nice little place to ride so I'd assume the weather's very good a lot of mountains coming out of the ocean so I see the appeal of training there um and I mean but he'll he'll like then have to go to some altitude camp soon but yeah if you like the Colombian guys a lot of them live at altitude. So instead of going to an altitude camp and being away from home, it just kind of makes sense to stay at home and be at altitude. And yeah, I mean, if anyone that has a coach, you just do your training, it goes to the training peaks and then the coach looks at it and it's, I don't, I don't like, I don't like it. I don't want, I always hated that. It's like, I don't want to, I don't want to hear about what you think about my training. All right. Like I just want to do this in private, but that's how it works for the pros. Anything else, Johan, before we take off? i'm just checking here is like the total but i can't find him on strava there's too many fake ones i know it's like an army of fake deltoro i just want to see where he was no i think we've covered uh most of it spencer so um yeah i what's what's our next big uh appointment is that uae tour yeah we'll do a show on friday next friday and then uae tour is it i i i am terrible at knowing when the uae tour is it starts on february 16th so that is in 10 days from now okay and then so it's two weeks until we have our end of uae tour yeah yeah rundown i assume i mean this is big this is Remco Evinable's chance to win a World Tour stage race. And to win in the home of his nemesis. Bogacar. Bogacar. It's not his nemesis. At this moment, he's not. I also think they're good friends, right? I mean, yeah. They were good friends, I think, when they were banging on Jonas together in the tour. Did you hear that quote? He's like, you shouldn't be afraid of him. That's what Pogacar said to Evan Apple. He's like, don't listen to him. I guess he has won this race before. Remco? Yeah, he's won UA Tour 2023. And there's a time trial, no? Yeah. There's usually time trial and then two uphill finishes. It's a very good time trial for him. You know, these kind of efforts man for remco that's like uh it's not the high mountains yeah he's gonna be it's a perfect remco he's not gonna be difficult to beat yeah do you know who he's racing against though uh besides adam yates del toro isaac del toro oh okay that's i'm actually not kind of excited for this race you need to take some time which he will in the time trial yeah yeah he will because, man, but Del Toro is a pretty good time trialist. He's no panic cooking in the time trial. But he's going to lose 20 seconds of it on Remco, at least, if not more. At least, probably, right? How long is the time trial? The time trial is 12K long. Okay, that's going to be more than 20 seconds. Last year, Josh Charlene wins. Let's just assume Remco is as fast as Josh Charlene. second place was 13 seconds back and pogacar was almost 20 seconds back so yeah it's probably 20 30 seconds yeah yeah that's gonna be interesting i'm excited i mean listen i mean there's two uphill finishes so with you know with two wins and bonification it's doable but i'm still gonna put remko as the favorite number one how does that work with uae and pogacar and the uae tour Is it like an every other year situation? I mean, you know, initially I would say, you know, a few years ago, I think UAE or, you know, the Sheikh could still demand the presence of Pogacar at their race, right? I think those times have gone. They can't demand anything anymore because, you know, he's the best rider in the world. He wins the Tour de France. Okay, it's fine if you don't come to the UAE. If you keep winning Tour de France, you probably don't have to go to the UA Tour if you don't want to. In some ways, though, the training's pretty good. I mean, it is hard racing in crosswinds usually. Yeah. Maybe not the worst thing to go do. Short stages, though, so maybe that's not what Bogacá needs for the classics. Yeah, I know. I actually would be curious to talk to his team sometime about how they make that calculation. What do you think he's doing instead of being at the UA Tour? Is he just at home in Monaco? Yeah, he's doing long rides. I mean, he's doing monster rides. Yeah, monster rides in those coastal mountains or sleeping up at altitude and going to a ride probably. Yeah, it's great training there. Yeah. The training he can do there is definitely a lot better for the classics than being at UAE Tour. For sure. Interesting. And you're getting time at home when you're going to be gone later in the year. So it makes sense. Well, thanks, Johan. anything else before we take off no that's it thanks guys we'll talk to everybody on friday thanks for joining