0:11

You are listening to The Cycling Podcast.

0:22

Hello, I'm joining you on December the 13th,

0:24

2023, the 34th birthday of Time Magazine's freshly

0:29

anointed person of the year, Taylor Swift, and

0:31

of a man who in 2023 had a

0:34

whole book named

0:36

after and dedicated to the

0:38

pseudo religion created in his

0:40

name, that is Landismo and

0:42

its divinity, Mikel Landa. My

0:44

name is Daniel Fribourg and I'm the host

0:46

of this episode of The Cycling Podcast, in

0:49

which we will walk with you into the

0:51

smouldering flames of the hottest news story of

0:53

the last few days in professional cycling. Indeed,

0:56

when a few weeks ago we

0:58

made a date with Bora-Hansgrohe's head

1:00

of sports, Rolf Aldag, we anticipated

1:03

that the winter transfer we'd spend

1:05

most time discussing would be that

1:07

of Primoz Roglic from Jumbo-Visma to

1:09

Bora-Hansgrohe. On a

1:11

wild last Saturday afternoon, however, Jumbo-Visma

1:13

stunned the cycling world by announcing

1:16

that they had signed the 20-year-old

1:18

Belgian sensation, Kjan Oudebroeckx, on a

1:20

four-year deal as of now, a

1:23

year before his contract with Bora was due to

1:25

expire. Only for Bora to respond

1:27

an hour later that Oudebroeckx's agreement with them

1:29

still stood, and for the rider's

1:31

agent in turn to refute that. It's

1:34

got even messier over the last couple

1:36

of days, with suggestions, or maybe a

1:38

better word is leaks, to the effect

1:40

that Oudebroeckx had been bullied at Bora.

1:43

Now when I headed to see Rolf

1:45

Aldag at Bora-Hansgrohe's winter training camp billet

1:48

just outside Palma de Mallorca this afternoon,

1:50

I was afraid he wouldn't want to

1:52

broach the Oudebroeckx saga, but I needn't

1:54

have worried. As ever,

1:56

Rolf was in expansive and insightful

1:58

form about what occurred over the

2:00

last few days and much besides. From

2:03

Bora's frustrating 2023 to their hopes of

2:05

winning the Tour de France with

2:08

Roglic in 2024, from doping confessions

2:10

Jan Urich and living in the

2:12

past to Mark Cavendish and Cav's

2:14

present and future. You'll

2:16

hear all of that in just a

2:18

second. Before you do, just a quick

2:20

word to say that next week's episode

2:23

will be an end of year bonanza,

2:25

hopefully featuring many of the guests you've

2:27

enjoyed hearing from over the last few

2:29

months, and now this short commercial

2:31

message from Lionel. Shoot that out

2:33

of your blue door cycling podcast team

2:35

car at the back of the pack

2:37

please. That said PK the voice of

2:39

Radio Tour to remind me to tell

2:41

you that this episode is sponsored by

2:43

the Hammerhead Karoo 2, the most advanced

2:45

GPS cycling computer available today. And

2:47

if you've been listening to the cycling podcast for a

2:50

while you'll know that I've got a Karoo 2 on

2:53

my own bike and if you'd like

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one too you can get a free heart

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the free heart rate monitor with the

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Hammerhead Karoo 2. We'll put those details

3:10

in the show notes. Now what

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sets a Karoo 2 apart from other cycle

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computers? Well it does all of the things

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you would expect it to do. It will

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tell you how fast you're going,

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it gives you your cadence, your power

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output, but it's the

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climber feature that really sets it

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apart for me. It's revolutionized my

3:30

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years because rather than fearing

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the gradient changes I've got the information

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at my fingertips and so I know

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if the steep bit is still to

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come or whether the worst is behind

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me and it's helped me to judge

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my effort a little bit better when

3:47

I'm climbing. So the climber feature really

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is like having a little road book

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on your computer. Giving

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you the route, giving you what's coming

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up ahead and well it's

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a versatile piece of kit too. say

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you're out riding in an area that is

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unfamiliar to you, you can find

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But if you do go off course because of human

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4:53

and before I hand back to Daniel and co, if

4:55

you are planning to ride on

4:57

Sunday, that's December the 17th with

4:59

Lauren Aldebaire in Hertfordshire tackling the

5:02

12 Hills of Christmas route, they

5:04

are leaving from the Hub Cafe

5:06

in Redbourne Hertfordshire at 9am and

5:08

they'd love to see as many

5:10

friends of the podcast and cycling

5:12

podcast listeners kitted up and ready

5:14

to ride as possible. So that's

5:16

Sunday December the 17th at the

5:18

Hub Cafe in Redbourne

5:21

Hertfordshire 9am start. So

5:27

Rolf, the last time I was in

5:29

this hotel, well you

5:32

were also there, I think it was about 10 years

5:34

ago, you won't remember but

5:36

I think it was probably the last year

5:38

of HTC, you of course were a very

5:41

influential figure at HTC. I

5:43

was looking back, I was refreshing my memory

5:45

about just how successful Rolf and HTC were

5:48

earlier today and some of the

5:50

figures were quite remarkable.

5:52

I've just got it here, 318 victories

5:55

in five seasons, they won 85 races.

6:00

in 2009 but you told me

6:02

your memories are pretty foggy of that when I

6:04

said we might talk a bit about HTC you

6:06

said you'd unfortunately forgotten to take your

6:08

jin singh this morning so you might not remember

6:12

very well is that the case is it all quite

6:14

foggy when you think back to that now? Aye

6:17

you know you always think about the you

6:19

know like in general you glorify things in

6:21

the past see how that was cool

6:24

that was cool but you know if you get details

6:26

questions it's many times hard to

6:28

answer the figure 85 victories in one

6:30

season always sticks up because you

6:32

know every time somebody thinks he's successful and

6:34

say yeah mate but you still missing 30

6:37

to our record setting in

6:40

and in that year but you

6:42

know it doesn't be realistic of course was

6:44

different times different racing

6:46

and what we won was

6:49

also not obviously not like we didn't win

6:51

the Tour de France anything similar we're

6:53

really good in executing like sprint

6:56

stages with Scryper with Cavendish with

6:58

Metgolf and those type of

7:00

riders and then still had a lot of

7:02

quality in time trialing I think one 17

7:04

time trialing or something one year but

7:07

yeah it was you know to

7:09

be accurate it can't be after

7:12

2011 because that was the last year of HTC

7:14

so it's more than 10 years

7:16

of e-liketime it's flying when you're having fun. Ralph

7:19

I was also reading back some of the things you said to

7:22

me back then and

7:24

you talked about how the

7:26

necessity was the mother of invention

7:28

sometimes them you talked

7:31

about for example sometimes in a normal team

7:33

you might have a guy on a hundred

7:35

and fifty thousand a year and he was

7:37

doing you know he might be doing okay

7:39

and often just as a

7:41

matter of course as a sort of reflex

7:43

that those guys would get their contracts renewed

7:45

and HTC often that

7:47

you simply didn't have the money to

7:50

keep working in that fashion and consequently

7:52

this meant you had to

7:54

make difficult decisions and explore the market for

7:56

opportunities and it made me think that well

7:58

how different that is is to, we've just

8:00

finished the season in 2023 when

8:03

YumbaVisma have dominated the ground tours and they've won all

8:06

three ground tours. We might talk a bit more

8:08

about YumbaVisma and their signings in a minute,

8:11

but it

8:13

is quite different to how teams seem

8:16

to obtain success in 2023. The

8:19

game has very much changed. You couldn't do that

8:21

anymore, could you? You couldn't adopt that kind of

8:23

money ball approach and have the same extent of

8:25

success. Yeah, that is indeed

8:27

very, very difficult now. The

8:31

quality of the top teams, it's

8:33

so close that you need

8:35

to compete to them by having also a

8:37

strong team. So it's not like that one person

8:39

show that you get lucky with the talent

8:41

and you can really challenge them because

8:43

then they outplay you by numbers.

8:46

And so it is quite difficult and

8:48

also everybody's doing his homework now. With

8:52

these big budgets, everything is

8:54

possible for a lot of teams, for

8:56

the leading teams. Money is no limitation.

9:00

So in the past, it was more

9:02

like cleverness dominating. Now

9:04

it's just simply money dominating.

9:06

So a lot of people say that in football,

9:08

it's like, yeah, but the money

9:11

doesn't score goals, but actually it does.

9:13

And your money buys your victories in

9:15

cycling as well. That's very obvious. And

9:18

since they're all picked up, since

9:21

everybody is working on details now, that

9:24

niche is closed. So then it is

9:26

about like, we all try

9:28

to get the best out of our

9:30

talents. While in the past, we were

9:32

laying on that talent, purely talent to

9:34

say, well, that will score results. Now

9:37

every team is developing that talent to

9:39

the maximum. So like we

9:42

get 100% out of it. And so

9:44

does every other team. And then ultimately the

9:46

more expensive bike riders are also

9:48

the more talented bike riders and they end up in

9:50

the big teams. And resources

9:53

in other ways as well, for example,

9:56

you've now got Primoz Roglic on

9:59

your team. I don't know

10:01

whether you have the resources, for

10:03

example, to send eight riders with him

10:05

to altitude camps. Resources

10:07

matter in that respect. That's one thing that

10:09

I've heard riders say this year

10:11

about Jumba Visma. For example, the issue

10:13

of altitude camps before Grand Tours, they

10:16

can send a huge group of riders

10:18

away, which is maybe even different. That's

10:20

maybe even taking it a step further

10:22

than even what Sky were doing. Yes,

10:25

it's not only about the riders. We

10:28

joined them at the same hotel on

10:30

Taita there for the altitude camp. We

10:33

also had seven riders up there while they had

10:36

12 up there, but we also had, I think,

10:38

four staff men up there while they had 12

10:40

up there. Then

10:43

of course, it is much easier to say,

10:45

our guys do it

10:47

by passion, do it by the heart, but

10:49

they have to have 18 hours working days. You

10:54

can do that for so long, but you cannot

10:56

squeeze them out like a lemon. This

10:59

is clearly where also quality

11:01

is one thing, but quantity does matter

11:03

there. Sending 12 riders

11:06

up there with that number of

11:08

support stuff is just different. For

11:10

sure, if out of

11:13

12 riders, eight end up performing, it's

11:15

different. Out of seven,

11:17

you also have some riders where

11:20

you say it's just not going to

11:22

work where we planned, and then you

11:24

come short in the numbers of

11:26

support riders for the leader, and

11:28

so on and so on. It does make a big

11:30

difference, of course. To

11:33

be fair, these teams

11:35

also plan it in clever ways.

11:39

They have the money, but they also spend it

11:41

wisely. Now with Roglic on

11:43

board, last year, you and

11:45

I had a conversation about how this team had

11:47

pivoted really and become a Grand Tour team, and

11:49

you had lots of good Grand Tour riders. You

11:51

had Jai Hindley, who had just won the Judo

11:53

d'Italia. You didn't necessarily have a favorite for

11:56

the Tour de France. Now you have someone who will be

11:58

in the conversation to win the Tour de France. Are

12:01

you already finding that when you have these

12:03

conversations about, for example, altitude camps,

12:05

I know that Primoz has already gone to Morgan

12:08

Hill, I think, in the States, even

12:10

on – well, already you're realizing that

12:13

it takes another level of resource. But

12:15

you're having to put more into all of that than

12:18

you even were last year. Well,

12:20

I mean, we are aware of

12:23

that. I mean, you know, it's Primoz is

12:25

an outstanding bike rider, but it's also a

12:27

big investment. And I think, you

12:29

know, you cannot have that as a stand-alone to say,

12:31

well, we pay his salary and then we expect him

12:34

to win the Tour de France, so everybody has to

12:36

grow. But then we're still

12:38

different to what Jumbo was able to

12:40

do, because realistically, you know, then still

12:42

aiming to win the Volta and the

12:44

Giro and still, you know,

12:46

being top, top class in

12:49

the classics is going to be super difficult for us.

12:51

So we have to

12:53

have a little bit more of a focused

12:55

approach to the Tour de France there. And

12:57

we manage that with what we have on

12:59

board with our resources, yes. And

13:02

anyhow, the last thing we want to do and we

13:04

should try to do is like copy Jumbo

13:06

Wisma, because you know, you always fail. The copy

13:08

is never as good as the original. So

13:11

we try to create another original with

13:14

maybe a few different focus

13:17

points on doing things

13:19

different and hopefully then

13:21

succeed at the end. Can you give me

13:23

any examples? I think you'll do different or

13:25

is that trade secret? No, but I think

13:27

in general, you know, we're probably less of

13:31

purely number driven. I think we

13:33

within the team, we are like more

13:36

emotional. So you know, I think

13:39

we do get a lot of motivation out

13:41

of like really our purpose,

13:43

our goal of winning the Tour de

13:45

France and living by emotions.

13:47

We might do an extra loop here and

13:49

there rather than saying like we

13:51

have to do, you know, this and this number

13:54

and we have to do these and these days.

13:57

And I do think, you know, that brought us the big.

14:00

success in the Giro, that emotion,

14:02

that willingness of like throwing everything

14:04

in there and with

14:07

the Torino stage to say, well, that was not,

14:09

you know, just purely by we can spend 5,000

14:12

kilojoules till that climb and then we can ride

14:14

6.3 watts up there. We

14:17

have a scientific department, of course, you know, we

14:19

have a performance team who does all of that.

14:22

But I think on top of it, it's really important

14:24

that, you know, like that you enjoy what you do

14:27

and just not become a daily

14:29

business. So once it becomes a daily business,

14:32

I think then we are not outstanding

14:34

anymore. And I do think

14:36

it's super important for us to, you know, catch people

14:39

with emotions and get them

14:41

motivated because there's a difference to say,

14:44

I do my job to expectation

14:46

or I do my job with passion. Is

14:49

that something that you've been in the team now three

14:53

or four years, two or three years? Is

14:56

that something that you particularly have emphasized

14:58

and you particularly feel that you've brought

15:00

as well? Now also for

15:03

me, it's a learning process because you know,

15:05

like you think like you

15:07

think Grand Tour is a bit

15:11

less emotional. You know, like where I came from

15:13

was of course, a lot of sprinting where it's

15:15

like it's all or nothing. My Grand

15:17

Tour is like as long as you don't lose, you

15:19

win. And you know, I

15:21

thought it's a little bit like well scaled back,

15:24

you know, calm down. It's

15:26

a lot, you know, just more

15:29

like the stability, the steadiness, but

15:31

also like learn from that to say

15:33

what do you have to have these days where

15:35

you know, where you have to go out there

15:37

to say, well, we're willing to we're absolutely willing

15:40

to lose. We you know, we would

15:42

accept it to be to be a

15:44

defeat, but we aim to win. And

15:47

I do think it's still a learning process for all of us.

15:50

And so, you know, we grow together in this.

15:55

I'm just thinking of some of the places you've

15:57

worked before and some of the successes you've had

15:59

before. take a ride like

16:01

Mark Cavendish, he's someone that epitomizes how emotion

16:03

still plays a big role, doesn't he? Yeah,

16:06

yeah, absolutely. I mean, if you just see pure numbers

16:08

from Mark, he would probably, you know,

16:11

I would have stopped earlier and,

16:13

you know, never won any stage

16:15

in the Tour de France. We

16:18

also see in his example that it's

16:21

quite risky because, you know, if you live from

16:23

this high emotions, you also need

16:25

to give people like that breathing space

16:27

where they come back down

16:29

to earth and because, you know, it's

16:31

just not working 365 like

16:34

live on a high in the

16:36

clouds and then you might

16:38

crash hard. So, you know, like, but

16:41

that's a very specific case and

16:43

I think, you know, people build on that,

16:45

people look up for

16:47

these kind of

16:49

people. But it also is

16:51

a little bit tricky, that's for sure. Like, and

16:53

Mark is a good example where he can go

16:55

always. He's mellowed now. I listened

16:57

to a podcast last week in which he said he's

17:00

a different man now, you know, he's very in control

17:02

of his emotions now. So we don't need to worry

17:04

about that. Rolf, I

17:07

mentioned Yumbo Visma. We're going to talk about

17:09

Yumbo Visma a little bit in a minute.

17:11

But they're going to be called Visma Lisa

17:13

Bike next year. Now, again,

17:15

in doing a bit of research for this interview

17:17

today, I came across or I was reading back

17:19

a piece I wrote about you years ago, profile,

17:22

but your father, having leased

17:24

you a bike when you were growing

17:26

up, your first racing bike,

17:29

he leased it to you for seven

17:31

Dutch marks a month. Is that right?

17:33

That is right. But that was via

17:35

the club, which was a super

17:37

nice offer. So it was really like, I've

17:40

done like Judo for like nine months

17:44

and then I stopped and the next idea was like, let's go

17:46

for cycling. And then we're like, yeah, but we're not going to

17:48

buy you a bike now. And then you're going to end up

17:50

again for in after nine months. Also had

17:52

two older sisters. So, you know, they wanted to

17:54

be fair. And then the club

17:56

did offer that that possibility to say, well,

17:59

you know what? we have like 15, 20

18:01

bikes that you can rent, that

18:03

you can lease and that leasing rate would

18:06

be 1% of the overall

18:08

value of that bike which was 750 German marks. So

18:10

7 German marks a month.

18:16

They would even deduct that from the

18:18

buying price if you want to buy

18:20

that bike. So super

18:22

nice. So it would have been 693 after one

18:24

month if you want to buy it. Well, it

18:28

really did get lucky with that option

18:30

because in the first year I needed

18:32

four different bikes because I did grow

18:35

from frame size 52 to 58 literally

18:37

where I ended up. I do believe

18:40

I grew like 16 centimetres or something

18:42

in one year which wasn't really good

18:44

for my spine and for my curved

18:46

back now. To establish

18:48

that growing period while you are always

18:50

sitting like really down at the front

18:52

on the bicycle. You were also doing

18:54

an apprenticeship in a tool making factory

18:56

I think. I don't know if that

18:58

was the same time but that probably

19:00

didn't help you at all either. Yeah,

19:02

standing on my working bench the whole

19:04

time. That was like

19:06

probably my third year when I

19:08

was cycling the third year then I started working for

19:11

three and a half years there, learning

19:13

that job, becoming a tool

19:15

maker. As hard as it

19:18

was I wouldn't want to miss it

19:20

because achieving that and getting

19:22

through that to say even at that time

19:24

we already had guys who said while they

19:26

finished I go to school, I come back

19:28

at one, I go training while

19:30

I came back at 3.30 standing

19:32

eight hours on my legs. I think the

19:34

first training camp I ever did was when

19:36

I turned professional. To then I played

19:38

ice hockey, I was running, I was doing a lot

19:40

of stuff which was super, super

19:42

strange that the first time I came

19:44

actually to Mallorca, a well-known cycling island

19:47

for Germans in my third year professional

19:49

and they all thought I was joking

19:51

when they said, we go out to

19:55

Seneo and we go over to Selva and we

19:57

climb up to Inka and I had absolutely no

19:59

idea. Think back there was no

20:01

mobile phone or anything or navigation system or

20:03

you know had unit on your on your

20:05

bicycle We could find

20:07

the roads and like they would not

20:10

believe me There was 30 profession

20:12

and they've never been on a training camp

20:14

on Mallorca So it was you know,

20:16

like all that process running through the factory

20:19

Learning process was was tough

20:21

that time but definitely good lessons for life

20:25

Times have changed a lot and professional cycling has

20:27

changed a lot and again in our conversation last

20:29

year we talked about how The

20:32

new generation is maybe motivated more by

20:34

opportunities than money And one thing that's

20:36

sure is that they have different experiences

20:38

and different Points of reference

20:40

to your generation in a role

20:43

like yours in an important role in a sports team

20:46

Is it something that you have to be

20:48

aware of as time goes by that the

20:50

age gap between you and? them

20:52

gets bigger and bigger and that you have to

20:55

make a special effort to Sort

20:57

of plug in attune yourselves

20:59

to their reference points I

21:02

mean, you know for sure you realize that

21:04

and like The

21:07

way to do it for us It's also

21:09

you know Bring in younger people into management

21:11

and bring into younger people into you know

21:13

sport directors if you see you know We've

21:15

done changes again. So Shane Archibald directly from

21:17

the bike into the car now Bernie

21:20

either Gasparotto they all still have that

21:22

you know modern approach like you know

21:25

Gaspar was was planning his altitude camps

21:27

himself already in all years years over

21:29

years over years So he doesn't know

21:31

what it means to sit on that

21:33

on that mountain while our experience in

21:35

the past was like 115

21:37

race days so how can I get

21:39

the base right in in November December

21:41

January with So I make

21:43

sure I have 10,000 kilometers To

21:46

write is that any intensity because from then

21:48

on its own intensity So it's a learning

21:50

process and I can't also

21:52

motivate them Anymore with standing in front of

21:55

the bus at the meeting and said like

21:57

well This is what when when Freddie Martins

21:59

attack, Georgia the flower because they literally don't know

22:01

who they are. You mean they talk about Fabian Cancellara

22:03

and most of them will shape their head. Yeah, you

22:05

know, it's like that. So

22:08

you know, like there are different ways

22:10

and like trying to understand them is

22:12

super important so I have to grow like,

22:14

you know, with the

22:16

sport, have to develop there.

22:19

But then it's also a good way to accept

22:21

that we are getting older and the gap, like

22:24

you said, is getting bigger and then bringing like

22:27

an intermediate step. So you know,

22:29

I still have the experience of doing

22:31

31 tutor forces but then

22:33

I have to have people say, okay, you know,

22:35

how do we transfer that now in my knowledge

22:38

and their experience and get the best out

22:40

of this young kids. In

22:43

recruiting younger people, that intermediate step, that's one

22:45

way. Are there other ways? I mean, I

22:47

don't know, do you download TikTok and I

22:50

mean, do you have to go through at the

22:52

end of every season? Do you? I'm

22:55

thinking about this because it also applies to me, it

22:57

applies to, you know, other people in

22:59

the media as well. Sometimes we have to kind

23:01

of give ourselves a bit of a reset and realise that people

23:04

aren't consuming media in the same way anymore

23:06

and it's a real effort. It takes a

23:09

real effort to step

23:11

out of your own shoes and into the shoes

23:14

of that generation. Are

23:16

there other things that you do to consciously just try

23:18

to, I mean, you have a daughter and well, you

23:21

have two children as well. I guess that helps. Yes,

23:24

I mean, TikTok, I was probably like

23:26

really, really early, TikTok, really early because

23:28

I had a bad with my daughter,

23:31

you know, she found it somewhere. And

23:34

then I said, like, look, I will have more

23:36

clicks than you in no time. And I was

23:38

standing on the balcony filming a leg, putting a

23:40

song underneath and 42 likes and

23:43

whatever, three hours for, I don't know, no

23:45

reason. So I wouldn't understand the concept,

23:47

but at least I could handle it. And

23:50

otherwise, you know, like if you try to find

23:52

me on social media and being active there, you

23:54

will fail because I learned the very hard

23:56

way with one tweet. You did

23:58

one tweet. What was it about? It

24:00

was about the Sagan incident. It was the

24:02

Sagan-Gavindish incident at the Tour de France. I

24:04

only remember this because it's in Mark's documentary,

24:06

isn't it? Okay, yeah. And

24:09

it was really like that one tweet and

24:11

I was kind of like, you know, coming

24:13

from that crash, being super worked up and

24:16

of course emotional and learning that

24:18

lesson today, it's just not good to

24:20

carry emotions into social media. And then

24:22

Mark was sitting there, shoulder was gone,

24:26

you know, and we had the conversation and then I

24:28

just put out something like, pure

24:30

violence, let's see what UCR is going to

24:33

do. And then they took him out and

24:35

then like, you know, like

24:37

half of the cycling world, because it

24:39

was 50-50 wasn't it? Some said like

24:41

Peter's fault, some said Mark's fault. Anyhow,

24:43

50% promised to kill me whenever they

24:45

see me next time. So then I

24:47

deleted my Twitter account in about the

24:49

next five minutes. But you can

24:51

still show your daughter that tweet and say, look how many likes

24:53

it got. I don't know how many likes it got, probably quite

24:55

a lot. But it's probably a few retweets as well. It's

24:58

funny because I'm also on Instagram when

25:00

I think I have a thousand followers

25:03

with never ever posting anything. So it's kind of

25:05

like, you know, people still expect

25:07

me to do another mistake on social media.

25:20

Bro, that wasn't all that preface, those first

25:22

15 minutes of conversation, it wasn't all a

25:25

cunning ruse to

25:27

get you to talk about Keanu to Brooks. But it

25:30

does make me think a little bit

25:32

of the situation that is developing. We're

25:34

talking about young riders, 20-year-old rider Keanu

25:37

to Brooks was one of

25:39

the sort of revelations of last year. He was

25:41

at the Wozdai, you were at the Wozdai, for

25:43

the first half if I remember correctly. He

25:46

finished eighth in

25:49

the last couple of days, I think yesterday.

25:51

He reported not to your training camp but

25:53

to Yumbo Visma's training camp. This

25:57

after two very

25:59

notable... press releases, three in fact at

26:01

the weekend, one from Yuma

26:03

Visma saying they'd signed him for the next four

26:05

years, one from Borahanskre saying

26:07

that he still had a contract until the

26:10

end of next year and then another one

26:12

from his agent saying that his contract with

26:14

you guys Borahanskre had been terminated on the

26:16

1st of December and that legal

26:19

proceedings had been started,

26:22

initiated to ensure that he

26:24

could ride for Yuma Visma

26:26

next year. Well was

26:29

this a big surprise to you

26:31

particularly on Saturday or how

26:34

much did you know was going on

26:36

in the background with a view

26:38

to him maybe changing teams? Yeah

26:41

I mean from external it looks

26:43

a little bit like hey this

26:45

is off-season entertainment like let's buy

26:47

some popcorn and a big bottle

26:50

of Coca Cola, lean back and

26:52

stay tuned and stay

26:54

online and follow that whole drama. So

26:57

I do think it is a high level

26:59

of entertaining I also understand to say this

27:02

time of the year and not too much

27:04

happening it gets even more attention than it

27:06

would get like if races go on you

27:09

know it's just a different focus now. We

27:11

are being involved there of course it's not

27:13

super cool to say you know we have

27:15

a planning done, we have a race schedule

27:17

done, this is like my job

27:19

so you know like we have to be

27:21

clear it's like I'm not like the guy

27:24

who's doing contracts obviously that's why for me

27:26

you know I don't want to

27:28

comment on contract itself but for

27:30

sure you know there's a planning for sure

27:32

there's like you know bikes in service course

27:35

and the closing is ordered,

27:38

it's ready, it's done. That was all happening? For

27:41

2024 of course so you

27:43

know like so we

27:46

assumed and we expect especially on the

27:48

you know operation aside from our side

27:50

to say well he's part of the

27:52

team and you know there

27:54

was there's no other expectation then than

27:56

that to say so of course and

27:59

it hits you like a hammer that's for sure. On

28:01

Saturday or even before Saturday did you know?

28:03

I know like I mean like you know

28:05

like it's it's it's a little bit like

28:09

I'm certainly not the guy who

28:11

spends too much time with scratching his head

28:13

about rumors or like what might have happened

28:15

what might not have happened for me it's

28:17

like pretty clear to say well we do

28:19

plan a camp we do not plan different

28:22

and and I was maybe still

28:24

like to say well if I have a

28:26

contract I either find a solution and we

28:28

all like know what the start of

28:30

this or I show up where I supposed to show

28:33

up so so

28:35

yeah from you know from my side

28:37

then of course it is kind of

28:39

like we plan everything we plan meetings

28:42

we plan reschedule we you know we

28:44

have everything in our in our administration

28:47

systems and that's set up and ready

28:49

to go. Rolf

28:52

I said that you were with him on

28:54

the Vuelta a España that wasn't that wouldn't

28:56

have been your first experience on a race

28:58

with him he had been the team for

29:00

two years but some of

29:02

the rumors that

29:04

have made it into the press over the last 24

29:06

hours have regarded the Vuelta a España and

29:08

how he felt and the Vuelta a España even at the

29:10

time there were murmurs of

29:13

discontent that there was a day when

29:16

he sort of got left behind I think

29:18

Nico dense and Vlasos found

29:21

themselves in a group down the road

29:23

and he said things to the Belgian media

29:26

after that there was also the incident that

29:28

he did at the end of the season

29:30

where he was kind of critical of the

29:32

time trial equipment always spare time trial bike

29:34

he also talked about needing the team needing

29:36

to do more work with him on time

29:38

trials but just

29:40

talk to us about the Vuelta a bit and

29:44

your experience with Kean there and

29:46

how unhappy he was and well

29:48

maybe address these reports

29:51

of him feeling alienated from

29:53

his teammates and maybe even being bullied

29:56

by his teammates well

29:58

you know like I think in general we have

30:00

to understand, I said well you know he's 20 years

30:03

old, he's very young but

30:05

he's performing in the world tour against

30:07

the very experienced riders. So the stress

30:09

level of course is super high for

30:11

everybody. It's like doing the first grand

30:13

tour is always an extra layer of

30:15

stress because you have never done it.

30:18

Everything that comes after eight days

30:21

is new to everybody and so

30:24

it's difficult to really define

30:26

expectations. But I

30:28

do think he had a guy staying with

30:30

him all the race so

30:32

we did make him a co-leader there

30:34

so we have Alex Lassoff

30:36

and Nico Dens would stay with him

30:38

and we had Jonas Koch dedicated to

30:40

him. So I just

30:42

can't see where I would say that

30:44

I go out there. Was a massive

30:46

mistake done there. How the

30:49

race develops, how the individual stages did

30:51

happen, that's something

30:53

that we can have a

30:55

million different opinions about it but we do

30:57

have a basic strategy and that was laid

31:00

out to everybody. So maybe just

31:02

to describe the general situation for that

31:04

understanding so we're not going there and

31:06

now every day is a new surprise

31:08

what we're going to plan to do.

31:11

There's a performance plan in

31:14

place where we really think of like what do

31:16

we do now we do things and

31:18

that's addressed and that's shared with the riders so

31:20

it doesn't come by surprise. And

31:23

I do think if we look back to

31:25

say what was planned and how things executed

31:27

then I don't really think we have to

31:30

look into the mirror and say we've made

31:32

massive mistakes. And

31:34

so therefore I think I really

31:36

want to keep the emotions out

31:39

there because to me

31:41

it really develops in a direction

31:43

where I just

31:46

find it hard to

31:48

see that emotions drive

31:50

the whole process and it seems to

31:52

be like that nations

31:55

are divided about it. Belgium

31:57

takes one stand so to say. And

32:00

it's just not right. So I do

32:03

think, you know, like now, right now, it's like

32:05

from our side, it was addressed,

32:07

I think the team said it, Ralph Dang

32:09

said it. It's like we

32:11

have a certain expectation, we do believe we

32:14

have a contract, and let's

32:16

figure out the facts and

32:18

put the facts next to each other. And then I

32:20

think, you know, like, this is why we have

32:22

legal systems, isn't it? It's really like,

32:24

I think we never come to a

32:27

conclusion via media discussions.

32:30

So therefore, I think for our decision, I

32:32

don't really, from our standpoint, I don't really

32:34

think it makes any sense to

32:37

comment on everything that he might say, comment

32:39

on something that, how we see it. For

32:42

me, like I try to stay cool

32:44

on this, like really try to, you

32:46

know, not get super emotional about it.

32:48

And they say, well, you know,

32:51

let's have like an objective,

32:54

you know, court, room

32:57

where we present our point, he presents

32:59

his points, and let's see what, you

33:01

know, how it's gonna be ruled. And

33:03

I think the ruling

33:05

is quite interesting and important to understand now,

33:08

what does that mean for the whole world

33:10

of cycling? Especially with such long contracts now

33:12

being signed. Exactly, because, you

33:14

know, like, this is like, you know, our

33:16

understanding is a contract is a contract, and

33:18

you read the regulations. There's a way out

33:20

there, yes, if everybody agrees to it. And

33:23

I think this is really like, you know, I'm

33:26

really not happy that it happens with a

33:28

20 year old right now, because,

33:30

you know, like he doesn't have that experience,

33:33

and it's all about his future,

33:35

much more than about our future. So it's gonna

33:38

be, you know, but it's important

33:40

for the whole sport. Because if

33:42

contracts have zero value anymore, I

33:45

think, you know, we have a problem, we have a

33:47

problem there. And you have

33:50

seen a lot of team manager comment on

33:52

that, to say, well, I think where everybody

33:54

feels a little bit to say, okay, what

33:56

are we gonna do now? So how is

33:58

that gonna be ruled? And how? How do we move on

34:00

from here? That's

34:03

going to be the interesting part, I think. I

34:06

think whoever rules it has to be aware of it, the

34:08

consequences. Rob,

34:11

I'll just ask you two more things on this, then we'll move on.

34:14

Just on Kean, I spoke to you during the

34:16

Vuelta and you talked in glowing terms about, you

34:19

said he's a role model of modern cycling. He'd

34:21

given this interview a few months earlier where he talks

34:23

about weighing his food, I think. You'd

34:26

said, well, it doesn't seem like a burden

34:28

to him. He checks his heart rate, weighs

34:30

his food and I said, that's different from

34:32

other riders. They seem to do it because

34:34

they have to do it. Whereas he doesn't

34:36

want to go into any day of his

34:38

life without a plan, you said to me.

34:40

Just generally, how did you feel that

34:43

he had integrated into the team and what was

34:45

it like to work with him? Well,

34:48

he's very intense. Meaning

34:50

that, like within the team and also

34:52

working with him, he's really, really intense.

34:54

So he's very time consuming but in

34:57

a positive way. It's not

34:59

really that he calls you about whatever

35:01

the weather or political situation

35:03

in the world. It's

35:05

very specific questions that he does have. He's

35:08

very demanding. He's not just happy because

35:10

you give him an answer. He's happy

35:13

only if he understands the answer and

35:15

if he accepts the answer. So

35:18

from that point, it's like, well,

35:20

this is that presents modern cycling,

35:22

I guess. And

35:26

within the team, of course, he's challenging others.

35:29

So he's getting people

35:31

out of the comfort

35:33

zone and some

35:35

people like it, some people like it a little bit

35:37

less maybe because he also puts the

35:39

bar higher for every other rider.

35:44

Just imagine you're 30 years old to 32

35:46

years old and team management always refers back

35:48

to the 20-year-old to say, but if he

35:50

would have done what he has done, maybe

35:52

he would have been better. If

35:55

you would have lived like he lives, maybe

35:57

he would be better. So

36:00

for sure, this is kind of like putting

36:02

the bar higher within the team and

36:06

certainly what he has done.

36:08

Yeah, sure. And I think that's a very

36:10

positive thing. That's the

36:12

way how the sport does develop, not

36:15

being like the big guys, the old

36:17

guys, keep the young guys small, but

36:20

let them grow and let them

36:22

reach new heights. And this is

36:24

how the sport's developed. And

36:27

just finally, those comments

36:29

about the time trial set up

36:32

and by Sparebiker, the Quonolí

36:36

Nacional, I imagine

36:38

that you've got a very good relationship

36:40

with Specialized going back 10 years. You're

36:42

very involved with time trial set

36:45

up and technical set up of the team

36:47

generally. Were they in

36:49

any way valid, those criticisms, and do you as

36:51

a team take anything from those comments

36:53

or did it not really tell you

36:57

anything you didn't already know? Some

37:01

of it makes you really smart. I

37:03

think just the world with the same

37:05

set up, exactly the same set up, Remco Venipul

37:07

is not doing so bad, I would think. The

37:11

current time trial world champion is

37:13

using the same set up. And

37:16

so I think from that point of

37:18

take, it's really, really hard to argue.

37:20

The bike is not competitive, the equipment

37:22

is not competitive. I

37:24

do know how QuickStep operates because I have

37:26

been there for four years. A lot of

37:29

that set up we developed together because

37:32

going there after 2011, I think in reality

37:35

QuickStep at that time was the

37:38

best team time trial they have done was 15s and then

37:41

the year after we became world champion. And

37:44

the best individual time trials literally what

37:46

they said from their experience was like,

37:48

let's go to page two on the

37:50

result page and this is where we

37:52

start looking forward to winning

37:55

two digit numbers of

37:57

time trials. you

38:00

know, and I don't really

38:02

see unless they found the magic, magic

38:05

part there, I don't really see

38:07

such and such a big difference.

38:09

World Tour has a really good

38:11

level overall in preparation and everything

38:14

and therefore to say well talk in

38:16

general about our time trial setup, I

38:20

think it absolutely matches other

38:22

World Tour time trial setups and I don't

38:24

really see where that

38:27

could be criticized. The chrono

38:29

de nation especially was

38:31

never really on our schedule and we discussed

38:33

that in length before the conditions, under what

38:36

conditions we would do it, it was

38:38

clearly planned to practice for

38:40

nothing else and there was even that

38:42

scenario talked through to say well what

38:44

happens if you know if we

38:47

have a flat tire or something and that

38:49

was very, very clear to say under what

38:51

conditions would we go

38:53

there and you know for that

38:55

to say we as a team

38:57

can say you know nothing

38:59

that we did not predict, it

39:02

did not happen and but it

39:05

is what it is you know and this is

39:07

the whole point where come back to this thing

39:10

to say you know I just don't

39:12

want to have it lead now by

39:14

emotions and disappointments and like you know

39:17

like revenge

39:19

on like he said this, we said that

39:21

it just makes no sense because

39:24

I'm not 20 years old, 60 years

39:26

old. I think we've established you're not

39:28

on TikTok and I'm not sure. I've

39:31

seen a lot of people come and

39:33

go and you know like

39:36

I just don't want to do the same

39:38

thing to say well he said that I

39:40

said this it just makes no sense, I

39:42

think we know what we've done and what

39:44

we did not do and we're pretty confident

39:46

in you know in our setup, in our

39:48

stuff, in our technical suppliers because

39:50

otherwise yeah you know if that would be

39:52

an eye-opener for us and we have to

39:55

lean back and say ah really, ah this

39:57

is new to us that would be you

39:59

know would be very very bad

40:01

sign for the team. Who knows Rolf

40:03

when I go out to my car at the end of this

40:05

interview maybe I'll bump into him in the car park maybe he'll

40:07

have boomerang back from the Costa Blanca in

40:09

the last 24 hours. Wait a

40:11

minute, Felix and Tanya got on touch, who's going to

40:14

come and trick? Wow! Tanya

40:17

Mayhew's going to drop on

40:19

the Champs-Élysées between Felix and

40:21

Iyawty Mayhew, everybody is looking

40:23

at each other. Who knows

40:25

who's going to be?

40:27

Rolf, let's move on then and let's just

40:30

talk about the team in 2023. A

40:33

bit of a debrief, 5 grand

40:37

tour stage wins, 7 world tour

40:39

wins if I'm not mistaken. Too

40:43

few from your point

40:45

of view in the team management?

40:48

You are not happy with the season. I

40:52

do think whoever knows Rolf also understands that he

40:54

would address it. He doesn't have

40:56

to address it really, it's just more like confirmation

40:59

because we all know after the 2022 season we

41:01

can't be happy. Because

41:06

yes the victories are still there. There's

41:09

some nice surprises in Mayhew's winning

41:11

on the Champs-Élysées and a lovely

41:14

surprise I suppose. That's

41:16

already, I wouldn't call it a life

41:18

saver but something where I say well

41:20

then think about if not then

41:23

we still had Jai in the Yellow jersey

41:25

with that stage wins also great. But

41:29

overall if you see what this team was

41:31

able to achieve in 2022 and you think you know

41:35

you settle in with new riders and you

41:37

know like a lot of things become more

41:39

natural and you know you

41:41

established protocols then you have

41:44

to say there was definitely no growth

41:46

and then we do understand like it wasn't

41:49

good enough. By saying that it's not really

41:51

like blaming to say yeah but they didn't

41:53

do their homework, they didn't do a job

41:55

or something. There was like you

41:57

know a lot of good reasons for it. that

42:01

at that stage we could not avoid,

42:03

we could not stop. So in March we had

42:05

like 16 riders sick at the same time. And

42:08

then when they're sick, you have no chance anymore.

42:11

It's purely crisis management and you just have to

42:13

get through it and it is what it is.

42:15

I was going to go on to talk about

42:17

the classics because that was on paper,

42:20

the classics were a real kind of washout

42:22

really in terms of results and that is

42:24

I guess part of the explanation that you've

42:26

just given me. That you had 16 riders

42:28

out in March. Yes and no but you

42:30

also have to say like we talked about

42:32

big teams and money and this and that

42:34

and we clearly as a

42:37

team we had to make a choice to say

42:39

we want to be a grant to a team.

42:41

We cannot also be a sprint team with everything

42:43

perfect. We cannot at the same time be

42:46

experts in cobblestone racing and really go

42:48

out and say we would be disappointed

42:50

if we don't win Flanders and Ruby.

42:52

It's just like with the resources we

42:55

have it's impossible. And we choose

42:57

to go for grant to us so

42:59

you have to sacrifice something.

43:02

Tell me one scenario we

43:04

would really go towards the finish

43:07

line in Ordonada against the Vout

43:09

van Aert, Matjofan, Napoul and

43:11

Tade Pogača. There is

43:13

no scenario. We can anticipate whatever we

43:15

want to anticipate. We go into

43:18

the breakaway from kilometre zero. We can try

43:21

to ride away before time. We can do

43:23

whatever we want to be. There is no

43:25

scenario. We say yep we compete

43:27

there for the victory. How do you

43:29

present that to the riders without demotivating

43:31

them? So what does the goal become then?

43:34

Well the goal becomes there is a lot of other races.

43:38

One example I give you like we talked

43:40

about HTC times and Nairo times. Well

43:43

you know what we won three years in the road again and

43:45

the river again. Why did we

43:47

win again and the river again? Because we put

43:49

that focus on today's races. Okay,

44:00

yeah, so you know three rides where you wouldn't

44:02

even see as a favorite Why did we win

44:05

that because the structure of the calendar was that

44:07

the really big guys, you know? Can't show Lauren

44:09

those guys they started with lake warmers and they

44:11

had their trolley at the feet zone and they

44:14

stepped out Yeah, and then realizing she's like, okay

44:16

guys, you know, yes flanders is a big thing

44:18

and we want to be good there But

44:20

we do understand like the glory we

44:23

can take away is not in flanders

44:25

We have to like, you know go

44:27

against like the logic On

44:30

these days to say well, yeah Are you you

44:32

use that as a build-up race for flanders you

44:34

use that as you know? And you let that

44:36

race go because it it would

44:38

disturb your your recovery I

44:41

think you just have to set a different pace

44:43

for different different races and then you know Just

44:46

set different goals and then you

44:48

can still be in the mix and in the game Because

44:51

they're not all doing that but if

44:53

it comes down to to flanders and

44:55

I expect specifically take out Ruby because

44:57

Ruby We know historically is

45:00

a race where everything can happen.

45:02

It's like it's rarely that the

45:04

favorite wins. Yeah and So

45:07

that's different, you know there you can you

45:09

can talk yourself into it's like early breakaway

45:11

that lasts very long Bad luck

45:14

for the favorites. You just hang on, you know,

45:16

everybody crashes has the flat tie and Sunday you're

45:18

there and But

45:20

flander, you know It's it's for

45:22

sure the hardest race to win because you need

45:24

to be lucky But you need to be really

45:26

good and you need to be switched on

45:29

from Kilometer zero Otherwise you end

45:31

up in the hospital or you know you will

45:33

be dropped in the group header because he did

45:35

not approach a critical crime in

45:37

the front and So therefore

45:39

we know we there was accepted.

45:42

It's not nice because it's wonderful. It's

45:44

really beautiful races And

45:47

now rate your races as well when you were a

45:49

rider They were you know very much the right the

45:51

races that you enjoyed the most I think To

45:54

be honest with love and hate, you know, it

45:57

took me super long. I I didn't even

45:59

understand the races So it was always in the

46:01

wrong place at the wrong time. And

46:03

that changed a little bit with Andreas

46:05

Klieg coming in from a Belgian

46:07

team, you know, big friend of Peter van

46:09

Piedergem and stuff. And he basically

46:12

turned us around to kind of like

46:14

also get me interested into it. And

46:16

yeah, it was sevens and flannels, whatever,

46:18

eights and nines and rupees and like,

46:22

and I liked that. And that would have been

46:24

the only reason for me to go for another

46:26

year on the bike, the classics,

46:28

because he also understand, you know, even

46:30

with high age, with that experience

46:32

that you do have, you know, there's still

46:34

something possible. You train super hard in the

46:37

winter, at a limited timeframe

46:39

then to say, okay, you know, I need

46:41

to get to April. And

46:43

that was making me thinking to continue. So

46:46

yes, at the end of my career, I

46:48

was into it. At the beginning

46:50

of my career was more on the, let's

46:53

say 80% of like Spanish

46:55

and Italian riders say, what the hell

46:57

am I doing here? Why

47:02

do I get on my bike now at five degrees

47:04

rain? Later on, I did love it.

47:06

Now by saying that now, you know, like we

47:08

had this one year, but

47:11

also with understanding the beauty of the races

47:13

now with Heinrich Hölstler coming aboard,

47:15

you know, he lived and breathed that and

47:18

you know, like he, he was

47:20

up for it. He pushed for it now

47:22

for a recon already, you know, he had

47:24

a bike and you know,

47:26

tired testing and everything. So just now, beginning

47:28

of December, he was up there with Jordy,

47:31

he was up there with Emil Herzog to

47:33

already do recon, recon of

47:35

Robe, recon of Flanders. So we

47:37

give it a new try with the spirit,

47:40

with emotions and with motivation and try

47:42

to, you know, like get our share

47:44

out of it. And you just mentioned

47:46

a couple of names there. I guess Haller is a big

47:48

part of the classics team and Van Poppel as well. Yeah,

47:51

but as said, you know, like Danny is also

47:53

realistic enough and long enough in the business to

47:55

say, well, if it goes, you know,

47:58

like against Van der Poel. and

48:00

fanart, it's gonna be really, really difficult.

48:03

But we have our chances, I mean, like, you know,

48:05

like also even like once we're up there, you

48:07

know, with Sam Wales fought in the Panna, with

48:10

Jordan, the same hard ones, I

48:12

mean, again, Vavilgem is a super,

48:15

super nice race, wonderful race with

48:17

a lot of, you know, history.

48:20

And I think these races are still doable. Yeah, I

48:22

was gonna say, what would be your race now,

48:27

what could be the Ghent Vavilgem

48:29

to high road to Borah now, what

48:32

could be the equivalent of that? Well,

48:34

I think, you know, our focus definitely

48:36

is more like Duas Duis or Vahre

48:38

Ghem, or

48:40

let's exclude it like E3

48:43

and Flanders right now at that

48:45

status, you know, we try

48:47

to do something, but realistically,

48:50

it's gonna be, you know, super difficult, every

48:52

race we go, we want to win. But

48:55

to see that scenario is how we're gonna win

48:57

Flanders in 24 is just a

49:00

difficult task to see that, but we

49:02

still try to get out of it. And then maybe

49:04

it's just a learning effect for Emil Herzog to say,

49:06

you know what, not in 24, but

49:09

in 27, you know, we're gonna be

49:12

there. So you're so young, but we get there.

49:14

So then it's part of the process and still

49:16

worth to invest a lot and

49:18

to be ready for it. Rolf,

49:20

before we go and talk about Grand Salinas and Primos,

49:23

I just wanted to ask you about One Rider and

49:25

their 2023. And

49:27

Max Schachmann has had a lot of problems, I

49:29

think, over the last year, more than a year.

49:32

For those who really haven't followed them and don't really

49:34

know why his results haven't sort

49:37

of followed the same trajectory that they were

49:39

on, just explain that to the best

49:41

of your knowledge. Yeah,

49:44

I'm not a doctor, but at the end of

49:46

the day, it feels like from Tokyo Olympics, he

49:48

was constantly sick. It

49:51

was, you know, there was always recovery

49:54

and then there was hope and then

49:56

there was try again and then you

49:58

see some improvement because- I thought it-

50:00

Sicknesses or one particular type of sickness?

50:02

You know, I think up to now

50:04

you had like four times COVID. Okay.

50:06

So, you know, as one example, and

50:08

then you always get under this time

50:10

pressure. And also from that for sure

50:12

for 24, we, you know, as always,

50:14

we always try to learn. We

50:16

have to try to adapt and try to learn and

50:18

just say, okay, we need more time. No matter what,

50:21

as hard it is, it just rushing

50:23

makes no sense. And

50:25

there have been a few occasions

50:27

where we definitely rushed too much,

50:29

you know, retrospectively to say, well,

50:31

you know, he should have trained

50:33

more and, and then not sending

50:35

him to races. But

50:39

yeah, you know, then, then you just start

50:42

and you get sick. So training camp, same

50:44

place here, like, you know, seek COVID. So

50:46

what do you do? Isolate him, you know,

50:48

have him not riding, do all the medical

50:51

checks before you clear him riding again,

50:53

then thinking so many days

50:55

to the first race. Yeah. Yeah. You know,

50:57

he's missing the race, the base, but we

50:59

can still race. And then he's doing the

51:02

base afterwards, doing the race immune system down,

51:05

you know, flying in and out, like

51:07

getting sick again, like, whoa, okay. Now

51:09

he's same. Okay. But what

51:11

is really needed to prepare the first highlight

51:13

is an altitude camp going

51:15

like, you know, kind of like, is he

51:17

ready? Is he not? Well, we take that

51:19

risk going to altitude. The altitude didn't work

51:22

out at all, you know, coming back, getting

51:24

sick, um, missing

51:26

that first season highlight and went

51:28

on and on and on and

51:30

on. And, uh, you know,

51:32

it's kind of like a miracle that he still

51:34

has a spirit. I was going

51:36

to ask you how's his confidence because that must also

51:38

have suffered. Yeah. Yeah. But for sure, you know, like,

51:40

I mean, cause he's not just a

51:42

rider, you know, he lives, uh, for winning, like,

51:44

you know, he's not that typical to say, if

51:47

I can do 90%, I'm happy to help. I

51:50

want to 10 perinees and, you know,

51:52

and the way he can

51:54

suffer and everything. If he's on top

51:56

of the game, you know, he had

51:58

periods where he suffered just to. stay in

52:01

the peloton and then suffer to hang

52:03

on in the grapetto and

52:06

that's not Max Schachmann and that's like

52:08

nobody wants to do that and nobody wants to

52:11

see that. So we as a team don't

52:13

want to see him suffering so bad. So new

52:16

try, new year and

52:18

hopefully he stays healthy. I mean the most

52:21

important thing is like he should stay healthy,

52:23

he has to stay healthy by

52:25

saying that this winter like

52:27

so fourth infection just

52:29

before coming to camp. So

52:32

here we go

52:34

again but getting stability into

52:37

his immune system, getting him stable

52:39

into the season potentially

52:41

even saying he might be ready but

52:43

we're not sure probably then

52:45

we pull him out and say okay you

52:47

know what you better stay home,

52:50

keep training and we give

52:53

you that time because what

52:55

we learn is like it's just not successful

52:57

trying to push it to us. The

53:00

Cycling Podcast for

53:02

the latest news, views and interviews

53:05

from the world of professional cycling.

53:09

So Rolf we'll move on now to

53:11

talk about the big new

53:13

signing, the big new arrival of

53:15

the autumn and Primoz Roglic. When

53:19

I was trying to establish whether Primoz Roglic had

53:21

indeed signed for Bora, I tried to tease some

53:23

information out of you, you were very unhelpful. As

53:27

your job demands you to be I think you

53:29

sent me a picture of some cooking equipment, some

53:31

Bora cooking equipment but I didn't know whether

53:33

that was to try to put me on the scent

53:35

or off the scent. Anyway Rolf tell

53:37

me about when you first learned that

53:39

this might be an opportunity, that he

53:41

might be on the market and he

53:43

might be interested. Was it at the

53:45

Vuelta because that's what Rolf said when

53:48

he presented Primoz. Was it already there

53:50

that you as well knew that maybe

53:52

it was possible? Well

53:55

if it was possible or not yes but

53:57

that was you know like still another question

53:59

because it needed also like you

54:01

know the agreement from Jumbo-Visma so

54:03

ultimately we could not have done

54:05

it without them agreeing to it.

54:07

That was very clear and

54:09

we would have accepted that to say if it's a no it's

54:11

a no but it all appeared

54:13

to say well there's a little bit of

54:16

unhappiness and there is you know willingness to

54:18

you know to change because

54:20

of like you know that

54:22

to the front thing that it's

54:25

also understandable to say well what do you do

54:27

if you want to do it

54:29

twice with Jumuens-Wing a guy and then you

54:31

have a guy who also wants to have a shot and

54:33

ask clearly for that shot. I mean

54:35

either you kind of like be anonymous to him to

54:37

think yeah yeah for sure you get the chance just

54:39

to keep him but if you're honest

54:41

you know you have to say like well

54:43

you know as it states right now if

54:45

Jonas is fit and healthy Jonas has to

54:47

be the uncompromised leader. However

54:50

it turns out to be finally then you

54:52

know it might be different so you know that

54:56

I can assume how the situation has

54:58

been there but

55:01

then you know like the question too towards

55:03

me was more to say well do we

55:06

think that would make sense do we think

55:08

you know that can be successful as

55:11

said you know really early on to

55:13

say I'm not involved into the contract

55:15

negotiation and I do think it's also

55:17

really good for me because at the end of the day

55:20

you know many cases where

55:22

we as directors have to make decisions you

55:24

don't want to put them

55:26

on income say yeah but he has to be better

55:29

because he makes $500 more than him so you know

55:32

like he has to perform to his

55:34

money that's not what we should do you know we

55:37

should really base our decision on

55:39

like how is his condition what can you

55:41

really do how does it suit for him

55:44

and all in that whole process was pretty

55:46

much that was also kind of like to

55:48

say well you know do we see him

55:50

in our team do we see this could

55:52

work well what do we think will happen

55:54

to the rest of the team you know

55:56

because for sure it was on very short

55:58

notice and you know like everybody mentally

56:01

already makes his plan for next year and

56:04

then suddenly everything changed because you

56:06

have Primus Rogevitz coming in. So

56:08

that was more like the brainstorming

56:10

that I was involved in

56:13

to make it happen and it's clearly in between

56:16

Jumuvisma and Ralf

56:18

and Primus management.

56:21

Ralf, as a sports manager, what's

56:23

your personal feeling and thinking about

56:25

this issue of age curve because

56:27

I hear and you as

56:30

well I'm sure hear a lot about this and

56:32

a lot of it doesn't seem to be backed

56:34

up by science. You sometimes hear people say, oh

56:36

well that rider is going to

56:38

last a long time because he came

56:40

to cycling late but then you have

56:42

examples like Valverde and Herbelin and people

56:44

like that and again there doesn't

56:46

seem to be a whole lot of good science about

56:48

this. What's

56:51

your thinking about it maybe relating to your own

56:53

personal experience as a rider but also thinking

56:56

about Primus and where he is

56:58

in his age curve? It's

57:02

indeed super difficult like you say. It's not

57:05

scientifically that everybody drops from the age of

57:07

32 and I

57:09

think there are different theories like you touch point

57:11

on that to say, well it's

57:14

probably a lifetime performance. If

57:17

you really start super, super early, maybe

57:21

you have 20 years to go so

57:23

there's a difference if you start with 10 or if

57:26

you start with 20 because that brings you up

57:28

to 40 rather into 30. You

57:31

believe that. You believe in the theory of miles on the clock. No,

57:34

I believe also like it's heavily

57:36

related to the mental status. How

57:39

long can you cope with pressure? How long

57:42

can you deal with that lifestyle? How long

57:44

does it really attract you? How long do

57:47

you find it really, really

57:49

like pumping you up to go to

57:51

two of Landes? I think

57:54

what I took as an example and maybe

57:56

I'm completely wrong on that but looking from

57:59

the outside where... you sometimes do

58:01

see this matches was take

58:03

a Pothato. So he turned pro

58:05

when he was 19, super

58:08

young and he was like absolutely enthusiastic about

58:10

the sport and he was like, you know,

58:12

and he had a great career. Don't

58:16

get me wrong, but I think there was a

58:18

mismatch because he was physically not ready when he

58:20

was 19 turning pro, just

58:22

physically not there to do the biggest

58:24

races, you know, the super long

58:26

races. But when he was

58:28

physically ready, he was mentally tired. I've

58:31

seen the Pothato like when you think like,

58:33

this is not the motivation that you need

58:36

to have to win these races. Physically

58:38

for sure he's ready with the mileage,

58:40

but mentally he's over his peak, he

58:42

drops down. He still is doing the

58:44

sport, he loves the sport, but this

58:47

kind of like, let's say

58:49

willingness to die for that

58:51

result is not there anymore. And

58:53

I do think they are, this is a difficulty

58:55

and this is why I do think it's not

58:57

really the age. It's like how

59:00

long can somebody keep that, you know,

59:02

that momentum that's like, I love what

59:04

I do. I, you know, I want

59:06

to prove myself. And

59:08

for sure it's a difference to the world, you know what? It's

59:11

not 12th to a Flanders. Like,

59:14

there's nothing new anymore. You did it in

59:16

the rain, you did it with Northwind, with

59:18

Eastwind, with Westwind, with cold, with hot, it

59:20

was under every condition, you know, and you

59:22

had your chance, but what is

59:24

really new to it, what is really kind

59:27

of like the stuff that makes you, you

59:29

know, falling to sleep really bad and you

59:31

have this positive, you know, like tension in

59:33

your body when you get to the start

59:36

line, what is

59:38

really left from that and how long can you carry

59:40

that on? And that brings me then to Primo, she

59:42

said, well, here, like how,

59:44

as much as I know him for now,

59:46

it's like he has this energy, you know,

59:48

this super positive energy that he engages with

59:51

people, that he shows interest, that he wants

59:53

to have wheels to test for the gravel

59:55

stage and the tutte floors, that he has

59:57

that, that he's not like that guy of-

1:00:00

I have

1:00:02

done it, have seen it, you know, like,

1:00:05

and this also I think keeps all

1:00:07

of us alive because you know, also like

1:00:09

it's going to be my 30 second, 30

1:00:11

second tour de France. So what still drives me

1:00:14

is really kind of like, well, maybe it's the

1:00:16

first time I can be part of management to

1:00:18

win the tour de France. It was twice in

1:00:20

the, you know, as a rider, as a winning

1:00:22

team was with reason with already, but being

1:00:25

part of like planning that whole thing gives

1:00:28

you another kick and you feel like, yeah, if that

1:00:30

makes me working, you know, two hours more a day,

1:00:33

I will do it because that's new and this

1:00:35

is right as age. Well,

1:00:38

maybe not that relevant how old you are,

1:00:40

but like how, let's say how

1:00:42

young are you in your, in on your

1:00:44

mental state? How hungry are you in

1:00:46

your brain? I guess you spent

1:00:48

a little bit of time around him the last

1:00:50

few days. Maybe

1:00:52

you've got a bit of a sense of how he's going

1:00:54

to interact with the team, but just in terms of what we

1:00:57

see from now until the tour de France, I think

1:00:59

is there going to be a big departure from

1:01:02

what we saw Jumbo Visma try with him? You

1:01:04

know, I'm thinking about the

1:01:06

length of the altitude camps and the fact that

1:01:08

he would quite

1:01:11

often end his altitude, his last altitude camp pretty

1:01:13

close to the start of a grand tour. Has

1:01:17

he asked for you

1:01:20

to sort of rethink anything in the way he's going

1:01:22

to prepare the tour de France? Now

1:01:25

for now, it's not like absolutely

1:01:27

equal to it, but

1:01:29

it's pretty, it's going to be pretty similar. But

1:01:32

of course we talk a lot about it and it's

1:01:34

not only him. We also have, you know, his coach

1:01:36

on board. So it comes a lot of

1:01:38

experience from that as well from Mark. And

1:01:41

you know, I do think, you know,

1:01:44

we try to mix our experience and what

1:01:46

he wants and what he has

1:01:48

done so far and try to

1:01:50

get him out there as best as possible.

1:01:52

But not specifically to say we try to

1:01:54

reinvent the world. I mean, like,

1:01:56

you know, the fact speak for itself to say,

1:01:59

yeah, it's pretty good. credit to the team, credit

1:02:01

to him, just like every race that he started till

1:02:03

the Vuelta was won

1:02:05

by him. So, I mean, you know,

1:02:07

like what else can you ask for? So, you

1:02:09

know, there's nothing you can really

1:02:11

say like, well, that was completely wrong. And

1:02:16

still, like, you know, it does not mean like

1:02:18

if you do the same, you have the same

1:02:20

results. We're also fully aware of that. So there

1:02:22

might be slight changes there. The

1:02:25

good thing is like if you ask if you talk

1:02:27

to him like he would love to win every race,

1:02:30

he would, you know, like there's like open,

1:02:32

let's say open bills with race that he didn't

1:02:35

win, that he wants to go there. And this

1:02:37

is why we... Not many. Not many I can think

1:02:39

of. Well, he managed to Switzerland, for example, he said,

1:02:41

like he never won to a Swiss, he would love

1:02:43

to win. And now is that this the year that

1:02:45

we really want to go in there, you know, trying

1:02:48

to win to Switzerland or rather say like, well, you

1:02:50

know what, what is our real goal here?

1:02:52

Is it really to Switzerland? Is it really

1:02:55

that we say, you know, like we do

1:02:57

compromise July and the Tour de France by

1:03:00

trying to win Tour Switzerland or is

1:03:02

Tour Switzerland that you absolutely able to,

1:03:04

you know, win after winning the

1:03:06

Tour de France? You know, why not going as

1:03:08

a defending Tour de France champion to

1:03:11

Switzerland and try to win that? So, so

1:03:13

I, you know, but there will be new

1:03:15

goals for him. I think World Championships really

1:03:17

interest him. But

1:03:21

everything is unchanged concerning the Tour de

1:03:23

France. It's his dream. That's our dream.

1:03:26

And we put everything in for him. And

1:03:29

just last thing on Primo's role, secrets

1:03:32

that he might bring from Gimbovizma.

1:03:34

Now, again, had

1:03:36

this conversation with riders and teams in the

1:03:39

past, even going back to your day and

1:03:42

US Postal and T-Mobile, there were members of

1:03:44

staff that moved in one direction or the

1:03:46

other. Sometimes they said, yes, that

1:03:49

person was able to bring secrets and

1:03:51

tell us things about the way Armstrong

1:03:53

worked or vice versa. Sometimes I've heard

1:03:55

it said that no, it doesn't work

1:03:57

like that. Are there things that Primo's

1:04:00

can help with in terms of bringing

1:04:02

some of your Mavismus methodology with a view

1:04:05

to hopefully beating them? I

1:04:07

think sometimes what they just bring is confirmation.

1:04:10

Confirmation to think, well, actually what we do is the

1:04:12

right thing to do because,

1:04:14

you know, whatever you do, we always have

1:04:16

a little bit, maybe, you know, doubts. And

1:04:19

then somebody like, you know, Mark Lumpets and

1:04:21

Primus Kromun say, well, this is how we

1:04:23

do it and that literally

1:04:26

matches like 95% of our

1:04:28

philosophy or performance philosophy. You

1:04:30

know, we just wrote it

1:04:32

down to try to, you know, like really formalize

1:04:34

things and like hand it out to the writers

1:04:36

that they understand how we want to do things.

1:04:40

And then it's just a confirmation which also

1:04:43

gives you a lot of peace and, you

1:04:45

know, calmness to say, well, you know, actually

1:04:47

there's now a huge miracle there. And

1:04:50

also think because, you know, like a lot

1:04:52

of people in the scientific

1:04:54

world, you know, they work on their PhDs

1:04:56

and you do find a lot of stuff

1:04:58

if you just read, if you just look

1:05:00

for papers, you know, you

1:05:02

do find a lot of scientific

1:05:04

background that comes out of corporations

1:05:06

to say, well, you know, like

1:05:09

Jumbo works with Eindhoven with a

1:05:11

wind tunnel there with Professor Blocking.

1:05:13

They work together with Professor Haspel,

1:05:15

which I know personally from the Quickstep days.

1:05:18

You know, there's a lot of publications there to say,

1:05:20

well, you know, an error work on this on that.

1:05:23

And then you just feel like pretty confident to

1:05:26

say, okay, what we do is the right way

1:05:28

that we're moving the right direction.

1:05:32

I just thought I'd ask you about,

1:05:34

well, a week ago, 10 days

1:05:37

ago, it was Jan Ulrich's 50th

1:05:39

birthday. And there was a

1:05:41

lot of interviews, there was a lot of

1:05:43

talk in German media because,

1:05:45

well, he was promoting his

1:05:47

new documentary that's since been released on

1:05:50

Amazon in which he finally when he gives a

1:05:52

sort of open, I would say an open kind

1:05:54

of hearted confession. And

1:05:57

I think we were all delighted to see that he

1:05:59

seems to be doing really well and you could tell

1:06:02

from the way he was talking and the way he

1:06:04

was presenting himself that his life to a certain extent

1:06:06

has been turned around or he's turned it around. Ralph,

1:06:09

when you made your sort of confession

1:06:12

way back in 2006, well,

1:06:15

since then it seemed like

1:06:17

you very quickly sort of made peace with it and

1:06:20

you've gone on to have a completely different life

1:06:23

and a successful career in management. But

1:06:25

going back and looking at what you said at

1:06:27

the time, you said

1:06:30

in one interview that for your friends and family

1:06:32

members it was like the sky falling

1:06:34

in which gives a sense of it

1:06:36

was traumatic for you as well. I

1:06:39

just wanted to ask you what did you feel, I

1:06:41

don't know if you watched the documentary but you will

1:06:43

have followed some of everything that's

1:06:45

around the documentary and what did

1:06:47

you feel seeing Jan finally unload

1:06:51

that burden? Yes,

1:06:53

finally. The

1:06:55

right thing is probably finally. I

1:06:58

think what's the title of the

1:07:00

documentary? The Yarker. The

1:07:03

Hunted. The Hunted which is like well,

1:07:05

also part of it he made himself to

1:07:08

being hunted because he could have stopped that

1:07:10

hunting a lot earlier. That was his personal

1:07:12

choice. He said, I continue

1:07:14

that way and he went through all the

1:07:17

dark things. But

1:07:19

yeah, I mean like let's

1:07:21

start where I have been then in 2007 for me was just

1:07:23

to say well if

1:07:25

I want to be part of the sport and the

1:07:27

sport needs to change, I just need to say

1:07:30

how it has been because otherwise I'm in

1:07:33

front of my young riders and

1:07:35

what do I do? I lie

1:07:37

into their face. I promote a change that is

1:07:39

absolutely needed but why is it needed?

1:07:41

I've never seen anything. And it was

1:07:43

kind of like funny at that time because

1:07:46

being in 2007 already in management there

1:07:49

was Telecom going to some

1:07:51

of the team manager meetings. Everybody

1:07:53

was talking about this needed changes and we

1:07:55

need to change the sport. But

1:07:58

if you ask specifically, nobody had experience. experience, nobody

1:08:00

have seen anything, nobody was part of anything which

1:08:02

is this is not going to work. How

1:08:06

can we realistically ask

1:08:08

for a change and that massive need

1:08:10

for a change to address it if

1:08:13

we all deny the truth, it's

1:08:15

just not, but not

1:08:17

me, everybody else but not me. So

1:08:20

you know there was that need, if I wanted

1:08:22

to be part of the sport and needed to

1:08:24

do that step, definitely

1:08:27

not easy, definitely not nice. And

1:08:29

a big misjudgment also on our side, we

1:08:31

thought it would go away much quicker, we

1:08:34

thought it's going to be big news, everybody made

1:08:36

us aware of it, this is going to be

1:08:38

a big explosion,

1:08:41

we knew that that would happen,

1:08:43

we accepted it for ourselves, but

1:08:46

what we did not expect was like every

1:08:48

time it started to come down again there

1:08:50

was a new disaster

1:08:52

coming in, then it was whatever Patrick think

1:08:54

of it, just a positive. So

1:08:57

it just kept on going for

1:08:59

much, much, much longer than we

1:09:02

ever expected and if you ask

1:09:04

my wife, she's probably right about

1:09:07

it, I wouldn't say I left it

1:09:09

behind because it's still

1:09:11

that she's like, well you still have this

1:09:13

strange way of acting in

1:09:15

public that you say you avoid that.

1:09:18

So I wouldn't really necessarily like to go

1:09:20

to any kind of like gala official stuff.

1:09:24

Is that more in Germany though? Because in

1:09:26

Germany the attitude towards it is different. Yeah,

1:09:28

yeah and you always feel it,

1:09:30

I mean like I still think like

1:09:33

how do people look at me. It's

1:09:36

not that I specifically bother about it too

1:09:38

much to be honest, but I do think

1:09:40

about it and that probably even like affect

1:09:42

some of my decisions to say, well you

1:09:44

know like I mean I

1:09:46

do TV commentary but I'm not on

1:09:48

camera, so you know I'd like to

1:09:50

give my expertise across but I'm not

1:09:52

really the guy, the face of

1:09:54

anything and I do

1:09:57

like to give my knowledge back to the sport

1:09:59

and I do like to drive those changes that

1:10:01

I think the sport really made

1:10:03

in a really, really good way and we

1:10:05

all have to stay awake. We just shouldn't

1:10:08

say all problem solved like happy life but

1:10:11

keep awareness. So I do

1:10:13

think I can have a lot of positive impact that

1:10:16

for me or myself I just can't forget

1:10:21

my own personal history. And I do

1:10:23

think people who know me before and

1:10:25

afterwards do see a

1:10:27

change in behavior. Definitely

1:10:30

had a behavior change. That's

1:10:32

really interesting because as I say

1:10:34

from the outside, to me you're

1:10:37

the exemplar of someone who did

1:10:40

it seamlessly and as easily as

1:10:42

it could be done in

1:10:45

the sense. Also chronologically from

1:10:47

the moment when you confessed to

1:10:49

you taking on the new or

1:10:52

carrying on your role at T-Mobile, it

1:10:56

was weeks, months, you didn't disappear and

1:10:58

it's the absolute opposite of what we've

1:11:00

seen with Jan for example. But

1:11:03

why was that possible and I do think

1:11:05

maybe also try to build a bridge to

1:11:07

Jan and I had such a strong backing

1:11:09

from Bob Stapleton at that time because

1:11:12

he was very, very clear to say okay,

1:11:14

he was shocked what happened but

1:11:17

it was also clear to say if we cleaned

1:11:19

that up, now we cleaned it up together and

1:11:22

then I stand behind you. We just can't have

1:11:24

any dark secrets out there

1:11:26

anymore where we go again and again

1:11:28

and again. So that's super strong backing

1:11:30

that I would 100% be

1:11:33

able to count on to say well if Bob says

1:11:35

like do not doubt your job,

1:11:38

even if at that time the

1:11:40

vice president of the IOC who

1:11:42

is now president of the IOC,

1:11:44

Dr. Bach questions I should ever,

1:11:46

ever drop in the sport again,

1:11:50

Bob said like I do not care about

1:11:52

what he thinks because I have a company

1:11:54

that runs a cycling team and you are

1:11:56

the best person to run that on the

1:11:58

sporting side. Now after everything

1:12:00

is said, we move on in life.

1:12:02

So that backing from Bob

1:12:05

Stapleton, from my family then, from

1:12:07

my wife at that time to say, well, you know what,

1:12:10

we fully understand that. We

1:12:12

can't make it undone anymore, but now we move

1:12:15

on. Gave me that strength to

1:12:17

act the way I acted. Now was it always

1:12:20

easy or what? It's a long time ago now

1:12:22

to say, well, for sure. You

1:12:24

feel uncomfortable to say, oh, again,

1:12:26

there's microphones somewhere. We

1:12:29

need to keep some distance

1:12:31

in between yourself and media

1:12:34

and public. And

1:12:36

it's clear to say, well, no matter how it

1:12:38

fades away, there will be people

1:12:40

who understand it, people who forgive you,

1:12:42

and then people that will kind of

1:12:45

hate you for the rest of your life. But

1:12:48

that's something I really got kind of

1:12:50

over to say, well, but would they

1:12:52

ever do I want them

1:12:54

as my friends? Do I

1:12:56

want them surrounding me? Not

1:12:59

really. So why would I bother too

1:13:01

much about it? But you do think about it,

1:13:03

like behavior changes, what I said. And

1:13:05

then you see Jan, who kind of like, I

1:13:08

think had like a lot of like visual

1:13:11

support, but I

1:13:14

don't think that was on a strong,

1:13:17

strong base. You know, there was

1:13:19

a lot of people who actually benefiting from him.

1:13:22

So all the people with him were

1:13:24

benefiting from him rather than supporting

1:13:26

him. That's how I see

1:13:28

it. And then, you know, and it's also really, really

1:13:30

a different thing. So if he

1:13:32

really would have decided to say, well, you know,

1:13:34

I do the same thing in 2007, eight,

1:13:37

whenever, 10, whatever he decided, I

1:13:40

think he would be pretty much on his own. You

1:13:43

know, there was nobody, there was nobody

1:13:45

then for him, like above the statement has been

1:13:47

there for me, like, and I

1:13:50

do think that made him probably

1:13:52

really doubting, doubting, doubting. And

1:13:55

we know it from the bike. You know, we have seen it if you

1:13:57

remember the two or 96, 97. was

1:14:00

Bjarneries backing him, pushing

1:14:03

him, making decisions for

1:14:05

him. And now Jan

1:14:07

on his own, was on his own and he

1:14:10

kept on going, going, going. But

1:14:12

you know, it was eating on him. For

1:14:14

sure it was eating him from the inside

1:14:16

and then we all know

1:14:18

what did happen and so it's

1:14:20

just good to see now that he seems to

1:14:22

be very stable for now and that's

1:14:25

the only wish that I do have is

1:14:27

like, you know, let's hope that he can

1:14:29

maintain that. Let's hope he

1:14:31

does not rush into public too

1:14:33

much, too quickly, you know, with

1:14:35

taking on too much. And

1:14:39

hopefully then, you know, he can

1:14:41

live his life, whatever that means for him. So

1:14:43

what he really wants to do with it, you

1:14:45

know, I heard an interview that

1:14:47

he said, you know, I feel like cycling,

1:14:50

I found the love of cycling back. I

1:14:52

think that's really, really important. But I do not,

1:14:55

you know, listening carefully to it to say, well, I

1:14:57

heard a couple of times like I

1:15:00

sacrificed my youth for cycling,

1:15:03

which like, and there we are

1:15:05

completely different also and that made it

1:15:07

also easier for me to continue because

1:15:09

I feel like I never sacrificed anything

1:15:12

for my career, for cycling.

1:15:15

I can't really remember days where I say I hate

1:15:17

to be on the bike, not in

1:15:20

races, not in training, not

1:15:22

anyhow. And that kind

1:15:24

of like is dramatic for me. If you

1:15:26

look back at your life, and you really

1:15:28

believe like I sacrificed my youth

1:15:31

for the sport, because I didn't, I

1:15:34

didn't, I enjoyed it. And you gave you gave

1:15:36

you a big part. Yeah, it gave me you

1:15:38

know, gave me literally everything it defines who I

1:15:40

am, the sport and

1:15:43

and that's kind of like shocking. I really

1:15:45

hope now if he says like, I found

1:15:47

the love for cycling again, that's a

1:15:49

complete different approach, isn't it? It's

1:15:51

just really difficult to say guy,

1:15:54

you know, I secre, sacrificing something is like, it

1:15:56

means to me, it's like, I don't want to

1:15:58

do it, but I know I have to. do

1:16:00

it. So you force yourself into something that you

1:16:02

don't enjoy day by day by day. Maybe that's

1:16:06

normal thing for 80 people going to the

1:16:08

office, going to the factory. But

1:16:10

you know, they also do not, you

1:16:12

know, like suffer on 190 heart rate

1:16:15

and crash and break collarbones and arms

1:16:17

and legs usually. If they

1:16:20

do, they have, you know, the time to

1:16:22

recover and like, but

1:16:24

that's different to professional sports. So

1:16:26

really feeling sacrificing something is different

1:16:29

to like, I enjoy what I do. You know,

1:16:32

I feel like, I

1:16:34

feel lucky in my life to to have the

1:16:36

chance to do it. And I

1:16:38

really hope that Jan then you know, just

1:16:41

goes out, rides his bike, looks at the

1:16:43

nature, reflects about his life, you

1:16:45

know, figures out what he wants to do and

1:16:47

then and then moves on because, you

1:16:49

know, with whatever happens happens and

1:16:51

you know, like shocking pictures like

1:16:53

the way he he showed himself

1:16:55

then, you know, under drugs and

1:16:57

alcohol and everything. Deep

1:17:00

inside, he's a very good person. He's a very

1:17:03

good person. And he

1:17:05

doesn't do anything bad to anybody. So you

1:17:08

know, like for sure, it's like, you know,

1:17:10

there's there's no reason to kind of like,

1:17:12

you know, be against him,

1:17:14

be negative about him. We've done

1:17:17

mistakes, he has done mistakes. And I, you know, I

1:17:20

do think we have to point out much more

1:17:22

to say it was not right what we have

1:17:24

done, rather than everybody has done

1:17:26

it. It does not make it

1:17:28

right. So, you know, as many times as we

1:17:30

say, we believe, like, most have

1:17:32

done it, everybody has done it, which

1:17:34

I think really discredits the writers who

1:17:37

did ride clean, it really discredits and

1:17:39

even if like everybody has done it,

1:17:42

it does not make it better. It was still wrong.

1:17:44

It was still breaking the rules. And

1:17:46

we have to face it. And we have to

1:17:48

accept that, you know, like, it's not an excuse,

1:17:50

because if there's a speed limit,

1:17:52

you know, like you get a ticket

1:17:55

from the speed camera, you cannot go there,

1:17:57

but everybody drove 120 in the zone

1:18:00

of 80. It does not make

1:18:02

it better. You still drove 120. You

1:18:04

know, you have to live with the consequences.

1:18:07

So, you know, but that's

1:18:09

what you realize also, that's like, we have to be

1:18:11

really careful with making it easy for

1:18:14

ourselves by arguing and say, yeah, but you was

1:18:16

a time. Yeah,

1:18:19

it's an explanation, but it's not an

1:18:21

excuse. It's that's, I think there's

1:18:23

a big difference. We can explain why it

1:18:26

happened, but it's still not an

1:18:28

excuse. We still have to look into the

1:18:30

mirror and into people's faces and say, yeah,

1:18:33

done a mistake and it was wrong. Nothing

1:18:35

makes it right. It

1:18:37

seems and hopefully just the act of

1:18:40

explaining though, rather than looking for exclusive,

1:18:43

excuse to say, has at least given him some

1:18:45

relief. I'm just laying everything out in the same

1:18:47

way that you said you had. Ralph,

1:18:50

I'm going to have to let

1:18:52

you get back to your meetings. You're a very

1:18:55

busy mountainous boar training camp. We're in a meeting

1:18:57

room here and the tactics for

1:18:59

this year's Tour de France were all written up on

1:19:01

the whiteboard next to us. And

1:19:03

we were, well, I was trying to

1:19:05

dissect them earlier. Ralph, just before you

1:19:07

go, I wanted to ask you one

1:19:09

last thing. It's a topic that I've

1:19:12

often visited and revisited with you. Mark

1:19:14

Cavendish, you have a long standing relationship,

1:19:17

very successful working relationship with Mark Cavendish

1:19:19

at one time. I

1:19:22

saw you at the screening of his

1:19:24

documentary in late

1:19:26

summer and we

1:19:28

were chatting about whether he would or wouldn't

1:19:30

retire. He's not going to retire now. He's

1:19:32

going to ride last

1:19:34

year. I remember you saying something

1:19:36

that evening when we talked about

1:19:39

his winters and how, correct

1:19:41

me if I'm misremembering this, but I think you

1:19:43

said something along the lines of in

1:19:45

his career that there was a little bit of a

1:19:48

rhythm of good winter and

1:19:50

then relaxed a bit the next winter

1:19:52

and then two

1:19:55

years later, another good winter and so on and

1:19:57

so forth. And obviously now he couldn't afford to

1:19:59

do that. that. It looks as

1:20:01

though, I haven't seen him too much this winter,

1:20:03

but it looks as though he's taking the right

1:20:05

approach to this winter, would you say? Well,

1:20:08

I really hope so. I

1:20:11

have just spoken to him like I think

1:20:13

twice this winter, so not like, you know,

1:20:15

leave him alone. I've seen something

1:20:17

that he might go to Columbia on altitude

1:20:19

training and I do think, you know, like

1:20:21

what changes also is like last year he

1:20:23

thought like it's going to be his last

1:20:25

year and the last winter, so that drove

1:20:27

him. I think now an extra

1:20:30

motivation is he has a timer

1:20:32

on him. So if you look at the signings,

1:20:34

you know, if you see like at what they

1:20:36

have done in Astana, they

1:20:38

do put a lot of trust and faith

1:20:40

into him. It's also some kind of clever

1:20:42

because what else story do you have if

1:20:44

you're not financially not at the level of

1:20:46

in NAOS at UAE, whatever, you know, maybe

1:20:48

it is clever to say, well, there's a

1:20:50

story out there and that's Mark Kevin. And

1:20:52

let's try to get the best out of

1:20:54

it. You know, Mark Renschel being back as,

1:20:56

you know, one of the director group there

1:20:59

and, you know, like the writers

1:21:01

that they hired is a very, very clear

1:21:03

signal to support him. Last year it felt

1:21:05

a little bit like it's my last chance,

1:21:07

my last year I have to do this.

1:21:10

But it also felt a little bit like charity

1:21:12

to sign him. Say, yeah, you know

1:21:14

what, a poor guy, we just can't let him

1:21:16

down. And Vino is a

1:21:18

very traditional writer. So he has respect for, you

1:21:21

know, history in cycling and it really felt like

1:21:23

a bit like this is charity. It's

1:21:25

like, you know, if it does work out, doesn't

1:21:27

work out, but he deserves that spot.

1:21:29

Now it feels a monument to Mark Kevin this

1:21:31

year. But now it feels like an investment. And

1:21:34

I do think that should create extra motivation

1:21:37

for him to get to his goal

1:21:39

to break this record and then, you know,

1:21:41

to happily retire. And I think this

1:21:43

is hopefully that extra layer of motivation

1:21:45

that he gets good lean to

1:21:48

the window with a basic work that he has

1:21:50

to do. And like with a very clear focus.

1:21:53

I was going to say Mark Kevin dish on

1:21:55

the top step of the podium on the Champs-Élysées

1:21:57

primos Roglic on the top step of the GC.

1:22:00

But of course that's impossible because the last days of the Tour

1:22:02

de France is going to be a nice But I'll be nice

1:22:04

to primos wouldn't it because he lives just down the road Rolf

1:22:07

you've been extremely generous with your time and Illuminating

1:22:10

as always and well, thank you on behalf of

1:22:12

all the listeners. Thank you very much. Have a

1:22:14

great season Rolf. Thank you very much Thank you

1:22:18

The cycling podcast was created in 2013 by Richard

1:22:20

Moore Daniel

1:22:24

Fried and Lionel Burnie You

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