Juan Ayuso's pranking era

0:00What about if there's a situation where it's Mugnulty, Jorgensen and Evan Appendance? Oh, oh. In the leading trio and then the Americans work together so I've been on different teams to do Evan Appendance and the Belgian media was just explode. Welcome back to the Spin Cycle podcast, everybody. I'm not Kayleigh Fritz, I'm Johnny Long, hosting today. Today on the show, a little trek, are still in the middle of an aisle of uncertainty. Tom Piggcock is not happy with the country of Italy and it turns out, Valtteri Bottas is actually living the best life anyone could ever live, which is superlative, I guess. But what's not superlative is the greeting which I'm about to give to a lesser spotted member of the Spin Cycle podcast crew, Jack Duncan. Welcome back. Ah, thanks. It hasn't been that long. I was on the podcast. Of course. We all while you were out. I'm so sorry. Well, the rest of us. Any podcast that doesn't involve me, obviously, does not exist. It's a,

1:02whether that philosophy thing is, I can't remember. Father, next to me describing the Brandenburg Gates in Berlin as the Berlin thing. Anyway, you just heard also the dogs at times of Dane Cash who's back once again. I like when you host Johnny because you so frequently write the intro and then Kayleigh reads it. Kayleigh reads, little trek are on the blah blah blah. It sounds so strange. But when you read it in your Queens English, yeah, I think a little more sense. Well, I'm glad to be, to be delighted with you that. Also in Queens English, sorry, I'm still stuck with Elizabeth. Well, so many years ago now. Quick tangent at the London NFL game I was out on Sunday when they did the, yeah, yeah, I went to the game. I'm a glatten for punishment going to see the commanders versus the cults. But they did the, they did both anthems American then English, but for the English one or British one. Yeah, definitely. Whatever. They did God save the quit. Oh, no, it wasn't in the anthem. It was in the big promo

2:04beforehand. They had a bank note and they had the Queen Winking on it, which could be the Kings on the bank notes. So you guys need to wake up, not you two specifically, even though it's true. Your people. Imagine being Charles and then people are just forgetting you exist and still get your mom with your mom. Yeah, yeah. Weird vibes. Well, not the weirdest thing that's going on that family, but anyway, there's a weirder thanks for sure. Let's talk about a weird thing going on in another family, a cycling family where not many of them are related. Little Trek is still you know, swirling around our heads in our Slack channels, trying to figure out what's going on. Partly, I think because you know, they're a team that we follow closely because of the English speaking element, but also of all of the teams maybe heading into this off season, there seems to be the most tumult going on or the most change, maybe it's a fair way to say it. So Judith Cconi, second, just in last week's European championships. He is even more on his way out the door because headloss news is saying that Cconi to Penarillo Qthasek's point five is basically a

3:08done deal and we're just waiting on the you know, the announcement. So that cuts his stay at the team short by quite a few years. But what I'm more interested in updating everyone on is Jim. And I'm sorry, neither of you guys are here. Monday, we had sort of breaking news at the time Philippa Gana is apparently also he's in. He's coming in. So they're doing a Italian for an Italian transfer. This is this is rum I think is that to report to this. But then we got word from the big time trial horse's mouth, which didn't exactly put the matter to bed, Dane, if you wouldn't mind give me the quote. Yeah, he said for the time being, I am with net company in the US. We'll see what happens next year. I mean, he doesn't have to consider that though. Like, does that necessarily mean that it's not going to happen? Okay, Jack, you're a rider of a certain ability, right? You've been

4:10he you know, you can maybe more easily put yourself not to put me in your down day and I can put you in the same bracket as me. But Jack, if someone was coming to you, you're in the verge of maybe changing teams are thinking about changing teams. I'm the reporter here. Jack Duncan, you are rumored to be moving from net company in US to little track. Is that true? What would you? How would you answer that? I think I would answer it depending on where I am in the contract negotiations. If if the contract set and I know how much I'm getting paid already, then yeah, I'll stir shit. I'm going to try to stir things up in the media. If I don't have the contract yet, I'm probably playing the agent game and trying to get more money and saying that, you know, I'm looking around and you know, but I wouldn't be as definitive. So I don't know, this to me says that the deal isn't set yet. And yeah, we've heard it's rumored that he's tied to little track. But yeah, who knows?

5:18Maybe he's going to go to Penarello. Maybe Glassenberg wants to hang on to him. Yeah. I'm on with you. I think it is the smart tactic here to play it this way. And also, I mean, how many times have you or I, Johnny, or Jack, we've asked somebody a point blank question that they've obfuscated when answering because contractually, that's what they kind of have to do for at least another two months. Like that could be what's happening here. But I don't think it's obfuscating. Like he says, for the time being, I mean, unless he's, you know, you know, zoomed out of his own body and is looking over all of space and time, whereas like, yes, one day I won't be. But it's like, for the time being, does feel more immediate. And surely with this, you're saying, oh, I'm a net company, Nios rider. I'm here to focus on the race. Not, we'll see what happens next year, I don't know. Was this quote translated and we need to know delivery? Like, how is he saying for the time being? Yes. Is it ominous or is it, is it just kind of a filler at the start of the sentence? Okay, good point. It is translated. It's from, it's from

6:19Augie Sport Notizu. But, you know, I think it's going to be hard for us to really get the true context, you know, the true delivery, the italianness of it. Yeah. Well, thank you, thank you for the input there. That is, and also Jack, if you need to switch over to, you know, do impress for a net company, Nios, any point, I think you got an hour. So you got the, you got the spinzone sorted. Continuing on the path of ins and outs, Gary Leaney on the women's side, has parted, they've hurt and little trek of mutually parted ways, which to me says this came from Realeaney, right? Because she wanted to leave. Because if you don't, if the team, the team can't get rid of you, basically, I don't think. Well, it could also, it could be two things. I mean, I think it certainly can be mutual. Okay. It could also, I mean, it could also be mutual in the way that a lot of things are not actually mutual. I don't know that this is true. I just, I think this is a possibility. I'm not saying this is what happens. But like, you know, a lot of times

7:23breakups are mutual, you know, but they're not, you know, they're, they're, they're just, you're saving face for the other person. You feel bad. And this is also true when managers get fired in baseball. Oh, well, we've mutually decided to part ways after, you know, you lost 90 games, and it was totally mutual. Maybe that's not what happened here. I just want to point out that that's a possibility. I will say in this particular instance, you know, this is a big time of, well, you said tumult earlier on the women's side for a little track. I mean, they also just had a big coup in the signing department. So they're bringing in one of the best climbers in the world. And so with, with Raleini, I think there was, there is a sense, well, okay, we have now an obvious go-to GC leader. Raleini, two years ago, getting on to three years ago now was one of the most promising young climbers in the whole sport. She had a terrific, was a 23 season and another very good 24 season. Now that I've got Kasi Navee Domaphini, though, I think there is a sense of, you know,

8:25with Raleini not having the best last two years, they can kind of move on. And maybe, maybe there was a sense of, okay, well, we're going to focus on her as our leader. And Guy Raleini, you can go look for opportunities elsewhere because you're not going to be the main number one leader here. Yeah, yeah, I think you're right. Maybe it's not time out. Maybe this is just, I think we would describe it as the shalecification of Little Trek. And if you see the names, we're talking about here Raleini, Chikoni, both Italian out the door. I mean, then bringing in Ghana, so maybe one Ghana equals the size of a Chikoni in a realini. But probably not even. That's probably accurate. Yeah, if we're keeping Italian mass, even that's the 12-year-old. Yeah, Italian mass. But there's another, there's another reason Chikoni might have been off rather than some sort of LucuGwarchel and her shaped exit. Did you see what Wanoi so, his trade teammate did to him before the start of the European Championships? I only just looked it up before this, but it's

9:28pretty good. Okay. And the team has been known to have a bit of a pranking nature with Mans Pedersen. So this is kind of on team brand, but this seemed like it wasn't received quite as well. I'll grab you the main quote here. So this was I also admitting to the prank, to cycling pronet, which is Antoine's company, where he goes around with French accent filming, like running gun camera before an author, I just said, he laughed also. And during the neutralization, Gilege Konehatt to come to me and convince me to give him the code. Now, what he's referring to is that when I say somehow got hold of Chikoni's Wahoo before the start, put in a code, you guys are going to have to explain this to me, which meant that you couldn't unlock the Wahoo without the code. Explain how this was. It's like, you know, on your phone, you have it in no code mode,

10:29where you could just like swipe up and open it. And then I stole your phone and put in a lockscreen code. Right. And now you can't get into your phone without me giving you the code. Why do you need a lock for your, also, am I saying, I'm saying Wahoo a bunch of different ways, Wahoo is supposed to be the way. I don't like, I don't love that though, I have to say. Yeah. Well, yeah, maybe maybe we need accents in English. The Wahoo. Why don't you have online banking on your Wahoo, D? Say, why we we we we pen codes in. Oh, no, they're going to say me. You're dating two or spikyly. Yeah, exactly. You don't want to want to find that information. Yeah. No, yeah. You okay, as someone who talks about power numbers with other people, the power numbers you tell your friends are always at least 5% inflated. So you don't want them to see the real numbers. Got it. What flation? Yeah. Got it. Do you you guys both have codes for your, your head unit? So hell no. No, I don't care that much. What's

11:30I'm always going to say the thing? I ride on feel, baby. Come on. Hey, I ride on feel. Oh, same. Same, same brother. I do think it's kind of funny that I used to do this. I mean, this is a rider with a long history of of an intro team strife. And maybe this is his new secret way of securing GC leadership for himself. Like if he can just completely take his own teammates out of the equation by making sure they can't access their data. Yeah, he might have found the solution here. Well, maybe he's like a he's a hired gun for little Trek where it's like we're kind of looking to shift on old Julia boy. Could you just go in like, you know, expedite the process. Yeah, haze him a bit. Yeah. Yeah, really good stuff. But obviously, then you know, this extra strife to Chikonin, I mean, not strife, but extra a little bit of energy. He lost by what, two thousandths of a second was did one. I used to cost him. What if the championship? Alleries of stress have got the watts of moving his finger to what? Yes, to chase down. I use

12:32so in the neutral in the neutralize section. Yeah, totally. I want to on to pivot now from little Trek, maybe back sideways to net company in the us who usually occupy this this spot within teams of like what what's going on? What are they doing? Obviously, Philippa Gana leaving I don't know how to find him. You can maybe understand that. Gana put me once a new a new start. Some of that. I mean, everyone forgets that he he rode for UAE a while ago. So it's not like he's always been a net company man. Net company does only have 15 riders rostered for next year, which maybe we'll get to in a bit because that seems odd. There was talk of merger with toe to energy. We're not sure we need to do some chasing on that. But news dropped dropped on the the internet today by Dan Benson, of course. And this is quite shocking. You guys told me this. I haven't seen this. Econ Bernal might be retiring at the end of the year. Yeah. Yeah, it's this is tough. I don't like reaction. The first reaction is that's pretty sad.

13:36We've liked Bernal. I think the the escape collective stance is Bernal is fun. That he you know, he has one things in exciting ways. He you know, attacks on the dirt in the Giro and things like that. But if you're Bernal, you know, ever since he ran into a bus and has been coming back from that, he's he hasn't been dominant. He hasn't really been winning in the ways that he used to. And I can see that being pretty frustrating going from like a clear to her favorite to fighting for a top 10. Yeah. Like that's that's got to be hard. And he has, you know, I mean, he's he's come back. He has one. He's one stuff. I mean, he took a grand tour stage win last year. And I think in terms of, you know, proving to yourself that you can come back from something like like that horrible injury. Now that he's achieved a number of top 10s in big races and gotten a

14:38stage win, I think that it is possible. He's reached that point where it's like, okay, I've made my comeback. I've successfully come back. I've gotten a grand tour stage win since since I ran into a bus. That's an unbelievable achievement. So I can I can see a sense of well, now maybe it is it is okay to like hang it up. But I I would bum me out of that habit because I like I like a lot. I like seeming to embrace a lot miss his presence and the potential that his presence always represents because whenever he's in a race, you know, I always think, what if what if this is the race that egg I'm run all comes back and and really recovers that old that old form. And so that would oh be a shame. Do we love 2026 Agen Bernal or do we love 2019 Agen Bernal? Well, I actually I mean, 2026 the recent Agen Bernal has still been pretty entertaining. I mean, he's still he's still managed to to find ways to go on the attack and races and and maybe not quite be at the level that that is necessary. But again, he's one he's won a race of a pretty big race. He's

15:41definitely a ship in ships. Yeah, he was and he's been in the top 10 of of grand tours. So it yes, it's not the same rider, but he still has a lot of that of what of what he brought to the table and that electrifying first couple of years where he he seemed like he was going to be the rider that was going to define grand racing for a few years. Also, I mean, you know, we live in a world now where Enric Mass won a Vuelta. I mean, that's that's surely given hope to a bunch of those and that's said with, you know, middling levels of equal levels of respect and disrespect, which is perfect mix. But all of those middling GC guys, you see that and you're like, there is hope for me. Like, I could, you know, ride myself into a grand tour win. Egan Bernal is 29. He's turning 30 in on January 13th. So not far off. Maybe, maybe, maybe it's a bit of a court life crisis. His contract runs out with net company in us at the end of the year. So maybe, you know, the agents, you know, had a look around and he's probably coming off like still a sizable contract at any else when

16:44there was that yeah, come back and they're like, well, let's let's hedge and re up him. But maybe now the contract is looking at he's looking at the racing and being like, is, is the juice worth the squeeze after I've achieved, you know, maybe more than I ever thought, do I want to continue? Maybe comes down to that, don't I? I have had teammates who grew up with Egan Bernal and know him pretty well. And I, when I was racing for a very low level continental pro team, we were in Columbia a good bit. And I have some, I have some good Egan Bernal stories that maybe are like after dark. Maybe only retires. Yeah. Maybe those need to get dropped in down the road. But I have a lot of affinity for him. And I would love to see him to keep doing it as long as he wants to. And if he's feeling like he's done and reach everything he wants to, then I think he should go live on his, you know, villa in outside of Bogota. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's what we're

17:45away for eventually, right? I really like the handful of people within the escape podcast universe who have been professional racers. Even if it is, you said low level continental team. I mean, team of lumine. There's a same level as every other continental team. They're not low level. They're, they're the continental level. That's a big deal. And because you and this is true for Ronan as well, have been, have had this experience. You know, I can immediately just go look up your stats and see exactly where you race and you race with. And it's so nice to be able to do that. And to see that, you know, the tour of our body where, where you apparently were rocking a 34th on a stage and tour about like that. That's pretty, pretty cool. And domestic duty. Yeah. Yeah. That's pretty great to look the stuff. I led Simon Pio out for, I think he was second and he was second to David A. In that, in that particular state. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But I love being able to look at stuff. And this is great. I'm enjoying you. Pretty slightly. That's that sniping Jack mid recording.

18:48Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The other, the other nice thing is I can never, I can always check when someone's birthday is. That's on here as well. So that must be why you missed mine last month for no stress. Well, maybe be a professional cyclist, Johnny. And then I wouldn't have. Yeah. That's my bad and fun issue. Well, so I'm just looking at, I'm on pro-suggestuts now, which maybe is bad, bad form, bad work etiquette, bad podcasting etiquette. 15 riders. I didn't realize this. Sure. There's still like a few months left to run until 2022. And there's going to be, there might be a glat of riders on the market because we don't know which teams are closing. So they'll leave in their business late. But if you look down the list of these 15 riders, it's a real mix bag. Obviously, they're all pros or crushing it, but it's just, it's not, and if you, a few years ago, if you'd shown this roster or these 15 riders and you had to get someone to guess which squad they raced for, it's not, there's no sort of, you know, through, thread through,

19:49the whole squad of like, this is what we're trying to do. Well, especially with only two riders from your island, Johnny, that's surprising for this team. It's tarling an on leave for now. I mean, they'll, they'll, they'll add more, but for now, it's not a whole lot for the team that was started with the express intention of, you know, British. Well, winning. And all your boys, the, the American youth they hired, they're nearly all off, aren't they? Yeah. You've got all ten minutes off, AJ Augustoff, Magna Sheffield has suddenly remembered that he's got an Norwegian mom. I love how he made a code to him. That's so hard, which I love. Because, you know, Uno X is there, they're the Scandinavian version. They're, they're so, their identity is so built around being a Danish slash Norwegian team that when they bring in somebody who's not registered as that, have to make it really clear, hey, Magna, go speak Norwegian on social media so that all of our fans know you're, you're part of the club. It's okay. Well, they said it's important as well, because they do a lot of all the team stuff and like the team conversations in Norwegian.

20:50Yeah. So they would have to change that whole vibe. But yeah, I just really, I enjoy the thought that Magna Sheffield, like, you know, as soon as the agency is like, where do you, where do you think you could write? Like, let me just double check. I think my mom did say that she, she grew up in Norway. And if so, then that could, that could work really well, you know, they activate the Norwegian diaspora clothes for Uno X's higher in policies, which apparently exists, which is great. But aside from the Norwegian tie, I kind of like it as a move for him. Oh, they've missed it. Yeah. The breakaway team of the year, right? Like they've won stages and all grand tours out of breakaways. And I think it could be a fun opportunity for him to get up the road and some races. Well, he's that kind of rider, too. And they pointed out in their press material, like you don't get, there's not a whole lot of riders. Mateo Jorgensen is one who can be top 10 at Flanders-and-and-Parrinese, which he has been. And that sort of skill set often lends itself to, you know, go up the road on a hilly stage of a race. So hopefully he'll get more opportunities to do that with his new squad.

21:54The, and obviously August Schmidt and Sheffield are all Guangji bound because they're off. Obviously. As well as not Carlos Rodriguez. Yeah, Oscar. Oscar Amigas. Is that his guy? No. No, no, Oscar Rodriguez, isn't it? The other Rodriguez, they're confusing one. Carlos and his brother, or are they related? I don't think they're related. He's just okay. Are you sure? Yeah, not related. Johnny, can you explain your love for the Jorgangji? What, what, what he's explaining? Johnny's been there. He's, he's been twice. Yeah. He's time going to the attender. Attending you. Talk about it at about, like, a thousand times the rate of anyone else in cycling media. I found my niche. You want to, you want to try and understand? Yeah, I want to understand. You have to go there, man. It's like, you know, it's like Glastonbury or I don't know the moon. It's just one of these, these things where you don't

22:57spark. You had to tell, yeah, it's be there. No, like on the ground, it's just so different to all the other race, you know, all the European races. Obviously, for obvious reasons, because, you know, there's not just like old French men around. But the vibes is different because you've got half the riders looking for contracts and kind of stressed and trying to get a result. You've got half who are like, what am I doing here? You know, some, just giving up. Everyone's like in the back of a tiny van. And like, there's just like, swan years, just like stripping them off, rubbing suncream into them. And then there's like hundreds of like locals just watching, being like, what the hell is happening here? But yeah, it's an experience when the bike is saying, after a season of, you know, probably attending quite a few European bike crates, where it's all quite dour and serious. It's nice to just go somewhere where the bike race really doesn't matter. I don't know. And it's also the final, it's like the final embers of the racing season. So like, you know,

23:59after the tour, I'm much more selective in which bike crates are care about. But then, before I know it, we've run out of bike crates. So it's suddenly sort of like the regret of having- Yeah, that's where I am. I just know it's going to be, it's going to be rough for November and December. You got to get all the enjoyment you can out of these post tour races. And it's one of the welter. Yeah, even if like last last year, when I, yeah, I went last year, when Pumanié won like four out of the five stages. And exactly the same sort of bunch sprint every time. And then the only other one, only other stage was run one by Poudoppa, I think. So just a litany of pools, just Oh, yeah, all the pools. Just doing it all. Yeah. So yeah, we switched out a French one for for British pool who plays the guitar on Instagram. So that was fun. But then none of his teammates came to watch him on the podium. Oh, that's right. That's how I said. Yeah. So it's got, it's got to be everything. And you're so close to it, you're not, you can kind of just wonder wherever you want. Because you're not like, you know, you're obviously a Westerner come over for the bike

25:01crates. You're just kind of allowed wherever you want to go because everyone's looks, he's like, he must be involved somehow. So it's kind of just fun to wander and then see, you know, bike crates and things don't normally see them all cum for the portals in the morning, because like one portaloon like 40 boys trying to get in there and do their business. It's just very real. Does that answer your question? I feel like I should stop now. It does. No, I feel like I was there with you. Thank you for that. Unfortunately, I'm not going this year. I need to check if I know who is. But, but maybe for next year, if it is going to be the final tour of Guangxi, I'll have to try and go for one last tour. Anyway, I think we're all done with little trek and in Eos. We're going to take quick break. And when we come back, there's some crazy things happening on the roads of Italy. Welcome back. We're going over to Italy for the the autumn classics, the crunchy leaf races, as maybe we'll start calling them now. We're at Trevelli Varsini earlier in the week where both

26:05of our boys, Tom Pickock, Amitai Johansson got beaten by a pesky, young, diminutive Belgian, Kodjano Widdhar, he said he won the Giro next year and he won a bunch of other prominent e-thraces. It's kind of one of the Belgians that's always talked up in the media. This was his first win professionally, run for a lot into Masha'i. And Deng Cache was quite the win to A and how he took it and B to deny Pickock and Johansson. Yeah, so for the context, I mean, he is maybe the most promising Belgian right now. He's just been one of the top prospects for a couple of years. I mean, he beat Paul Sexas on a pair of stages at Lavonier last year. Sexas took the overall. But clearly, this is a really, really, really young, a really talented young rider. At the Trevelli Varsini, he was in the finale. It was a three rider battle in the finale of that race. One of those riders was Johan Widdhar, who's just 20 years old. And the other two were Tom

27:09Pickock and Matteo Johansson. So, you know, hitters as Kayleigh described them in the story he wrote about this. They came into the sprint and you could see that the Johan Widdhar was kind of trying this. You could see him try it like a couple of times before he actually managed to actually do it, where he pulled off a, you know, a tactic you might, you might get taught in in your skills course, sprinting. I wouldn't call it sprinting 101. I'd call it maybe sprinting 102, where you essentially, you kind of leave a small gap to the rider in front of you as a sprint approaches. And then you, you get up to speed into that gap so that you're, you're kind of going towards the slipstream. And then by the time you're up to speed and start to come around, when that happens, you're, you've got a couple of, you know, kilometers per hour on your opponents who hopefully haven't noticed you doing this. And that's exactly what happened. He,

28:11you could see him dropping back a little, he, it seemed like he was kind of almost about to jump and then he decided not to a couple of times. And then with like, I don't know, 200 meters to go in the finale there, he did exactly that. He caught, uh, Jorgensen and Pitcock by surprise. And by the time they tried to get going, he was too far ahead, not a whole, you know, not a huge distance ahead, but just a little too far ahead to be caught. And, and therefore, took the, somewhat surprising win over two big names. And yeah, as you said, this was his first, you know, major race win as a pro. And it was just a textbook example of this, of this tactic that has a bunch of different names depending on where you are. I think Kaylee, Kaylee went with layback or dropback, uh, trackies would call it a Russian, the gap, I think. And credit to, I don't know who was on the call, whoever was on the, on the call on the broadcast that I watched saw him king us up. And I was, I was impressed that he caught pretty, caught pretty early. This was happening.

29:12Anyway, so he managed to pull off this, uh, this tactic to, to, um, perfection and, uh, showed that not only is he extremely talented, uh, and has good form, but he also has a pretty good grasp of, again, this is, this is more like by gracing 102, even this is, um, this is impressive. The, the comment you're saying, the commentator did a Peyton Manning Monday Night Football, sort of telling you what the play is going to be before it happened. Yeah. Well, maybe as it happened because I think he saw him trying to pull it off. And so, yeah, yeah. Because he, he was kind of sitting behind Pidcock and Jorins in a couple of bike links back. And it was almost like jockeying, like he was trying to do it when Pidcock wasn't looking over his shoulder. And so he was waiting for a moment that it was clear. And it, yeah, you could see him kind of like trying to do it a couple of times. So yeah, I watched the replay of the race. And yeah, it was, I thought it was pretty clear that it was happening. Um, but he, Pidcock is not a big person. Um, he's a small man already. And

30:16Weedar is even smaller. Um, I thought, you know, with how punchy Pidcock is, he seemed like the third favorite in the group of three, Weedar. So I was super impressed. He, he went at like 400 meters to go to, he went early, um, and got enough of a gap that Pidcock just couldn't even come to him. So super impressive. I think it's, you know, it, it's difficult to say when riders are this young and when they do something like win Jiro next gen, what, what they're going to amount to, you know, like when Pagatja one to a California kind of barely, we had no idea he was going to turn into this monster. And so, you know, Weedar could speak for yourself. I think I wrote a story for cyclotips at the time about how he was the next big thing. Uh, and really, I don't know that it still exists in the internet ether. Uh, uh, dang Jackson, price acting stats say he needs some more convincing. Yeah. My arguments actually mean nothing because I don't have a PCS page. That's

31:21actually acting. Yeah. Sorry. I didn't mean to cut you off, Jack. I was. Yeah. Well, having a PCS page, you could come and do a local gravel race here that are on PCS and then you would be on PCS. That's not even, it's not that high of an achievement. Um, uh, but okay, if you saw Pagatja coming in 2019, that's pretty good. Um, but so I, but with Weedar, I don't know if he's going to turn into this, you know, the next thing or if he's going to, you know, win one race in the Ardennes and that's going to be his crowning achievement. Like I could see it going either way. I think he, I think he's well on his way. I think that the results he's put up at age 20. And the fact that he's been able to on occasion, not consistently, but on occasion, have this sort of performance is where he's he's up there with the big names. The consistency is what he needs now.

32:22And, and you know, often that comes with age. So I would expect that to kind of develop as, as he grows, you know, he'll, he'll, assumingly, the ability to, to continuously over the course of several days be up there because you know, you could do it once the Trevala ever seen him. But if you can do it over the course of three weeks, that's when you start talking about Brandt or content. So that's what a lot of endermar, Shay will be hoping for obviously because this team has not had a true grand tour contender in a really, really long time. And they, this is just not something that they've really focused on. Well, as the Belgians like to say, you know, the muscles are young. So give the muscles a little bit more age. Yeah. But apparently, again, as I was saying, I mean, clearly already has a lot of things that do come with age. I mean, the ability to kind of pull off this tactical cool here. That's something that you often hear. Oh, well, veteran move there from the, from the ride, but he's, yeah, he's only 20. So I like, Dan, that you're kind of doing a reverse thing with, if you come in at Trevala ever seen, we need to see, we could do a grand

33:24tour in the English Premier League. It's like, well, if you can, you know, perform on a cold Monday, night in stoke, then you can do it anywhere. So it's kind of, it works, it works in opposite. But we need to bring the vibe down a bit before pick cock finished second. He almost quit the race because of an incident happened before the TV cameras went on with six laps to go. Two of his teammates, Marcel can probably be the Spanish national road race champion, who, you know, kind of forgotten that. Usually it's one of the, the, the usual vendors as the run what? Very good cyclist. Usual names, I could pass that spot, but show Marcel and Tom Glogue, who has spent quite a lot of time injured, they were hit by a police officer in a motorcycle going the wrong way down the course. Pick cock told cycling prod on net off the race. I wanted to stop the race off of that or even drop out the race myself because I was really furious. My teammates running in front of me and suddenly they were lying on the asphalt. Fortunately, Marcel was okay and able to continue and then Glogue had to quit but seems to be doing kind of okay. Pick cock finished percent. This simply

34:28shouldn't happen. I mean, you know, it's wrong. Cars and vehicles often get on the race to have like the police motorcycle was going the wrong way. Yeah. It feels like we've reached a new nadir of bike call safety. I don't know. Yeah, the police, the fact of their police bikes is what do you even do in that situation? Who do you, who do you wrap up? Yeah, who do you call? Yeah, exactly. Shout out, but real quick shout out to cycling pro net. Antoine gets crushing it. I mean, the number of interviews that it get turned into stories that Antoine does, the guy who holds the camera up, it's incredible. He said every race pretty much. So good on him for then amplifying pick cock's words to become stories on various websites. But yeah, I I don't know what you do in the because it's one thing if it's like a camera motorbike, then you just kick him out of the race and then you know, then you move on and hopefully they learn their lesson. But again, who do you call when it's the actual police? Well, and often the scary police, it's not even like the local police. It's like the proper national. Yeah, I don't know what they were in this scenario, but then no, I don't. Particularly if there's a bike race in

35:31France or Spain, they often do bring in the scary, the scary ones. Yeah. The scary they get the smaller the hat they have on their head, which does work psychologically. I don't really know how. Yeah, but it's interesting. We need to study on that. Can probably be also he he put up a photo of his bike with the front fork. I think it's a front fork snapped off, which is quite a quite a resting image. He captioned that photo with sad, the risk of your life to race one month after tragic accident referring to Finley Tiling. I mean, you know, I don't know where this this, you know, madness ends. Did you see the other incident at Copipanocchi earlier in the week? I think soon after we actually recorded on Monday. Did you see this? Where it was like a head on shot of the Brequeu riders. You can see in the background a big yellow DHL van waiting at the T junction. And then it just pulls out onto the course off the Brequeu have gone. So then there's like Brequeu riders. Next to them is like the neutral service race car. And then behind us this

36:35massive DHL van shouldn't laugh, but it's just ridiculous image. My one thought was maybe in future, this could be a great, if done safely, great sponsorship activation. Yeah, I mean, imagine if you're if you're sending something, you want that. You want it to to get into the gap there and try to get your package across. So yeah, yeah. So I'm animal for the cyclists who is a lot of interest. Some in different US postal days as well. But but yeah, I mean, the like late stage capitalism that we're in right now where we're, you know, throwing advertisers into the middle of the bike race like that. That's actually that's actually a brilliant idea. You should not say that out loud because somebody's going to take that like somebody's going to start doing that on intentionally. I think now. And then the drivers, you know, you see them just hop out because they got to go pee in a bottle because their schedules are so rammed with work that literally don't they get like penalized for not being able to take their in nature break. So yeah, that's that's fun. Good vibes so far in Italy. Hopefully they improve

37:39on Saturday because we've got a member who are on the LCS schedule where we're not allowed by Chris on Sunday. That's the day of rest. Yes. And you've got to go to church with the non-er and then have you pre me in second day afterwards. So it's all business on Saturday with the final monument of the season. It will be firing off the Italian stereotypes here. We go. Yeah. I think I'm Catholic. I think I can get away with it. I don't know. That is how we listen to it. Yeah, for a trend in the line. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Do you go to church with your Nana on Sundays, Johnny? Because you know, you used to and we did it enough with Ticknut Box. Yeah. Okay. We signed up. Anyway, Lombardier Day. Yes. That's the final monument of the season. And I didn't realize that I had kind of doubled up on preview titles. When I preview this race this week with the one I did for Worlds because with Lombardier, the story is was the first time in its first time since like 2020, 2021. First time since 2021, it will have a new winner because for five straight years,

38:43Padipo Gacha won this race, which is unbelievable. I mean, that's just incredible. The amount of talent required, but also the amount of luck required. Like how did he not just have a flat or something in those five years? So my preview title was something like the first time in whatever, which is also I only realized it's a little too late. Kind of the same thing I did for Worlds. It's the first time in whatever, a long time that blah, blah, blah. Padipo Gacha not being around has changed the game. We're going to get a new winner. And we're going to get a first time winner with all due respect to the man who was retiring, Balkamolema, who is the lone, the lone Lombardier winner still in the Peloton and active and not injured. Like Padipo Gacha is, he'll be there. I don't think he's going to win. So we're going to get a new winner. And it's a pretty open race. You know, had Worlds had Worlds gone to the favorite, a Remco Avenable or maybe the second favorite, Esecto Toro. I think we would have a clearer favorite for Lombardier, but just one of the many amazing ramifications of random

39:48McNulty winning. Not only does America win, but the World wins because it means the Lombardier is more of an open and entertaining race because we don't have as much of a favorite. And I think it's it could be could be, Aventipo could be Deltoro could be Tum Pitcock could be Paul Sexos. Hey, maybe it could be Brandon McNulty. And so this final monument of the year, which is so often been a foregone conclusion in the Pogachar era more than any other race he's done, which is saying something because a lot of races he does are foregone conclusions. More than any of them, Lombardier has been, but finally in this one strange year where he's recovering from some broken bones, it's going to be somebody else. And we don't even really know with a whole lot of certainty who it's going to be. I think Aventipo Deltoro is a good bet for the likelyus outcome here, but yeah, it should be pretty entertaining. The route they switch every year, they go Komo to Bergamo or Bergamo to Komo. And this is a Bergamo to Komo year. They're going

40:51to finish with a sort of trio of tough climbs. It's actually only two climbs, but they're doing one of those twice. And there's not a whole lot of distance to be covered after the final climb, the San Femordela Battalia climb. It's like 5K to the finish from the top of that and it's mostly downhill. So this is a attacker friendly kind of race because that sort of finale means if you get clear, it's going to be really hard to bring a rider back. So yeah, I'm hoping we'll hopefully get those attacks. We have gotten them in the past at Lombardier. It's just that they've been Pogachar going 25K out and nobody coming anywhere near him. And I think this year we're going to have a much closer battle. Great Jack. What's your what's your vibes on Lombardier? Do you, you're Lombardier guy? Or I would love it if it were before I stopped caring about bike racing as much. Yeah, all of you every year, everybody on this podcast, but me every single year. Oh, it's October.

41:52Oh, I don't want to watch anymore bike racing. We're all going to be so bored in a month. You've got to take what you can get. No, you're right. You're right. But it's it. Yeah, I will, I will enjoy watching it, but I would care a lot more. I think the significance would be higher if it were, you know, before the tour, not to go back to one, two, three cycling, whatever we're on. But the order of things here just doesn't make any sense to me. I mean, I am excited to watch it. I think, you know, it being a monument and being, you know, as long as it is, I think it favors certain types of riders, like the ones who are who are really strong at worlds. It's similar distance. I think climbs are longer, harder than at worlds. But, yeah, I think Pidcock, you know, he's clearly showing some form. He's showing that he's really good at being close to winning. So, yeah, maybe he knocks this one off, but if this race were in June or something, I think I'd

42:56be stoked on it. I don't know that I wonder if it were in June, how much attention it would get or from the riders. I mean, like whether they wouldn't really go for it as much as they do because they're worried about the tour. I think they'd want to go to the tour, Avaren Ron Alps for their tour, tune up rather than a one day, really long one day in Italy. That's true. And we do get, I mean, the best climbers, the best climbing one day racers, because if I say the best climbers, then that includes Jonas Vingigo, who is like allergic to this sort of race. But the best one day climbers do go to Lombardia and it gets the start list, even if it is at this weird time of year. So, yeah, you get the falling in beautiful colored leaves. No, I'm up for this year. And I think Tare Pagacci's dominance has combined with the place it holds on the calendar where it's kind of like easy to be like, ah, you know, but this year promises to really be an event. I mean, my dream scenario is three riders off the front towards the end, Evan, a pole,

43:59pigcock and chicony, three very combustible characters and the demonstrations from all three of them in the arguing would delight me massively. Then he'll go on top of that. The demonstrations we've gotten like the past couple of weeks. And yeah, with with Chikone mad about the finish that he probably lost, but he's mad about it. And then yeah, with with, you know, with, I mean, not so much demonstrations, but with with pigcock coming close. Oh, well, he was quite the race with theory. So he's really tiny. That was less, that was less fun. But it's less fun, but it's still, you know, he's probably, you know, his, his patients will be thin. Right. There's been a fair bit of drama, basically. Yes. And he was the cause of some drama that we barely talked about, or maybe not even at all at worlds, when he, when he said some things after worlds that were definitively not true. And so hopefully we'll get some more. I, I'm fine with him, stoking, stirring the pot a little bit. And now he's got another chance to, you know, go up against Del Toro and and McNulty,

45:01who, you know, his, that combination displeased him in Montreal. And so I'll be, I'll be looking forward to seeing that again. What about if there's a situation where it's McNulty, Jorgensen and Evan, oh, oh, in the lead and trio. And then the Americans work together, something on different teams to do Evan, and then the Belgium media were just explode. I'll be terrific. I would love that. But I absolutely would really appreciate that. And again, that's the sort of thing that we have, we can't take that for granted in October. No, you know, we need that sort of thing to keep us going, because it's going to be a long off season, where we're going to have to figure out what, what it is we're going to have to pay attention to. Oh, and with the fillies out of the playoffs as well. Yeah, I mean, fortunately that the baseball playoffs aren't that they're not going to last much longer. So it won't be too much more watching other teams. Yeah. That. I think that's a good place to leave the free show. I've got one more thing that I just popped into my brain off the back of Lombardier and Evan a pole, which was an, it asked quite red interview with his partner, Oomi. But I think we'll save that for the sanctity of golden hour

46:07as a sunsetting. And, you know, maybe we enter a bit more of a free-flowing chat, even more free-flowing than the past 50 minutes. So if you want to join us there, and you're not already member, sign up, escape collective.com forward slash spin. The document I'm reading off now says that that using the slash spin gets you 20% off. I believe that's a case if it's not, you know, it's not too much, not too much of a difference, but it helps. And you've got things like the membership per member, member, yeah, member purchase program. Easy for me to say, which if you play it right and you do, you do the numbers, you can actually save more money than your subscription costs by buying stuff your bike. It's all expensive nowadays. So yeah, that's my pitch. Thank you both for joining for the free show. And we'll carry straight on for the members in golden hour.