Hello you beautiful cycling fans and welcome back to another A1 show…
Hello you beautiful cycling fans and welcome back to another A1 show of Welta special. So today as predicted yesterday the race went to pieces. We have a new race leader, well maybe not a new race leader, it's the Tour time he's were the leaders jersey, Superman Lopez and we have the world champion reign and supreme. So a lot to talk about as always and we're going to try and cram it into usual sort of 15 minutes slot so let's jump right in. So before we start as always a quick note from our Vuelta sponsor it's missing piece. We've had customers already checking out missing piece, they're loving the stuff as I said the custom feel is just amazing to it. My chop board should be on the way here any minute soon and also we're going to have a very special contest from missing piece in the next couple of days so stay tuned to find out how you can win some missing piece swag because you had a whole idea with having the show sponsor. The podcast show sponsor is a way for you guys to just firstly reward people who are investing in Solicland but more proximity than not to reward people who are investing in this show. If you're getting some value out of the show, we encourage you to check out the links and if you are getting the stuff to go through our links because those little things, they help give the bitter return on investment to sponsors, helps keep the sponsors comms in, helps me keep upgrading the equipment, helps hosting costs, all that good stuff, marketing material. So as I said, the podcast is going to be common, it's going to become its own self sustained little emperor. So the more we can push the word on it, the more it's going to grow. And it will be kick ass to have you guys on this incredible journey that we take over the next God knows how many years where we grow this podcast into something special. Like it'd be really cool. I know I've beta tested some programs and very start like a Strav I bet a test and it's just really cool to be on something like that from the very start and watch it grow so hopefully that's what we can do together guys. Okay jump into the action so link for a missing piece it's in the show notes and the description go check them out because they're boss. Do you like my vocals? Yeah I'm not a good singer but I have a real passion for those two things together not a good mix in the shower. We had a big break that defined today but it was never going to be a day for the breakaway. We had Gilbert and Hino from UAE. They foraged on. They were the best at a breakaway. But we had a tough second-cat climb and we had some motivated teams behind, especially in the shape of movie star and then a stanna hitting it super hard. The two would always combine to make the race really, really hard. You can tell the race was hard when the Red Jersey Dylan Tunes was gone on the second cat. So Dylan is going to hang on for a dear life. next on Postman he put a lot in yesterday. I really feel that yesterday after yesterday's effort it was going to be very hard for him to keep the jersey today. I expected him to be there until the last climb but it goes to show you just how hard it was. If you watch the footage of that second car climb you have movie star and you have a stanna lined it out to the front and then it's a single foil but you can see guys popping in the line like 20 back, 26 back, 30 back, they're just pop, pop, pop, pulling out a line and every time one of those pulls out a line, if you haven't been in a line out, the reason why it's easier at the front is you don't have to worry, like if I'm in P-3, position three in the line, you know, there's only two guys in front of me, so unless the guy in second way up pops, my pace is gonna be hard, but it's gonna be steady. But now think about if you're in P-25 and the guy in P-22 pops, The Indigo in P23 now has to make this huge effort to get back up to P21 so we used to sprint. So everyone behind them has to sprint.
Go from the unfyrey to the 1100 watts
So you go from the unfyrey to the 1100 watts. And then the guy in 13th way up pops. And then the guy in 14th has to accelerate back up to 12th. And this keeps happening and what it means is the further back you are, the harder it is. So that's why they're such a fight for positioning into these climbs and why the teams, they whack it. And once they have their riders in place, they really commit to it and it means no one else can move up. Because to move up the line, you've got to put out serious energy and it's very hard to move up unless you're one of the super strong guys. And even if you move up, the teams aren't going to let you in. So it's a good little insight into what's actually going on there. We've seen Teo Geigenhardt apparently he's been suffering from a bit of food poisoning but that's coming out of the system. He had the LTV attack. You know, the Eurospark commentators have gone mad about a great to see Teo back. But really like there was nothing there only a bit of TV time like he attacked the movie star lads didn't flinch The movie started to miss the economy riding for you know a good 20 minutes of that stage Teal barely kept them and the movie star lab brought them back in again So nothing to really get excited about there You know they love the other part is on commentary on your sport from the British lad Does that boy a teal has been a massive disappointment for me? Hopefully it has been the field poison that's clear We also had second on GC, David Delacruz, you know, again yesterday, you're sporting, so are cycling news and commentators were talking about maybe this is in Yoast Mountain, a GC, Trent, and you're like, lads, we'll take up yourselves on. Like, Delacruz has been popped on every single climb so far including yesterday's climb when he moved up to second place overall. So it was inevitable when we hit the second cat today that he was gonna just let waiting in his pocket. It was inevitably he was going to drop the parachute and go straight out the back door. He was not going straight out the back door and he was loitin' up this race is the American Sipcous. He is super strong, super super strong. I'm really impressed with him. Him, George Bennus are pivotal now that Kiyakovsky is gone or Stephen, sorry Stephen Krauswick is gone for Yumba Visma. They're really going to be pivotal in Roggliad's challenge. So yeah really legal to see him there. So one step goose stopped riding, Quintana came over the top and that's when the rail action started. So we've seen the forced rail, we probably had an idea in our head but we really seen who's who, who has legs, especially after the crashes, you know we'd run, roach, gone. It's Quintana, it's Roglich, it's Lopez, it's Vaverdi. They're the four strongest boy critters in this years for Elta Aspania. We have a sort of a second group forming her, Arru, wrote quite well, Pogakar, who we've talked about, who's locked up in a contract in thinking of 2024 with UAE, Rafael Moike, George Bennes, was it Daniel Navarro as well that was there? You know, there's a strong second group, but the front four guys are head and shoulders above everyone else at the moment. It looks like now Cantana's riding for Alhamdral Vavard, at least he was on that stage. It was stage the park or suit of Valverde it was the climb was similar to the climb where he took the world title last year like we pitches from 16% to 18% and parts 20% and then you add into that the broken road as well that's sort of the Vuelta's famous for it's it was epic it was made for Valverde but it was epic you never get that stuff in the Tour de France like the Tour de France is if anyone hasn't been to the Tour of course it's amazing I went last year we pulled out the tent, camp on the side of the road, pull out your little stove, a few beers on AlptoEz. It's an amazing spectacle. I went to the Roux Bay stage and the AlptoEz stage and then the start of Borg-Dewass on the next day. Rent a van or a car, bring a tent, camp on the side of the road. It's a carnival atmosphere everywhere. It's brilliant fun. If you haven't been yet, it's immense.
Tour, as I say, it is a carnival
But the tour, as I say, it is a carnival. So for a carnival to go through, it has to have a certain infrastructure. The Vuelta isn't the same level of carnival. Same level of carnival, that's not a real thing. It's not the same level of festivities, so it doesn't need the big huge wide open road. So this finishing climb, they could barely get a motorbike up with today, it was epic. So in the finish, we had the Evergreen 39 year old, a hand-roveau verde, win the stage. We'd rugglish second, Lopez toward Cantana, followed by Moica. So that gives us a GC of Superman, Lopez is back in the Jersey for the tour time, Ruggish is at 6 seconds, Valverde at 16 and Katana is back at 27. What do you think of Valverde? He's a device of character, a little bit of side bar background knowledge. Before I embarked on my cycling chapter of my life, my background is law, actually my underads economics and then masters in law and then my professional qualifications in law but my master's is actually in sports law and specifically my master's is in doping in sports around the world anti-doping code. So I do find it interesting listening to the debate about Valverde and you know if you should be allowed to race still. I suppose there's one to give some context to this. There's one school of thought that says if you dope at any point in your career you have a physiological advantage for the rest of your career. And I'm actually not Not sure if I subscribe to that theory. I haven't seen enough evidence to back that up, but what I do think is very real is if you take Royal A and Royal B, if Royal A dopes and Royal B doesn't at a young age, maybe Royal A now gets opportunities to ride Grand Tours to Royal Classics where Royal B doesn't get the same opportunities. We do know the exposure to that level of racing, Grand Tours, they do physiologically change. So it is definitely beneficial for not just the acute period when you're taking something, but the long tail effect is very, very powerful. But then what you do, you need to balance that with, you know, it's interesting. William recording this podcast so late tonight, it's 12, 12, 20 here in Dublin. So most of you guys won't get to still Saturday morning. Incidentally, if anyone is getting this Saturday morning, we have our A1 Dublin chapter, right back at 9.30am, the food room in Clontarf, doing about 65k easy, weather's yellow alert, so there you go, I'm going to finish this podcast, I'm going to get the bed wild party Friday night here for me. So yeah, I was quite so late as I was actually real life getting in the way, my sister was submitting hearties today and hearties around the effect of education and rehabilitation of criminals in the Irish prison system. But it got me thinking around the dopant thing and it's, you know, what is the purpose of doping? You know, I do believe that we're not the worst of our actions, that if somebody does something once, they shouldn't be held to the sword for the rest of their life over that one thing. So, you know, we've got a balanced effect that, yeah, there's a long-tail lasting effect of doping with people can make mistakes, people can rehabilitate, make make amends for the mistakes. Like you look at David Miller, for instance, David Miller, he had a confessed to Oprah, but then he's been very pro-antidoping since then, even putting initiative so on, you know, very proactive and getting the needle ban. So did we brand someone like that at Doper for the rest of their life? I'm not sure. It's a kind of a philosophical debate, but I suppose, you know, if you're in the camp of, yeah, you need to ban them forever and your Lopez, it's quite a hard pill to swallow, get in second on a stage today to someone like Valverde. Personally I actually don't give it that much thought and nearly think of it like the WWF wrestlers. You know yeah the whole call was probably lit so I was matching Man Randy Savage and Hell in the cell undertake or a man coin but there I am showing my nerd side there. I'm sure there's a few WWF fans out there but you know I just choose not to, I just choose not to think about it that much because it doesn't affect me. I suppose it's proximity is the key like it doesn't affect me.
I'm I'm not racing these guys day to day
I'm I'm not racing these guys day to day. If I was racing them day to day, maybe I'd have a stronger opinion on it. But I think I've already raced through with dirty ear in the sport and he doped. I know of friends who raced through that ear as well and they were saying basically 95% that a bunch was taking something in. So yeah, it's a hard to come down to, I heard someone for Escape Go for a whole generation of dope. But there you go, we'll park that one, we move on. So let me know your thoughts on that. Speaking of Dopon actually, what is the story of Matt Stevens? Is he on speed or something? He is absolutely off his face in EuroSport commentary. He looks like he's chilling as gums. I'm not really sure what the story is with that. Right, so let's talk about who the new race favorite is. It's Roglic. I just don't see anyone else. I know movie star have this double combo now or they have the double prone tread, the tandem of Quintana and Vavaridae. Vavaridae said he's come at the on stage. I told you he was a good bit of 11 to one. I want to throw that one there on your shoulders. With the TT coming up and Roglic is a specialist and none of the rest of the boys are a specialist. So it's just hard to see past Roglic at the moment. Also Jungboke don't want the jersey to early. They're happy enough for a standard to take the jersey and control the race for a few days. This race is hard. There's big groups getting away. The terrain is hard. The heat is hard. Jungboke had a couple of crashes. Tony Martin's hit the deck. George Bennett's hit the deck. Christfig's, you know, as Rugg has been down, you think he has been, he sure he's down the TTC. So yeah, they don't want the Jersey too early. And you know, tomorrow we're going into a medium mountain stage, I suppose I'd call it stage eight. It was one that Bennett said he was gonna have a look at. He set up quite early on the second car climb today, you know, the pro would have been it is. It's a toward car climb near the finish. I suppose we won't really know. for me it smells a bit of a Thomas DeGente but we won't really know what way that's going to play out until we see how much it's done I want to protect that jersey tomorrow and how lightly it is or how hard the GC guys race that climb, the GC guys aren't racing the climb hard you can expect to see Bored and the other team is taking a little pretty hard to ensure a bunch sprints but that's it there we go guys before we head off for today I would encourage you to check out our second show sponsor which is ClickFunnels hopefully you've checked them out by now. They're class for ClickFunnels has been something that's just empowered me as a small business owner. They just it lets me segment audiences it lets me build pages it lets me do one click up sales it lets me build marketing funnels. Amazing training built in there it's one of the tools that really lets me you know as a solo entrepreneur you know run on the podcast, the YouTube channel, with some quite big social platforms, big client base, and it makes sure I spend most of my time on actual coaching and not on the website building. So far my skill set just doesn't lie. So it's an amazing tool. I encourage you to go and check it out. Check it out. The good people at ClickFunnels have given the A1 Show listeners a 14 day trial. So go and check that out. And I think next week we're actually from Monday, I think we're even gonna sweeten the deal we're gonna throw in maybe a free cookbook or something with the clickfunnels 14 day trial but we'll see about that'll be a limited stock on them. Guys you are legends and girls you are also legends and we're heading into the weekend so hopefully everyone gets out and rides as always do me a solid share the show around tell friends about it it's here for the long haul as long as use all keep supporting thanks for coming and I'll chat to you tomorrow stage eight is coming up