Roman, let's talk about wealth fun art, Ghent Villegum, Nasser Buhani
Roman, let's talk about wealth fun art, Ghent Villegum, Nasser Buhani. It's a weekly roundup. Let's cure that intro! The big question is this. How do we use cycling as a tool to improve our health, our happiness, and our longevity? That is the question. This podcast will give you the answers. My name Anthony Walsh and welcome to the Roadman podcast. Roadman, welcome back to another week on the Roadman podcast. It was an action-packed weekend, so I decided to take today's podcast and just do a little bit of a roundup because we had Nasser Buhani pulling a Nasser Buhani. We had Wout Van Art, pretty much pulling a Wout Van Art, and he's looking exceptionally lean at the moment. So I want to talk about that. I want to talk about Sam Bennett, Puke and his ring up and Ghent. And I want to talk about Philip Gilbert taking an unknown period of absence from the sport. Before I dive into all today's podcast, let me remind you about Patreon folks. Patreon's how we fund the podcast. Patreon's how we keep the show moving forward. We've all seen the importance of support and small businesses, through this downtrodden on the pandemic and the podcast is no different. If you value small businesses, if you value this podcast, if it brings you a laugh, if it brings you some education, if you get your news from it, please think about supporting it. It's the price of a beer once a month is all it takes to keep the show on the road. The link to do that's down in the boil. And as I say, this isn't lip service, this isn't some shit I read at the start of the podcast list of ads. this is an impassioned plea because the podcast is sponsored at the moment by your fellow listeners. So to be fair to them and share the board and check out that link on patreon.com forward slash Anthony underscore waltz. I want to kick off the podcast and talk a little bit about Philip Gilbert because he's out of the tour of Flanders, state mental and physical fatigue and for someone as seasoned as Philip Schilberg and I know he's from the Ardennes French-speaking region of Belgium, but Flanders is still a race that's super important to him and for him to miss that and pull out of a tings must be bad but the 38 year olds he was a non-finisher in E3 Saxo Bank Classic and he was a non-finisher again in Gen2 Velicum. He's 2017 Tour of Flanders winner but he really has been struggling this season to find form. And so we released a statement today where it said, with the team I've decided to take a period of rest because things aren't gone well at all. Things haven't been gone well for a few weeks. We've taken time to analyse everything we could. And the best explanation is a lack of mental and physical fitness. My idea is to have four or five days off the bike then start back training gently. To our then classics are still possible but it's too soon to speak about specific dates. I want to feel 100% of my body and my head to play a role in the finals. That's why I do this sport. When you've won Flanders, when you've won Rubé, you're not going to be an also-run. You're not going to just show up again to Veligum and be happy packing in after 100k. So I can totally see why Gilbert is doing this. And why this story kind of caught my attention is because Gilbert has won the Tour of Flanders. He's won the Worlds, What amazing fucking world championships that was. Where was that? I can't remember. Escapes me was a Holland. I think it was a 2013 or 2014.
Volkombork, 2013 or 2014. I think what an unbelievable race
Volkombork, 2013 or 2014. I think what an unbelievable race. One of my favorite finishes to a world from Gilbert. But when you're as experienced he is and as highly taught of in the peloton, you can stick your hand up and say, you know what, I don't feel fresh mentally. I don't feel fresh physically. I'm walking away. but so many of the writers on the way up both professional and amateur level are afraid to say that, are afraid to say hold on let's pause for a minute because I'm not feeling like I'm building condition week on week like I should let's take a back a bit and then move forward so shop all the Philips Gilbert for knowing his body and doing that and we wish him a speedy recovery before I jump in to Ghent Veligum which is what I want to talk about let's just talk about Nasr Buhani again because Nasr Buhani is a little prick. So he is writing for Arcaeus Samsung at the moment and he's like a tornado. He's like sprinting against the Tasmanian devil. I came up when I was a French amateur writer. He was also an amateur in France at the same time and yeah he's a little prick is the only way to describe him. He's I don't know why he hasn't been banned for longer from the Peloton. He's danger to everyone around them and again like his sprint at the weekend, against Jake Stewart of Groupama FDJ, was absolutely horrendous and to relegate him to the last place in the bunch, after a shocking crash we seen last year in the Tour of Poland, you need to punish the behavior, not punish the consequences. There's no point in punishing Dylan Groenweg and giving him a huge ban just because of the consequences. Buchanan's behavior here was worse and he got relegated to the last in the bunch. It's an absolutely disgraceful decision from the UCI. He needs to be banned for longer. He came out with some bullshit statement today where he said, I'm sorry for Jake's short. The sprint went like this. I see Lee Viviani open, open. I want to take his way up. I admit that my error was changing my line to go together in this way. I didn't see Jake at that moment. When I came into contact with him, I found myself off balance. I'd saved it as best I could to not crash. I wanted to take his slipstream because it was a head cross from the right. It was no way intentional. You believe that once, you possibly believe that twice if you're a fool, you need to be a dimwit. Like the UCI, this is about 50 a time down this stuff and it's going to be a serious, serious accident before someone throws this idiot out of the sport. So that's it. I'm not giving him any more. He's an absolute idiot. More positive news. That was a rant. More positive news. Again to Veligon was brilliant to watch. Groups all over the road. And I called it a few weeks ago, the strongest man in the world at the moment, the best cyclist in the world at the moment, all around, I think, it's World Fanart. And he won Genfeligum. He had a teammate in the break with him, Van Huydonk, who'd done an absolutely sterling job, and coming in for the last few kilometers, I was watching it. And he backed himself so much, because you're in a group of six or so coming in, and you're the only rider with a teammate. You send that righter up the road and force you orders to chase 99% of the time unless you're just that confident you win the sprint that you get your teammate to hang around and lead it out.
That's what happened. And his teammate hung around and he led it out
And that's what happened. And his teammate hung around and he led it out. And there was some fast men in there, Nuzolo was in there, Trentin was in there, Bling Machu was in there, Sonny Cabrali was in there, Stefan Korn not known for being fast, Danny from Hoppe, he got Sam Bennett dropped and Van Hoi dunk. Fast men in that group so far, well-fonnarr to go to the line with them is a sure sign of how confident he is. Sam Bennett was the fastest in that group and he got over to the last climb of the day which is 35km from home but he went so deep on that last climb of the day and he said afterwards in the press conference that he had over eaten that as soon as it went on the flat and the crosswinds and they started roiding again. You could visibly see him puking. There's not many sports I've seen athletes puking on the sides of the touchline and keeping going. Bennett puking, trying to get back in, stops pedaling pukes, stops pedaling pukes. It was hard to watch. It's just a measure of how deep sand Bennett went. It's great to see sprinters mixing it in an incongruous environment for them. They're not used to being up the road, but I chose you how versatile these guys are and a lot of the time cycling media like to put them into a box and say they're just bunch sprinters they're just field sprinters but they're not Sam can mix it up the road all day like Bling Mathews can in these breakaways and it's absolutely amazing to see and World Fan Art is very very lucky Bennett had those gas-drop problems I don't think it works out the same coming in the road if Bennett's there I think Van Huydung has to take a flyer and put that pressure back onto the rest of the group because World Fan can't be confident against Bennett because nine times out of ten Bennett leaves him standing. It was a fascinating weekend at Boycroyd and we're really in the take of it at the moment and again the UCI criticized them on the National Boghani stuff but they need to be commanded for keeping the show running because Trek, Sega, Fredo have to pull out of Ghent, Velgum at the weekend with COVID problems but they kept the race going, the show goes on, Roman podcast goes on, I'm super guest this Wednesday. I'll announce it tomorrow. You're really gonna enjoy it. It's it's that story why we all love cycling the story of the underdog who gets a shot at the big time and it's about to be an unbelievable big story in cycling. So I wish you all the best. You'll find out more details about that tomorrow. Until then, roadman, thank you for listening to another Roadman Cycling Podcast. Hey everybody, it's Anthony again. Really quick, I want to invite you to join arguably the best thing I've ever put out inside the Roadman community. It's a challenge. It's a challenge called a 14-day Kickstarter challenge. So regardless of where your fitness is at right now, this is going to be the catalyst for making you faster and making you the leaner. I've created this challenge to take the guesswork out of everything. It's 14 days of training plans, regardless of what your level is. There's a master's beginner advanced, there's meal plans, shopping list, and even a video course holding your hand and talking you true at all. So what I recommend you do right now is just stop everything, press pause on this audio and go to roadmansoycling.com forward slash 14 day or check out the link in the bio. That's roadmansoycling.com slash 14 day.