with Dowsett
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Alex Dowsett opens up about life after 13 years as a World Tour pro, revealing the practical skills and racing instincts that separate professionals from amateurs. From crash prevention to pacing time trials without power meters, he shares the hard-won lessons he's now applying to amateur racing and how he's navigating identity loss after retirement.
"I miss that hour of being the time trialist for Great Britain in the world time trial championships but I also don't miss everything it takes to get to that start."
"A crash doesn't generally happen when one person hits another—it's when a combination of factors manifest and result in someone having nowhere to go except for the floor."
"I think you find if you ask any athlete, even Chris Froome when he eventually retires, better part of him goes 'wish I'd got a fifth Tour.'"
“Tom fan Ashbrook just transformed him on the bike and he messaged me couple of weeks later he like M I've never been able to do 400 wats on a Time bike and now I I could do it without thinking and I feel like I look 10 times more aerodynamic.”
“National 25 I did 425 Watts for 40 six minutes and finished fifth it's Archer Bal bigam um or fourth Arch bigam Chris fennel and me.”
“I have a little on my Garin screen I have a little piece of tape where the power should be and it says 465 Watts because that's the most I ever averaged for a TT just in Mark a pen and it kind of makes me smile during the TT so and then just not knowing I ride it on feel.”
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Apply for Coaching →Welcome back roadman today we have a special guest who needs no introduction it's Mr Alex deid former World Tour cyclist and world record holder is here with us today after an illustrious professional career Alex has actually continued his journey in the cycling world as an amateur in today's video we're going to be diving deep into his experiences and the invaluable lessons he learned from the pro cycling circuit Alex will share the key insights and strategies that many amateur Overlook he's now applying them to his amateur cycling stay tuned because my goal today is to help you bridge the gap between amateur and professional with tips straight from one of the best in the business it's Mr Alex D Alex daer welcome back to the ran podcast thanks for having me again screaming babies in the background doesn't say pro cyclist at an altitude Camp no no those those days those days are gone and nor can I say oh I really need my sleep for performance so uh Chanel can you you got night shift all right doesn't fly anymore how are you dealing with retirement all right all right um I I'd say this year is actually tougher than last year um novelty has kind of worn off um it's not new anymore I'm not saying I I miss I miss it that's the question I probably get the most he's like do you miss it and my reply is always like I don't I don't miss it at all but there's like little Snippets of it I miss say can you put eight into a like eight is too big to put into a box isn't it do you miss yeah aspect as a it as a whole no and especially I think it's it's getting so much harder now than it was um previously so I speak to teammates in in the Classic's time who say they have been home with kids they have been home for two days since the start of New Year because it's training caps and it's racing and just that's that's I'm happy to and and that's just to like maintain the level that's just to keep up it's just to be as good as within the spectrum of the pro baton as they were um that said I I was I missed the UAE tour because I just enjoyed that was a race I really enjoyed so when that was on I watched the sort of C fast of B Sprints and the laid out I was like that that was I enjoyed being a part of that chaos um and the other thing I missed was I was up in Glasgow for with specialized for the World Championships last year and being on the other side of the fence and watching how um How much the the the general public and um industry people kind of idolized the athlete is is quite um I if profound the right word but I I was quite shocked by just how important the athletes were to the world championships and maybe it's it's a stupid thing to say because they they're to Crown new world champions but it is it does revolve around them it was kind of like wow I was I was one of them and I totally took it for granted when I was there because I was there to do a job just race as hard as I could um and then I think what really what really got me was quite humbling was so as they were specialized in their sort of um their venue that they' kitted out and they had all of their bikes and I was in a kind of a t-shirt like all of the other specialized employees there um same t-shirt someone came up to me in the middle of the team in middle of the uh time trial worlds whilst we're watching Josh Tarling uh Podium came up to ask me about the specs on a commuting eBay up on show and I was like I don't know how to say this without being a dick I've got no idea because that's not really my job here even though I wearing the right t-shirt that says it should be and for real I was just thought wow well that's uh yeah just just at the point where I'm getting this realization that actually when I was a racer like it it was a bigger deal than I gave it gr it t but isn't that also humbling because yeah on the one hand you're talking about when you're at the worlds these athletes are idolized but there's another Zone just outside that when you when you step out of the cycling bubble you must also realize that a large part of the population they just don't know when you're in that world it feels like every that that world that small tiny little altitude camps Classics into the grand hor season it feels like that's the entire world and then you take a step to the side and you're like actually it's only a very very small Nery percentage of the population care about any of that yes yeah and it's it's a question that if we go around just so some friends that have nothing to do with cycling and cycling comes out right what you do I was a cyclist and the guy question are you famous and I'm like no I said but in very small Niche Circle a little bit a little so that's the uh yeah so with the like do you miss it I miss that hour of being the time trialist for Great Britain in the world time trial championships but I also don't miss everything it takes to get to that start um have you had time to to kind of parse your different identities so for a long time you know maybe Chanel you're Alex the husband Alex the father what a large part of your identity was I'm Alex the pro cyclist and then with literally a changing on the calendar one day you're a pro cyclist the next day you're not a pro cyclist how have you manag to deal with that loss of identity um yeah it's kind of because I've carried on racing it's been a that's been a tough one because I don't yeah I'm sort of sit in the eyes of someone else and going is that Alex just trying to hang on to a hang on to what he was or you know is he racing I I race for the fun of it but there are times when I'll go I'll get off at C :00 in the morning go to a national be taken absolute belting by a bunch of youngsters drive home having sort of missed a morning with my kids wondering why why I've done it and in my my REM at the moment is I have I have sponsors that kind of want to yeah want to be represented and and content creation is large part of my sort of role at the moment so there is always purpose to go into these things um but I I yeah I kind am which is why I sort of said this is this year's been a bit tougher than last year I was kind of wondering um what I'm happy doing this now but what am I going to be doing in five or 10 years time and it's probably not going to National bees to take a belting by a bunch of youngsters C o'clock in the morning it's um yeah so I think yeah the identity thing is I had to fill out car insurance thing the other day I I put in your occupation and that took me a while because I don't I guess kind of nice of my I don't know what that is so I just put consultant um yeah yeah I think that's what I do and and I think that's the direction that I'm taking that be starting to become the identity the one thing I really enjoyed aside from racing and doing one bike races was helping other people go faster um and my teammates I when I was last year Israel Premier Tech they back and I think they've they've got their got their together now it seems they're actually doing pretty well but back then it was it was quite chaotic um everyone got time trail bike but there was no efforts made to make everyone fit on the time trout bike so I during team cap I just for went massage and said if anyone wants a bike fit and let me know and half the te came and saw me for a TT bike fit and a lot of them you had like GPO who was hilarious because you can't do much with those shoulders yeah had Tom fan Ashbrook just transformed him on the bike and he messaged me couple of weeks later he like M I've never been able to do 400 wats on a Time bike and now I I could do it without thinking and I I feel like I look 10 times more aerodynamic and I get quite a big kick out of that so I think that's that's the dire ction is is trying to not necessarily a bike fitter but just a consulant of speed I think it's always interesting when you get to observe uh the kind of two different worlds you in a short space of time going from racing in the world tour to racing you know Sunday races the exact same as I am what what are you guys doing in the world T what was done in the world T you take for granted and you do it automatic that you move across to the Sunday races and you're like oh I can't believe no one is doing that it's just i' done that without even ever thinking um I think foreing potential crashes before they happen that's that's one um it's like a six sense what's the like what is it a is it a smell in the air is it a is it a couple of lockups beforehand I think it's always like a crash is never no one wants to crash right now no one no one go you no I don't think anyone wants to crash someone else either and a crash doesn't I don't crash generally doesn't happen when or Bunch crash when one person hits another it's when a combination of factors manifest and result is someone has nowhere to go except for the floor and yeah that happened in a um ports down classic it used to be the per now it's ports down and and I remember was set in a bunch and it was one of those openings where a load of people are just following through before uh following through to get into the air to attack um before the Gap closed and one guy went through and as he went through I was like oh you're I remember thinking you're brave you're really Brave to be going through that you kind of the last person through was the one ahead of you really and he went through and at the same time the fellow who was kind of being chopped was also being squeezed from the other side and he ended up touching this guy's wheel going down right in front of me literally at my feet and Carnage ued in front of me Carnage ensued behind me as well someone ran into the back of me and a loot of other people and I just came to a stop po my foot down kind of meander through the melee and then and then carried on the race and there's 360 degrees of bodies on the floor and then I was just stood in the middle of it and afterwards I was said oh that was lucky um but then when I because I had GoPros running front and rear which I can do now um I kind of looked at I overlaid speed and everything and I was I was starting to slow down before just as this rider was going through the Gap that I was like the brave Gap I this gonna go bad yeah so I'm already slowing down which is why I got hit from behind and Chaos happened behind me um but also I was yeah it was also slowing down before these guys were and then I think they knowing how to break properly so that was one of the biggest um things I realized is that you just kind of see because you've been in so many of these scenarios with crashes have happened or they've nearly happened he he reacted them I mean his pure Instinct did not think for a second I should start slowing down I should break it was just um yeah it kind of surprised me that I was already slowing down D Mar was talking about crashes are like when you're on a bad run you're just magnetized to them there's almost uh some sort of cosmic power that pulls you into them whereas when you're on a good run you just seem to avoid them like you'll go through a pile you'll close your eyes and you'll just come out the other side and go how did thaten yeah yeah yeah he's right he's right I think um yeah I think this breaks have helped they've think people's ability to stop is greater so I think there's less I wouldn't say there's less crashes but certainly from my own point of view I am able to avoid it's like crashes happened in front of me and then I just stopped the bike I'm like ah I thought I would have been into that um so yeah I think that's maybe I mean obviously we've all gone bigger tires reduced tire pressure so you'd argue there's a little more grip less of the SL out Crush that's going on as well yeah but then yeah we'll be going down Hills faster because the limit of group is is higher yeah watch someone like Pitcock descending on that Al stage and everyone's going to watch him and and that death descent was a large part of his arguably the Catalyst that helped him win that yeah St it at all so every's going to go okay I need to work on my descending because that is now a marginal game for winning a bik race just seems like a bad thing to be trying to win a race on like the risk to reward just doesn't seem like it Stacks up that well to win you know a b race yeah yeah it's um wait do you mean for for like me for everyone to be pushing limits or yeah for everyone to be looking at going like the place where I'm going to attack today on this 100 mile circuit in my amateur race I'm going to take a little bit more risk on The Descent it just seems like oh there's probably better ways you could figure out how to gain an advantage than Ju Just risking more than everyone else I mean yeah I agree with that the I mean the other big risk thing that we have in the UK with racing is the the fact that we're racing on half closed road so the on oncoming traffic on the other side that's that's taken some getting used to um and that beard and like I saying to a conversor on the weekend he was asking what the differences I've noticed between Pro Racing and this racing with the respect for the half closed Road I said it's it's the fact that it's like a soft border it's not a hard border like the edge of the road where you cannot go there if you've got someone who's slightly over on the other side of the white lant they're a bit unpredictable when they're going to come back onto the correct side of the road what I don't get is because we've the exact same in Ireland what I don't get is why it's not a hard border the first time I went out and raced in the US or Canada I got disqualify it it's an absolute hard border no warnings if you put one millimeter across it commissar just comes up and a motorbike touches you on the shoulders like you're done mate so it's so Unthinkable people look at it like it's the edge of a cliff like there's literally guys trying to counterbalance to not go one mill over it because it's just there's no discretion if you're one M over regardless of how you got there like I can come up beside you go Alex is the favorite for the race ride beside you give you a little nudge on the hip he's on the The Far Side of the white line he's gone but we don't do that in Ireland the UK it seems to be this bizarre if you want to move up just who's going to break later for the oncoming car and dip back in yeah yeah not not F but some of the races we some of the races the lanes that we've been racing I'm not quite sure how you very tenuous faded white line in the middle you know I'd say probably us roads are significant could be wider um than they are in the UK from so some yeah basically some of the little Lanes you end up squeezing around cars is so of those things it is dangerous when you look at it and certainly saw the YouTube seen the Cs on the YouTube I so dangerous but there's no surprisingly few incidents and that whole danger thing you don't want to wait for a big incident to decide something is dangerous but it's been like that for a long long time in the UK and it's been very very little in the way of car related injuries from from what I can remember what success look like for you with the new amateur racing Pursuit like you've always been very goal oriented where it's targeting commonwealths or gr hor stages or national championships can you set goals around this or are you trying to be more chill definitely more chill I I think there's only really one goal um and that's a CTT C cycling time trials national title um I I grew up that's how I entered the sport that's what I grew up uh idolizing Michael Hinson um Stuart Dangerfield yeah yeah yeah and and what they did in 10s and 25s and the Nationals so and honestly hoping one day that I could be good enough to be competing to win a National 10 or a national 25 and in the kind of sort of got picked up by PR cycling and and the pro thing happened and and always every year I'd look and see if the national 10 Lin up with my calendar never did um never did and one time it did I'd come back and and well I came back in 20 20 and ran fifth in the oh fifth in the National 25 having just finished ninth in the world championships um and I World Champs took 20 was a 30 minute race and average 395 Watts for a pretty very very mediocre ride no it wasn't a good ride and then National 25 I did 425 Watts for 40 six minutes and finished fifth it's Archer Bal bigam um or fourth Arch bigam Chris fennel and me um well chaps I was on a shift the Minal 25 was on a factor slick she faster I yeah and you know I love my shev but I think it was more to do with how slow the fact to Slick was than the um how how quick the specialized was the yeah the old I'm glad fact to built a new time TR B because the old BS was not great what's your number drop off being like I know you're putting a lot of time in on the W bike are your one minute five minute 20 minutes are they looking anywhere close to what they used to be hey Ro man excuse the short Interruption I love riding the bike but on account of being so busy with the podcast at the moment I'm now what's called a time crunch Rider I never thought I'd see today but I have a tool I'm using W bike to keep myself sharp and on point with specific sessions to maximize that available training time I have a w bike atam right here in the recording studio beside me and when I have an hourr in between interviews I jump on it's removing all the friction points for me there's no more 10 minute setup unfolding legs banging my knees off stuff getting my hands dirty usual connection issues it just works every single time the atom's perfect for virtual racing as well because it has crisp gear changes it has 1% accuracy and it has Max gradient capability of up to 25% if you're looking for an indoor trainer I honestly couldn't recommend this any higher I've been using a w bike since 2013 honestly it's the last indoor trainer that you're ever going to need if you head on over to what bike.com now and use code roadman 10 that's R oad me n TN and that's going to get you 10% off your W bike this a good question um I mean I avoid testing at all costs because it hurts TTS are just a test every time though yeah I don't have I don't have P me to on my TT oh really yeah I don't like the numbers and just last year I spent the whole year pacing TTS badly because I would set out at not what you used to be able to do the best version of what I used to be able to do 470 off the ramp this feels good I want to great day yeah yeah yeah and then you get five well not even five minutes in and you're like oh oh no I'm in trouble now um so I think I start last year I started the national 100 conservatively at 420 Watts but there is a moment the TT is for anyone who's done a TT and you have a parameter where you come off the ramp and the first time you kind of glance down at the parameter you look at and it's like 650 or something and you're like this doesn't feel that bad and you're like it's settling down to 520 actually this is pretty manageable you fast forward 45 minutes later you're holding on to tree10 for dear life yeah also first 10 first 10 of the year was always like maybe today is the day I can hold 500 for 20 minutes oh it isn't um yeah so um I have a little on my Garin screen I have a little piece of tape where the power should be and it says 465 Watts because that's the most I ever averaged for a TT just in Mark a pen and it kind of makes me smile during the TT so and then just not knowing I ride it on field and you have speed on your gam I have speed distance time um maybe gradi up I might have I can't remember I I just don't really I remember David Miller telling me importance having speed on the Garment and time draws he's like it becomes like your real time CDA Checker where you're like okay if I took my head a little bit more and my power doesn't move okay my speed's gone up 0.1 good let's talk the tomm and see what happens speed's gone up point.
One good he said he was obsessed with that okay yeah I mean not to I'm not sure I'd agree with that because just you if you're on the open road it's changing yeah all the time um gaps in HED RS slight gradient changes um if you haven't got power on there then you might be subconscious whil you're attack in your head you might be subconsciously going putting a little bit more power out as well yeah I I see it I see it I'm not that's not how that's not how I work um I will use speed as a as a like a minimum checker on the way back so I set sort of reference points along the way if if it's an out and back um so if I'm doing 60k an hour say on a on a stretch of downhill on the way out at the same point on the way back I want to be doing kind of 42 as a minimum to get the average of uh 50 42 because of offsetting the standing start um that that's kind of where I use speed for but I do I I did a 50 a couple of weeks ago and I went into it with zero um I was just going to ride just ride around and try and not think about it and I past it paste it sublimely I surprised myself and even at the end I checked where I knew like the last 10 miles I was like right okay let's wind it up now and it was a couple it was like one two and a half laps so there was a lot of stra segments which were the same and I was still just fractionally slower on my last lap than I was on my first two and even though I was pushing a bit harder so I actually PST paced that very well even though the relative feeling of pacing was was was higher at the end than it was a start and you using any tools to help with planner using like my wind sock my best bike split any of this type stuff um no neither of I mean they're both they are both very good tools they use best bik split a lot for other people um but for myself I look at as a phone app called epic ride weather where you can just put the GPX file in your phone and it'll give you the weather conditions I I'll have a look at that just to see which direction the wind is is going and um yeah it's I gu it's quite old school and like are you losing Fitness do you think faster than you're able to buy back the eral gains because now you're kind of suppose your equipment agnostic you don't have to use the slow Factor bike anymore you get to choose whatever bike you want whatever speed you want whatever tires you want are you able to offset those decline in Fitness games by using better equipment and spending more time optimizing for Arrow like ultimately do you think you're gonna be able to go faster n not sure not sure um I need to I haven't gone to the mot tent this year yet and I need to that's my that's my wind tunnel and testing ground i s know if I'm doing low 19s round there then I've I've managed to offset the fitness loss if I'm doing mid to Long 19 then no uh I haven't if I do a long 18 then I've I'm up in terms of buying arrow for losing Fitness yeah TT scene is fascinating because on the the one hand it's it seems quite exclusionary that you need to have the 15 16 Grand bike and spend a lot of time win tunnel but the British scene seems to be developing there where they have all these different categories where you can Eddie MC it and there seems to be a little bit more of a Community Development around it than road racing which is kind of suffering at the moment yeah so the CTT introduced the road bike category um to help make time tring more um welcoming less intimidating and it's it very much worked um so last year I mean road racing suffering TT has been suffering as well since Co I think preco entries were through the roof for Club tents and then people just didn't come back after Co um they've crept back since mol T they regularly 40 or 50 people on a Tuesday night doing the mol T yeah year after everything opened back up eight again eight people now 20 so it's it's it's come back um and I I kind I asked around why why did so few people come back and or why why is it struggling so much and there was a few few things came up and and I think it's there is no one reason I think it's a combination of things one the cost of living crisis um I think is not just bike parts being more expensive but also um entry little things entry fees come from Petrol 350 450 petrol getting to and from uh time spent at home a lot more people I guess having like side hospitals and trying to work longer hours um and then so that was one um virtual RAC got to hurted as well because if you think back to you know when I was getting started cycling in 2010 like it was totally Unthinkable that you would do a a session indoors turbo trainers were so shocking remember the one where you didn't take the wheel off and it'd be burning through your tires and you're literally staring at the wall and the shed and all paint cans now you can race on the W bike on zift or any of these platforms a lot of people you know aren't at the point the end of the race like you they're really looking at when you unpack it they're looking to come home with sore legs that's what they're after and you can get sore legs on these virtual platforms and there's also a social there is a social aspect to it isn't it you are getting a you know after you finish his whift race people like people message each other like I do like good race like well done thanes for doing all the work that kind of thing um well about those Bots that were flying off the front of the start or his numbers I don't think his weight was in right um well all of that all of that chat that I guess happens at the club 10 also yeah happens on Swift so people get their workout they get their uh compeitive element to it there hasn't been like half an hour or an hour at either side of getting to an event get your bike out the car kitting up and doing it yeah so I think you're absolutely right that's um that's had a and and turbo training indoor training is just a more pleasant place to be it certainly my last year in Andor even if the weather was okay outside I would cont I would seriously consider doing four hours on turbo trainer on zwift um than watching a movie than going out by myself on the road because I just found a movie was more stimulating than like the roads were sometimes you know what's interesting now I'm how much you've looked into the heat acclamation training because that again is another possibility like I was chatting to some of the team at core who are developing these heat sensors and they're saying from their data the effects are more reliable predictable and consistent than altitude exposure th correctly core prob cor saying that that's that's why I preface that at the start because this is not independent data yes yeah I don't have a I I did heat the climatization training in Andora um it's G really it looks absolutely it's like your fans broken for your indoor session no one's is that yeah but I think there um I mean mine seemed worse I got the GB team GB pre Tokyo protocol for uh heat training and that was that was disgusting I so I had for Turbo trainer in the bathroom and started boiling a kettle but left the lid on so the kettle just continuously boiled to get the humidity up to 70 80% heater in there I turned the heating on so that the room was up to 32 degrees was about as hot as I could get it um yeah 32 degrees with that humidity and then I had to have a um I didn't have a core sensor I just had an in a uh thermometer and J like you need to see at least a one degree increase in body temperature and the minute that you're not at one degree more you may as well just stop CU you're not doing anything they said then make no efforts to cool yourself down right so warm water in your bottles um just sit there for an hour and a half and it would generally be 200 250 watts to get myself warm this is a 2,000 MERS elevation to get that change in uh core body temperature and then it would take about 150 watts to maintain it and it was just it was disgusting it really was it yeah not enjoyable but they an absolute necessity for going to going to Tokyo which I didn't go so um time well spent in the B all in vain I think probably went to to romendy or something you've had a bit of time now and a bit of space to reflect and last time we ched quite chaotic I think you just finished what are you looking back on there with your career and you think to yourself I was pretty proud of that i r that well I committed well I was happy with the outcome um I think I'm I'm proud that I yeah I did I did uh I got approached to do a book um by Bloomsbury who were they famous for Harry Potter and that St they said it probably wouldn't be as big as Harry Potter a go um so then then that's that's pretty first thing is that it's pretty wild that I someone like Bloomsbury thinks that what I've achieved is is book worthy because I I think from a pure cycling standpoint I never you I saw Steve cing obviously Garen c a couple of books and Dave Miller Brad um through me certainly never dreamed of putting myself in those sort of those Riders categories for achievement um I think combined with the hemophilia was where bres res saw the the book so that that whole process um was very cathartic it kind of I had to talk about a whole career from start to finish a whole career and what what um precluded it as well with with heiler and skull and I think from Pure cycling perspective it really I was talking about these like really big moments like Comm Warth games in 201 um4 in Glasgow and I was talking about I was like yeah yeah it went well I won it um R disis was second and gar Thomas was third uh but I was there on the podium to like a see full of people thinking okay Olympics next that's that's the next natural step for this is is the Olympics this is just part of the journey this is where actually I should be TOP Step at the podium and something like this and can you just don't take it in time we just I never and then looking back I'm like Christ that was a big event like Commonwealth Games is a big event second place was Roman Dennis two time World Time Tri Champion third place was Garen Thomas who's won toall of sh that's a big deal and I just by the time it was never I just did not take it in at all and I almost wonder Alex is this the nature of the person that doesn't take that stuff in are they the type of person that's likely to achieve that because it's you're never happy with the previous result that's LED you to push on and constantly innovate and constantly improve to you get to this point so you're never stopping to celebrate any of these many Milestones where I might you know win the local SE race and I be milking it for weeks in the champagne room after you know telling the story here anyone who can listen you're onto the next onto the next what can I learn from how can I iterate and improve yeah I guess so I guess so and then and I think you find if you ask any athlete you ask Chris FR when he when he eventually retires in about 20 years time yeah um M year till then yeah yeah yeah what he's uh yeah if he's happy with his career better part of him goes wish I'd got a fifth wish i' got a fifth to of France still might he still might highly really well yeah wish him yeah it'd be great to see I think love to see him back at the pointy end exactly yeah was I i' love to see him him at the pointy end on the stage pitcock one uh last year and I think that deserved more recognition that than it got because of what he's had to come back from I also think there's a weird narrative on social media at the moment you know every all these armchair critics and there's Pages like is f drop Jet and stuff and you're like he's won the Tour of France four times he's one of the greatest living Riders maybe one of the greatest ever Riders to cycle a mik it's like have some respect like I I was in I think the year the garant won the T um so obviously from me won AO earlier here the year gar won the Tour I had I did an evening at uh look m noads in chops in ch in London which I think no M exists cycl Cafe and it was packed with people watching one of the like Queen stage of the tour and Garen was in the batch and Tonto Balan dropped Chris F and everyone cheered with FY TRS and I it really upset me cuz I was just like but but wait wait the British guys dropped and you're all cheering because the Dutch guys dropped him yeah I like Tom I like Chris I've got no you when you personally you personally know both of them you your loyalties then start becoming slightly blurred but you know no one in here knows Tom Duman or Chris TR but you're cheering the British guy who's won it three three or four three times previous two or three times previous sharing because he's been dropped now it's it's like when someone's so successful they become V Lis Hamilton a little bit experiences it now I think it's um people I maybe the difference is like you do hear the odd story creeping out about how Lewis isn't a super nice lot I've a thousand episodes in the Podcast chat to Pro cyclas every week I've never heard someone say a bad word about FY no no he he don't get me wrong he's like you don't do what he's done without being like ruthless I think there was a he had that altercation with nibble um in was it in Jiro where there was a crash and I think Toby Maron was involved that wouldn't be completely surprising um U nibble went nibble basically blamed FY having not seen any of the TV for mly blamed through me straight after the race and instead of saying anything me went straight on the estana bus and I've heard had nibble by the throat sat in his like armchair telling it like that was not my fault two climbers going at each other that's box office yeah yeah yeah yes like was this someone said to one of my best mes said to me the other days all I know about YouTube is once you've once you RI down really good at YouTube you start fighting other YouTubers yeah in boxing get good enough you got a Netflix yeah um see I mean f is like he's he's a ruthless winner in that in that respect but yeah he's one the nicest I think I did hear bad word about FY Greg lamon was on the podcast and Greg T F motoped oh okay fall said to me he's like through motored I was like any evidence of this he's like no none but I think he motor tot I was like right that's a solid solitary okay he so bizarre I I think f for me is the original zift Academy winner you've got someone with a phenomenal engine phenomenal physiology the team takes and goes if we can keep this physiological Masterpiece on a bicycle he can win everything there is and it's like Jay Vine yeah uh SAR J like you know his is I hope he wouldn't mind me saying his track record for crashing isn't great but if UAE can deliver him to a point where he can win the race there's not many people who are better than him um so and I think F was the original and I was teammates with him I S like saw it with my own eyes the guy was um you know it was tough to be teammates with because he was so unpredictable and in and erratic in his riding um so yeah he was the original I remember chel so chel Carston who was the performance director at Israel and I was teammates with it back in team sky in 20111 they they just got parameters for the first time and CH was rooming through me he said yeah I tried out this parameter thing um and ch's like okay ch's a very smart Finnish um very smart very quiet very dry uh finish uh spr he said what did you do he said well I did 20 minutes as hard as I could and it was 450 watts and Charles said what do you weigh 68 kilos CH that's very good and F said yeah I wasn't sure I believed it so I turned around went down thehill and did it again and Char like you did it twice yeah that's that's extremely good and yeah I think team Sky's Talent back there was taking that recognizing that that engine and then going okay we need to get eight guys back then nine guers for Grand Tour eight guys who could chaperone this guy to the bottom of a bottom of a hill so then we could just let him go and it'll ride to the top of it faster than that R El and win at all it seemed like he could do what Brad could do I talked to some of the 2012 team Sky team and background team and they said Brad just put such a like strain on the whole team's Coy system because it took so many resources for 2012 to get him to that like even in terms of his nutrition to get him that di on his nutrition was such a job but the sport psychology end up to get to buy into it and the logistics of actually you need to eat this now dingdong it's 9 am Brad here's your breakfast and it seemed like Brad could only maintain that really for that year at that level FR seemed to step into that mantle and be able to just do that year after year after year the sacrifices didn't seem like sacrifices Ro man I know how serious you take your goal setting whether they're Fitness or life related goals if you're looking for a powerful alloy to support you on this journey look now further than hu hu has become my secret weapon for when I don't have time to prepare a balanced meal ensures I get the nutrition I need without sacrificing time or taste plus it stops me from reaching for that takeaway menu I always throw a bottle into my backpack when I'm heading into the city to work and it stops me eating junk convenience food snacking on crossons and bars of chocolate because I know they don't support my training goals it's a handy nutritious meal on the go and it's got over 22 g of protein hu is perfect for athletes that don't have time to cook or prepare food before a training session it's convenient nutritious fuel at your fingertips ensuring you hit your daily fueling needs for that session H ready to drink has 26 essential vitamins and minerals in every single bottle you're getting a whopping 175 health benefits plus it's made from natural ingredients like to Sunfire seed coconut and more the best part it's the flavors there's eight crazy beautiful flavors iced coffee is what's in my backpack right at the moment you can get youu directly to your home all you got to do is head on over to the hu website hu.com rman no and certainly his time at Israel even though he was he probably do far more than he should have done far more than he needed to and they said they had a camp in ansy before the tour he's doing they're doing big six seven hour days and then F's lumping an hour on before and an hour afterwards as well he's sometimes clocking up 10 hour days and thinking of it yeah yeah yeah um they thinking nothing of it and you like they said no one no one on the team worked harder than FY did um so yeah it's a bit I don't know I don't I think it's so then say Oh got no reason but I record emo we completely um what was the word you completely baseless baseless opinion who perhaps is I mean everyone's going to have opinions it's uh I think see what I've seen as his teammate twice at the start and the end of well nearly it who knows when when the end of Chris F's side P career is going to be but two two sort of eras of it um no I think it's shs legit but it's kind of what makes like Fascinate isn't it you can't have like dominants like paga or yonas without the question mark starting to come it's like the success almost seems to come with the question marks like I was surprised the new Netflix unchain documentary they lean so heavily into that is yonus a Doper story because I hadn't seen that in the media too much at least the English speaking media it was obviously bigger than the French speaking immediately leaned into it so much for the story it's such a shame it's such a shame that that becomes the story because it's so synonymous with cycling and I think that's it's just really done it's so I've done a a lot of um speaking I booktour basically I go around with Michael Hinson and that talk about cycling and I book and and Michael and myself and um that question comes up a lot is is are these top boys clear and I I always talk about the testing um the whereabouts testing that we have to go through and I think that comes as a shock to a lot of people so for yeah I say by since the age of 18 up until um up until I retired I had to tell three different governing bodies are on the same app or desktop three different governing bodies where I slept the exact address before I slept every single night 365 days a year and to tell them where I would be and I would have to be there for an hour of every single day but yeah what was that 17 years 365 days a year and they'd come for a rider like me who was mid mid pack World Tour perhaps you come test me completely unannounced monthly um and I would uh yeah as I then you step it up a little I know po has said they've they've contested him first thing in the morning and then they've come again in the evening he like you were here this morning and they said yeah but it's like we we needed to not be predictable because so so from my from my perspective the rider in My Level I knew if they say if they'd arrive this morning I know I've got about a month until I see them again give or take and give or take quite a bit could be three weeks could be six weeks like but that's rer of my level and then suddenly if I start performing much better they're gonna come and test be unpredictable needs to be like Don Martin's late attack he said is late his his unpredictable late attack got too predictable near the end of his career he said yeah no so so I think from from that standpoint I've no idea how anyone would like cheat the system in that way um any you like pagach was a sens pagach Remco um were both Sensational Juniors kids there's all like stories them W from the start being just being very good um and if you can track that like it becomes less of a surprise um yeah I I just think it's shame that that's that's the story though cuz until youve actually ACC until there's any it's baseless isn't it just like oh these guys are winning maybe they're cheating us well nobody says that about whoever's going to win Euro Euro football championships that are on at the moment if if Italy win you go what but are they taking drugs like no one yeah it's just not a question that comes up I think it's more because uh it's the from the outside cycling isn't viewed as a skill sport so there's more incentive to if you bump your endurance you bump your performance where I think in football when it's a little bit more multifaceted obviously when you're in the bunch we all I chat to Matt beers on the podcast the gravel Rider and he's doing 510 Watts for 20 minutes and UAE let him go as a ster and he said he just couldn't position he said he would have needed to do 710 wats for 20 minutes to get to the front to the bunch cuz he just couldn't get near it he said he and immediately the back at bunch and he just couldn't figure out how to position so there is more of a skill element Than People realize but I think the outside Media or your average Joe with that open question often sees it as a straight out inurance sport if you have a high threshold you will win races it's just it's just not true maybe Pacha has the best threshold in the bunch but he's also arriving at the basic line Fort wheel Val was like a decade in the top three like how does he keep hopping up in the final in Le just in that spot it's skill yeah and that that is and that is skill which is interesting where we talking about all the Mitch um Mitch Docker summed it up is like all these crashes these youngsters that are not doing the uh I thought that was a good point from him I don't know if it's to be or Endor but I thought it was a good point saying there perhaps needs to be a a certain level of experience bike racers need to have before entering World Tour races because it that that skill na actually Nathan H at the grock recently said because he joined the world tour from mountain biking so he was very out of his depth in the bunch and his team which I think was slipstream at the time rented in a house in Belgium for six weeks and said you're going to go raise three chesses a week for six weeks so what you gonna do and then you're going to come back and he say I came back a bike racer I went there like a guy who had an engine and I came back a bike racer and um and yeah so I think you're completely right the actual the art of yeah B positioning racing a bike is is um is missed quite a bit because I'm not saying the French get everything right because they definitely get a lot wrong but when I moved over to France as an amateur I just kept hearing ler ler like the apprenticeship and for them the apprenticeship it wasn't about power figures it was about just this I got laughed over wearing a helmet out training because they thought like Oh Mr safety wearing a helmet it's hilarious for them it was just about the craft of becoming a pro cyclist and that's just so multifaceted like can you be pinned against a Corb with that's one foot high and can you bunny hop onto that from there can you you know bounce shoulders going around corners can you they just look at cycling through a different lens and we look at it going oh what's your watch I think that that that does exist in all the way up as well um physi iCal testing at one team and Rory souland uh oh Israel um and we just joined and Rory Southerland was told that him and I physiologically were the worst two Riders on the team and the testing consisted of a rap test on rollers um and how high you could hop on one spot how high you could hop how high you could jump some flexibility stuff and it wasn't an accusation it was just like oh according to this yeah you you and Alex are the two worst Riders on the team um aor you Wise Old Rory was like well interesting because you've got me I've just ridden basically the whole world to either first or second will for kintana and and Mau star and the whole thing which hopping on one spot can't really tell you how well you can ride the front for three weeks and and then you got Alex he just finished fifth in the world which is arguably the most competitive FTP test uh there is on the planet so which also you can't really tell from hopping on one spot and and yeah they were completely receptive to that um yeah it's it's it's and I don't think anyone's really quite nailed the the bance of whether you want yeah that well no I think they do I think teams will take a punt on a rider with big numbers knowing that it might never materialize into race results um and there's been plent of them I've ridden with a few guys i r with one in New Zealand who I had to do a 5 minute power test and I you know I sort of knock him on the door of 500 and this guy after two minutes just rolls up next three and goes do you mind ify i' I'd quite like to test myself as well is would it be rude if I pressed on and I was like looking at 500 on the palet going like oh you do you holy and he just rode off and it was astounding but couldn't he struggled to race um I just I I hope there's always a place for the racer as well I hope it doesn't physiological masterpieces don't overtake the um the racer because I think they were always there's always a price for them the ones that I mean and Cavendish being the the original racer who in a lab isn't hasn't got much to show of anything spread endurance anything but it's quite good will he break the T of France record yeah yeah he wouldn't be against him would you'd be stupid to be against Mark kendes yeah he's one of those such divisive characters like so many of us loved Cal and then I think that clip came out of michelon as mechanic did you see that about a saddle height or something from t two years ago and I think he lost a lot of favor after that clip so now I see quite a polarized online some people love them some people hate them I think that's why the story is so intriguing heading into the T because you one Camp really rooting for him and another like utterly despise him yeah I mean I'm a big I'm a big cat fan I've spent Fair bit of time with him recently as he's sort of just trying to tick a last few boxes ahead of uh ahead of the tour uh just just from an era point of view and and it's you spend enough time with someone you realize why they're as good as they're good he thinks about stuff I'm like huh like wow that's wild that that's where your brain has been I've never considered that aspect to pedling a bike before um yeah he's he's someone that's really thought outside the box uh there not B old just about numbers um yeah say some of the stuff that he's thought about probably takes for absolute granted you're like would be groundbreaking and I hope it all obviously after the talk I'm sure who will talk about um all the things he's thought about I hope he doesn't if he won't I'm going to tell him I will the conversations in the car because it's it's like it's yeah it's really cool so I hope you know he's checking everything in the kitchen seeing at it and yeah I said you'd be you'd be silly to be against him Alex you're a gent best of luck with the return you have to pop on again soon thanks very much cheers Anthony if you enjoyed this conversation please click up here there's another video I know that you're absolutely going to love and click over here and subscribe to the channel so you don't miss any of our amazing upcoming guests
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