Today I sit down with Par Rubé legend Mr. George Hinappy. We talk about the race favorites, the key sections, the tech they're using at Modern Adventure Pro Cycling, and the big question, can anyone stop today? Welcome to the podcast, Mr. Georgian Copy. Georgian Copy, welcome back to the Roadman podcast. Good to see you again. It's been a couple years. Yeah, it's been a while. It's been a while. It's been too long. Uh we're talking rubé today. probably my favorite one day race of the season. I suspect it's one of your favorites, too. Yeah, it's uh certainly one of my favorites. I actually cannot believe that I'm back here with my own team. It's kind of like surreal to say the least, but uh really excited about this weekend and the guys that are doing it. Uh just just really honored to be invited to this such a big race. Alex House, one of your directors, was on the podcast a couple of weeks ago and he was talking all things modern adventure. It sounds equal parts excitement and stress. Would that be a fair summary? Oh, yeah. I mean, it's it's wild. Like, we we would never have envisioned this first year being invited to so many races. Um, being uh, you know, a new team, an upstart team. We have two programs right now. one here in in Belgium uh tomorrow at scale scale debris obviously rubet Sunday and the the other side of the team is racing in California so we're like split up amongst the whole world and uh it's kind of it's kind of wild but the staff has been doing real I mean our team is is doing an amazing job going above and beyond the call of duty um so super happy with the way things have started off this year you're the rub expert so going into rub how do you think about deconstructing the case cuz as a you know laying fan I kind of just break it down by sectors and look at key sectors. Are you analyzing it that way or are you overlaying other considerations? Yeah, for for for us being a first year team doing it um a lot of guys actually all of the guys except for Riley have never done the race before. So um you know honestly when when I got the call from ASO in January I was a little reluctant. Um but then who am I to take away this opport this like amazing opportunity for one the team and two the riders to do the biggest uh race in the world. Uh so we just decided to go all in. Obviously it required a lot more planning a lot of cost associated with Rubet. I mean we got to put skin plates on the vehicles just a whole another layer of logistics that a normal race would entail. Um, so there's that part of it, but like for us, obviously, we've had some decent results this year, a couple top tens. I would I would be thrilled if we can get as many guys as we can to the finish line. If we get one or two guys in the top 20, that would be an incredible day. Um, get a guy in the breakaway or guy or two in the breakaway, but as you know, um, you know, I would say half the teams there, like their only goal is to make the breakaway. So, it's one of those breakaway that's going to be super exclusive, difficult one to make. But, um, yeah, I'm excited. Uh, we have young guys, too. We have like 19-year-old Ezra who's full of horsepower, uh, rides without fear, big guy with tons of watts that I think like a day a race like Bubet can really suit him, uh, for his future. So, a day like Sunday could really shape the the rest of his career, so to speak. So, it's just a lot of, you know, sub sub things going on on Sunday that, uh, I'm looking forward to see how they pan out. It's also a really high value breakaway. Like if you take Flanders last weekend, I can rarely remember a early, you know, we call it the TV breakaway in Flanders where those characters were still in the final or playing a role. Rubé is kind of different. You obviously Mahan's the obvious example, but you do see early breakaway riders holding on and getting top 10s. Yeah, for sure. one like you if you you have to put in that huge effort to make the breakaway which is there's no denying how hard that is. Uh but at the same time the guys in the back have to put a huge effort to stay in the front for those first sections. Uh so the battle I mean maybe not for the first the top five favorites but for everybody else is arguably just as hard just being in the pelaton if you want to enter those sections in the front.
Uh so sometimes in many ways it's worth that extra effort to make the breakaway and enter the first sections with with 10 15 guys and there's no position battle. You're just kind of riding your your pace. And these guys are so wellversed at calculating uh the the wattage uh the wattages that they can do and how hard they can do and how good they are pacing these days that in some ways the breakaways can go a long ways in Rubet. Now how important is position into those sections? Like I know everyone's like position's super important, but can you illustrate in terms of watts if you're in the top 10 versus you're in the back 10 that effort you're having to make to stay in touch? It's not even the watts. It's more of like the danger, the risk because there's so much more risk of like a cra if there's a crash in in the in in in 20th wheel like the whole pelaton's blocked. You know what I mean? So it's more of that. It's like of course and and of course you have the slingshot effect around the corners which also is more watts but it's mo the main part in those especially in those first sections because there's still 200 guys there is the risk of crashing and the road getting blocked and you can't move. What year was it that you had the wet rub? It's on YouTube. I've watched it a few times on Turbo. Um I did a couple I did a couple. My first rub was snowing at the start and freezing cold. Um, and then yeah, I had probably what was the slippy slide one where I think he must have crashed like three times. Yeah, the slippy slidy one. I think it was O was it 02 or 04? I don't know, man. I did seven of them. They all they all kind of gelled together. But the one the one I slid into the ditch was when Boon got uh third. So that was like what 200 2002 something like that. early 2000s. What made Boon so good at rubé? He's just a beast. I mean, he's he's uh you know, he was born and raised on the Cowboys, so to speak, and just a ton of power. Uh obviously a great sprinter, so really good at positioning as well. And uh just a race that really suited him. You're riding these. If anyone has some time, they should go back and watch the YouTubes of those older bays. They're absolutely insane. Equipment has changed so much in the last 10 years. Like we've gone from 21 mil tires with 140 PSI to 32, 34, 36 mil tires with like 55 to 65 PSI, maybe even lower depending on RERS's weight. We've gone to uh proper disc brakes, electric gears. How much easier do you think it is to ride these cobbles now with the new modern tech? It's certainly better handling. There's no doubt the handling on the, you know, the lower tire pressure like you mentioned, the wider tires, um, it's a lot more stable of a ride. I mean, you could even see it on the sections of of Flanders like the Coppenberg and these sections like you don't see that many guys walking anymore where back back when the 25 mil tires, I mean, you made one mistake or one one one lapse of focus, you're you're walking. Uh, so the the these tires and the the the equipment these days is a lot more forgiving for sure. The racing has changed so much. You know, there's I was talking about this on social media the other day. Like some people are like, "Oh, we're watching the greatest rider ever, Puggy, which maybe we are. You know, it's it seems to be a two- horse race, Puggy and Merks." But also as a fan, like you used to go out on the Saturday morning club spin or the Sunday morning club spin and then you come home, at least if you're Europe based and you catch the final and the final still has like all the drama. Now you come home with like 40 50k to go. It's like a televised training ride. Yeah. Yeah. I mean it's it's changed dramatically. I still thought a race like Flanders was super exciting to see a guy like Remco first time ever doing it. Um still getting uh third place. I mean, he probably wasn't happy with that, but I think that's quite an honorable ride. But if you see the, you know, the best five riders in the world trickling in one by one, as a rider, you know how hard that race must have been. Um, so yeah, in one sense, like, yeah, the race is over, 20k to go. Poker charges, rides away from, but at the same time, like you know how hard it must have been before that that that these guys are just on their last their last breath, so to speak, just trying to crawl their way to the finish line.
So, I want I hope that these guys come in with that same feeling. Um, especially like our our young Americans. I mean, as an American rider, you grow up watching Paris Rubé and the tour to France. That's pretty much it. So, for them to be here doing it, um, I'm hoping that the adrenal adrenaline takes over and the excitement takes over and they go really deep into the race. Is there different considerations for Rub than there would be for other semi-lassics? Like, is feeding more difficult? Is the feeding strategies? Oh, yeah. We got 30 people. We have 30 people um outside of our staff coming just for wheels uh like having them at the different wheel sections, the feeding sections. Um yeah, it's just it's a lot more logistics involved. We have all of our fleet of vehicles here like all hands on deck uh for this race. That's absolutely wild. Does that scale up when you look at you guys? Obviously with respect to Motor Venture, you're a first year team. It's amazing that you're even like Alex was saying, you basically achieved the full season goals already in the first handful of races of the season, which is phenomenal. You've been on the opposite side of the bench where you've been going there as one of the race favorites in one of the biggest teams. In terms of infrastructure, what's the difference that separates the smaller teams from the bigger teams in the races like this? Oh, yeah. Uh the teams like Albine, Phoenix, UAE, I mean they have they probably have I mean if we have more than we have more than 30 staff here, they probably have 50 to 80 staff. I mean they'll have they'll have uh staff every section. Um they have just a lot more uh tools at their disposal. But I mean you know Rubet at the end of the day is just a survival race for for many of the teams. So, um I think the the road will do a lot of the talking and hopefully, you know, we don't have that much bad luck and we we're able to to come away um unscathed throughout the day. How much of a role does look play in it? A lot. A lot. Um you know, is like these days equipment is is uh really everybody's got really top top of the line equipment. I mean, we're really excited to have the the Monza factor bikes, um the special ShraMM group O's for this this race. I mean, we our guys are dialed in the Michelin tires. We've tested it. We're going to test it again on Thursday after Skelter Pre. Um so, we've done a lot of uh prep in that sense. Um but at the end of the day, if you hit a cobblestone the wrong way, doesn't matter how good your tires are, they might end up exploding. Uh what we we're going to we're on Michelins for uh for for rub. Nice. So what uh what width we go? 30 uh 32 I believe. 32. And you know uh tubeless no inserts. Tubeless with inserts. Yes. With inserts. Interesting. Yeah, the insert debate is interesting. I guess it works for races like that where you can get a wheel change quite easy. I think for amateurs, what I'm seeing is the insert just sucks up a lot of the sealant. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. So, any other Yeah. I think that the the you know, the idea behind that is just go as long as you can till you get a wheel. At least you're able to ride it. Any other crazy tech modifications that you guys I know people double wrap their bars. People tried weird suspension in the handlebars through the years. Yeah. Well, we're going with a whole new frame uh for this race. We're going with the Monza factors. We're going with one by uh Shrimp uh Explorer Groupo. Uh yeah, so we're we're changing everything up for this for this one day race. So you can imagine for our mechanics, they had to build up another uh 15 bikes just for this race. Uh so every everything's like it's it's pretty wild. We've had, you know, this time of year, every team's got riders that are getting sick. Of course, we had guys getting sick, so they're coming back. So, we're actually waiting till tomorrow night to make the final call on the roster. I mean, we have 80 80% of it done, but there's a couple guys we need to see if they've bounced back from their illnesses. So, what's the team talk that morning? What are you saying to the guys? Um, so the directors will do the strategy. I mean, we've been talking about the strategy for for a month now, but for me, it's just, you know, guys, soak it in.