It's Stage 4 of the Jure Litalia
It's Stage 4 of the Jure Litalia. Let's cue 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 is Anthony Welch and welcome to the Row Man Podcast. roadman welcome back to stage four of the juriditalia it's another daily roadman cycling podcast today we took in 187 rain so kilometers finishing up the brutal climb of sistola yesterday we seen tuck of underhorn pulling out a memorable memorable victory it's definitely a cliche to say it's going to be etched in history, but it's Tuck of Andor Horns maiden, Jura Natalia Debut, it's a wanty group, Gober's forced appearance in a grand tour. So I think we'll definitely remember that. I'm sure the boys had a couple of sore heads this morning after a big party. But nonetheless, they perform pretty well today, which we're going to get into now. But before I dive into the nitty gritty of the podcast, folks, let me just remind you about how this podcast has funded. The podcast has funded from your contributions from user generosity. We've taken on zero big fat goose egg sponsors so far. The reason is because I wanna keep the podcast neutral. I don't wanna sterilize the podcast. I think there's a place in cycling media for an independent publication like this. Time will tell if it's sort of a utopian vision or if it's actually true. We see so many censored cycling media outlets and I just try not to become one of those. So if you want to help us fulfill that vision, you can buy me a price with beer once a month over on patreon.com forward slash Anthony under scorewaltch. The link is in the bio of the podcast. Yesterday, yesterday's stage was brutal and definitely the one-to-group gubber guys were out partying today and they won't have enjoyed five hard errors of racing today in the rain and I'd a number of texts today from former teammates and current teammates. And the kind of, the feeling definitely among people who've raced in that weather was I would not trade anything to go back there. Racing a bunch, racing a bike in a bunch like that, closely packed, slippy roads, rain, stress, first week of a grand tour. It is one of the least enjoyable things you can do and the only place to be is up the road and the break. Like it's five hours. The racing has hurt. Issue number one, the racing is dangerous. The roads are slippy. You're trying to stay warm. It takes extra energy to feed your, or it takes extra energy because of the cold. You see if you feed yourself more, you have to drink more, even though you don't feel like it. And the stress, the stress is just etched on faces. You could see Giovanni mask on from team, any else coming across the line. His face was just, he was pale. he was it was real bad out there today. And yeah, I definitely don't envy any of the boys. The break was the only place to be today. We had three categorized clients, including our finished line up to Sistola today. The race was really dominated by 25 rider break, which went away. And as we always see with 25 man breaks, if you've ever been in a 25 man break, it is very difficult to get a 25 man break organized. You're going to have teammates with multi-group group group and trick. So because of that, you're going to have maybe two of them riding them, one of them sitting on and as soon as somebody starts sitting on in any brake, that's contagious. If it's a five-man brake and someone starts sitting on, it spells the disaster for it. As soon as one sits on you get two sitting on, people start pulling soft turns, nobody's falling committed. So because of that, it gets very, very difficult to organize a 25-man brake. And that's what we bring up to the next step. organized a 25-man break.
That's what we basically seen
And that's what we basically seen. So the danger when you're in a 24-man break like that, it breaks split. You've got to keep vigilant all day for all the stuff we mentioned. You know, slippy torns, white lines, shores, wet clinkers, all that stuff. But then you also have to be vigilant for those splits in the breakaway because all your efforts can come to zero very fast if you miss one of those splits. And we did see one of those splits because we had Irishman or Henry Irishman and former roadman soipling podcast guest Chris Yol Jenson pushing on under the scent and he brought two of the most hungover lads in the peloton. He brought Ryan Taramey and Quintet Herman's both from Wonti Grouper Guber. That's a tongue twister. Wonti Group Guber clear with him. They forged on a good lead. I think there were up a minute and a half from the Jasters behind and I tasked for a long long time we were going to see Chris Yol Jenson pulling off are famous as you're at Italia stage when we haven't seen a win from Chrisio Jensen since tour of Suisse 2018. So where's really rooting for him, he's a man who rides super well in the rain, Joker as he's fondly known, he is a funny motherfucker. Up front we're roing Taira May, it looked like they both had a mutual accord gone. Taira May was going into the Maglia Rosa, Chrisio Jensen and what's gonna win the stage. But alas, cycling is not a fairytale, folks. And if you've read that brilliant cycling book from Charlie Wigailius, Domesti, Cree, Painter, vivid picture of a final stage he had in the Vuelta and it looks like all along he's gonna win it. And then he gets caught and he comes up with the famous line, cycling. It's not a fucking fairytale. And it's not because the boys hit the finishing ramp and the legs just came off them. Back behind, we had a couple of guys really looked after themselves well and read the race very well. Jo Donbrowski and Aleksandro D'Amourki from Israel's start-up nation. They timed it brilliantly. Jo Donbrowski followed D'Amourki and they really ate into that later. I think they took 30 seconds out of two boys up front inside one kilometer. So they were really, really smashing it. Back to road, the GC boys were turning the heat up. We had Mika Landa, the Bahrain-Marita captain, and he called for pace and the pace. It ripped the bunch to pieces, and we've seen some high profile guys already at GC. Show, I made a quick step, just could not follow. So, we, Marita, turned it up, Landa obliged, and he went on the attack, and we only had a very select group of Reuters who could follow Mika Landa. And we had some big boys missing out, we had Bernal, they could follow, we had Chacon, they could follow, We had Landa, obviously, and we had Hugh Carton. And the rest noticeable absinthees from that list, that very much overhiped, if you ask me, pre-race favorites. Remko Evan Paul couldn't follow, Bride couldn't follow, Yates couldn't follow, Betteo couldn't follow, Dan Martin couldn't follow. Now, they weren't gapped massively, but it's just an early indication. And then we had Yewa and Madea just wheels coming off completely and meebly. I'll give you their time splits in a second at the line. But we Joe Dombrowski on the hardest slopes. And he pushed on from Alexandra to Marquis. And he hit out solo. And I really had a vested interest in trying to see Joe got jumped, Joe Dombrowski do well today. He's a writer I've followed really closely and I've raced him a couple of times. And he's a super nice kid. And he raced out in the US with Axon Merck's development team. And he was really competitive in Utah, Tour de California. And it looked for all intensive purposes. like he was gonna be the next big thing. And then as so often happens, he went to Skye and the wheels just came off for the last. And he went to Skye, I didn't hear anything about him for four years and he's back now and he's back with UAE, teammates will put that and he is, this is the biggest result of his career at 29 years old.
He's still relatively young, but it's been coming a long, long time
So he's still relatively young, but it's been coming a long, long time. So I was super happy, no show, like a Joe show, as they say, but my heart was in my mouth on those cobblestones. The Belgians called them the wet clinkers with 500 meters to go. They just looked like they were an accident, waiting to happen. And what I love most was Jojum Browski's interview after the race, because it's something I heard super early in cycling from a very old famous rider that rides for a local team here. And I was asking him for advice. And he said to me, watch the good lads. And all through my cycling career, I ended up attributing new meaning to that. And it seemed at the time, like it was a throwaway remark, but it's actually very astute. Watch the good lads. When did a good lads eat? When did a good lads drink? How did a good lads shelter? What did a good lads wear? How did a good lads train? You can just bike hop in and, you know, put it successfully, it's close. And watch the good lads. It's exactly what Joe Jumbrowski said he was gonna do today. Or he said he did. So in his quote after race, he said, I knew that the merchant was the strongest rider the break and if I just took his wheel I knew I'd be in a good spot today. That's absolutely brilliant tactics. So on the finish line today we had Joe Dombrowski taking a famous victory for himself, 13 seconds ahead of Alejandro Dormarki which is a career defining result for him because after Felipe Bogana's early work Dormarki now takes over to Maglia Rosa so another brilliant day for Italy passing the Maglia Rosa from one Italian onto the next. We had Felipe for really don't know who the fuck he is. He's a party. He's 27 seconds today. Chris Hill, yes, new animated so much of today's stage. It breaks me hard that he got caught and toyed up. Still claimed the top 10, 136 back. But the GC boys was where it was back to road. We had Bernal, Chaconne, Lambda and Carti all at 137. And importantly, they had a 10 second gap over the group of Evan Paul, Betzio, Bardet, Yates and Dan Mert. We needly back at 210 and Yewal made a total fucking stick in the spokes job gone back at 410. We as have come off from badly badly. Alejandro Tomaraki said after the race, it's the old rule is never give up. And I think that's a nice way it plays to finish folks. The old rule never give up. So tomorrow we have stage five and we're going from Medina to Cattolo Siya and it's 177 kilometers and as the lads are sitting in the team buses drinking their chicken soup and trying to warm up shivering clatter in tea today they will look forward to 177 very flat kilometers tomorrow. Roadman, thanks for tuning in and I'm going to be back again tomorrow. 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 leaner. I've created this challenge to take the guesswork out of everything. It's 14 days, training plans regardless of what your level is. There's masters 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 that's roadmancycling.com slash 14 day