Every time the Vuelta Aspania goes up, La Formigal, there is drama
Every time the Vuelta Aspania goes up, La Formigal, there is drama. What a crazy stage. 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 and this podcast will give you the answers. My name is Anthony Welch and welcome to the Row Man Podcast. Roman welcome back to another roadman podcast. It's a bank holiday Monday here in Dublin, Ireland. I hope you're enjoying the start of the week, wherever you're listening. Every time the Vuelta a España visits La Forma, la Trotau and again, La Forma Gal. It is one of the iconic climbs, not for its difficulty, not for its scenery, but just for the drama I chose up every single time we raised there and the Vuelta organizers have had a couple of stages cancelled because their border to France is closed so it's not going to be possible to go up Sestri here. They had to pull something out of their hat and they pulled out their Trump card and it delivered unbelievable drama. Before we get into that, just you know I've said it on the podcast, I haven't been crazy following the juror to Talia but it seems like team Iniels her again redefining their squad redefining who their leaders are and it's ushering in a new era now with tailgig and heart winning the jiro d'etalia. So they tail there and then they have a good day on the Vuelta as well which you're going to get into it in one second. But before I do, can I ask you all to head on over to patreon.com. I know what I'm saying at all the time. Start with every podcast that might seem like lip service, something I just have to get true. But the reason for the call to action is the podcast needs to support, needs the support to become sustainable so it can continue to grow so I can get these cool guests of another amazing guest on again this week but it all costs money to keep the machine going and there's only so long I can dig into my own pocket to keep the machine going. So please head on over to patreon.com and buy me the price of a beer once a month. In return what I will do for you is not only will I bring you the podcast five days a week but in addition for those who support the podcast I'm going to bring you what I call the secret podcast once a month. This is where you get an opportunity to ask me anything. So please head on over to patreon.com forward slash Anthony underscore Walsh the link is in the bio your support is much much appreciated and also very very necessary. Okay guys La Forma Gal it was an epic epic stage on the zero we started the stage it was 140 kilometer stage We're going from Biasas to Formigal. We had two small climbs to get out of the way and that, in my view, were the problems started for the race leader Primos Roglich and Yumbovisme. They led a 23-man break-gun and the break was too big. The break was too big and too much horsepower and had too many potential threats to the general classification. So at the start of the race, we don't often see it when we get to the television because they caught maybe the first 40-50 kilometers before the live broadcast starts. But what's happening is we pick up the action normally when the breakaway is formed. But what actually has to happen for the breakaway to form, it's this highly intricate game of chess and politics all mixed into one. So a group needs to go that's not a threat to any of the decision makers in the race. The guy is with the horsepower. So we're looking at Israel startup nation, Dan Martin was lying second. We're looking at Inyo Sukhara Paz and we're looking with Yungbo Visma for Primos Roglich. But then you have other like Einrich Mass in the White Jersey. So if somebody goes in the break, who's like 15 seconds back on Einrich Mass and he tries to get away in the breakaway for the day, which has the potential to go to the finish, you'll see movies start coming to the front and they'll say no. Einrich Mass is in the Yung Reuters Jersey.
We're going to defend that. that means if you're in touching distance…
We're going to defend that. that means if you're in touching distance of him in that classification we're going to close the breakdown. So what happens with the GC guys is they don't want anyone they draw a line they look at the stage and they say okay well today's stage given the parkour it has potential that the breakaway could get a maximum lead at the finish of two minutes. This is an arbitrary number for me right now but they'll come to a different number based on the terrain and based on the weather and the number of other factors. So they all say, okay, there's about two minutes with the maximum potential we see this breakaway getting. Now they look at the GC and they draw a line and they say, okay, we don't want any Reuters in the top 40 on the general classification getting into that breakaway because if they do, they have a chance of taking two minutes, which means they have a chance of taking the race lead. So they draw that line and Yumbovisma would have drawn that line yesterday in the bus or the team meeting the night before. And one of the riders, which they drawn the line, Jan Isogera from Astana, they let him into the break. He went into the break and he took a virtual lead on the road. Now what happens is we have Israel's startup nation and Inyos all leaning on Yumba Wiseman. Say, you know what, you've the race lead. If you want to protect the race lead, go work for the race lead. So Yumba Wiseman stick all their riders on the front to control this strong 23-man breakaway. If there is a girl of brothers from Astana, but you've got on Martana, you've You've Mike Woods, you've Dylan Vambara, you've a bunch of older guys open the break. Now Yumbok are forced to chase it. And Chase they do. And they do a good job of keeping it in check, but they've borne up all their workers. They've borne up all the domestiques. And then we have Roglic and this dram of the raincoat. So what happened Roglic? You know what, I actually have a quote from Roglic to the ting. It's easier rather me paraphrase and what happened to let him and the director talk about what happens. So Roglic, these are Roglic's words. In the descent of the penultimate climb, I had problems with my clothes. So we're a bit too far back and the pedal time broke. We had to pull out all the stops to get back. Eventually we managed to get back, but on the final climb I didn't have legs for the counter attacks. We've given everything. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. Today we lost some. So to add to that and give to more context to what's going on, his director sporty, his team manager, some of the rope even forwarder, he said, Premos had to take a rain jacket on at the top of the last climb. but he couldn't put it on correctly. He couldn't get the zip close. It was very, very cold weather. When he did get a close, he was too far back on the bunch and team Iniels attacked under the scent and the bunch split. He was dropped. It was a pretty petty and collective mistake from us. At some point, he can't drop back, but it happened and it took big effort to bring Primo's back. In the end, we lost some time and it was a bad day. Attacks like this can happen and we should be aware because we know Iniels will attack every opportunity. That's our fault. It's part of the game. Any else done absolutely nothing wrong there, and I think the director, he does acknowledge that they don't nothing wrong, but it was a little bit of an experience from Primo's Roglage. Any else capitalized on it. The weather was so, so bad, and the cold can really get into you on those descents. So Roglage made the decision to drop back some places, maybe even stop to zip up that rain jacket, but when any else seen that he'd stop, they pushed on full gas. And it took the entire Yumbovism team or what was left of them after chasing that early breakaway to bring Roglage back. And the problem is he borned so many matches. He had so many efforts that went up front. The real attacking start, we had Hugh Cardi who was riding out of his skin, EF Education rider.
When we had him going on the attack with Richard Carapaz, Roglage had…
When we had him going on the attack with Richard Carapaz, Roglage had absolutely nothing left. So, up front we had Isigara and he took the stage win, Mike Wodz, a previous guest, common second, but the real drama was Roglic not been able to follow Hugh Kerti and Carapaz. And in the end, Carapaz was actually dropped by Hugh Kerti, but he put time into Roglic. In the end, we have now Carapaz leading the Vuelta aspania after a costly range-ac-a-mistake from Primos Roglic. We've Hugh Carty at 18 seconds. We've got Ireland's very own Dan Martin at 20 seconds who couldn't follow either but for different reasons and he was stuck with Roglic. We have Roglic dropping off the podium at 30 seconds. Honestly guys, the Vuelta, there's just absolutely nothing like it. It throws up this crazy, crazy drama day after day. I had flagged it the very outset of Vuelta in my preview. Well, I flagged two things. I flagged Mike Woods as a grey outside bit. GC didn't work out for him because I'm cycling it's such a complicated I laugh in a lot of ways when I see the bookies you know Fort want when a three week stage race there's so many Thousands of variables that go into when the three week stage race Mike Wodz on test number one got very very unlucky Big fight for position into the base of the force climb the road narrows So you've 20 riders wide and then the road narrows to 10 wide what happens people get squeezed and Wodz got squeezed and he got squeezed into a baller and he crushed and that was effectively the end of his GC hopes. But we seen yesterday with second on the stage that he has good legs. But one of my other bets for the well that España was the legs to come off Roglick. I just think he's raced too hard. He's shown a weakness before in the toward week grand tours and that's where I still see it. I still see Carapaz winning this race overall. I didn't see Hugh Carrotine. I definitely didn't see Dan Mern being up there in a GC shake up. But honestly folks, there's plenty of plenty of racing left. We're into the rest day today If you haven't had a chance to go back and watch yesterday stage It's absolutely epic for me gal was the size of film getting massively ambushed a number of years ago But contour was brilliant one of the most enjoyable stages in living memory I think it was contour and cantana that ambushed on that day in a massive long breakaway day This was another ambush for the race leader Rog Litch great to watch absolutely brutal and at times pro cycling is glamourised and people always say you know what you love to be doing it you just look at a day like that pouring rain ice cold miserable the brakes don't work properly you're getting splashed from the wheel on front of you all day your hands are too cold to eat you're wearing too many layers you're not hydrating enough it is absolutely miserable these lads earn every penny that they're paid they're someone I heard is the best athlete in the world. It was an amazing stage guys go back and check it out. And you know what I'm gonna be back to you tomorrow. Jatty then Roadman ride safe and enjoy that by and call today. 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 kickstart challenge. So regardless to 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 the master's beginner advanced, there's meal plans, shopping list and even a video course holding your hand and talking you through at all. So what I recommend you do right now is just stop everything, pause on this audio and go to roadmancycling.com forward slash 14 day or check out the link in the bio that roadmancycling.com slash 14 day.