Hello, you beautiful cycling fans and welcome back to another A1…
Hello, you beautiful cycling fans and welcome back to another A1 show, Welta Special. I say it every day, but the Welta is, it's been an absolutely cracking race for a lot of reasons that I've covered, you know, the stresses of for riders, they just feel like they can ride without the same media circus that goes around the Tour de France. There's not the early season pressure that we see a lot of riders putting themselves under when they hit the Giro for example. So for a lot of those reasons, the laid back organization of the Vuelta as well, where you have these crazy mountain passes, it just provides us epic racing. And I always think that it's a purest, you know, we, it doesn't attract the mainstream media attention as the Tour de France, or even some of the spring classics. But as a pure cycling fan, you absolutely have to love the Giro or the Vuelta because it just throws up these epic finishes day after day after day. Today was absolutely no different. We were on stage 15 today. We had four categories of climbs with a 9% 7.9 kilometer climb to the finish. Stay with us and I'm going to fill you in on exactly what happened and I'm going to throw up some random questions for you about how ethical it is for rotors to continue with injuries, a new product that I'm experimenting with to help me sleep and we're going to get this all wrapped up inside our usual little slot. So before I jump into it, let me give another mention to our podcast sponsor for the Vuelta who has been brilliant. They're a big cycling fan and we like to get behind cycling companies. They're a missing piece.ie. They do amazing custom bespoke picture frames, chopping boards. They're a perfect gift. If you have a birthday coming up like I do, it's the perfect gift for someone. They've run a contest during the Vuelta and I'm going to pop a link in the show now in the description down below if you answer a simple question or callers the leaders jersey in the Vuelta. They're going to hook you up with some swag if you're randomly chosen. So there you go, stage 15. It started early. It started early, early, it started when I was in town shopping for a birthday present for my girlfriend and I was checking tweets on the phone going, oh shit, movie star I've hit it on the force climb. Movie star whacked it on the force climb and they are a very good team of climbers and they got rid of some lot of Yumbolats who weren't such good climbers like Tony Martin and they had a big chase to get back in. But a big break went the day at the likes of Sipcous, Teogagen Hert, Isegera, Celer, they had a couple of EF Reuters in there, Lawson Craddock was in there, the Kiriyanki in there, Samite from Esqueteel was in there and the racing really started then when we Kiriyanki and Samiteel from Esqueteel and gone across to them was Seppkuse and that was kind of where we really picked it up on the last climb. Seppkuse breathed past those two and made it one solo out front and then a little chase group from behind and the chase group was Guerrero from Katusha, T.O. Gagan Hart and that was really the setup we had. We did GC guys explode into the base of the climb. He frantic pace set by movie star Anastana. There must have been only 15 guys left when we got to the base of the climb. It was insane looking. I'd say there must have been full gas on it like I heard James Knox talking from Quickstep, the young Brit talking after the race. I'm not sure I can say Brit. His Brit derogatory term, I don't think it is. The young Englishman speaking after the race and he was just talking about how difficult it was into the base of the force climb but also the frantic fight into the base of the last climb. And then we had Alejandro Vaverdi, the Benjamin Button, evergreen Alejandro Vaverdi and he launched on the only one who could go, yeah you guess this, Second on GC attacks, who's the only one that's watching second on GC, first on GC, Primus Roglic, mark that with his. What I noticed with Valverde is Valverde is Valverde is so so explosive. Even at his, like what's Valverde now?
He's pushing 40s, 41, something like that. He won the one who master…
He's pushing 40s, 41, something like that. He won the one who master jumps. Valverde when he goes he's just so explosive still and the gap opens so fast. So Roglic went with him And Roglic was totally entitled to just sit on Vavirde and not give him a turn, so I'm marking you. Like I'm not going to help you drop me. But Roglic was that comfortable in the wheel. Almost as a statement he started riding through with Vavirde and at the end they had even ended up high-fiving. So it shows you at some point Vavirde appreciated the tow from Roglic and the idea that it was moving him into second place and cement sorry he's already in second place but cement in his second place but Roglic's just so so impressive and a big way we know like an insight into Roglic's mind was we've seen this tactic of putting men in the break the GC teams are doing us with all the GC teams nearly doing it today we just on a movie star and Yumbo all putting men in the break Sip Kousse was putting the break for Yumbo And it got to a point at the bottom of the climb, the attacking starters and sep coos came out later and he said they just told him he could go for it. The Primos wasn't going to need him. And so Roglish never needed to call him back so we seen Solaire heartbreakingly call back to Pocatana into the into the later Sierzy about a week ago. We didn't see anything similar today from Roglish. Roglish was supremely confident in his own talent. He's with father that he didn't feel isolators. So he said to the young American, you know, spread your wings, fly, young Eagle fly, and the young Americans taking a stage win in the Vuelta España to add to a Suriuta overall win. So it's super super results today for young Bovizma, but it's a tactic that it can't backfire on yet. We don't, we're not used to seeing the race leader putting the man in the break and And then that man not coming back. I suppose we're so programmed from looking at Skye and any else that they don't do this. Other teams do what movies they do what other teams have done it, but we never see it from Skye. So you kind of got to wonder, like what is the objective for the team? Is it to win the overall or is it to win stages? Because there's no doubt in my mind if Sepkus wasn't needed with Roglish. That if Sepkus sets up at the bottom of the climb, I'm cruises all the way up and saves his energy. tomorrow's another big mountain stage that he's gonna be in better shape tomorrow. So it's a waste of energy that doesn't move them closer to winning their objective which is the Vuelta overall. And those little things can be costly. Now it looks at the moment like Roglic is in supremely dominant mood. So whether they'll be punished for that or not, I don't know. But every decision has to be analyzed through the binary framework of does this make it more likely or less likely that we're going to come away at the end of three weeks with the overall victory. Team Sky are masters at that. They're ruthless interpretation of that, but we've seen other teams, especially now today, Yumbo, having a very liberal interpretation of that and saying, you know, he'll recover over now. It's not that much extra energy, but it doesn't make it more likely that Roglic is going to win the overall. So I'm not sure how I feel about it. It's great to see the young American getting a stage win. Like if we're real, he's would have won a stage at some point anyway he's such a talent that he didn't need to win it now that maybe his job is back down the mountain helping Rog Litch put down as a cycling fan and taking the you know armchair DS tactician hat off. It's just amazing to see a rider like him going loose and you know kind of glad what we didn't see in any else win because it's just Gagan Hart was taught. We had Guerrero from Catucius II and Theo Gagan Hart forced, but we had Seth Coos in the last 50-60 meters, high-five and everyone coming across the line. He was loving life, which was amazing to see. Something we're kind of not really used to seeing at world tour level.
It's more of a, you know, Jersey cycle or Ironman vibe to a high-five…
It's more of a, you know, Jersey cycle or Ironman vibe to a high-five and people going across the line, but it was pretty funny to see. I suppose difference is always better for a while if we start seeing everybody high five and coming across the line it will fast start to lose its appeal no doubt So I heard James Knox and he was after The race and he was talking about just how difficult it is to get in the breakaway He said he said out at the start of the day with that ambition to get in the breakaway and it's just he said Not possible. He said it was just so fast and that when he did join getting the breakaway and he went to come back and he's in the bunch he said he was just pinned in the wheel like holding off. So it always looks like you can slide into the breakaway very easily in these grand tour races and you think you know in your own crazy rationale to feel better about ourselves we're going well it's actually must be much harder to cut tree race to get in the breakaway because everyone's a negative mindset and the grand tours it's fairly easy because everyone has their own agendas and people are working you can just slip into the break with their forced attack of the day like make no mistake these stages mean a lot amount of stage in the world at the win it means a lot to get the TV exposure for some teams which are struggling it means a lot that is hard fought to get into them breaks it's super super difficult it's super super competitive and you guys like James Knox who's 18th on GC talking about how hard is you know how hard it is. So GC at the moment it's looking like Roglich with a firm command on it but he hasn't extended his lead over Evergreen World Champion Balverde who's still at 2.25. We've Poggakar who are close to change my pronunciation on him because Pukacha seems to be the interpretation that everyone's going with. Oh excuse me, Comelashka. So I may change my pronunciation of pogger once there's a bit of a consensus going on. He's at 3.42 we have Superman Lopez again not exhibiting too many Superman like qualities at 3.59 he would finish today in with pogger and yeah they look like it's gonna be a battle down to Madrid for the white jersey and then we had Katana dropped again today couldn't hold on to pogger and Lopez group and he's at 5.09 he looks a spin force to me and it's probably the last we see of the movie Star colors. Interestingly James Knox got added to the long list for the worlds in Yorkshire midway from this Vuelta. So I'd love to see him getting picked there as a course that looks like it could be very very good from and obviously he room and with Philip Schilberg who's kind of going as one of the favourites so a lot of is going to rub off on over the course of this Vuelta in terms of how to win you know physical condition obviously from right in the Vuelta but a lot of experience of how to win a world's how to win classics from one of the greatest writers to this generation, Philip Gilbert. I want to change note a little bit for a second. Actually, before I do, well, though, to Sam Bennett, because I just seen today, he's the most winningest writer, I love making upwards, winningest. He's the most winningest writer in the Peloton at the moment. He has 13 professional wins this season, and that is the most in the bunch. So, shop hoak to Sam. We might even get one more before we get to Madrid. So Roglich, yeah, typically he didn't give much away in his post-race, press conference, etc. It was a really nice day for us. We have hard days to come so we need to stay focused. Yeah, as I said, I wanted to on pages a little bit and talk to his a picture on Twitter from Willie Smith. If you Google him on Twitter, he'll find them. I'm actually, I've put it up on the A1 Facebook page, a picture of his knee from the crash yesterday. His knee is butchered. He's after having a bunch of stitches in it. It looks miserable and Normal person would be able to work for a long time with an injury like that and he's starting today's stage and as far as I know he finished today's stage with that injury and It kind of begs the question at what point two teams need to step in and save Reuters from themselves because Solicland's one of those sports where you know We shared memes of you know Cristiano Ronaldo on the ground versus Fletcher, whoever in the barber of fence ripped the pieces or that was Alba, who was it in the barber of fence?
Johnny Hugland in the barber of fence wrecked a few years ago and…
Johnny Hugland in the barber of fence wrecked a few years ago and those maims are funny and how hard cyclists are. But at some point, you know, we've seemed to have thrown a corner and drawn the line with head injuries because we just have a consensus and awareness now of how dangerous impacts to the header and it's not something to have that masculine testosterone bravado around. Oh, I continued. It's just a ding. I just had my bell rung. We know how dangerous it is, especially multiple concussions compounding. But also injuries that like extreme injuries, flesh wounds like Willie Smith has at the moment. You know, he's coming through a cycling culture and being pre-conditioned to under hard man. I won't drop out if I haven't got a broken bone. I won't drop out of the of the boy craze my teammates need me two things like you know his teammates he's going to be no use to his teammates in that condition and when does the team step in and say you know this rider isn't going to make a decision that's best for himself we need to take that decision out of his hands you know is there a duty of care from the team or further is there's duty care from the organizers where there should be an objective health assessment and say you know he can't continue because yeah I think there's a point where it just becomes farce ago that They're damaging themselves. There's no way looking at that injury. I can say that he's not going to have some sort of damage. It definitely won't be speeding up his recovery. It's miserable. His body's under so much stress heading into the third week and a grand tour. I'd say a blister is very difficult to heal. His white blood cells and immune system are so suppressed at the moment. So we never mind the scar like that and you know the chance of infection would compromise the immunity and stuff all goes up. Yeah I find it difficult to watch someone like that staring a stage but maybe that's maybe I'm soft in my old edge. I don't think I'm starting to experiment with so I'll keep you posted on it more one for our longer form podcasts as we know we've sort of slightly changed that turn a corner and the content in a one that we're delivering. I've turned it to more of a biohacks, you know, anything we can do to get an advantage in looking at cycling a 360 holistic health perspective and you know because we need to be happy because we need to sleep well and all these things go into cycling performance and not just what interval should I do today? What's my threshold? How can I increase my VO2 max power? So one of the areas I'm really looking at is sleep and looking at the effects of CBD oil on getting us into sleep. So it's not changing the amount of hour sleep I'm going to get but I'm looking at the effect of CBD dosing before bed on the quantity of deep sleep. So the distribution of my sleep across the sleep cycle and evidence suggests prolong the amount of deep sleep you have within a noise and the cognitive and regenerative benefits of deep sleep are massive. So I'll get into it a bit deeper in another podcast CBD is not on the band lists so if anyone wants to check it out you can obviously do your own due diligence but from a cycling point of view it's totally it's derived from the hemp plants but it's CBT is what you typically would have heard it's the CBT as opposed to CBD has the hallucinogenic properties and that is on the band lists that's your marijuana on a cannabis. And what we, those ones that we typically associate with one on cannabis, that's slightly loose and egenic properties to it. So they are on the ban list, but CBD is not. So it's something that I'm gonna experiment with and I will keep you posted on that. Stage 16 tomorrow and we're in another climbing day, another big climbing day, only 144 kilometers tomorrow. I nonchalantly say 144 kilometers only as I sip on my coffee, sitting down on my deck chair here, recording the podcast. And we've tree category one climb. So a big day of climb again tomorrow. And then we're heading into another rest day for me and another rest day, rest day, rest day.
Sound like Jonathan Ross there, trying to say for our Roshay
I sound like Jonathan Ross there, trying to say for our Roshay. And another rest day for the Vuelta Peloton on Tuesday. Hope you're enjoying the Vuelta podcast sofa. And before I sign off, I want to tell you two things. I'm gonna sell you a little bit about our sponsor ClickFunnels, but also I have a cool message to finish off with. So ClickFunnels is a sponsor, true of wealth, they definitely go and check them out because they've been a one-stop shop for me for email auto responders, marketing, building websites, and streamlining that whole thing. And they have a 14-day free trial for all of our listeners. So that is well worth checking out. Training Camp is also starting to generate a fair bit of interest. I'm gonna do a price hike soon. It will probably be unannounced. So if you're tempted by the training camp, go and book now. I'm gonna pop the link in the show notes as well. But I have a touch and message tomorrow. We get a bunch of messages in time. Some of them, you know, nice messages. Some of them just general feedback. And very occasionally we get a message in that isn't that nice. But I like to take time to write back to as many messages as I can today. I didn't have a super busy day someday. So I wrote back to this one. And I shared it across some of our social platforms because it just thought it was a really nice message from a leave and search student. He said, hey Anthony, I'm a big fan of the podcast. I used to like GCN, but I want it way better. No way would you ever hear Simon and Richardson call whoo-poo pieces shit. You can't beat that Irish humor. I was a bit unsure about sending you this message, but you said in the podcast to give you feedback. Well, I've done most things you recommend, and I'm doing very well. So I decided to message you and say, thanks and keep it up. I would have liked to sign up for the eight week challenge, but I'm doing my leave and search this year. So I have to save a bit of time for the books. I'm hoping to start racing a foreign next year. my goal of the moment is to open my FTP. Your Vuelta podcast is coming very handy. I wouldn't have much time to watch the highlights of the podcast. I can listen on the both of the skill. A while ago you said check out any interesting podcasts, so I found this one lately and I like this and that's a link to Pat Dively's podcast which I am going to check out. Very nice message. Thanks for taking the time to do that and please as I say guys if you are enjoying the podcast it means so much to me when I get messages like that but also if you're enjoying it pop me a a message on any platforms, but the usual stuff that's so boring or so, you know, banner blind nearly at this stage to listen to it. It makes such a difference that likes the shares on the podcast, telling people about it. It's how we grow it. And, you know, I haven't figured out a metric for judging the success or failure of this podcast yet because monetarily it totally isn't, if you had just a monetary lens on it, it totally isn't worth the investment of time that goes into it. So you're looking for other variables like that feedback from that show listener to make it worthwhile and justify the actual expense that goes into equipment and host and that's all the stuff but also the time expense that goes into it. So yeah, keep all that stuff common because it is much, much appreciated. Thanks for listening and I will chat to you again tomorrow. Take it easy.