On today's Roadman Cycling Podcast, I'm going to chat with Mr. J. Vine. Let's cue that intro! Roadman welcome back to another Roadman Cycling podcast. It's another interview day today on the Roadman Cycling podcast and I'm chatting with no other than Mr. J. Voigt from Alpason Fenix. If you're a regular listener to the show, you will know that J. Pops on and off the Roadman Cycling podcast. I think this is about the fourth time we've had J on the show. Initially, we had the concept last year of sort of chronicling a life in the year of a Neo Pro. And that's why he was on with such frequency, but he's just become a great friend of the show. And that's why we bring him back over and over again. If you haven't heard Jay before, he was his with Academy winner from last year when they were really doing a little bit of a beta version of the Zwift Academy to see if they would roll out. Jay won the Zwift Academy. He got a one-year deal with Alpus and Fenix, he really impressed, including one of my favourite races of last season, I challenge you to come up with a more entertaining finish than the hilltop finish in the Toru Toru Key where Jay was just nudged out and got sick and it was absolutely brilliant. Since then, he's nailed himself down. I'm not sure if it's a two or a three year deal with Alpus and Fenix, he's moved from Jaroni to Andorra, he's been super busy so I'm really excited to catch up with him. Before I do, just a couple of housekeeping bits, if you could all do me a favour, if you could head on over to iTunes, even if you don't consume your podcast there. Hit the podcast at 5-star rating, subscribe to it and leave me a little review. The reason I'm asking, I've got some super cool guests lined up and provisionally penciled in. Unfortunately, their publicists, their lawyers, etc. won't let them come on the show until we've hit at least 105-star ratings. And I've neglected to ask you for a long time, like a lot of other podcasters do. Wasn't really sure what the point point about was, but apparently there is a point. So once I can get these 105 star ratings, I've got one absolutely incredible guest and a few more, which is a really, really gonna enjoy. So please do that. Also a bunch of people DM me on Instagram asking about the secret podcast. The secret podcast is a closed podcast. It's a podcast I put out once a week as a thank you, a little chap who tipped the cap to those who support the podcast. So the most recent secret podcast topic was why, sorry, how we structure a season in a fashion where we give a maximum chance of hitting our goals, like how do we structure around work, family, social obligations, because it's different to standard periodization. So I want to share with you some tips and tricks I've learned, but as an athlete and coach and over the last 10 years, the podcast has for our great feedback, really enjoyed recording it. So if you want to get access to it, all you've got to do is buy me the price of a point to bear. Hopefully you're on the fence with buying it anyway and you're like, okay, the secret podcast is finally the thing that will tip me over the edge. If you're listening to this and you're getting a lot of value, it's a beautiful way to tank me on the show. It helps fund the show and now you get access to the secret podcast. So to get it, you head on over to patreon.com forward slash Anthony underscore waltch patreon. I spelled P A T R E O M dot com forward slash Anthony underscore world. I've left it in the description down below as always. Ordered and not folks, there's nothing else left to say. Only welcome to the Roadman podcast, Mr. Jay Vine. Yeah, thanks. I'm going to be back. I think this is the third time. Jay, you're a regular. As regular as I am, not a stitch. I should start charging you a fee. I tell you, download's are getting pretty good. Jay, how come you starting to charge you a fee? I'm I'm not promoting the vine brand. How's life in Andorri? You just moved. Yeah, yeah, Andorri, I mean, it's certainly a lot colder than Gerona. I was in Gerona yesterday getting a heart test for UC Iron. Oh boy, it was very, very chilly. I think it didn't get to above like five degrees until 12 o'clock. Ooh, yeah. Like North Inada where I'm currently based was zero, do the day. What motivating the exodus from Jaroni to Antora? Is it obviously tax consideration? Like it's your tour time on this podcast.
You don't need to give us the priority line. Is it totally tax or is there other motivators? El Tueda. Another question would be what's the motivator for staying in Jaroni? We were living in an apartment that was probably slightly too small for us. We owned a car that we couldn't park in a garage. So it was just on the street rusting away. So over here in Europe, most of you European people who was a notice, but we're not used to it in Australia, you have to pay a commission to the real estate agent every time you move house. In Australia that commission is covered by the home owner. Okay. So we were looking at another thousand euros in commission to move house after one year. Well, if we're doing that, we might as well make them straight to Endora. There's nothing keeping us in Gerona. We didn't branch out and have 15,000 friends in Gerona. Is the roiden not noisier in Gerona? Like I've ridden in Bo places, which seems to me it's a lot more of a variety in Gerona than Endora. I mean, absolutely. There's hills and there's flat. There's not just mountains, But if I can get my watts done, I can get my watts done. And I mean, more and more options open up for warmer and warmer and get. So. I don't want to say you didn't integrate into the community, but you're not someone that's dependent really on training partners. Some guys can't get out the door unless they have a buddy to meet at a cafe at 10 o'clock. That's never been really your vibe. No, no, I'm very much a loner, I guess, just going to say it. That sort of community aspect Bree started to get into it right towards the end of us living there. But I went on a ride with Bree. So for context, Bree is Jay's wife. I'm not sure if she told you the story. So we were riding out of town and in Jirona for anyone who's listening that hasn't been there. There's kind of a, there's more than a set number of routes, but there are a bunch of popular routes that everybody rides. So I set out with a few friends to ride the all-out loop, which I think is like a four-hour loop or so. And there was a girl riding like 10 bike lengths back from us. At this stage we'd left town and it was obvious we're on the same loop. So I dropped back and I'm like, you know, you can come and ride because this is going to be uncomfortable for errors just sitting 10 bike lengths back. She came up and I turned out to be your wife and she rode with us for the whole day and what an amazing girl. Yeah, yeah. Obviously I don't need to convince you. Yeah. It's actually our five year anniversary tomorrow. So congratulations. Thank you. She told me about that. I was on training camp, so I think we must have missed each other by like a day either side. Yeah, I tell you so. Of that. But yeah, I mean, the writing in Drona is incredible. But in saying that you lose half your roots for two to three months of the year anyway, because I mean the Hillary loop out to the west is basically all in shade for three months of the year. Guess called. I rolled that when I was over and it was properly called in December. Properly cold, but also dangerous. Like there was a climb that I did that was that had ice on it. You know, so you come around a corner and the rear wheel starts slipping out. And you're like, well, I'm glad I didn't come down this road. Otherwise I would have been over the armcoat and down the other side. How fucking annoying is this everybody asking about your TSS and your power scores? You seem to be the writer in the world that people want to know this most about. Yeah, I had it a few times and it just got got to me where I was like, no, this is enough. Everyone's different. Like you can't compare them and you certainly shouldn't be comparing yourself against professionals. Like the way we operate, no, no amateurs are doing 40 hours in 10 days and then having a rest day and then doing 30 hours. and then having another rest day. It's just not what amateurs do, so it's not comparable. But I guess because you came from Trues with the Academy, from the Amateurs, people almost feel like, they're sitting, you know this weird thing people do with their power where they underestimate their waste. They're like, oh, I'm actually probably three or four kilograms lighter than I am. And then they overestimate their threshold by 20 or 30 watts. And they're like, oh, on a good day, maybe I could do six watts per kilogram.
And you're like, hey, you couldn't. be when they see you coming from the amateur background, they sort of somehow feel like there's a shared journey or there's a chance that it could be them. I don't know if it's just made of fails that people think that about this with the academy, but it's not true. Like your times at your proper bona fide world tour rider now, when we chatted up the stars, you were kind of dipping your toe in it and going, fuck, I hope I can knock a year out of this. But you're a world tour rider now. People are gonna get sick, they're gonna get injured, trying to compare and match your training rides. I still want your Strava files. It's a funny story actually. So I was looking for a route. I have a good idea of routes around your own. I bought a buddy of mine was flying that evening and I needed like a nice two to two or 30 route. And I was like, fuck, I'm gonna go online I flick a few locals. So I flicked onto your Strava. And you had one said, it was something like cruisy two and a half hour ride or something like that you had a title. So I was like to my Here's the two and a half hour ride. Do you want to do it? Fuck. He almost missed his flight. It was a tree arrow chain twice It was like two seventy once average. He was in the whale. Mr. Train had a panic getting into Barcelona And I was like you cannot take Rides from world or writers and apply them to your own circumstances because the speed you go up hills versus the speed we go up hills is so, so different. Yeah, exactly. I mean, I'm not running shit tyres either. I'm running the same tyres I race on the courses, the Victoria courses. So they're very fast tyres. I'm practicing my positions. I'm not riding around all upright and laid back. I'm trying to be as low and as aerodynamic as possible. So it's like averaging 35 Ks an hour. So I can easily bust out 70 Ks in. So I was like, just over. What did you make us lift the car to meet us here? I actually was a bit jealous, you know, at the start, rocking up to me, yorka, this hotel that, for the rooms were like 700 euro a night, like it was very flashy hotel. But then after literally hearing the cat, the finalists, you know, the morning after I got there, I, me and Vanderpol had to do this, walk in and surprise them because they weren't going to be aware that other writers would be on their camp with them. But anyway, walk in and surprise them. And we did the first take of we all walked in, Cassianuma Dome is there as well. We then had to do another take. So it was like surprise. Oh, by the way, be surprised again. Walk back out, walk back in, surprise, take two. At that moment, I was like, I'm so thankful. I did not have to go through this. It was just all online and I just did my riding, popped off the bike, answered a few questions to my videographer and then went home. I had a buddy of yours, this is with the Academy for the Sam Hills on the podcast a few weeks ago. I'm not sure if you heard him. He felt that it was a reality TV show with a little bit of cycling, rather than being a cycling academy with a little bit of media. He felt the balance was like, it was like, okay, here's your bike, walk in and look surprised. And then it's like, okay, take two. You didn't quite look surprised enough. Can we get that one again? Where you come back in and look a little more surprised? So I think he was a little bit, not annoyed, but he's like, you know, recovery and performance wasn't prioritized like it should have been for a serious thing. What he was really pissed about was he felt it was a bait and switch on the World Tour contract. That it was, they were led to believe there was a World Tour contract, but he said he weren't explicitly told. but because you had gotten a World Tour contract and they said there was a professional contract up for grabs, he said it felt like that was the kind of legitimate expectation that if you want it, you would get a World Tour contract. I can't remember what age Sam said he was. I think he's 26 or 27, but he was basically saying the prize at the end for Alex Bogda who won it was a three year development contract. So he's like a 26, even if I had a Wanda, you know, what am I going to do with a three year development contract?
You know, moving from a continental team to another continental team for three years. He's like, I've got to make the move to the world or now, or it doesn't happen because he's a teacher. And then turning 29 and trying to put yourself in the marketplace. And possible. It's a dead end. Yeah, it's impossible. As far as I'm aware now, it's fully confirmed. It's a it's only a two year development contract. from what he's told me, Alperson offered him upright the same deal that I got one year on the protein or two years on the development team and he took the two years on the development team. It's probably not a bad show for him to be fair because he's so young. Yes, being nine, I think he's my turn 20. So he ends up turning 21 and he's had two years on the on the development team, you know, has done some professional races, done a bunch of 1.1 races could get a signing out of that. So it makes sense. I think it's better. It's definitely a better route for them. You happy sitting on your new contract, feeling smorg? Yeah, I'm more than happy. Like I wouldn't have taken the development contract. I think the only way I could have made this work, like with the whole, all the expenses are moving over here as well, being older. I'm not reliant on my parents for cash. Brie worked to get us to the point where we could be in a position to go, right, we can sell the car, we're going to sell our furniture, we've got some cash there, and now we're going to just start making it rain in Jorona to try and get a house to live in. But you guys are such a, you know, chat in the brie. I've got a glimpse of a chat to you on the podcast, but four hours riding around, chatting around, chatting to Brie that like, you're probably not unique. There's probably other couples in the world who are like this, but it's, it's such a cool story that you guys were all in as a couple and kind of looked at it like, okay, this is an investment in our future. If this works, this is a great opportunity if we grab a bite, both hands, but Brie totally dived in to become an, a part of this team with you, looking after meal prep, looking after a recovery, you know, your logistic stuff. I'll have to start coordinating podcast episodes. True Brie next. Yeah. I mean, like literally, literally, It's extremely annoying. The other pet peeve that Bree has, I saw him starting to get it, is the question of, so what do you do? And then when Bree says, I support Jay, it's like, yeah, but when you're not supporting him, you do. Oh, does Jay just like disappear? Sometimes it, no, when I'm not supporting Jay, I'm still with Jay because we're sort of hanging out. And otherwise I'm riding my bike. I mean, Europe, why wouldn't I ride my bike in Europe? You know, and enjoy myself. There seems to be this outside pressure that people can't support their better halves and then just have a sort of hobby on the side. Like someone who goes to work and then on the side, I don't know, goes and drinks at the pub or plays pool in nightclubs or something on the side. What a random hobby that is playing pool in my clothes. And is it dark? Darts is a good one, yeah. And now, but I say this to clients all the time. It's there's one thing, like you talk about trying to 40 hours a week that doesn't leave a lot of bandwidth for doing anything else. And even if you're reversed that, you know, error, most ambitious clients who are riding 15 to 20 hours a week and balancing a full time job, how do you do bike maintenance? How do you look after your recovery protocols? How do you get your washing done? There's an infrastructure behind every cyclist, whether it's a Lee's amateur or professional that enables that success. And it's the invisible piece that maybe it's a, you know, masculine thing that we didn't hear about in previous generations. You know, you never heard Eddie Merck's coming on and tanking the tireless work of his wife in the background. That's generational. I feel like it's more appreciated now at Alex Dausett on the podcast, a couple of weeks ago. And it's the exact same thing with Alex. even coordinate a time slot for the podcast, true his wife, she manages media relations, she managed all the logistics for his hour record, looks after sponsor requests. It's a team, it's a two-man team. But it's a, it's, it's another step being a foreign country where language is not the native language. Everything takes for, for, for extra steps, which takes four minutes, four, four times the amount of time out of my day.
I mean, it took three, so we, we parked incorrectly. So we had a car toe-inch, right? This is the car that's sitting outside in Jorona rusting away. Well, it didn't rust away fast enough, so they came and towed it. And because we don't speak the language, it took three literally three hours to walking around Jorona trying to find out where it had been towed to, who we had to pay the money to. Then we got a ticket in the mail because we had to pay a towing fee, and then we had to pay a ticket fee and then working out on the ticket which reference number they required because there was seven reference numbers on this damn piece of paper all in Spanish. It would have taken so much effort out of my day of just trying to relax, recover and get ready for my next session. This was in the lead up to my first training camp so I was trying to put new load back into my legs and it It was just a lot of stuff that is not posted on Instagram. It has to be done. I was in Paris a few years ago for the final of the Tour de France just a spectator. Went over to watch Tour de France follow around a couple of stages. We went out with my girlfriend in Paris, went to a nightclub, parked the maupere, obviously incorrectly. I went out some drinks, went to the nightclub, went back to the Airbnb, came out the next morning. I'm like, where did I park that maupere? I can't find the maupere anywhere. gone. And exact same thing, I have to start ringing around. I've rode for a French team for a year, so I have a small bit of French, but it like, I can tell people to fucking ride through whole the wheel of a man up the road. I can't see anything useful. So again, like that whole day, and the energy that goes into that, you know, administrative stuff, it's it's a shocker. Let's dive into I want to talk about equipment, because I'm real jealous. Do you ride the new Jure Aged 12 Smith? Yep. That's on the team on the race you know, with the logistics of pandemic, the virus of unknown name and origin. We've only got 12 speed on the race bikes at the moment. So I'm still riding the 11 speed. You're 40. There's some cunt listening to this now and he has a fucking nine speed teagrap. He's like you, Frick J. Yes. Yeah, I've got the current 11 speed, or the old 11 speed on the training bike, but the 12 speeds really nice. They've made the shifts fast and I'm pretty sure they now say that you can run at 36.53. Nice. Because in previous, all previous generations, it's been, we don't recommend it. Yeah, sloppy shift. I can tell you for a fact the Volta we rode 36. Do you ride the 12 speed for the Volta? No, not, we didn't do that for the Volta I think. I think Mike had one or two. Yeah, and I think Rog Litch was rocking us around then as well, but it was kind of blacked out. Yeah, yeah. It's gonna be sort of a bigger ride or anything. They've got some serious supply chain issues going on at the moment. There's a business model, if you can get your hands on group sets and sell them at the moment. They're like gold dust. Yeah, I mean, it's the group sets, cars, like every disposable income rich industry has just exploded. and the haves have bought up as much as they can and the have nots fallen firm firm behind the moment. I haven't had it to you since you wrote the Vuelta. What was I like to get through your first grantor and the question I've got asked so much on my Instagram DMs. I probably get more DMs about you than you do about you. I get Instagram DMs about like anyone that's been on the podcast. Like I'm like, I don't know how he's fucking doing. Go ask him how he's doing. It's like I'm not as PA, the crash in the Vuelta, so I suppose two questions. How was the Vuelta getting through it? I talk a story with our crash. I mean, the first week was pretty as the grand tour. The first week was relatively easy. Went into stage seven, feeling super fresh and rode super fresh, which meant that I used that way too much energy, trying to get in a move. I think 11th place or 12th place, I think was the best I could do for that day. but I felt amazing during the middle week. I mean, there was a couple of attacks that I did and then stage 14. It was all going, all like love it when a plan comes together, 18 style.
You know, me and the car, we like I peed off the bike first time in a bike race. I was hitting all my goals, like new experiences. It was great. It was just a free, free accident of me not being totally in sync with feeding from a car. I was handing back a water bottle and there was a slight left in the road. There was a slight bump in the road. Don't know how it happened, but the bike sort of started to go lopsided. And the moment the balance is lost against the car, you cannot bring it back. God. I have lost control of this bike. It is going down. I hit the ground and I was very lucky not to go under the car. What was the damage? Well, at first I couldn't feel my leg. There was a lot of cursing of an expletive is where said, but after the shock of it, I tried to stand up and I just couldn't get up on that leg. They were worried about my arm having a massive hole in the elbow needing stitches, but my first thought was try and stand up and hop on a bike. They had a spare one there for me. And I think it took me about two minutes to actually be able to, okay, the leg beneath cap is not shattered. The bones are still good. I can stand on it. Yes. Okay. Let's like how far I turned to the race director, the sports director, how far is the brake? No more than two minutes. And he's like, and by days attacking them. So I was like, perfect. Sweet. So jumped on the bike and the medical car started to put some bandages on me. It didn't show in the race footage, but literally two Ks after I crashed, it started going into 10% pinches with the technical descents. So I had to like flick the medical car, they didn't like it, but I had to flick them off because I was gonna crash again. Look at that. You know, that would have been a, yeah. Brighter crashes into team car, then crashes into the medical car. Are you gonna get to do a grand tour of the seasons? You know your schedule, yeah? I think they're pretty keen on me doing the Volter again. I mean, I'm not keen on doing the Giro. The weather is a bit ordinary in my eyes and I think the last two or last 10 days are way too hard. But the Giro's too hard for everyone except like two Reuters. I don't need the crazy long transfers, it just looks miserable. Yeah, I mean, in the sit there, the climbs just also don't really suit me. They're super steep, cold climbs and I perform really well on the heat. The tour obviously is just out of the question at the moment. I don't know if the paycheck, they're not gonna waste the tour spot on me. I guess a bunch of, how does it work for tour selection? I assume and a lot of it's foreign base, but I think there's obviously quite a bit of its political within the team as well. I mean, Matthew has to go. Well, is he? How much right is he gonna be doing? The team revolves mainly around Matthew. Like they're gonna need to try and get a yellow jersey with Matthew again. So he has to go. I think even regardless of his form, to be honest, you've got to also balance, well, Mili is one of the fastest guys in the world. And Yasba could win the green jersey. So you got to bring the lead out squad. You got to bring the lead out squad. And I don't fit into that squad at the moment. So. Yeah, it's interesting to tell Sitter about his changing role within the Peloton, his interest. And he's like, you can't be for him. You know, he was a time trialist and people seeing himself, seeing him as a time trialist. But he's like, you can't be a time trialist who doesn't win time trials. Like, he's like, I can't beat FIFA Gama. He's like, he's doing 490 watts in the middle of the world for 20 minutes. He's like, I can't do that. He's like, I'm here for five minutes. He's like, I can't do it for 20. So he's like, if people see me as a time trialist who's going to come turn four, fifth, sixth in a time trial, I'm not going to have a contract. I'm not going to have a job. So he's redefining himself and saying, actually, what I do is I can time trial a little bit, but I'm the sprint lead out guy, you know, between me and Rick Zabel, we're going to lead out Nuzolo and XE's. That's my job. I'm part of this squad. Is there a sense for you that unless you can develop to be the top, I suppose for you, you're so early and you don't know where the ceiling is.
Maybe you're one of the best climbers in the world, you know, XE's and the season after. Is there a sense that if you don't establish yourself as one of the really top climbers, that you need to find that role and say, OK, I'm a climber domestic, I'm a whatever that role is? I would like to hope that I've done more years in myself to sort of develop and work out what I'm doing. But I mean, there are roles outside of being the winner on the team. I mean, look at Raphite Mica. He's redeveloped himself on UAE as Quagocheres' right-hand man. unlike sprinters that sort of if they lose their sprint and they can't win bike races, there's no path forward on. Like, and it's a very special sprinter that can become a lead out man. There's lots of different positions for myself to sort of slot into, but I'm hoping I can do some winning this year, hopefully. It's almost a branding issue as well, isn't it, Jat and Todel said on it, where it's how people view him. He's like, I've always been part of the lead out trying, but it's now just actually telling people this is what I do. So when it comes time to think about putting together a sprint squad, he's forced them for almost. It's like, almost where marketing and cycling meet. It's interesting the changing role in cycling. Well, being in football, for example, you've got stats on this, like, who's got the most assists and all that, like even cricket for crying out loud. If the wicked is taken by catch, it's got caught, and they've also got the baller, like, sorry, who caught it, but the bowler got the wicket, you know. They even give props to people who are good wicket keepers and stuff like that, cycling, it's the person on the page who won the bike race, nothing else matters. That's really hard for teams, unless they have their eyeballs on everything to see that. And then all the different levels of cycling to try and pick out a continental rider that's a really good lead out guy, must be borderline possible. What I'm hearing is we need the money balls, Eichlen. Yeah. It needs to be more stats driven, but it would be cool to see a stash of how many kilometers you rode on the front position in guys last season. And contrast that with, you know, David Formula, how many kilometers did he do positioning riders into climbs. It doesn't seem like these stats are that difficult to get, but there's just not a mind to get them at the moment. even doing like a number of, you know, like more cold, more cold stack of the amount of races he's ridden with a sprinter and has had the team member win the bike race. There's got to be a high percentage of races last year that he rode where they won. I don't know how some Bennett makes that move from Quickstep to Bora when opening in Markoff with him. It seems insane. He's left something slightly behind there. Yeah, 100%. Like it's not coincidence that Calvin is slotted into that one more cough and he's the fastest man in the world. And Jakob soon is fast. Like he hasn't lost any of his speed. So next year's Tour de France could be very, very special. But I almost feel like the Giro could be more exciting because there's more sprint stages at the Giro. Yeah, and there's all those going to be gone there with Israel as well, which is going to be interesting, Italian, all that flair. I think it's going to be an interesting match up. There's so many interesting match ups coming into next season. But what are you most looking forward to next year? I've been so excited ever since November 1, when I started writing again, the start of racing. And I'm off to Bessage next Tuesday. So my mother is in town, she's flown from Australia. So I got a surprise call up to this first race. And my first second race, third race, third race in France, and they're going to come actually watch me. My mother's never seen me race at UCI race. That's amazing. So she gets to do that. My schedule will be a lot more than just four bike races. They didn't race you a lot last year. No, they didn't. But they're very happy with what they saw at the Volta. They are very excited to back me in winning races. winning races. Tour de Turkey still up there as one of the most exciting moments of the season. Oh, hands down. Like two are Turkey. Even though stage 14, third place is a better result. The stage where I attacked with Bardet and Chaconic. Is this the one you got 10 to 11th on the stage? Or is this a different one? No, this was a different one.