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Mitchelton Scott Director Matt White talks about what it's like to run one of the most successful teams in cycling.
The difficulty with the tv rights, attracting sponsors and doping in sport.
Matt reflects on his time as a team mate with Lance Armstrong, holding the leaders jersey in a grand tour and even getting a bus stuck under the finish line.
Matt White - a Cycling man!
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So I don't think one cycling or professional sport is 100% clean. You're always going to have individuals who are going to take risks. But the risks now, you might not get caught now, but with the biological passport, with the way that teams approach things, with the team, dokway team doctors approach things. And you'll eventually get caught. And you might not go to court this week or next month, but you can get caught down the track. And I think that's a big deterrent. The big question is this, how do we use cycling as a tool to improve our health, our happiness, and our long-chevages? That is the question on this podcast will give you the answers. My name is Anthony Walsh and welcome to the Roadman Podcast. Hello, low man. Welcome back to another Roadman Podcast. I love my little intimate chat with you guys once a week. Got a super special show, getting a little bit cliche at this stage, I keep saying that but I really do feel humble every week to talk to these guests. Today's guest is Matt White. Matt White may be a name that you're familiar with from cycling back in the day, the Lance Armstrong era. Matt White was a rider at US post-up but he really sprung to my attention as probably the most notable and famed director sporty. The guys who pull the strings behind the scenes in a pro cycling team. Matt is director sporty for Michelton Scott and he's heralded and steered the ship towards some of the biggest wins in cycling. I love Matt because he wears his heart on his sleeve, he's opinionated, he's brash at times but he's always honest and entertaining. Matt recently sprung into our consciousness with the massive success that has been backstage pass. It's a little intimate look behind the scenes at the workings of a pro-torso-eclintame. So on the backstage pass team, I'm bringing you behind the scenes again for this little intimate firesoy chat with Matt. Before I jump into this, I want to just thank you for your support to date on our Patreon account. Our Patreon account is the lifeblood of this podcast. If you're listening to the podcast right now, it's cause of the generosity of your peers on Patreon. Head on over to patreon.com forward slash Anthony underscore waltz. Patreon is my little tip jar. It's a way for you to buy me a coffee and say thank you very much for facilitating this podcast that I'm listening to every week. For you, it might seem like a small little gesture, But for me and for this podcast, it's the lifeblood that keeps us going forward, the keeps building, the keeps compound and the positive momentum from positive momentum. So I really, really do appreciate your support over there on Patreon. So I'm going to leave the link to that Patreon in the description down below. And if you get a chance, please tip on over and buy me a coffee. And you know what? It's a tough time during COVID and if you can't afford to buy me a coffee, that's all right as well. Keep listening. Absolutely. no strings attached free of charge. The second way, if you're so mind that you can support this podcast is buying some of our exclusive roadman merch. The roadman merch we launched last week and it's been a massive success so far. So I thank you very much for the support on that. I'm going to leave the link in the description for the roadman merch store down below as well. We've everything from jerseys, shorts, chilets, jackets, to t-shirts, hoodies and caps. Pretty cool. Pink and navy design on most of the kit. I'll tell you a short story about where the design came from. I was in 2013, I was riding for my trade team at the time, a Stellis Oncology. I was in Toronto and I was in a coffee shop and I was like a walking billboard, sponsors all over me from a pharmaceutical company. I felt a little bit self-conquetry conscious and I was trying to hide it and I was meeting a buddy and he was a retired world horror writer and he rocked in and he was wearing real simple, real clean, no branded stuff. He was wearing a pair of navy shorts and a pink jersey and at that moment I just heard. I'm not sure if it was the juxtaposition of his tan legs and arms against the pink or what it was but at that moment I was just like that's the color scheme I want. When I finally get my own jerseys. That's the color scheme I want. And Roadman is the realization of that dream. So guys, thank you for listening to my rambling here and without pushing this off any further, I'm going to jump on in into this intimate conversation with one of the funny guys in the Peloton. Matt White. Matt White, you're welcome to the Roadman podcast. Yeah, thanks for having me with me. Good, good. Nice to chat. I know I've had a couple of your I don't know if their friends or colleagues or if you draw a distinction at your team. I have a couple of your friends on the podcast recently. I had Chris Hill Jenson and Scott Morphy. Yeah, yeah. Friends and colleagues about them actually in very different ways, but good night's about. No, I messaged both the lads last night and Scott was one who hooked up this and I messaged to see what I'm last night as messaging you and it's like, right, I have Matt White on the podcast tomorrow. Give me a bit of dirt on him. He's like, I'm not saying a fucking thing. I said Scott, the same message. And he's like, I'm not saying a word. So either you're the cleanest man is forced and there's no dirt on you or you just wield this acts of terror over the last. Well, the dirt has already been ditched a while ago, but I'm a member of N He's basically an Irish lad. But he is just an Irish lad. Yeah, it's an interesting story with Chris growing up. Both his parents working in Ireland and I think he was there. He was at 12 or 13 years of age. And then he moved back to Denmark. He both parents are Danish and has lived in Denmark ever since. But he certainly hasn't lost his accent, that's for sure. He must be good for one around the same. He is. He's one of those guys that I love having with me. with me, wherever, wherever race we are. He's such an all-rounder and I really know what I can get out of him and he's one of those guys. Look, I see a lot of him in myself as a writer as well, it's no matter how bad things get, never had a good things get, he's the same guy and that's a great attitude and it's a great energy to have around a team because she goes wrong in races. She doesn't always, as you'd like it to and more people that around the better it is and the more enjoyable the environment is.
He seems to be settling into that role as a domestic and find it himself. He was even talking about how he said in the Tour de France, he just got his role online and he can't have the same crack, that it just wastes energy. Yeah, I think Chris loved that the hard way. The first two of the France came on with us. We had Dan Jones making these backstage passes every day and Chris, basically Dan saw Chris as walking content. He wouldn't have to tweak too much, and Chris was so up and about. It was his first tour of France, and he knew he'd be on the videos every day. I can see the novelty was going to wear off this pretty thin with some of the guys, especially in the second half of the tour. Because everyone handles pressure differently, and there's some pretty intense guys in the team. And it came to blows, blows, but it came to a head in the back end of the tour and we sat down with Chris and spoke to him about it and said, look, we love the energy and everything, but in certain environments you've really got to think more of others than yourself. And hats off to Chris, he took that advice away and came back a different guy the next year and I said, he's one of the most reliable guys in my team and I love working with him no matter where it is in any calendar in any race. Was a piss on riders off in the back half of the race? Yes, yes, especially Miss Matthew Hayman. It was his, I think Matt's first Tour de France at the ripe old age, about 36, 37. And Matt's a pretty intense guy. And he was our road captain at the time. And yeah, they're butted heads. And Chris was so up and about. Matt's so serious. And the two in the third week of the Tour just didn't mesh so well. worked it out and I said Chris took that advice away and came back and has been always been a pleasure to work with but he's learned from his mistakes. Chris didn't want to borrow you at any stories do you feel like borrowing and Chris with any stories? No, it's nothing to burn and that's for sure. I said he's a bundle of energy, he's a bundle of humor, he does a great impersonation and he's a guy that I said he's a guy I love working with and He's really grown and matured on this team. And the fingers crossed we can get back to racing in August. And Chris has scheduled to ride the Tour de France wherever that may fall. And looking forward to hitting the road with him again soon. Could be like a four-day Tour de France just around your own or something? Well, who knows? Who knows? I still can't get my head around how they're going to get bike racing up and away safely in this environment. But Tom will tell. Let's talk about Backstage Pass a little bit because at the moment you're just not flavoured in the month here in my house because my girlfriend had to watch Backstage Pass, you're on breakfast this morning in preparation for this interview. But afterwards she was just going out the door and she was saying to me like she loves Backstage Pass, she's a cycling fan but not a hard-core cycling fan, you know she'll watch it in the background because I'm watching it. But it's amazing how accessible Backstage Pass made cycling to the non-hardcore fans. Yeah, definitely. The key there is having the right guy behind the camera. Now, it started off with Dan Jones for the first five or six years. And he was the quintessential bachelor. So he was a guy in his late 20s. The first year he came overseas, he actually didn't have a residence. He was going from race to home. He was a hobo. He was a soccer hobo. He was I was going from race to race, in between race, he'd pop in a riders house for a week, he'd go back to the service course, do his washing, five days he'd bum around there, then go to another race, and he did that for like nine months, the first year. The second year I think he got an apartment eventually, didn't spend too much time in it, but he was one of the boys, because at that age as well, he was that sort of in the media sort of age of the riders, and a larrick and of a guy, and what it did is, basically it desensitized a lot of our guys to the media. And having a funny guy who was one of the boys with a camera in his face, after a while it really did desensitize them. And so when they got off the bus and were talking to other media, they actually had relaxed a lot and it was basically free media training for us. And what it did is because everyone trusted Dan, now people do say and do some pretty stupid things during an all day. And Dan had caught a lot of that on video, But everyone knew that Dan was never going to burn you. There was a fine line between burning and comedy, but Dan had the trust in the boys and myself as well. So when you've got someone behind the camera who you let, he had access to everywhere, every meeting, every debrief, everywhere he could go, wherever he wanted, and when people were relaxed, that's who they are. And look, I think the concept wouldn't work on the vast majority of teens. And by the time, and you got gone here, It was pretty seamless. It was pretty seamless. And Flange, he's the new guy from Northern England. He's a very similar personality to Jansi, and he's just carried on with some great work. Me and Chris were talking about this the other day, and I kind of got into this, the art of storytelling, and I'm trying to study it a bit as a new year resolution this year. But one of the things in storytelling is, we need to care about the hero and our story, whatever movie it is in Hollywood, they call it a saved katsy where they set up the hero to start and he does something like you know save a cat out of a tree. So now we care about his journey, we care about if he gets killed at the end of the movie. Like did you ever watch a movie in the hero go through and get killed at the end and you're like I don't give a fuck did you get killed? Well backstage pass done was it gave us that connection with you lads. Like the example I gave Chris was like obviously I'm an Irishman, a proud Irishman, Nicholas Roach is in the break on Bastille Day with Daryl Impy and I've watched so much backstage I'm cheering for Tara Limvey. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And like what a connection. How like does no other team that's built this connection?
And so I see brought the world to our cycle. And I want to end the spectrum. It's you, lads who've built this crazy connection with the fans, with the audience, with ultimately your punters who are going to be going out and buying Scott Boyks and things like that. And then any of us on the other end who are like fucking robots who you know, you couldn't care if they live or die. Just they're like, they're like robot up on a bike. There's no connection at all there. Yeah, look, the cold concept was really encouraged by our own, Jerry Ryan, and basically, then he's been involved in entertainment and made a lot of money throughout entertainment over the years. And basically, cycling was part of the entertainment business, and cycling was a genre. And he really encouraged that. And when your boss is encouraging it and I feel comfortable doing it as well, then the brightest were comfortable. It really blossomed. It sounded pretty special. But I think anyone to watch a bike race, and what people really like is to see that behind the scene that who we were, and there's nothing put on for the cameras. And the store for the car is brilliant. Like, you celebrate when carols, women, the Asians and Ram on stuff like brilliant. Yeah. And there's a lot of stuff that they couldn't show. There's enough footage to make a mini-series, put it that way. The amount of hours that Dan Jones shot in that first six years is incredible. It shows the highs, the lows, the ups and downs, everything. I think people like that. People really, they miss having a real connection with their sporting idols. Is there any standout moments in terms of comedy and the boss getting stuck in the stage finishes pretty funny? It's funny looking back on it. It certainly wasn't funny at the time. Talk is true, Doc, because some people might even know what we're talking about. Yeah, so it was our second Tour de France, we're in Corsica, stage one, one or two of the Tour de France, stage two. So it's two of the Tour de France. And so what happens is the buses go from the start to the finish. This day we had our hotel 400 metres from the finish line. So we instead of moving the bus to the finish line, what we wanted to do is to get the guys out of there straight away, we said, we'll put the bus at the hotel. So as soon as I cross the finish line, one of the massage service would direct them big old boys up the hill on the right hand side, that's our hotel. Straight up there, they can start their recovery process, cold showers, massage, you name it, straight away. Instead of, if they go to the bus, they get on the bus, they have a shower, they talk to the meter, they blah, blah, blah, and you've wasted an hour before you know it. Anyway, the race is away and all the buses go in convoy and our bus went up to the hotel and then now owner was at the finish and our owner very proud of the bus there it's our second tour of France and our owner said to the general manager where's the bus by the way and he didn't realise where it was so we got a phone call to our second director not in the car with me, Neil I said, where's the bus? And we said, oh, what we're playing was to send to the hotel today and Radi Rha. And Shane, General Man, he said, look, Jerry, the owner, we really like the bus at the finish. So I'm totally unaware of the assignment car, wanted to call in the shots for the race there. And so Neil got on the phone, picked up the phone to the bus driver and said, Gary, where are you? And so I'm at the hotel mate, the psycho asked. He said, look, Jerry really wants the bus at the finish line. Come, try your hardest to get down to finish and if you can it would be really appreciated. So anyway anyone who's been to the Tour de France knows that you can't move at the Tour de France unless you have the proper accreditation and the amount of police and security and people from the race stopping and letting people go and controlling the traffic movement is incredible. So Gary had to do about three kilometres to go 400 metres to go because you've got to enter all these entries and exits in a certain way. It's called the PPO. And so Gary's found his way into the PPO and all the other teams are already being in 15 minutes at that time. So unaware to him or the person who led him into that final entry that there's a gantry on the finish line. Now once the gantry is raised to let the 25 buses in, once all the buses are in, they lower the gantry for the finish. And so there was no communication between the people at the gantry and the people in the last security checks. So Gary our bus driver's been waved through to the finish. So he's got one kilometer to go down the last kilometer to the race and he gets to the finish line. He wasn't going super fast but Gary was unaware there's any leverage with a gantry either. Roles across the finish line crunch. He wedges the bus into the gantry. Anyway all hill all the bikes loose, the buses wedge there, they can't get the bus out, there's around about 25 kilometres to go from the race. Anyway, about five minutes later we're here on the radio because unaware to us they couldn't move this bus. Anyway, on the radio, my friends is average to say to Lee, it's okay when you talk about cycling, I certainly don't speak French. On the race radio, we'll first come along, listen, so we have a race in a car, official race radio, and then we have another one where we talk to the riders. Does the communique come across in French? Pardon? Does the communique come across in French on the race radio? It does come across in French and then sometimes they are repeated in other languages depending on how interested the guy is to speak other languages. So it come across in French, due to one of the team buses being stuck at the finish line, We are now moving the finish line to 3km to go. I looked at the guy who was next to me and Lorenzo, he's a Belgian, he speaks perfect French. I said, did I heat correctly? And he said, yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyway, then I got a phone call from Neil and I was like, yeah, that's our bus. And I just remember going, oh, what the hell? What has happened here? And anyway, this is like 20km to go. 20 minutes to go. And they've moved the finish line. I looked in the book, three kilometers to go, or 2.5 kilometers to go. It was a roundabout. But why they chose three kilometers to go is there's a timing device at three kilometers.
And so there's nothing else in between 3K and 1K to go that they could have got accurate timing. But it was a slight corner on to a roundabout. Now we're gonna call that the finish line. Anyway, so I got on the radio, told the guys, and then I've got a couple of guys, and I said, I said, I said, yeah, the guys, I didn't get going to the details. it's been a problem at the finish line. The finish line is now 3k to go. Let's focus on that. We had a Sprintermatte goss. This is everything reset our markers and the 3k to go is the finish line. Meanwhile, they worked out. They let the bus that aired the tires out of the bus, so the air out of the tires of the bus, they moved the bus back, parked at 150 meters off the road, then came on the radio and said, we have cleared the bus and this was like 10 minutes to go before we got there. The finish goes back to the original finish line. Anyway, so I repeated that on the radio to the guys, the guys copied, and off we went. Anyway, we got to the finish. It was the biggest story of the Tour de France for a long time. There was meteor outlets who were showing meteor outlets who don't usually talk about cycling, had pictures of our bus like the Washington Post that our bus wedged under the finish line, you know? I think it was the front page of the paper over here. Oh, we got, because Vitell, the water sponsor, and their advertising is on the banner. And we got emails like that night from Vitell thanking us. Oh, wait, did you get fined for it? We did. We got fined, it was a token fine, because at the end of the day, the organizer didn't model lose face because they at the end of the day it was their problem because they they let our bus driver go in there. I heard of the bus driver. It was one of those slap on the response it was a thousand dollars or something like that but they came and apologized to us the next day and looking at the end of the day our bus driver was incredible it cools a cucumber and got the bus off the reverse the bus 200 metres against and parked it off the side of the road and carried on. Could have been worse. We had the Irish team, Akoblu, which tried to sip up the powder for a while and over in the Vuelta España, they got their boss born out. Do you remember that? I do. It's not put a fine mattress underneath it. Yeah. The story goes now. Not sure how true it was that some dudes, local mafia dudes, came around looking for protection money or something the night before and they refused to pay it. And fucking next morning, they wake up to a smolder and boss. Not sure what it's true. Look, that's probably a pretty credible story because I've been in that same situation in the south of Italy where, you know, in local gangsters or mafia, whatever you want to call them, have offered us the same. And I paid them. I didn't get a receipt, but I paid them because, you know, you don't want to mess with people like that in the south of Italy. And Sicily and Regioh, Clabbier and those sort of places where people will come and say, at least it's not going to look after your bus for 50. And look, it's worth the money. So that's a pretty credible for a story. Yeah, what was Aquablu? How were they received in the bunch when they did try and commend? Yeah, look, it's another continental team that were trying to do their best to move up in the rankings. And that's in great results over that, I think, it was a two-year period. Well, they had Dennifel who won the Vuelta stage, but subsequently got taken off from now for the open stuff, of course. Sorry, we're the best one in the American Championships and also who are stationed in Switzerland would be the biggest one which is pretty handy wins. Yeah, no, as an Irish fan, I'm so excited to see them fall on the part in such dramatic style. Yeah, look, it's a shame. It's professional cycling. It's not a cheap sport to get into. It's probably a quantity of things that obviously a lot less budget than ours. But at the end of the day, the business model in cycling is one where you are totally reliant on sponsorship and it's hard to reinvent the wheel. What do you think about the business model in Thailand at the moment? Is it a sustainable business model or is it you looking for almost philanthropy or charity from the sponsors? Yeah, it's not a good business model. We're getting, especially from the biggest races of the year, we're getting absolutely no television revenue. So sponsor walks, you can't replace them, the team ends. So look, I'd hate to say it, but I think we're going to struggle to get all 18 well to a team through these crosses we're experiencing at the moment. That'll be a real shame, because there's teams always on the edge, but I think the coronavirus, it's touching everyone around the world in different ways in business. And yeah, I hope I'm proved wrong, but I think we'll be lucky to have all the right teams around in 2021. Which mines a small culture business, but we're big on digital advertising. But for me, I'll track through every euro. So if I spend a thousand euro on Facebook advertising, I want to know on the back end that that thousand euro expenditure is making me more than a thousand euro. It just seems like the model doesn't do that well enough. You're just not enough ROI. That's why I love Backstage Pass for its entertainment. But also for its attempt to change this model and give a little bit extra value to the sponsors. Yeah, look, the weird thing is, is you've got sponsors that are coming into our sport and that they're loving it. You've got teams like Sunweb and those guys, are spent signing a definite contract. The teams are getting their money's worth back, but the thing is, that's all temporary. Most sponsorships aren't going to last more than six or seven years. They come in, they advertise, they get out. Whereas if we had a percentage of our revenue was from television, if you have a lean year or a year where you can't attract a sponsor to the same sort of money, you've got something to fall back on. There's nothing to fall back on in World Tour Softline. What's going on with television revenue? Is there a dialogue open around getting the share of that television revenue? Not really. So the people who run the biggest races of the year and they're happy making that money. I'm sure they are. Tell us this. The backstage pass anytime I've been in the team car, even going back for bottles and races and stuff, the car looks like it's grey crack.
But what's the banter like between the directors. Is there a rivalry? Do you have certain people you trust within that? Yeah, I'll tell you one thing, it's changed the hell of a lot since I changed from a writer to a director. So this is my 12th year as a sports director. So when I started, I was 33, 34 back in 2008. And I was the youngest sports director by at least 10 years. So, And the reason I retired, it was a great opportunity for me, is back then, your cycling was still very, very Western European, and French employed French Italians, employed Italians, Belgium, and employed Belgians. And I didn't really see an opportunity. Did I think of a career as a sports director? Because there was no chances back in the early 2000s. And when I got this opportunity, I jumped at it. And I think a lot of the sports directors, who, there's a few still around, me as this young, Aussie kid, you know, just left the pro ranks and didn't really cut me too much respect there the first year or two. Some of them were pretty stuck up and I remember who they are now because they're some of them are still around. And yeah, it took a little bit of time to break down those barriers. What's that lack of respect look like? Is that like aggression in the Cavalcade or is just generally being a take in the car park? Yeah, just, they thought their shit didn't stink. And I'd make an effort to say hello. And it was sort of like, yeah, who are you sort of thing? And sort of things have changed now. But at that time, that older generation, 10 to 15 years older than me, those guys all raced against each other. And they carried grudges. And they carried grudges into the racing still. So that one team would try to steer stiff another team because that directed in life. that director. Oh, it was terrible. And the one positive today, I had nothing to do with that. I never raced those guys that too old. I didn't have that same, I didn't have any enemies when I came in. I didn't have too many friends, but I didn't have too many enemies either. And what's changed is that there's a lot, there's a lot, there's a new generation of sports directors in there now. And I think the respect that we have for each other, there's a lot more banter, there's a lot more, we all respect each other, we're competing against each other. But before, back in the day, there were teams with each other, because then there were six Italian teams, there were six or seven French teams, and there were teams that were well clicked and other teams that hated each other. That doesn't exist anymore. That really doesn't exist. Now it's great. But the environment now, it's a lot more enjoyable to work in. And obviously now, being in the game 12 years, a lot of those older guys who I'd started with the move on to managers all there, they're out of the sport now anyway. But do you start seeing that validation or respect from those lads when you go with girl and you win a son, Ramo? Or you win a Lièche? Yeah, my first three years was with Garmin. So yeah, my first quarter fast war fourth with Christian Vanderbilt. The second year or fourth began with Brad Wigens. So, well, we won stages in the first year I ever went to with Garmin. We won the teams to on trial day one. So I think respect comes with sustainability and I think from the outside if people say a team that's successful throughout the year and they're doing things right, they're doing things in a certain way and the way that people raise an ounce, that's what respect is. So obviously then when I moved on to this team we've had a lot of success straightaway as well. We are winning my son, Remo and some big classics and monuments along the way I've already sort of been established for four years, but I'm going to to Greenwich. We interrupt the schedule broadcast to bring you this brief public service announcement. Yes, if you're a regular listener, you know what this is. This is the time in the show where we take our little collective exhalation, where if your order should go and stick the kettle on and you make your 11th cup of tea today, and we just take that brief little pause, brief little interlude. And it's my opportunity to remind you to head on over to patreon.com forward slash Anthony under skull watch. That is the tip jar for this podcast. That is where you can buy me a coffee, buy me a beer and say you know what skin you're a good lad. I'm enjoying listening to Matt White and his crazy ramblands. I'd be willing to buy you a coffee for facilitating this. That's your place you can do it. might seem trivial to you, but for me, for this podcast, it keeps us rolling, it keeps the show on the road week after week. With every donation, we're getting that little bit closer to break even on the podcast and being able to keep this a sustainable model that I can keep bringing you these podcasts where I can keep facilitating these little... What I like to think are very unique chats because I don't know anyone else doing this sort of stuff at the moment. So it's much appreciated. It's Anthony. Sorry, it's Patreon. Confuse myself at patreon.com forward slash Anthony Wunderskorwaltz. Save the confusion. The link is in the description down below. Now let's get back to my ass. You touched on Team Tantra with Garmin. Is that something you're carrying? Does that focus on Team Tantra? Does that come from you? because obviously I'm sitting here at the moment in lockdown mode in Dublin. You guys in 2014 Team Time Trial in Belfast, Spentoft takes the jersey, but you went into that race as favourites if I remember or if not favourites up there, we'll quick step for it. Yeah, yeah, no, it's definitely the way I like to build a team is the team's time trial type rider, They're pretty valuable and we had our winners and I used to love the team's time trolls when I was an athlete and we were lucky that a lot of the Australians. Who we picked up early in the creation of this team could do a team's time troll so that was we already had a bunch of great team's time trolls and I think that what makes a great team's time troll is most of those guys specially the strains. They all rode at a national level, world level on the track. So most of the, you know, Brent Lancaster, Sturo, Grady, Cameron, Moire, that as well as rural Olympic medalist, the world champions in the teams pursuit. If you can ride a teams pursuit at that level, you're certainly going to ride a good teams farm trial. So we had a ready-built team and, you know, so we went after, you know, winning the 2013 Tour of France teams farm trial, 14, 15, Giro teams farm trial.
We've had some great wins and it certainly has set us up well. How do you decide coming in the road that Sven is for Smannacross the line in 2014 to take the jersey? Yeah, so with him, I didn't realise that the time, but it actually was his birthday. But I, he had been an integral part of the wins we'd had. We'd already had him at five teams on throw wins in that year and a half of the team already. And we'd only won nearly every team on throw. We started. And it's one of those things where I just, Spain epitomizes what we, the ethos of this team. I didn't know it was his birthday and so we've done all the recon. We've gone through all the phases of how we're going to pick apart this team's time travel and the last meeting we had I just said at the end and once we get to the line I want Spain to cross the finish line first. No one said anything. Before we went. So basically it's then Spain's responsibility to get his ass across the finish line first. What it did, it upset even Santa Marita. So he was, and he didn't say anything at the time, Spine was Italian that he is. He was Italian national champion at the time. And he expected us to let him cross the finish line first because he's Italian. And so that would be great for him to take the Meijerosa. And I was like, well, he's saying it to me at the time, but he complained about it to the media. And it didn't go down well, I tell you that. And here's a guy who we had him sitting on in that team's all the way past the castle and around. He did two turns. And he got, he did two turns. He did one turn on the way back in up this little climb I remember and we had to call him in because he nearly got tailed off. So all the boys were really happy to see Spain in the jersey and obviously it was a bad advantage that it was his birthday. But I remember team time trials was writing for a French amateur team, a division national team. And they just couldn't get the concept of team time trials. but it's something that's, I think, foreign to Italians in the French. You'd be riding along steady, and then it comes to a drag, and they hit it at 750 watts, and then they're freewheeling, and they're down hill, and freewheeling back on the straight, and then I'm walking it again on the drag. You always just seem so well drilled. Yeah, it is. And the bonus there is a lot of the guys did live in drone, so we could have sort of unannounced planned team stomp-roll training, just as part of their weekly routine. So our guys did prep a lot, spend a lot of time together and having a core group of guys riding a lot of Team Stomp Trolls and it comes back to that Team Stomp Trolls experience. They know how to ride a wheel. They know the secret of Team Stomp Trolls is that constant speed and no surges. So we're a pretty confident unit going into Team Stomp Troll that we raced. You hit the ground run on that year because didn't bling take the jersey off-span two days later or a day later? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, yeah, we did. Well, the first road when we had ever in Europe was at Serrano, Otradico in the team style trial. That was the year before in 2012. But yeah, that year, yeah, yeah, Blink took it off Spain and then the year after, we had treated, we won in San Remo the team style trial and we passed it on between three different guys, nearly a fourth one. It went from Simon Garens to Marco Matthews, Marco Matthews to Simon Clark and Esteban Chavez just missed it by five seconds on the first two o'clock finish. As an Irish person now, I need to ask you this question. This needs to be truthful. Liège, DeYere, Garren's wanna... Yep. Wodan Martner Wodner, if you didn't crash. Highly likely. Yeah, I think he had it. I think he was like a Kyle Spring, he was poised. Yeah, yeah, the highly likely. Look, he's coming to the wrong angle while he looks at it and he's clicked his pedal Well, it looks, I think people are saying there's something on the ground, but it looked like he's coming at the wrong angle and could be pedal, but it would have been hard. It all depends on the reaction of Valverde. Valverde could have chased him to the line if there was any type of hesitation or gap then it would have been his. Yeah, it was a bit of a, it looked like a little bit of a junior mistake from Don Martin-Peddlin with the pedal down through the corner. Yeah, it looked like it anyway. Somebody just talked about the restrictions around Tour de France. What is the difference in the grand tours? Because looking on TV, they're just three grand tours. But when you chat to you, like everyone's like, oh, the tour is just bigger. But no one really ever says, what does that mean? It's just bigger. Yes, everything you do at the Tour de France is amplified because everywhere you go, there is people. So the media, the Giro, there might be 30 media following the race around, global media, 30 channels from different countries. The Twitter front there might be 200. The sign on there is the Finnish area, the hotels, there's just people everywhere. So it can feel like a fishbowl. And then for the riders, just the white noise is there all the time. There's very few times in a stage where they're on country roads and no crowds. So there's a lot of white noise happening for those guys. And then the guys Those who, some guys do struggle, I've seen some guys really struggle to adapt to the tour, and other guys, they thrive off it. They really thrive off the white noise, that extra pressure, that attention. So it's just everything you do with other big races, it's just everything's exemplified by people around you from breakfast till dinner. Yates is obviously one of Welter. Do you think if you can win the Welter, you can win the tour, or is there different characteristics? Yeah, very different, very different. I think if you look at the last 25 years, a small guy hasn't won the Tour de France for a reason. And that's because usually, this year probably an exception, that usually the Tour de France is usually won and lost from someone's time-trying ability. The main factor, we did have Contador. Yeah, I don't, Contador is not a small guy, he's 177 centimeter, he's not a small guy, he might be skinny, but he's certainly not small. You know, you can tarnish in the 160s, the 162, 162. Condor was 10 centimetres tall in him. And he could time trial pretty handily as well. And you're going back to, you know, you have to go back to Pantani.
Pantani wasn't short either. He was, he wasn't a midget, like some of the comments you got at the time. But at the end of the day, the Giro is the hardest of the grant to us. There's nothing like the Giro, the steepness of the climbs, the length of the climbs, the altitude and the Walter is a very different race as well. The Walter is a lot punchier, shorter stages, it's very different racing in Spanish summer than it is racing in spring. They're very different styles of racing and the Walter, because the tour, it goes left or right, the Alps is the Pyrenees, it's flat stages, whereas the Guelty, it's just all over the place. You could have two flat stages and have a mountain stage on stage three. All there's these random stages in the middle of nowhere that could dish up a crosswind. Whereas the tour, usually the first week stress will usually the second week is one range, usually the third week is another range, or four. The Giro, it's a little bit more up and down early, but always the last week is very mountainous heavy. So there's a little bit of predictability with those rates. Those two, but the water's just all over the place. One end of Spain to the other also can be, the south Spain is guaranteed stinking weather in that time of year. Whereas you can go in the bus country or Galicia year and somewhere it can be quite fresh or cool. So that's the difference. It's just a very random race. I think the guys in our team, we have the ability to win the Tour de France. I think Simon and adding that it's had the characteristics. They're not midgets, they're not big guys, but they're pretty handy time-trollers. But what the difference now is that some of our best climbers now a world-class time trial. So you've got to be able to take time on Dumeland on Rogerley, on Froome on those sort of guys, because at the end they can time trial bed, so that's always going to make it hard. So what's that look like the interaction between you and say the coach for the Yates is where you're trying to say to them, like obviously the boys can time trial. When I say they're poor time trialists, I mean relative to a rug, they're still going to, you know, fucking give me a pretty bad bait for the time of the muyler. What's that interaction look like? Are you saying to the coach, look, we really, really need to niche down and focus on the boys TT because they need them for the tour? Yeah, look, it's been a gradual process where both the Aids can do a pretty handy sort of short to middle range time trial. From five to 15k, they're pretty handy. They've also punched out some not bad, you know, I think when Simon was in the leaders jersey in the jury, he lost one minute 20 and a 33k. 33k time troll to Dimmelan. So it's, and I think, yeah, and O'Donaland and Rowan Dennis, those sort of guys. So there, when you can finish top 20 in the time troll, you're going to ride. And it's something that I have to continually work on. And that has involved multiple trips to the wind tunnel. That's involved making special carbon handlebars that are molded to their body shape. It's an ongoing process because then they, any stage race you want to win, there's not too many saideraces in the world that don't have a time trial, so you've got to be pretty competitive. And Roglich is looking pretty formidable in that combination of climbing and Antiti. Yeah, look, I see him as the favourite for the Tour de France if we can pull it off this year, definitely. The only thing we all say with Rogslic, if you look at his statistics as well, is he time trials very, very good when he's fresh, but he's had some shockers when he's tired. So the Tour de France is stage 20 and if you look at last year's Giro when he was third, he had a pretty average last day TT, the year before when he was in a place to take a podium spot in the Tour de France. He had a time trial where he lost more than a minute to the likes of Rott to G and Froome and Dumans. Some guys like him, time trial, very good when they're fresh and not so good in the third week fatigue time trial. But he is for me as good as, besides you're very specialist. He's an all-round package and the exciting thing about him is he might be 30 years old, but he's only been in the sport six years. So he's a guy that's, our most 30-year-olds that plated out and you know what you get from him. And the scary thing with him is because he comes from a ski jumping background, he's still got room to move and I think you'll see him keep on improving for a couple of years. really what makes himself cool to watch at the moment is he seems a little bit headless. He just hasn't learned the craft as well as the more senior writers his age and it's almost like anything could happen. Maybe he doesn't know his body well, not that he completely explodes on a day or he completely lights up a day. It's just hard to know what the fuck he's going to do. No, he's a buddy of good venture, a little bit of course as well, Oregon. He's an ice man, he doesn't show much emotion, he doesn't show, you know, he's just very, very, very predictable in the way he reacts to things. But yeah, although I think it's a bonus in some ways that he's still pretty great because he's not afraid. He's not afraid of throwing it out there and he's a great writer to watch and now obviously one of our biggest rivals. So how do you go about signing writers and so like, what's the discussion there? Say you want to get a Roger look on the team for next season. How does that happen? Well, it certainly won't happen. I'm more than happy with our leaders, but guys like the big guys don't come on the market that often. So obviously, if you've got big guys. So you take two, two Milan, because he was on the market last year. Yeah, so obviously we weren't looking for a leader. So there was no interest there, but well, he wasn't even on the market. He had a year to go on his contract. So he obviously was keen to to change houses. So obviously, his manager had spoken with some other people and that's how it all started. And obviously, Sunweb and Dumal I had to come to an agreement where they would let him go for a certain amount of money. But what we're looking for is, you know, when I'm building a team for 2021, what have I gotten now? Who have I got locked in for 2021? Who potentially could leave?
What am I looking to bolster? And the big thing at all boils down to this. How much money have I got to spend? You're always looking at developing that next roster of guys coming through and having that next wave. You've got to give guys opportunity. You've got to give guys opportunity to develop and to take leadership. Because if you're alive, very heavy on certain guys, and I think a good example of that at the moment's movie star, they've relied so much on Alejandro Del Verde. They've lost, they've had a huge lost for 2021. They've lost Quintana, they've lost Landa, they've lost Armadour. That's a massive three to lose, massive three to three guys to lose and they've lost Caraput. So there's there's two grand tour winners and Armadour and Landa. That's four, that's four super experienced guys and they're replacing him with Enric Mas. So when you're lying, it's so heavy on one guy which has been for 10 years Valverde, sometimes that does delightful the development of other lives because it's movie star has been the Alejandro Valverde show and he has been so reliable from February to October every year. Like in some of that best stuff that you've ever seen. But very safest investment in the world. If you were to bet on Valverde to come top five and every boy crazy be a rich rich man. You would but the problem at the end of the day he's nearly 40. He's 40 this year. So every career comes to an end and here's his coming to an end sooner rather than later. So is there a, like we hear a lot about the wages that Reuters are getting, but is there a transfer fees? Are you going around and hypothetically you need a leader for next year or so, your three years time at the AIDS Brothers of the SODA to move on? Are you going around on your Whisper into Teams and saying, right, look, I've got X amount of cash to spend? No, no, the transfer of the market doesn't exist. What happened with Dumelan Lashi is a very rare thing. So what you've got to do is you've got to repay that second wave and for us that second wave is Jack Hagen and Lucas Hamilton. So if we lost one of the eights of both the eights I've got two guys there ready to step up. Hopefully we don't because I want to keep Simon and Adam as long as possible they're great guys and great leaders. What makes a good sports director? I think the biggest champions in our sport are probably the worst sport directors because usually if you're winning races with ease you're a big champion. You see things a little different and you've worked at a different level than other guys but I think the best sport directors of the guys are the middle men because what helped me become a sport director is that I raised with some big champions but I could relate to the biggest of champions but also could relate to the young guys who are struggling or try to find their feet in the professional world and you've got to be able to relate and have a connection with you know we've got 20 year old kids and Michael Alvesine he turns 40 so you've got guys from very different generations all racing in the same team and you've got to be able to relate to all of them. I think that's the key in making great sports track then. Do you have a different relationship with an older like Abasani? 100%. I'm someone who raced with Michael and against Michael. I think there is in life, you speak to a 40-year-old, different to a 17-year-old, 20-year-old. That's, you've got to be able to adapt them. I think the oldest sport director struggle with that. I think they struggle with going to the days that I say you do in professional sport. I think it probably still exists in some sports, but I think the great leaders and coaches are the ones who have great buy-in from their athletes or their staff and take them along a journey with them. I think those days, and look, I had a lot when I was a younger athlete, I had these German coaches, I had hardcore, full-on coaches, and I think I learned a lot from them and what not what to do and also some sports directors or some sports directors are out of the past with our jokes really. They were glorified taxi drivers and I think with the technology we've got now we can give the guys a lot of information but I think the key now is not to over to review them. We are talking to a guy who's at threshold under immense stress taking life threatening decisions on the sense you've got to know when to talk and when shut up and it's something that you've always got to work on. You're a uniquely positioned in that you have sat through a big change in a regard in cycling. Does the stories from one generation ago with the younger riders, do they still care about that dirty era or is it just like a cautionary tale of a time gone boy? Yeah, I think that's all it is. And I think, yeah, and I was part of that generation and the young guys now doping or what happened in the past, it is just a story and it had no relevance to those guys. They don't know how bad the sport was because they weren't involved in it. And all I know is what the sport is like now. I think what cycling and I think world sport needs to always realize is, yes, we were in a bad position. Yes, we did get crucified by the media for a reason. For a reason we were in a pretty toxic environment back in the 80s and 90s and even early 2000s. But the sport has evolved, the sport has moved on. One out of survival I think if the sport had to move on it could have ended in a very bad way because there was so much negative publicity around doping. But that has nothing to do with the 23, 24, 25 year old athlete who's turned pro in the last five years. They don't know how bad the sport was but I think it's a reminder that just because the sport is good now, doesn't mean it will always be. The people who were around them, and one of those guys, we always have to keep an eye out. If you've made mistakes in the past, well then you know the seasons and traits of people who are making them in now. I think we can't relax because at the end of the day, doping came around because of human nature. That's people looking to make shortcuts, people looking to make money, peer pressure, whatever it was. And that's always there, but it just goes away and it goes away in different phases. And we've always got to keep an eye on that doesn't come back. As a director, it doesn't happen at all.
You're sitting in the car now, you're watching someone win in a boy craze and you're like, he's fucking one of the dirty ones. There's not many left, but he's one of the dirty ones. How frustrating is that? It doesn't happen anymore. Maybe when I first started as a sports director, there was a couple of dodgy guys. actually I won't mention that, it's got a couple of dodgy guys, those results are being put out in the last year or two. But that was 2008, 2009 and that was sort of, I really think the end of an era where there was, I don't think one cycling or professional sport is 100% clean. You're always going to have individuals who are going to take risks, but they're the risks now. You might not get caught now, but you know, with the biological passport with the way that teams approach things, with the team dockway, team doctors the proceedings and you'll eventually get caught. You might not go to court this week or next month, but you can get caught down the track and I think that's a big deterrent. But I think that those days of guys taking the piss and doing humane things, they're long gone, thank God. Is it a nicer atmosphere around the sport? Oh, it's like night and day. I wouldn't want to be involved in professional cycling in this role as it was when I was racing. I don't know how those directors went to sleep at night time, not knowing what their athletes were doing, not knowing which ones that could wake up in the morning and were taking big risks, who could go positive, who were hiding things. Who knows? There was so much cloak and dagger about the sport back then. I just wouldn't want to be involved in that. It was the same. I tried to Chris R. Maurer last week week. And Christian, we're talking about how there's just such a shit legacy from that open era that when you do have stuff now that's genuine mistakes that no one wants to listen. And he was talking about Darryl Impi taking the Boycar episode and he used these little pellets to help them absorb the Boycar episode, ended up getting popped for it. But nobody cares about that story Because of the legacy of all the shit we went to everyone just goes out fucking noise. Yeah, but I think that's the problem in general with media is sensationalism and negativity sells, whereas no one wants to write that positive story that actually Daryl was acquitted, and the mistake was from the pharmacists. Because that's not a sexy story. But I think that's a problem with the media, and it's even got even worse I think with social media. People, Well, does the media or did journalists actually exist anymore? Anyone with an Instagram account or Twitter account can call himself a journal these days. And although they're part of the media world. And you see, look who's the leader of the United States? The amount of shit that comes out of his mouth and no one checks it or proves it. What hopes the world got? Yeah, we're in a fucking strange place. I was gonna wrap up this one, because you've been, you've written for amazing teams, like them are low, the postal are one of the greatest aims in the history of the sport, and then you know your director's time winning huge races with Carmen. And now, he was the best writer as you've ridden with against or managed. Yeah, look, I think I had a great relationship with Lance and he was a guy that I still have a lot of respect for, not for how he treated people, that's for sure. Because he admits he was a prick. He treated people like shit. Never treated me like shit. But what he did as an athlete, he really did, he really changed the way that people looked at a calendar and how they prepared for things. And he really went away and specifically trained for events. And that, everyone does that now. Whereas before people would just, right, in the generation before me. And then these were guys that were going to paradise with racing with leg warmers on. And just, they were racing 120, 130 days a year and using racing to get better. And there was no science in sport. It was just well, I'll race a bit for a couple of a month here that would ride right be in the form and I'll be informed for this and race to this and That that era changed and Lance led the way there and we all knew that he was working and training has harder harder than anyone and Yeah, when we were I think everyone was afraid to let him down that when you're racing with him when he was Up for wins. He he was a great leader leader of men anyway, and as far as right as I raced with I'm really seeing what Armstrong is not that's been lost in you know fucking Oprah interviews and all the subsequent Armstrong passion. The hard work was real. The joy was real. The preparation was real. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And at the end of the day, who we beat, who the people who beat were doing the same thing. There wasn't a story to go around it. You know, obviously the bigger the story, the higher the bigger the fall. And Jan Orick and all those guys who ran second and third to him over those years of the Armstrong era, none of those guys asked to be crowned as winners of the Tour de France for a reason. And yeah, it doesn't make it right and it certainly doesn't justify anything at all. But they're all doing the same thing. One is just doing a little bit more successful than the others. And it was a pretty tight it before. It was a toxic era and God would have passed it. In your mind, the seven Tour de Franceists that now have no name on them. Is Armstrong the legitimate winner in your eyes? He's certainly not the legitimate winner, but he's the winner. Yeah, I agree. No one beating put it that way. I don't know if you hear these hypothetical strong around if no one was to open or if everyone was to open what the results been different are just impossible to say. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, we can't take back time and that was the situation in those years as terrible as they were. But yeah, he won those Twitter Francis and certainly not legitimately, but nor were a lot of people around him. That's for sure. And it's ready stand out writer that you just low for racing against. Raising against, I had a great relationship with Brad Wiggins. It was only one year in 2009 in Garmin. It was a year where he went from being, you know, it was obviously done what he'd done on the track and had an incredible pedigree there. But I remember, you know, at the Giro in 2009 there, he wrote the first half of the Giro to test how good a GC writer he would become.
The second half of the geo is planned that he just shut it off and go for the last day's time trial, which he lost by one second because he had to finish his time trial in the rain and rain. And I still remember the phone call that I had off him about 10 days before the Tour de France. And he was putting out some pretty incredible numbers in training and he rang me out of courtesy and just said, look, why do I'm going really well at the moment I pulled up from the geo incredible. I was wondering if I could let me write general classification at the Tour de France. And the reason he was asking me is because Christian Vanderbilt had run fourth the year before, and he was our clear leader. And look, I didn't see a problem with it having two leaders going into the tour. And at the end of the day, they finished fourth and seventh. And now it's for him to ride GC for the first time at the Tour de France to finish fourth. It was incredible to see. Obviously, he moved on to some pretty incredible things with Team Sky, but that was a great period there as well working with him. And it was a great relationship between him Christian because two very different guys and we're Brad at the time Brad hated talking to the media. You know all his dealings with the media were very sterilized through the track era whereas now there's official press conferences and you can hide an athlete outside those press conferences. Whereas Christian Vanderbilt, he struggled sometimes with the pressure of the race but also but with the media he was his bread and butter. So I really used to manipulate the two between each other and hide one and push one and they had a great working relationship and it was a fabulous two and two other nine working with those two. Were you still like Airmen when a writer won the jiro? No, I'd left the year before. I'd taken the right of the year before, I'd taken the right of the jiro before to finish the seventh tour and then next year he won the jiro. There's a guy, incredible as it is, that's the only state dress he won in his life. Really? And I remember that was a stelvio van vels donna series, right? Yeah, that was when the sausage man, his name eludes me, his name was from Lotto Sedal, he was riding to Vacansalay. Thomas De Ghent? Thomas De Ghent, the sausage eater, was a minute away from Wing Giro. Christian Vanderbilt had been shutting down on the stelvio, He won the Stilvio stage and there was a bit of a Mexican stand-off going up Stilvio and Thomas Degan had been away in his very typical breakaways. He'd moved himself from fourth or fifth up in the virtual leader of the Giro. Christian Vandebergh got on the front from about three kilometres, brought it back and Thomas ended up finishing third. That was incredible for you. That was great TV. Like a chat to you all night, it's been an absolute pleasure. Any wild predictions for how the season's going to turn down before we go? Are we going to get some bike racing? I really hope so. I really hope so. I'm going to leave it up for the medical professionals and the politicians, but I really hope we can get something up on the road for August. I don't know how they're going to do it. I understand how you can get studying sports back up and running with no crowds. I don't know how you're going to control the roads of France. I don't know how, we must have two to three thousand people moving around, hotel to hotel. Every night, the people, the riders, the staff, the media, the organization. I don't know how they're going to do it, but I hope to help where we're back and running in 2020, because it would be not the most positive of things for our sporty girls now more racing in 2020. We can't deal with another gap here in the Tour de France. There's just too many blank spaces on that trophy. Yeah, I'll give the fingers crossed we can get that calendar up and running and have the three grand tools and some great one-day races and fingers crossed I can do it because yeah, it'll be great to see our sport back on the roads in 2020 Matt is there anything you want to plug or is there anyone? Anyplace that people can follow you if they want to you know plug into your journey Yeah, look I actually joined the social media world about two months ago. I want Instagram That's the only I'm not on Twitter. I know I know better than that I gave myself into too much trouble, but I am on Instagram, you can find me there and look you, anyone who follows the thing will be out of seats on the Airback stage passing videos. So once we're back racing and giving you behind the scenes, look at Mitch Newton's Scott. But it's been a pleasure. Roadman, that's it. I'm drawing the curtain down on another episode of the Roadman podcast. I love the momentum or building here. I love the community we're building here. I love that all you guys are apart of this journey. Cause you know what, let's face it, you're probably like me and you're just a humble cycling fan. So to get a little peek behind the court and into what these directors, hop riders are doing, how they're facilitating this performance, it's pretty insightful. Hope you're loving listening as much as I'm loving bringing it to you. Until next week guys, until next week, I'll be back next Wednesday again with, yeah, you guessed it. another amazing look inside the world tour and everything helps happiness and longevity. Please, please, please, as I said, like a broken record a couple of times now support this podcast, help me help you help me facilitate bringing this podcast every week. Head on over to patreon.com forward slash Anthony underscore watch and drop a little bit in the the tip jar, buy me a coffee, buy me a beer as a little tip to cap because it's the life below the podcast and pick yourself up as a romance wag. I'm leaving the link to both them in the description down below and you know what, I'm gonna see you next week. Thanks for listening Roman!
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