1.Welcome and kit giveaway recap

On today's Roadman Cycling Podcast, we talk with Israel startup nation, Fastman, Rick Zabel. Let's cue that intro! The big question is this. How do we use cycling as a tool to improve our health, our happiness and our longevity? That is the question and this podcast will give you the answers. My name is Anthony Walsh and welcome to the Roadman Podcast. Roadman, welcome back to another Roadman Cycling Podcast. I got some hilarious feedback on yesterday's podcast. The podcast was titled The Day I Shit Myself. It wasn't a proud story. It's not easy to tell a story. And I got a message coming in from a lot of Instagram saying on the rare occasion in the past, I've bailed out on an interval on the tour ball, If not never for the reason I did today because I laugh and so hard at the all you shit myself story. Comedy gold, shot Paul. Yeah, it's funny how my misfortune can become a reason for you to skip your intervals. But there we go. Also, amazing thank you to everybody who hit me up on Instagram, DMs for the free cycling kit giveaway. People self-filtered brilliantly, like one or two people reached out and said, yes, give me a kit. really need it. And they're like, actually no, somebody else probably needs it. So I've picked probably 20 people who I feel are very deserving of the kit. I've got addresses of them. So you can stop the MMA now everybody that's going to get kit has been in touch. And if I'm going to do another bit of a closet clear out, which I hopefully will in the coming few months, I'll do a similar appeal again. Today's podcast is a whopper. It's Rick Zabel, if you don't know Rick Zabel, Rick Zabel is an essential part of the Israel start-up nation, lead-out train, one of the fastest men in the world, but super proficient at navigating that last couple of kilometers. He is the son of one of the most famous cyclists of all time, Eric Zabel, one of the goats, and we chat about that and step out of his shadow. He's also a super rounded guy. You know, he's got taken that initial expectation of of trying to step out of his dad's shadow and the pressure winning under 23 Tour of Flanders and he's made his own career, but he's also talks entrepreneurship, he talks his podcast Plan Z and much much more. This is a super enjoyable interview, so I'm looking forward to serving it up to you guys. Before I do just a heads up about our Patreon, I've been dropping a secret podcast once a week over in Patreon and that's really a thank you to everybody for supporting the podcast. So to get your hands on the secret podcast each week all you got to do is buy me a beer once a month. So how you can buy me that beer because I get a bunch of DMs. The link is in the podcast description below but some of the podcast platforms don't make that link clickable. So it is www.patreon.com forward slash Anthony underscore watch head on over there take two seconds to buy the price of a pointed beer and that means I can can keep bringing you this content for free. The content is totally free. If you can afford it, that's the contribution you make. It's a bit like them, Harry, Christian, Alain, and Flaira, isn't it? You give the Flaira in the hope that you get something back. It's a little bit like that. We should rename this the Roadman, Harry, Christian podcast. Roadman, let's jump on to this one. It's a really enjoyable interview with a totally nice guy. It's Rick Zabel. Hey, everybody. Hello to all the listeners and thanks for having me. Rick, what's going on with this Roar clothing brand? I was doing a bit of research for the potty and I stumbled upon it. It's not really a clothing brand to be honest. We did some clothing, but this was more, or we did this because there was Corona and we didn't have much else to do, then opening online shop and putting some stuff there. The idea behind war is I live in Cologne. Cologne is in the northwest of Germany, around one hour away from the border of Netherlands and Belgium. I think we have like, Cologne has like 1.1 million citizens. So quite a lot of people, I think one of the top five cities in Germany. But what we don't have is the cool clubhouse for cycling fans. And that's basically the idea behind it. That I have three friends, like I'm 25% of this project. And one is a web designer, another one is designing closes, another one comes more like from, or he had the restaurant, so he comes more like from the restaurant side. And yeah, they all sweet, they love cycling. They are just like amateur cyclists who love to go out on a good day and have a good ride. And that's what I have in common with them. So we fought together, had the idea to start a cycling coffee shop, we like to call it the clubhouse because we have the idea that it's like a place for people to meet who like cycling, matter if it is not like BMX, gravel, road cycling. And yeah, because unfortunately Cologne, my hometown does it so far, we want to create it. And now I can finally also say that we have a shop here in Cologne and it will open on the 1st of March.

2.Building a cycling clubhouse

So it's a project of one half years and now we can finally like interact also with the people in real life and not just about our online shop or over Instagram. That's amazing. I'm definitely going to go and check it out. I actually had this similar, I'm going to call it more of a dream than an idea a few years ago. So it was, it was probably a year before lockdown and pandemic started. So I bought a local coffee shop. And for that same reason, I thought like I had friends who were playing golf and half of the phone in golf was was the clubhouse. You know, you play 18 holes, but all the drinking happened in the clubhouse, all the laughs happened in the clubhouse. And I taught like, it's a so shit when I got to meet a buddy for a ride, I find five minutes earlier, he's 10 minutes late. They're kind of left standing on the street corner or waiting on a bridge or something. It's like, Oh, we need a clubhouse. So I bought a coffee shop and I, unlike you, didn't have the wisdom to partner with somebody who actually knew the restaurant game. So I ended up buying a place that was too small. And it was like a 35 seats in the coffee shop. So then I started actually getting into being a coffee shop owner rather than having this cool clubhouse. And I'm looking at margins and going, okay, shit, we need to turn these seats over faster. So it never became the kind of cool hangout place that I taught. And then I sold it after about two years. But I still have the dream. I'm still going to revisit this at some time. Yeah, exactly. And I mean, I don't want to put out all my ideas or ideas what we plan to do in there, but it's not an easy task to do it. And also the first job we rented out now is just for nine months because like we try to create this community and it's going to be step by step. I guess the place we have at the moment will be too small as well, but it's a starting point. And if we see that this whole thing creates or develops, like we hope, then for sure, we try to exactly do this, to create this big clubhouse and create a place for people who like to ride the bike and hang out in a cycling coffee shop. Watch party will be and come like the don't watch party will be on their coach. They try to go. They try. They're going to come to our clubhouse and watch it together with all the other cycling fans. Have you been to? There's a cough when I was looking at the idea for mine. I went over to London. I'm based in Dublin. So London's a pretty short flight. Went across to London and checked out some of the coffee shops. But there was one called Look Mom No Hands. Yeah, I heard that there. Yeah, that's work on the checkout. They've got a cool vibe going on. And I don't know what their bottom line looks like. I don't know if they make any money, but it's a cool place to go and hang out and watch TV and have a beer and that sort of vibe you're looking for. It's a great name also. And exactly. I mean, also I have personal reasons to start this whole thing because I'm also looking forward to go there, hang out before, after my ride, have a coffee there, eat something. And just like, because, I mean, one big part, or maybe the part I love most about this board is the community. And I mean, being a pro cyclist, it's, you just hang out with a really small percentage of this community, like with the high performance guys and to be honest, my opinion, the more interesting talks are definitely when I just ride with my friends, with my local friends here, especially when it's summer and the sun just goes down at like 8, 9 or 10 p.m. and when they finish with work, I go out with my friends and we have a fun ride together. This is much more fun for me personally. Yeah, exactly. We actually started a group ride on Saturday mornings here in Dublin. For the exact same reason. It's when I used to ride and I'm trying to make it as a pro. All my friends were either pro or trying to make it as a pro or if I go to Gerona, I'm right. And then everybody's kind of the same stage in life. And that kind of makes it like they all have the same stories. And they're talking about what's per kilogram, race calendars. But then you come to a group like our Saturday group. And it's like one guy's into investment, one guy's unemployed, one guy's a lawyer, one guy's, you know, this girl, this one guy in a riot, and I talk about him all the time in the podcast, he's like 81 years old, and he rides with us every Saturday. And, you know, he was a professional back, you know, 50 years ago. But it's so cool to ride with somebody like that, because you just wouldn't do it normally. Exactly. Like I copied this for 100% like same opinion because yeah, like you said, you just hear different stories and you come into different lives. And also one important thing is for me that I mean these guys, I train with my friends, they do it as a hobby.

3.Amateur friends keep me grounded

They buy their own bikes and their own stuff and they also really bring me down to earth again when I complaining about bad weather or whatever, they like, man, you can ride your bike and you even get paid for it. You are so lucky. Honestly, just put things in perspective again for me. It's easy if you train with your teammates to complain, or again, so much training, or so intensive or whatever. Talking with different people just gives you a more or a different view on all these things and to appreciate the life I have also more. So I had Alex Dayos at your teammates on the podcast a little while ago, last week. He was talking about aerodynamics as Alex Dayos does, and he was talking about aerodynamics and how he was trying to talk sprinters, fast guys like yourself, into wearing more aerodynamic stuff. And so he was saying, you know, this is the, he'd take a piece of equipment, whether it's, you know, arrow shoes, arrow socks or a skin suit, and talk about the advantage that it has. And I was saying to him, you know, Alex, it is cool. And I hear what you're saying, but the equation for the normal listener of this podcast isn't, you know, cotton socks versus aerosocks, it's how much saving do the socks make versus how much are they going to cost? because I have to buy these at my own money. It's not the team handling it. It's a different. So I was saying it's like instead of like co-efficient of frontal drag being the metric, I was like, we need to design a new one where it's CDA, devoid of white dollars. As I wanted to buy this cheapest, what's the fastest way on a budget to go cheat the wind? Yeah, I totally say my opinion. I mean, I'm super happy that Alex is on the team, to be honest, because, yeah, because he's caring about all this aerodynamic stuff, and he's doing all of that stuff. I don't have to care about anything and I just come to the race and ask him, so what's you do you gonna wear? Which socks you gonna wear? Which bike or which wheels you gonna use? And I'm just using exactly the same. So I know I have the best set up. Like that's all I have to do. And to be honest, that's actually what most of our guys do. I mean, we are a leader together with Matthias Brändler, also a good rider from Austria. and Alex and me, we are basically the main leader group and then we have different sprinters behind us. But yeah, I mean, I really like Alex. He's one of my favorite teammates and also a regular roommate. And for me personally, it's great that he cares about these things because in the cycling world, I don't want to say unfortunately, but that somehow the sport developed And yeah, I mean, my dad was a pro-cyclist as well. And I mean, the reason I fell in love with cycling, I come back again to the community because, I mean, he did, he was six days. He did all those big races and, but like seeing him as a pro-writer growing up, there was always a big, it always looked fun and always looked like a big party somehow. like they had to win after the race. And that's the way I got socialized with cycling. And that was also the part I love, or I love most about sport. And like I grew up with, who is like in my head like, okay, if I train six hours, I can eat everything after because I burn so much calories for like, I'm not gonna gain weight. And now cycling is becoming this high performance sport. And yeah, all this, All the enjoyable things are getting less and less. And if you want to still play a part in the cycling games, you have to care about those things now. But it's, in my opinion, it's a little bit less fun. But yeah, in the end, this is then the part where it becomes a job. And I'm not sure if I got your question right. To be honest. But this is the problem, why do you have your own podcast? So when you does know Rick has his own podcast, Plan Z. So he's just gone as if he's hosted this one, just go on a random freestyle. Yeah, but honestly, I would say that I often become the question from all my listeners, like, why are you not doing episode with Alex Dorsett, always Chris from, we would love to hear it. And I always respond, that I would say my English is okay. after all these years of cycling, but to explain exactly, or everything exactly how I want to say it and how I mean it, I'm much better in my mother language German. That's why my podcast is just in German. And if I listen to you, honestly, you have a quite strong essence, so I really have to listen very carefully. So if I don't get the question right, sometimes just ask me again, and I try to respond better. So we talked about Alex Dowsis there briefly. So you and Alex were teammates in Catucius also. Yes, exactly. We see this in Prose Eichlen a lot. I'm not sure if this is the case with you and Alex, but I now say my fellow country man, Sam Bennett, when he moved from Quickstep last year to Bora this year, he brings with him like a posse.

4.How riders move in packs

And then when Sagar moves from Bora to direct energy, he brings a posse. What's going on with that? like from your experience, why do people seem to move in these groups? Is that orchestrated by the writer, by the manager or how does that happen? It's a mix of everything, definitely of the wider and the management. And yeah, I mean, as a successful wider, like a wider who wins a lot of races, he has some power. So like you said, like, it's embedded as a good example. Like, I mean, he didn't raise our whole quite a while, but before he stopped racing with his knee injury, he was definitely the best sprinter in the world. He won every sprint basically last year. And then of course, if he changes teams, or he can put some, or if he tells a team, okay, I'm gonna change to your team, but I'm just gonna change if I can take Ryan Mullen, and if I can take Danny from Popo, and the flying mullet because I need these three guys to be successful, like say, I go bleed on riders. I like them personally also because that's also a very important thing that you race with riders you like and you have a good atmosphere. So yeah, that's basically what Sam Bennett tries to do which totally makes sense. And yeah, but don't forget that you need to be Sam Bennett or you need to be Peter Sagan to do this. like if I come to a team now, I would be a writer more being in a package, let's say, with a writer. But unfortunately, this never happened to me so far. I always had the sides of my contracts. And the reason I'm teammates with Alex so long is basically that we both had contracts with Katusha when the team folded. And then East Coast Hiking Academy back then brought the world to a license from our from the cartouche and because we still had contracts, we both changed to Israel. That's actually what happened. So in this case, it was more like a coincidence and not really planned. But I mean, now I think now the team is very happy that they could make the steel because like I just said, I'm me, Matthias or Alex, Matthias Burnley and me, we are the leader group in Israel. And now you've got the Zolo next year, you've got to be pretty psyched about that. Oh man, really, really happy. I mean, I've been actually Andre Greipel, who was a sprinter last year, is one of my best friends. He seems like the nicest fucking guy ever. Well, he's such a humble and cool guy. And he's living three, four, let's say four kilometers away from me. And I basically train with him every day or I train with him every day. Of course, now he stopped his career and he's not training that much anymore, but still writing a little bit. And like he said, he's such a humble guy. He would do like no star ideas or anything. I could ask him for anything and he would, and I could call him anytime and he would be there. That's also why he's maybe, like if I look back on my nine years of professional cycling, He's the only rider I would consider as a best friend or like a real, real close friend. Like you get more friends during the time, but he's really the one I have by far the best relation with. But yeah, also here coming back on the question. I had a nice time with Anve, but it was time to stop for him. And yeah, I was very happy to see that the team signed Nizolo. And also, I come along with him very, very good. This guy has a lot of class. Like he's real Italian and I like the style of him, how he writes and how he behaves also in training. Like it seems to be a very cool guy and I can't wait to start racing with him because I mean he won a geo stage last year. In the in the corona season 2020 he was European champion, he was Italian champion. And And yeah, he's someone who can win big races, I'm sure. And as a leader guy, you are always a little bit, yeah, you need a good sprinter behind you. Like you can do the best lead-out in the world. But if your sprinter never finishes it off, yeah, it doesn't give you a good value to the team. So talk to us about the lead-out. So everybody watching on the TV, they've no real idea of how do you guys get organized? What does the communication look like for that last? Is it how far out you take it up like four kilometers, you start thinking about getting organized or further? Oh, it depends which ways. And also it depends a little bit how the technical part of the race. It's like a race like UAE tour, for example, where you race mostly on highways and the road is like 20 meter wide. You don't have a big stress for positioning. It's more about timing. But then one week later, you come to a race like Peronisse or Tierrino Triadico, or you start racing on the smaller European roads. It's a whole different story. So for example, when do we get organized? I would say in every race meeting, and there's no real rule, it obviously depends a little bit. In the race meeting before the race, we look at the parkour, and we say, for example, okay, our meeting point is 25k to go or 10k to go.

5.Anatomy of a lead-out

Like I said, depends which race. For example, in the Twitter friends, the meeting point is basically 50k to go because somehow it's a Twitter friends that everybody is double as stressed as normal. So then you meet even before that. But yeah, let's say in the normal ways, you create a meeting point and then you try it just to write near each other together. And then the real, real lead out is starts, I would say, just in the last three kilometers. You have first, you have like strong guys like Alex Dau said, or like Matthias Berndler, they keep you out of the wind, but already in a very good position, like in the first 20 or 30 riders of the Palator. And these guys have a hard job because they need to be good in position, but also they need to put the nose and the wind from time to time again and have a big engine to keep you there. And then basically my job normally starts with the last kilometer and that depends. Normally I'm the last guy before this printer, so EDL like all the best scenario would be that for example, Alex drops me off with 500 meter to go and I can launch my sprint until 220 and sort of the sprinter was a good speed and that he can start a sprint but of course there are many leader trains and also it happens very often that you are not the leader who's informed and like dictating the tempo so then I'm more the guy who tries to put this printer in the last case in a very good position. Like in the, so that's my job, basically, uh, leading out or putting the sprinter in a good position. So with all the chaos, if Alex and you get separated, how are you communicating this message to them? Are you just screaming at them? Are you using race radios? Or do you guys have like, uh, you know, a SIG, I guess it's pretty hard to talk at a hundred and eighty-five heart rate. So like are the messages very brief that you're given? Or it's honestly, it's a lot by feeling. It's funny because the sport director always said what you just said like, yeah, use the radio. There's no chance you use the radio in the last three kilometers because it's so much stress. And also imagine like taking one hand away from the handlebar. You have you just have half control. So like it's a big risk to crash. And that's the last, this for sure you don't want, you don't want to crash. So yeah, basically when I lose Alex, because I'm behind him, it's more my job to find him again. Okay. And yeah, but the Peloton is still, you need to have a good feeling for this. The Peloton is a, it's a little bit like a wash machine, let's say, like, and I always have the feeling, you more like the harder you try to change your position, the worse it gets. Sometimes if you stay calm and you let the rider like who separates you for my teammate, you just let him through or you tell him, hey mate, or you give him a little push or whatever, it's much easier to stay where you are and you will find each other again, not all the time, but that's at least my feeling. But I always hear that like I don't want to talk too good about myself. But I think that's one of my stronger points that I always try to take as they can, not to stress out too much. And yeah, don't act crazy or don't act too fast because I always always has a sprinter behind me. And if I lose Alex, that's still better than I lose a sprinter. So it's a little bit, it also depends on sprint to sprint. And even if Alex is not there, the good thing is, most of the time, there are 10 other different teams who also try to bring their sprinter in front so that I can use the other teams as well. But yeah, sprinting is always gambling and a little bit of luck timing. And that's why for me, it's also, it's brilliant for me, it's the most exciting part in by gracing. But when I watch you in the last few kilometers, yes, you're calm, you don't look rushed, you're not like, you know, you watch some riders, like they're like the Tasmanian devil. You watch Buhane and you just know there's chaos somewhere near them, but you watch you and you're very calm, But you also have a nice way of moving, and maybe listeners won't appreciate it unless they've raced, but you have a nice way of moving through a gap, but opening the gap so your sprinter can follow through that same gap rather than just squeezing through a gap and leaving your sprinter isolated. You very rarely get separated from your sprinter. Is this something that you've worked on or it just comes natural from instinct? I didn't work on that. I think that's more an instinct, but I mean, I've been also a sprinter in a few races, and especially when I was young. And I always hated it when I followed a guy who moved too fast or who moved through gaps that I couldn't follow. So yeah, it lets you down a little bit as a sprinter. So yeah, I think I just have this feeling from also because I was a sprinter. I, for me, there's one rule that's like, I don't want to get separated from the sprinter.

6.Leaving school for Rabobank

So even if there's like, it always depends on the situation of course, because you always try to be in a good position also. Like if I'm separated with, if I'm together with the sprinter, but on position 50, then he's also not happy. But yeah, if I always try to move and have at least a high chance of the sprinter can follow. If I have the filling arc, I can squeeze through here, but I'm pretty sure this point or not, then I just don't move. That's basically my rule. Rick, rewinding all the way back to 2012. You dropped out of school to sign for Raba Bank. Looking back now with the benefit of 10 years. It's kind of prompted by I put a post on Instagram the other day and it was a picture of me 10 years ago and a picture of me now. And it was like, would your younger self be proud of you? Are you proud of everything you've achieved? Do you regret the decision leaving school early or was it the correct one? No, I'm not regretting it. I'm proud on what I did because it's, I think also my younger version of myself would be proud as well because I left school. I also have to say it, I left schools one and a half years before the highest grade. I have the grade below this. I don't know what it is in English. But so it's not that I don't finish school at all. Like I finished school, but not the highest grade. I always have to tell this also because I mean, I don't wanna hear, I don't wanna sound like I just left school. Like I finished 11 years of school. I just didn't finish a certain years, which are like the best grade in Germany. But yeah, I would do it again because back then it was my biggest dream and goal to be a professional cyclist. And I got the offer from the Robobank, the continental team, but a development team. And back then it was by far the best development team in the world. And so I knew, OK, if I want to get a pro cyclist, that's my chance. And I wanted to take it. And then my head was easy because I said, okay, I have four years of U23 now. So that's four years of trying becoming a professional cyclist. If I make it in those four years, then okay, great. If I don't make it, okay, then my dream is over, but I least have tried. And then I can like finish school after this four years. But I never have regrets of not trying it. That was like how I was thinking back then. But of course now I'm older, And I'm also, I'm a father as well and I have a son. And it's crazy how your views change. Like when I look, when I think back on it now, I also think, man, that was not like, it takes some bolts to do that. Also because you can trust me, my parents weren't happy at all. They didn't like that. But like, if I look back on this, on this time, I was never doubting that it will not work out. For me, it was clear, yeah, I do it and this works out. But like I said, looking now back on this time, it's like, man, I could have been injured. Like this could have happened. This could have happened. But back then, this was never in my head. Like, so I would say I was even, I even have had more guts back then than I have now. Those four few years, they must have been so, so exciting. Because I think I call it the beginner's mindset. And it's when you start out anything new, you're never sure where the ceiling is. You're never sure, you know, if you're gonna, you know, I wanna, we'll talk in a minute about your dad, but you're never sure if you're going to, you know, it clips the greatness that he had. Like you start out in your winning U-23 Tour of Flanders, you're selling a world tour of BMC at 19, you must have been just like, what the fuck? This could go anywhere. I could be the next Chip Alini. The ceiling is unknown. Yes, yes, exactly. That was exactly my mindset. And it was actually, after this I started this choir, because you explained it very well. I won the U23 Flanders, so in my head it was also like, okay, I'm gonna be the next Fabian Cantula, the next Tom Bourne. I'm gonna win Flanders and Ruby as well. And then, yeah, so I was, I was in my U23 years, like same age, like me as Caleb Ewan, Dylan Grunving, Julian Alephilippe. And I was competing with these guys. Then I went professional with BMC. And yeah, nine years further, I'm still a professional wider. And I think I found my place in cycling, but I won two races so far. And the other guys, they stayed winners, let's say, or they became winners also in the pro. And I didn't. And honestly, it took me a few years, So my first two, three years wasn't easy because it was hard to accept for me. Like I also wanted to be this winner. And then it got easier like after this three years in BMC, I changed to Katusha and I became part of the leader train from Alexander Kristoff. And that gave me a proposal, frankly. Like I finally found my place.

7.Finding your value on the team

That's my job. This is my job, exactly. And then it wasn't hard anymore to accept because I realized, okay, like I leveled up or I beat everyone to get professional cycling. But once you are in the highest level, everyone won races here to come here. And now it's like the best against the best. And okay, then he or better wants to win the races. And like I said, it wasn't easy to accept. then when I finally got to Rhodesia and I told my place in leader train, I found myself or like I realized, okay, I may be not the best sprinter in the world, but I can become one of the best leaders guys in the world. So this was like my new challenge and yeah, that's also what I always try to explain to younger writers now, that you need to find your position in sport and you need to find the value to the team because if you are just a strong guy, but you cannot sprint or you cannot climb or you are not good in time-twelling, you can do a little bit of everything, they can just change you because a lot of writers can't do that. But you need to find the value for the team to have a long career and stay in the sport. Well, that's what Dowset was explaining. He was saying like he can't brand himself as a time-trialist because if he brands himself as a time-trialist, all of a sudden he's a a time trial specialist who can't win time trials. He's like, I can't beat people Ghana, I can't do 490 watts for 40 minutes or whatever, crazy what he's doing. But he said he can brand himself as a lead out man, and he can be an effective part of that lead out train. And that's, he sees his route to extend in his career. Exactly, exactly. Like I said, you need to find a value. And yeah, coming also back what we talked earlier in this episode that cycling is getting more more professional and getting a high performance board more and more. It's not getting easier for guys like Alex and me. Like I said, I would say we are good or average to good professional bike riders like in the World Tour, but then if you compare yourself to Camco even in the pool, to Felipe Organa, what these guys are capable to do, you feel bad. So yeah, I also just realized to feel better for myself, that it's not good to compare. You need to try to be the best version you are. It's me against me somehow. I can compare my numbers with last year and my rate. And then I need to be happy with that, because, yeah, like I said, you race against the best riders in the world, and there are two ways and it's looking on that. And it's a way of perspective. Do you want to be sad not being as good as the best? Or do you want to be proud to at least make it to the Twitter friends, finish the Twitter friends and compete with these guys? And I prefer to take the second option and just be proud that I can do the Twitter friends and I can erase it. And even if I don't win the Twitter friends, I at least finish it. And I know for myself, hey man, that was my maximum, but then I can be happy with that. But there's a great message in there for everybody because whether it's clients I'm working with coaching clients or if it's just friends on a group ride or even outside cyclin, so many people are hung up on this idea of peer comparison, like comparing themselves to the neighbor, comparing, oh, I don't earn as much money as him. I'm not as good looking as him. I'm not as fast as him, as talented as him. Really, it's the surest way to being unhappy is comparing yourself to somebody else's circumstances. A much healthier approach is like you said, the only person you're competing against Is you from last week, you from last month and you from last year? Exactly, exactly. Yeah, I know. It's, I've been through this, like I said, when I was younger and I compare myself a lot to all the other guys. It's not healthy, it's unhealthy and you get, it's not far from the depression or being unhappy all the time. And yeah, you need to find a way out of this. And no matter if it's this help, mental training, whatever. But yeah, I think it's very important that you are happy with yourself, but it's not easy. I think everybody struggles from time to time, and everybody, someone needs to find their own way. You mentioned Dylan Groenewagen there. It'd be interesting to get a sprinter's perspective on Tour de Poland. Is that something that's like, is it talked about in the Peloton? I'm referring to the Yachepson, sort of the high speed crash. I suppose my take on it is, sprinting is fucking dangerous. You know, the organizes the tour of Poland, the organizes the tailwind downhill sprint. It looked to me like, you know, we don't race on Zwift. You know, you're a little DVA from your line a little bit. You know, what HUHAN he does is fucking crazy, but that didn't seem to me what Grunewagen did. And it looks like it's a bad precedent. Yacobson taking legal action against somebody for something in a boy craze. I think so many people are shocked and horrified by the consequences, which were horrific.

8.Jakobsen crash and sprinter ethics

But I think you need to punish behavior, not consequences, because consequences are chance. Behavior is what needs to be regulated. And for me, the consequences were horrible, but I didn't seem to behavior as any worse than we see in a lot of sprints. Well, the interest of here, your take as a sprinter on it. Yeah, that's a difficult one. Like I also have the opinion that the first mistake was, that the sprint was even allowed by the UCI. This is like a sprint like that shouldn't be allowed because it's very easy to create a crash with the circumstances of being a dollar sprint in that fast. Then of course Dylan does a mistake there. He moves from his line and that's why Fabio crashes, but He's not doing this because he thinks ah yes, I'm Crashing Fabio now into the hospital That was for sure not what he was thinking at that moment like he's his printer and he wants to win And that's why he moves the line a little bit and this was over the limit of course But I'm sure he didn't do it on purpose. And yeah, then general sprinting is very, very dangerous. But there's also a different, like there's this name in cycling, which is a gentleman's printer. And the gentleman's printer is someone who tries to win, but not on every chance or in any case. Like if he's out of position, he just says, okay, tomorrow is another day. And it's not trying to crash everyone just to, because there are these riders. Like you said, Buhani. And in this case, it's funny because Dylan is one of the riders, or he was, I didn't do a sprint for a long time now against him, but he was always one of the riders who missed a lot, but Fabio as well. Like I sprinted against both of them, like in the finals, and both of them were in my opinion, writers who were really, really fighting for their position very, very hard. So then it had to happen that also these guys come together and something like this happens. And then of course, I think it changed both of them and that's good. said that it had to happen. But I think Dylan is now not as crazy anymore as before. And also Fabio, like I was super happy to see him back healthy and winning stages last year in La Vuelta and everyone. But yeah, he has to be honest also that when he like he is also a young guy and he was motivated and he wanted to sprint as well. Like it's an unpopular opinion, but he could have break as well. I was just about to say that like if that's so sprinting or I've no balls, I'm grabbing breaks there. I'm not going to. Exactly. So it always takes two and yeah, it's longer ago now and Fabio is healthy again, Dylan learned from it. And yeah, I think I hope that this can be just a good example for every sprinter that we all want to all the sprinters want to win but your life and your health is more important and yeah if you these wider who risk a lot they are not really liked in the predator that's for sure. I can see that your friend that can name escapes me nice man ever best friend. Andre, I would say he is an example of a gentleman's on Sprinter. Exactly, exactly. Yeah, definitely. Like, you can trust me. He's very pissed after the sprint when he was out of position. Or it happened a few times that he said, man, why didn't I, yeah, use my shoulders more or my elbows or whatever. And then I always told him, yeah, man, but that's a character. That's how you are. And that's also why people like you because you never created a big crash just because you wanted to win. And he always had this approach, yeah, whether he's good enough from his legs and loses teammates to bring you in position. But you cannot win any sprint. And it's always a fine line between like when you are, of course, when you break too much And when you're always afraid, you will also never win a sprint. And for sure, some people when they listen to this now, they will say, hey, this is not a winner's mentality. You don't break. But trust me, like, yeah, if it's my decision, like for sure, you need to take some risk and you need to take the elbows. But there's always a line where it's not necessary anymore. So if you can guess who I'm talking about here, Rick, 150 to professional. wins 12 tour de France stages, eight Vuelta España stages, four Milan San Ramos, two national championships and I'm still goal. That's my dad. That is your dad. One of the greatest ever. Er, example, what, how much does that influence your decision to go into cycling? And then is it a positive or is it negative? Is it hard to step out of that shadow or is it just going through your whole career just so proud of your dad's achievements? And it goes and comes in ways that say, no, I was, I'm definitely proud of what my dad achieved. He was not a big influence that I started cycling or like more indirect because of course, I was, I was at the Twitter friends when he raised it as a fan, as a son. And I laughed at Twitter friends and I love to be the atmosphere and everything.

9.Football, candy, and finding cycling

So of course, this was something I liked. I mean, that never pushed me towards the bike. Like he was never like, you also need to become a professional cyclist. Never. I started my first sport. I did was soccer or, yeah, and we say football hit in Germany. Yeah, we say football. Yeah, we say football. Yeah. And I played three years football. And then I stopped it because I lost the fun a little bit. And then I got a little bit fat, let's say it. And because I eat a lot of candies, but didn't do a lot of sport. So then my parents just asked me, okay, do you want to try another sport? Maybe you like something else. And I was like, bike riding and it was like, yeah, here's this local club, not far from my home. So let's go there. And also there, what I laughed about it was the community. The guys like my age, I trained with and I met at the races. They become my friends really fast and it was just a cool community and that's what I liked so much about it It took me even I think I stayed two or two and a half years or my first two and a half years I wasn't very successful like I didn't win straightaway races but I always love to hang out with my mates and that's why I liked it so much and then after these two two and a half years, I started to win races more and more first on a local base and like national and then I even got an international team in international. And that's when my father stepped in a little bit because then of course he gave me advice and he could see that I have talent and then he gave me advice and of course he pushed me. But always also very fair, the only thing He always told me, if you do it, then do it 100% because otherwise cycling is a shit job. If you are not good and you get dropped or you are not fit, it's not a nice sport to do. So if you really wanna be good, do it 100% or don't do it at all. And that was more the kind of mentality he gave me, which was also important. And so there he was a big support. But of course, I got compared always to my dad. But it seems like he's such a great, one of the all-time greats in our sport. That it's, I don't know, from the outside, it looks less pressure than if your dad was just a regular run-of-the-mill pro. Then there's kind of a pressure to be, oh, can you be better than your dad? Well, because your dad is just like one of the goats. It's like, you know, the chances of anybody ever accomplishing that are very slim. Never mind the chances of it's so accomplishing that. So I don't know, it's a strange one. I can see how it's pressure for most people when their data is professional, but when your data is one of the greatest ever, is that a little bit pressure off? No, I just wanted to say like I always got compared to my dad, also because like, for my age when I was like 14, 15, I started to get better and I got like national championships and all this stuff and my dad was always similar, successful like when he was in the same age like me. So like when I talked with him about him, he always said, ah, you already got one year early as a lead national champions of Germany, for example. So then I was always like in my head, I asked, so he's my dad, so I have the same talent. So, hey, that's cool. So maybe I will have the same career. But what I wanted to say is like, I think it made me better because when I got to the races, the kids who wanted to win, or I always had the feeling at least, the kids I raced against, they wanted to win, but they also wanted to beat me. Like, they always liked to be better than me. but that made me stronger again. And so I would, they're looking back on this, I would say it made me stronger. And yeah, to be compared also is positive and negative, because I have to say, of course, when I didn't perform or when I was not good. Yeah, people liked to be better than me and it was for me personally, a lot of nice feeling. But as soon as I won a race, or even if it was more important, It was all over the media or at least the cycling media in Germany. So as soon as I won a race, it was like, I'll make one this, make one that. And that would not have happened if I had the name Zabo. So I'm truly aware that it was also positive in a lot of cases. And the good example is, for example, when I won the U23 Flanders, of course it was nice to win it, But it was also the son of Eric Zabu who won U23 Flanders So it took like two or three days and a few world to keep us knocking on the door and today we want to sign you and I'm pretty sure that didn't happen to all the other guys who won U23 Flanders before so What's the same? We've had a Nicholas Roach fellow country man.

10.Out of dad's shadow

I've had him on the podcast a few times And yeah, he said for a long long time. It's the son of Stephen Roach has won this the son of Stephen Roach It's very difficult to step out with those big shadows Yes, but for example Nicholas did and the funny thing is now I would say like of course like the people who want to see me as a son of they will always see but I also I don't compare myself to my dad anyway because I'm just proud what he achieved and like we talked about it a few minutes ago, I just try to be the best version of me and don't try to compare to my dad because then I wouldn't be happy as well. There's some pressure coming on your song. Do you do generations? Yeah, but I always like to joke with this also. Like there's one of my, on my Instagram I have a video which got a little bit viral, like in 12th Hercules this year, they asked me like, how is it? You are the son of Eric Zabel and even your grandfather, because also the dad of my dad was a professional cyclist in East Germany. So like your whole family did cycling and how is it for you? Yeah, of course, it's not easy for my dad or for my grandpa and also for my son. They will always be in the shadow of me. So I played with this a little bit. And I always liked to play with this because now I'm 28 years old, I'm a father myself, I did to the friends a few times, I did the giibo, I'm very happy with who I am and with my career. So I don't have the feeling that now, at least the people, I hang out with, they don't see me as a son or they see me as Rick and that's what all I care about, that all the people like I hang out with my friends that they see me as Rick. And I'm very different, like my character and everything is very different to one of my dad. And yeah, so like, yeah, I'm just Rick and... Does your dad still right? And can you absolutely crush him in a town sign, Sprint? He's still riding a lot, but he cannot race anymore. He's also getting a little bit older, but still I have a bigger perspective on him because I don't know anyone who has a passion for cycling like him. Like he's by far the guy with the most passion for cycling I know. Because he stopped his career 2008. And since then, he did... Like I would say the he never did less than 20,000 kilometer a year. And the the recent years even more like the recent years he did for sure between 25 and 30 something kilometers. Like so he's basically doing the same kilometers. I do just a little bit less and then it doesn't stops when he when he when he like he's not training. He's just riding his bike. He's trying to do like a 100 kilometer one of kilometers every day. That's what he's still a lot. It's still a lot. It's still a lot. And he's still fit, like I said, but because he's just riding around, he doesn't have the fitness anymore for sprinting or riding up a climb fast. But he can go 30 kilometer average all day. No problem. Mike, I don't mind. It's a diesel. He's a real diesel. But then it doesn't finish when he's like steps off the bike. Then he cleans his bike every day. And he collects bikes, I think he has more than, for sure, now already 150 bikes. He collects everything. Like he has the biggest cyclical collection I know. He has also a big different to me. I give everything away to my friends. Like all the tea stuff I get, I give it to local clubs to my friends, whatever. My dad kicks everything. That's amazing. You most send me a few pictures. I love all that. Every single jersey he had, every medal, every trophy, everything. Everything is at home. He collects vintage bikes and for example in Berlin there are a lot of vintage cycling coffee shops. And then he just goes there and he hangs out for everywhere in there. I said, like, honestly, cycling is everything. He watches every cycling race, which was on TV. He is all day on cycling news, on passport news. Like, he loves cycling. In his life, there's just one thing in cycling. It's crazy. Rick, you've stepped out of your dad's shadow. You've had an amazing career so far. But Silicon tells me your best days are still to come. Thank you for joining us on the roadman cycling podcast. Thank you very much. I hope the listeners enjoyed it and thank you for having me. It was a pleasure. Nice talk. Thanks.