Hello you beautiful cycling fans and welcome to an A1 show of Welta…
Hello you beautiful cycling fans and welcome to an A1 show of Welta España special. So we've promised that something was common, we promised we were going to do a Welta special where we didn't promise, we said we might and yesterday we made the promise. And here we are, true to our word, day one of the three week grand tours beyond day one of the Odyssey, day one of me having to endure three weeks of uploading podcasts. I actually don't mind it because I'm gonna watch the Vuelta anyway. And I'm just gonna be wrecking my girlfriend's head talking about the Vuelta and she's not gonna know what I'm talking about or short little bits. So this is where I come and I vent and I give my opinions out to the world and maybe some of you agree, maybe some of you don't agree. But that's the beauty of it. That's the classic banter down the pub about the football team and that's what we're doing with Sa might not be strong and you know I've definitely just didn't disappoint and I'm gonna get into all that in a second. I'm also gonna go through Team Wiggins has folded. I'm gonna reflect a little bit on that. With these Vuelta España podcasts we're gonna keep them a wee bit shorter than we are at traditional podcasts. They're coming every day. They're gonna be as long as they need to. Some days where we have a lot to talk about what they're gonna maybe stretch touched half an hour but it is we'll keep them short and concise. Could be a 30 second episode, bunch sprint, no drama, completely short. But today we had the fastest team was Astana. So Astana followed by Quickstep which puts Superman Lopez into the pole position. So Lopez is super strong I'm gonna talk about his prospects on GC. Honestly, we didn't learn a lot today in the team time trial. We didn't expect the award. We had a couple of crashes. Notably, we had Yumba-Visma 40 seconds down, apparently some water on the road and we had UAE also hitting the deck. We gave her an arrow who I'm actually tipping to do in an outside bet to do something this year. Surprisingly, I'll get into all that in a second. So, We were never going to learn a lot today, we were just going to really feel each other out and see what what. The Vuelta is funny because the Vuelta, it starts, like it starts today and the race and starts tomorrow. Tomorrow is a sticky little stage which I'll preview at the end. The Tour de France, it's very formulaic. We all know what's going to happen. We know the Force Weeks about bunch of sprints and staying out of crashes. We know when the Force hilltop finishes, but it's just chaos in the Vuelta. It's the last stage race of the season, that means it's last chance saloon for so many people who haven't got that big GC win this year, who haven't pushed for the GC podium. It's also the Spanish World Championship, so you're going to have movies there with the two pronged shred of other early in Cantana that are going to be super motivated for this. And yeah, I'm very excited for it. So this year we're going to have eight hilltop finishes at the Vuelta, we won't see the four that I was until stage 5 but like really we're on stage 2 tomorrow we don't have to wait long tomorrow's not flat as I said I'm going to give into it in a second I know some of the stages I know the stages out in the door are particularly well and they are sticky sticky climbs went out and door are last year we were thinking about bringing a group out to andorra we didn't bring the group to andorra in the end and actually that's a nice interesting segue we do have a training and camp coming up which I'm launching. I wasn't meant to launch it until Monday but you know what the hell I'm launching it today. We are from the 9th to the 15th of November and we're heading to Cambriels in Spain. I've been there a bunch of times before. Catalonia is my favorite place in the world of Sowika. We're flying to Barcelona. It's six days over there. You're going to get up in the morning.
It's cool at a compound we're sending Cambriels, park resorts
It's cool at a compound we're sending Cambriels, park resorts. We're right down the on the road and the beach in saluting, walked down deeper legs after trying it, but it's a full pro experience. And who it's for, it's not for pros. It's a full pro experience for really for anyone. If you can ride your bike comfortably for three hours a day, it's a winter trying and camp. So you're gonna get people going and all sorts of shape. I've had top conti riders on the camp and we're really talking about iron there, but you know when someone like that's in really good form they can be on the camp and you know they can just ride on the front a little bit longer and You can have people that are you know just complete sportifes and comfortably sit in the wheel of a top rider who's Who's just in winter China mode? So we split up into two groups based on ability one I'm not gonna say a fast and a slow group because it's more like a medium speed group and a slower group Guided rides team car behind we regroup the top of climbs. It's just a fun and close of week It's more of a cycling holiday than it is a training camp really amazing week I didn't do it last year. I've done it year before and I've done it year before and we keep going back to Cambrios because it's awesome The climbs are brilliant But they're not too long. You're not like the climbs as I said I went down the door and checked out some of the climbs and they are barbaric like you just couldn't bring a training camp out there You'll be miserable for guys who weren't going in really good shape if you're There are sort of four or five kilos above race and weight. The climbs are so long and horrible out there. Cambriels, we've got some long climbs to contest ourselves. We've got good mix of roll and terrain. And as I said, with the van and stuff, it just makes it very enjoyable because we can throw kit and things into it. Stop and set up the tablet, a bit of grub at the top of climbs and professional photographer coming out. And it's amazing that 650 quid, link, I'm gonna pop it in the description shown out down below. Please join us, this does fill up fast. So if you're hearing this in two weeks time, the link may not still be there. Draw your look, draw your look, hit the link, and if you see it, it's all out button. That's what happened there. So you have been warned. Right, so what are we looking at for the Vuelta? Contenders was, right, I'm gonna go through some of the top teams and how I see this potentially playing out. Movie star, as I said, it's the Spanish world championship, we're a double prone distress because we lost Cara Paz in a crash last week in a non-UCOI race. Bit weird why he was doing that the week before the Vuelta, but there you go, he's departing for any else anyway. So his commitment to movie star, maybe a little bit in question if he had been here. We do have Valverde, who's evergreen, and we have Quintana. So Quintana, he was the winner in 2016, and he won a stage of the story this year, but we're just so used to Quintana being disappointed. And then if rumors are to be believed, Quintana's on the move this year, and he's not gonna be a movie star next year, looking for new challenges. So I just don't really see much out of Quintana, I hope I'm wrong because when he does turn it on he's an amazing rider to watch. Absolutely zero personality which kind of cracks me but and he looks like he's 62 years old which is bizarre. Vavirdi, I love him, the current world champion. He's obviously had that colourful past with the Dauphin band but look, kind of look at the WWF wrestlers. You know, was Hulk Hogan juiced up? Yeah, probably. Am I still a hulkamaniak? You better believe it brother. So yeah, Vavarri, he says he's here hunting for our stages, but Vavarri is always hunting GC. So I suspect he's going to be in around the top five. We've, Yumba is my bit of bad luck today, lives in 40 seconds, but look, it's a long race.
Still believe they have the race favors
I still believe they have the race favors. Roglich, obviously a podium in the Girerta Thalia at the start of the year, sat out toward a France where teammates, Steven Kreuzfek got a podium. So yeah, Jumbo, they're getting more and more used to this tag as almost the new, the new Eneos, the new Sky are definitely the Trest to Team Sky's order, especially with Tom Dumelan joining the ranks next year. Like, how are they going to juggle? Croy's Vic Roglich and Dumelan and one Team Roster is, or how do they divide up the Grand Tours as anyone's guess? You would imagine the Dumelan's coming in as the big Superstar rider above the two boys, I've done a super, super job. For me, Roglage haven't sat out the tour. He's the race favourite for the Vuelta Espana. He's Moipic for the Vuelta Espana. Uh, Croesvik, I just see him cracking. He finished strong in the Tour de France, but I just see the Tour de France been two cloaks to the Vuelta for him to mount a really sustainable challenge. I haven't said that. Roglage came bad if we remember the last week of the year when Natalia Roglage fell apart. Really, really bad. I have to say the team are getting more used to it, like you can even think back to the tour. We had that drama where we had Fight Night featuring Tony Martin and Luke Rowe. We had two guys going head to head for a sort of the Enforteal Hockey Stolen Forcer. Both of them got thrown out with a tour, but a Chelsea there's a challenge into that established pecking order going on at the moment. Yumbo Visma are definitely the ones who are sticking up to Inyos. Astana Vinicorov, the dirtiest man in Sauthlin, director of Astana and remember that was the Olympics when Vinicorov won and it looks like the most rigged race you've ever seen in your life. If you look back on it it's hilariously rigged. To finish to it I don't know what the payoff was we'll have a look back at the video and I'd like to follow you to tell me that wasn't a fix. But we have Superman Lopez, the man with the best Roy Hook in Sauthlin after dishing out a lot a punch just to a spectator in the gyro. He never know what low pass is going to show up. He's pretty hot and cold. When he's hot, he's very hot and he is in, I was going to say the Maggliachinc La Terra. He's in, I don't even know what it's called in Spanish. I'm sure I've missed an obvious one that'll be in curved in my brain. He's in the Red Jersey, later Jersey at the moment. So yeah, he could stay there for quite a while, although I'd imagine tomorrow it's gonna be tough to hold on to a quick step we're gonna go full gas for that jersey tomorrow so who knows Astana also have Jakob Fugelsang who crashed out of the Tour de France if you remember with that quite bad conclusion Fugelsang has been on fire this year winning plastics and super strong so it'll be interesting to see how he's stacking up I think Fugels sign could push a top foyer. I would say I'd venture to say he's gonna be Astana's main card. Inios is an interesting one. They have Walt Pelt who was a lace inclusion and they have Teo Gagan Hart. I know Teo a little bit of Riddin' with him a few times that I've been out in Gerona. He's a nice lad, super climber. I heard him in interview today and he seems like he's dealing with the pressure well. He don't get opportunities like that too often at Team Inios. You know, from God's opportunity when Wiggins stepped to soil for a brief window and he took it he grasped it. Thomas grasped that opportunity last year. Again we have Bernal Grazp and the opportunity this year. They don't come that often as such a stacked roster. Tion needs to step up, Tion needs to grab this opportunity or another one may not come especially with Carroll pass comatineos. He may be slow to get another opportunity like that as team in eos. We'd love to see Tion down something. EF Education my favorite team in cycling at the moment, largely because actually I was going to talk with the Wiggins thing at the end but I'm going to tie it in here.
Team Wiggins folded today. Wiggins sort of briefly I heard a main…
So, Team Wiggins folded today. Wiggins sort of briefly I heard a main interview and he was saying it's kind of come to a natural end. He'd prefer to look back and celebrate what they've done and the writers that graduated to the Pro Tour on dual James Knox a bunch of other guys, rather than to you know have any sort sorrow or mourning for the same fold and you know it's a noise it's a noise sound boy it may be true and how he fails but I also think it's I also think it highlights the port like we just Madison Genesis as well this year of holding in the UK and I think it highlights the difficulty we have for sponsors in world tour and The Reuters are just Like all our attention at the moment, it's on social media platforms. It's on you know, it's on here It's on podcast. It's you guys listen to me. It's on Twitter. It's on Facebook It's on YouTube It's these are the stars like just there's people on Instagram follow ins now that are more famous than some of the world Horror writers and the world tour writers leave this amazing life that we all want to see Like, give us backstage access, give us the Instagram account, give us a Snapchat account of what's going on in the team meetings, you know, obviously don't have the real tactics, it can be selectively added, what's going on in the evening, to bring us behind the scenes, make us a part of that world, because that's what we want to see, and that's how we're going to start spending money, and that's going to give the return on investment to sponsors, the models fucked, the models broken. It's a chargeable donation if you're going to sponsor a pro-solument at the moment, and you know, there's some philanthropists out there who went to Silicon but if you're a philanthropist, you know, there's a lot more award each hour to use around the world with the atrocities going on than the response from pro-solikland to him. So I'd imagine you'll have people coming in with fleeting interests in it like we had Rick Delaney and Akublu and whatever sustainable business model and a change in that, we're just not going to see sponsors sticking around, especially at levels just below the world or because the TV cameras do a lot of the hard work for them at world or They don't do hard work for them as can'ty. So I think we need to see a new breed of riders who are more social media. And social media is just a slang term for the internet who are more adept at using the internet to give us a look in behind the scenes. And I got onto that segue like I often do from EF education because EF education, two riders in this Rigoberto Iran, Iran, Iran, so go denimly twice. They've Iran off the tour, don't see them there much. The few karty of the tour as well, who I really like and I... is Hugh karty super super good climber coming through Rafa Condor obviously another team that's gone. I'd love to see Hugh karty doing something on some of the steeper mountain stages, it's possible. But what EF can education do which I think is brilliant is they do a behind the scenes on YouTube which is amazing. amazing. I love watching it. It's wider. We call my favorite team. I've kind of learned the personalities of the Reuters and it's been really, really interesting. Yeah, Lachlan Morton, Alex Haus and Tyler Finney, been off. They've done the dirty cans, Leadville, a bunch of other off-road racers and I find myself, you know, like we're all kids when we get on the bike. I find myself searching out off-road sections and who knows. Maybe next I'm sure he's target maybe, Jorty Counts, I will be, maybe that will be one of his targets, so yeah, who knows? But it's a great way to bring us into our world and I'd love to see more of him doing it. Orch a green edge, I don't know, a couple of years ago, Backstage Pass, I mean the parody the ACDC song all night long and it was amazing, it went viral, but they stopped doing it and the latest ones have been shitting, I was good, so who knows, there's my rambling on that.
My out-soid best. He hit the dick today
My out-soid best. He hit the dick today. He's had a shit couple of seasons. Fabio Arru. He's had a heart operation. I just think he's had a nice calendar coming up to now. I think if he's gonna get back, this is the time to get back. I don't see him contesting GC, but I do see him potentially pulling off a couple of stages and he's way off everybody's rider. So there you go. That's kind of a way. I see that panning now. So yeah, I've kind of kept this to a respectable length. We're at about 16 minutes at the moment. So I think I'll get most of them in around this 20 minute mark. So all there is left for me to do is talk to you about tomorrow's stage. But before I talk about tomorrow's stage, I'll throw in an old show sponsor. We don't have a show sponsor. We have our show sponsor confirmed. It's our first show sponsor is a software company just working out the details as to what sort of offers we can bring you guys. It's amazing, Brin, because what the podcast is running, like a little self-sustaining, social enterprise, anything that gets made off the podcast, is getting pumped back into the podcast, upgrading the studio, upgrading our host, and upgrading the sound equipment, paying for expenses for guests, so we're gonna blow this shit up. So, in lieu of a show sponsor for the moment, I would ask you to go and check out our eight week challenge. I'm gonna pop a link to the eight week challenge down below. And if you know anyone who's struggling for motivation or you yourself are struggling for motivation, come to the end of the season, check out the eight week challenge because it's class. We've roiders coming to you at the moment, poured my heart and soul into it. We've amazing bits like win the morning, win the day, which is a morning routine, which is gonna melt away fast. I'm personally gonna build you an eight week try and unplan, with like a 16 part audio series on mentality and mindset to get you right, even if you're not feeling up if you get this watch those and listen to those recordings you're gonna be mad for road for the end of the season so I'm gonna try and link that into the show notes as well and obviously check out our training camp because that's gonna be class but yeah before I finish up let's have a look at tomorrow we are better to arm the calpe so it's an area I've ridden in quite a lot and I can tell you calpe is anything both flat even when it looks flat it's always dragging always ungulate and open down so difficult stage I don't anticipate it's gonna be one for sprinters it's kind of a funny one because it has a cat who climb 24 kilometers in the finish so it's one that could easily see you know a James Knox type character lash out for home so I think a lot of the climbers GC guys are going to be looking at each other tink and it's a sprint day a lot of sprinters going to be looking at each other tink and oh I don't know if I'm going to get over this it's stingy a climb I've been up with before it's not the a The cat who on the Vuelta is a tough, tough climb. So yeah, looking forward to tomorrow's stage, looking forward and motivated for a three week Vuelta podcast. Guys, do me the solids. Share it round, like, subscribe, comment, review, all that stuff. It makes such, such a difference to me. And I appreciate it. I know some of you guys are sharing it round so I'll show into the stories and it doesn't go without being noticed. And I see it out and about in the coffee shop or on the road or online. I will give you the thumbs up guys and girls you are legends thanks for listening and I shall chat to you all tomorrow.