Vuelta 2021 opens on Pico Blanco
Roman, it's the Vuelta España 2021. 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 long changes? That is the question and this podcast will give you the answers. My name is Anthony Welch and welcome to the Roman Podcast. Rolman welcome, it's a new week, it's a new Rolman podcast. The Vuelta Aspania started over the weekend, we started off with a prologue time trial, which was predictably worn by our new Olympic time trial champion looking resplendent in his little gold trim Primos Roglage. and yesterday we had a sprint stage and that was worn by absence Phoenix Filpperson and good to see Fabio Jacobson from Quickstep back at the point he ended up with friend of the show Billing Mathews rounding out the podium there. Today we got the other proper action in Vuelta Escastoy because Vuelta truly is a race like No Order. We get narrow roads and this is a race which seems to be constantly uphill and today was definitely no exception. In the tour in the euro we need to wait almost for the opening scenes of a movie to play out before getting to that resplendent finale on Vontu or you know the stealthy or whatever it is but in the Vuelta it's just bang straight away it doesn't adhere to any of those rules it's like opening scene two hundred and three kilometers finishing up the Pico Blanco and this was a miserable looking climb the roads were sticky soft they reminded me of an Irish boring country narrow road you'd see down and carry but we had I had 18% gradients on the way up this 7.4 kilometer long. I was gonna say drag, but it's more of a burg than a drag. Up hill finish, brutal looking. Obviously the Vuelta kicking off and the questions I'm gonna get flooded with in the DMs are you doing a daily Vuelta podcast? And the answer is coined it. Kind of like we've done with the Tour de France. I don't wanna cover crappy, boring, flat stages, not to take away from. actually, you know what, in the tour of the flat stages were brilliant because we had Cav chasing the record and the melting stages were pretty shit because Pogacho was just so dominant. So we'll see which way to foil to play is out but I don't have to do the crappy long stages and try and make them sound exciting and I'm really enjoying some of the content that I'm bringing you guys around, you know, that tree ways to shorten sickness and stuff like that. Like we had the last day, the boil hacking content seems to be going down great and I have some amazing guests lined up that aren't in the world's but are more in the science or biohacking sphere or nutrition sphere that I want to bring you over the next couple of weeks. So I'm going to mix the two, the Vuelta with the biohacking stuff. In the background, it's full gas at the moment, working on getting the roadmap blueprint, which has turned out to be a mammoth project. So the plan is to get it out for that winter period. So I'm not going to hold myself to a timeline on it, but I'll work on it and I'll keep you posted as soon as I have a timeline on it. honest so I suppose before we get started on this I showed out to two friends of the show who are riding their maiden Vuelta España we have Jay Voign who we've had on and off the show this year as our neo-progue segment I'm sure we're getting back again after the Vuelta he's had a period of not doing much he's had some altitude camps but now he's in Alpus and Fenix he dropped his chain today and they're running to the climb which is disappointing because I definitely think it was a stage he could have featured in but the break took all the honors also So we have a debutante from Israel startup nation, a guy who was riding without drone, a super nice guy, Itamar M horn, and he's a sprinter, really fast sprinter.
Taramey wins, Bahrain's wild kit
So watch out for him on some of the flat stages like tomorrow. Also it would be amiss of me to start without mentioning this Bahrain Victoria's kit. I'm not sure what to make of it, but it's definitely going to get people talking. It's Tink EF education mixed with a proid flag and you've thrown it all in the washing machine with a multi-colored sock. And that's kind of what you have with this Bahrain Victoria's kit. I don't know if I like it, I don't know if I don't like it. Very much like Jack Rheelish just gets you talking. We had the breakaway comprising of Joey Dombrowski, Juro D'Aaliya stage winner King Kenny Elisande and Ryan Taramey. Interestingly it's 10 years since Ryan Taramey won a Vuelta stage now riding for a wanty group goo bear. But they had 4 minutes with 15k to go and basically still held that 4 minutes into the bottom of the climb. So that was a battle between these three climbers for the stage. Ultimately, Ryan Tara May forged ahead and was stronger than his two other escape ease and he went on to take a famous victory. But we're some of the, you know, I don't want to say drama because it wasn't drama but we start getting an inkling as to who was here to race and who was here just because our team told them to come here. And we seen that yesterday already and in the time trial with Tom Picok, he is not here to race. He's been on holidays basically it looks like since the Olympic mountain bike race. So he's out shocking on the TT so I can't imagine he's going to be up to much. Didn't see him at the point he ended again. He's on his holidays. Seppkuse really struggled early on the climb. He won that great tour stage in Dora. He's a long way from that farm and getting dropped today. Kind of highlights why we're still a long way off seeing Seppkuse as a leader in his own right and one of these teams. He just doesn't deliver that consistency. Later that's he knew Primos Roglich had it today easily and he just wanted to save it for later in the race or not. Another man Olympic medals don't seem to climb well. The second goal, medal and team in Eos, Richard Carapat really looked to be struggling. The snake struggled, he slithered his way up the back of the group, got dropped, got back on, got dropped, ultimately lost a shit load of time. Adam Yates moved them well, Valverde just flowed them up the climb and Primos Roglich and egg and barn owl. They just never hit wind. They were never tested. They looked in their comfort zone all day long. As did Superman Lopez. As did Einrich Mass. Hugh Cardi, massive man-losing time. Richard Carapaz, another massive man-losing time. I think this stage didn't really illuminate much as to who's going to be winning the Vuelta España. It definitely showed us who's not going to be winning the Vuelta España. And I answered that question a little bit for us, who's here to compete and who's here just because the team said so but they have won four already in holiday mode for the end of the season. Today's stage have finished out a great win, almost, you know, I think Sean Kelly said in commentary, potentially bookmarking Ryan Tarame's career because 10 years apart since he won his two Vuelta stages and a brilliant bit of publicity from Montegroup Gooberr had a good juror to Talia and then a quiet tour and again for them booking the season this brilliant Joey Dombrowski, rather I really like following them for years. Obviously won that stage in the 0.0 and it would have been nice to get it today in the world.
Taramey takes the leader's jersey
That wasn't the BAE, the UAE rider was just best at buying Ryan Taramey and Kenny Ellison from Trek round now to podium today. It was a double good day for Ryan Taramey because he hasn't heard of the leaders jersey from Primos Roglic. So we have 9 hours and 25 minutes of racing done and it's Ryan Taramey, Kenny Ellison's Primos Roglic and after that it's really, You know, look, honestly, the GC means not on the this stage, only for a rent out of May. He can celebrate a little bit to where a leader's jersey and a grand tour is something to be proud of. Tomorrow's stage is a sprint stage, and I'll bring you a podcast on that because it's the fourth sprint stage I'm gonna cover because the other one fell on a weekend. So I wanna just preview, see who the sprint contenders are and then we'll start picking and choosing what stages we're gonna cover from there on in. Roman, please do all the good things to keep the podcast going. The beer fund that's over on patreon.com forward slash Anthony underscore watch. That's how we keep the podcast going. Also like subscribe for every listening to it. Share it around screen capture share on your Instagram story, send it into WhatsApp groups, give it to anyone who's into cycling, get it into their hands at a great podcast episode interview last Wednesday and another whopper one lined up this week about ice cold therapy. not using this for fat loss, for recovery, for mental health benefits, you're missing a trick and Wednesday we're gonna talk all about that. But I'll be back tomorrow and I will talk about the sprint stage in the Vuelta. Folks, ride well, ride safe and I'll chat you tomorrow. Okay, stop what you're doing. It's Anthony again. I want to talk to you for one second about the next step in the roadman journey. I'm laying down a challenge for you, it's called the 8-week challenge. So for 8 weeks I'm challenging you to be the very best version of yourself, whatever that is. For 8 weeks I want to take you under my wing and I want to personally build for you the customized training plan on our analytics platform. This plan is going to be laser focused on your goal and I'm going to navigate around your life, your work, your social commitments so don't worry about what your circumstances are right now. I remember after I took some time out of cycling and I went off and taught I was a really big businessman. I came back and I realized I wanted to get into cycling, but I knew after a bit, to try it in a loan, it actually wasn't making me any fitter. I needed an entire system. It needed a 360 overhaul. So for the first time ever, I wanna share with you this exact system I used to get back in shape. I'm talking stuff like, I'm gonna give you my morning routines, the cold therapy I used, the cookbooks and recipes I used, and even the motivational audios I listened to to get back on track. So right now what I want you to do is pause this audio, go to www.roadmancycling.com forward slash eight week or check out the link in the bio, click that. So one more time it's roadmancycling.com forward slash eight week. Chatty also.