Hello you beautiful cycling fans and welcome back to Vuelta Stage 5…
Hello you beautiful cycling fans and welcome back to Vuelta Stage 5 A1 Show Special. So another big day on the Vuelta, the first high mountains day, the first time we got to see who has the minerals, who's got what, who lived up to the pre-race hype and who disappointed. We got a busy stage to dissect, so let's jump right in. we do a very special mention to our show sponsor, Missing Piece. And like a child at Christmas at the moment every morning I go down and I check the mail to see if my missing piece, custom chop board has arrived because it's gonna be gangster and I'm gonna feel like an absolute baller. I'm gonna be volunteering for the chop in every single night of the week. A lot of you guys have been messaging me saying you've checked out Missing Piece and how cool it is. We're Delighted to partner with a really custom company from Donegal. Love the Father's On Combat, love the small operation. It has a real sense when you see these products of handcrafted, almost masterpieces. You know, there's a bike brand I love out in Canada, it's Mary Pozzet, it's a handmade bike and those sort of bikes are getting more popular and this to me is the craft version, the wooden version of those sort of bikes. It's the boards, the gift sets, it's unreal stuff go check it out and spoil someone, spoil someone and let's jump right in and dissect this action. So I might start reporting on days where Rigobert or Iran doesn't hit the deck that might be easier. Iran Iran was on the deck again is this his second or third time that he was down so anyone that hasn't had road rash like the commentators are great for trivializing this stuff, especially Kelly because he's the hardest man in the world and you know he's harder than a Rubey Cobblestone. If you haven't hit the deck on a bike before, it's not a nice experience. There's no crash that you come away from, even one where you're superficially shrug it off and say oh that wasn't too bad or you know we trivialize a boy oh it's just road rash. Every time you hit the deck it shocks your whole system like your body is not used to hitting the ground at speed. It's not used to that toll. It's not used to, you know, everything is out of kilter, everything is out of place. Like we talk about cortisol a lot on this and cortisol inhibiting their ability to get into that deep. That is a sleep where we get a lot of that neurological repair going on, that physical repair, which is so crucial day after day and stage. It's like when you hit the body you shock it into a heightened sense of cortisol, your fight or flight is and that is not good and around and hitting the deck with regularity even if he's not getting injuries this is totally affecting his recovery day after day and the latest man to tank for his crush is Phil Berra. Berra helps Berra, how's that how's that? The Bahrain Merida man he tried to throw a bottle and he made an absolute hemes of a ride up near the front of the bunch and he brought down a bunch of people. Speaking of Bahrain Merida if you're to believe rumours, Walt Pels, Eigem Bernal, climbing lieutenants from the tour, his rumour to be on the move there, I don't have anything to substantiate that one, only Oedil Gasp, Wardround to Campfor. The campfor is powerful, what lads say around the campfor, so Wardround to Campfor is Walt Pels is off the Bahrain Marita, I don't know what he's up to here in the Vuelta, but he is going short, it's lucky he has an anchor on him, they talked about him as a whole leader with Teo Gaganhart, the two of them are absolutely brutal the first weekend, mostly a massive disappointment for Team Inyos. They rode hard into the base of this climb and what they were riding hard for. They were riding hard for Della Cruz, who was dropped as well. So I really don't know what's going on there but they are all going muck. Actually what I thought was interesting, he was watching the coverage on EuroSport. The Eurosport player is Mint, that's where I'm watching my coverage. I don't actually have any TV channels in the house. I got rid of TV channels a while ago. I got my Netflix and I got my Eurosport player and that's about it. I don't even watch a lot of Netflix. The only bit of TV I really watch is the Saikal and on TV. If I'm going for a movie, I'd typically go out to the cinema, enjoy the house cinema experience. I have no weekly cinema club with the lads as well, which is Go Crack. I'm getting that Wolf Pack, which if you've heard us talking about Blue Zones, Something we're going to explore. We're going to flick that switch and get into more the Boiohak and Wuhu science stuff.
Once October rolls around, a big part of that's going to be Blue Zones
Once October rolls around, a big part of that's going to be Blue Zones. These areas in the world have identified where people live the longest. So we're looking at areas like Okinawa and Japan, Sardinia and Italy and they've the largest number of centurions in these areas. These are people that live past the age of 100 years. And the big data studies on why they live past the age of 100 years. And I'm going to get into this stuff real deep, I'm going to drill into it. It's stuff like blood sugar regulation, it's using techniques like cold hermogenesis, which we've talked about. They're using a lot of bitters and they're using like apple cider vinegar, salon, cinnamon and things like this. But one of the core components of this blue zone living, it's the ideal wolf pack of social connection and camaraderie. Yeah, that's powerful, it's powerful. But I was, I went on that tangent because I was talking about Eurospore player. I watched the tour on Eurospore player there today and the ad for that had an ad for the RAF and it just reminded me of an ad for an Alkaiida recruitment campaign. It's a bit mental playing their mods on the Tour de France. It's bringing the sport a little bit of political, which I think sport has always done well to transcend the both. So yeah, I didn't enjoy that now. Today's stage was epic. Some web were kind of forced into doing a bit of the right in the stage. I say it was epic. The finishing climb was epic. The rest of us are snooze fast. I flicked on and off. We had two borgas in the break. We had Madratzou, we had Harada and the other lad we had his name escapes me. The Madratzou Harada, oh I can't remember who the other lad was, he was another Borgo lad. But they were in anyway, Madratzou was looking for mountain points, so Borgo stuck two into the break, one confidence lad, Harada, who we know is a super good climber. So that was a perfect setup, but the bunch just went into sleep and I coined a forced Sunweb into Royden when the gap went out. I think the best place was like 13 minutes on GC in the break, but the gap was gone out like 12, so Sunweb started Royden a bit into the base of the climb. One Sunweb and then Inios came up and then Yumbo took over and then Hugh Kurt, he looked good with TJ van Garder and hitting the front for EF Education and they done a real good job and that was the force's real pressure that was applied on the climb. So we had two races essentially we had the race up front for the stage and we had GC race behind. So Hugh Kerti softened up the group nicely, he even softened up his own team later Riga Bertho and then we had the Evergreen, the Rainbow Stripes in his home tour, coming to the toy line of his career Alhamdrow Valverde, him and his the open conviction, dancing up the climb and he put a lot of good rotors in trouble, including our very own Red Jersey where Nicholas Roach and he split the race. What was left at the race is split, Van Garden and Hugh Cardi done this off and up. I've already split it and it was ultimately when the split settled down we had Roglic, Lopez and Valverde up front and we had a group two of briefly nickel with any of the distance out of that rickabertor and chavas, cantana, seppacus who was riding really well for Yumbovizma, a new American, I didn't know him actually, I didn't know he was American, super good day for him, he was riding really well for Roglish, but what we had was we talked about Cantana leaving movie star at the end of the season and they've come in as co-leaders their romantic community triple shred were carapas but we talked about he'd crashed so they came in Vavirte and Cantana as co-leaders and this for me is Vavirte putting out a marker and saying you know I'm the sole leader here I don't even know if there's a lot of there didn't look to be a lot of love loss in that move. Vavirte was riding on even as Cantana was the last man to get dropped on a small stall and Cantana would have been back in but Valverde pressed on and like mercously and ruthlessly pressed on and then we started seeing who has the best legs for the moment in this year's race we had Superman Lopez attacking that select group of Valverde and Roglish and we nickel getting distance behind we Iran getting distance behind. Nico rolled really well. Uh, I actually taught for a point that he was gonna hold onto the jersey because Iran was just ahead of him on the road but he had an eight second lead on Iran and it looked like they were gonna come back to that container group but then in the end he had a Lopez just pulled out too and what if a gap but Lopez got gapped on stage two so I knew Nico had a gap on him but it wasn't happening for a roach.
He just sort of looked
He just sort of looked. He paced the effort well, he didn't blow but he didn't have enough. As Roch said afterwards, he said, I gave it all on the climb, the others were just at another level and that's not going to be ashamed of. It's very honest of Roch. It's an honest appraisal where he's sitting on fifth on GC, it's not going to be ashamed. I think he looks valued for that fifth on GC. That's not a flooky fifth. He's there, he's looking GC. He is looking exceptionally lean, and he remarked on that as well, but he said, comment to the race that have been years where he's leaner, and he's blown up in the Tour of Week. So it's a conscious decision. He came in to maybe not get lean as previous years, even though he looks super lean. He spoke previously about how he does always have good Vuelta legs, even since he's a kid this late in the season. Interestingly, he opted for no altitude between the Tour and the Vuelta. Very easy to over-cock altitude. I've used altitude tents myself in the past, and I've also run big blocks away at altitude. You've got to be really careful. A lot of people jump into the altitude tent and think it's kind of like a toy. You're playing around with your blood levels. You've got to be really careful on your prerequisites before you go in. You've got to be looking at iron levels to make sure they're in a certain range and you're not slightly deficient. Sloig deficiency in iron going into the altitude test, it'll magnify that deficiency because because the idea with the altitude intent is it simulates natural production of EPO, but iron is a precursor to that you need in that production of EPO. So if you don't have the iron, you end up digging yourself in a little bit of a hole. I know Martin Irvine went out to Colorado for a year as he's healthcare, the former world Scratch Rice champion. and he, I don't think got the altitude brilliant for a London 2012. And I kind of back for it on my bit. But it's something not to be played around with. And even when you're in the tent, I think it's important to, I always got bloods done every second week. And that way, I think if you're to leave them for like three weeks, four weeks, you start, it's start becoming difficult to build. You want to build your own little biological passport and seeing how things are affecting like any good science experiment. You want to change one variable at a time. So you don't want to be going in saying, you know, I'm going to try Kiro Doyer. I'm going to jump into the altitude tent and I'm also going to try that new cream to puff her lactate, like you try one thing at a time and then he signs experiments. So, Nico Knows' body this stage and he knows the effect of it. So, it's interesting that he's opted to knuckle in his lean and give himself that slip in around to get leaner because Nico has got crazy lean in the past. I remember him, as he goes there, where he fell apart in the tour, we get a tour. but eat some crazy eating patterns, back to touching on some of that stuff we talked about, Yanny Brackovich, where he records half the bunch has eaten problems, I don't know if I'd fully agree with that, but I'm not close enough to make a full reaction on it, but I think there's definitely a morality attached to food in the bunch, and it's possibly a chain that needs to be broken, but that's a debate for another day. So I think that's Val Verde laying down the marker today. It's Val Verde Santa Contana, You know what, this is my home race. I'm the world champion. I'm the one with the season, power as your head in the off-neck season. I don't owe you nothing. So that's me speculating that. I also gave you five or eight to the day. I said, you get in my 11th one. You all get in my 11th one now. You should listen to this podcast, makes you money upfront. We had that break. So we had my throw. So I got a hand around my hands and I ever loved me. It was boy or something like that. Or yeah, something like that. I think it was, ball, ball, ball, that's it, boom. Ball, Harada and Madroso. And we saw three boys up front, but Madroso was dropped on the third card earlier in the stage, but he was also dropped a load times up the climb and he was hanging on to the two boys forced Harada into the on all the work. When he did get back up to them, he jumped the two boys straight away, again forcing Harada into the chase. They played the absolute perfect Shakin' Bake. All the way up the climb on Harada, the strongest in the tree. And then in the end, it, amazing TV if you haven't seen him.
Jotso crawls himself back up to the other two boys
But Jotso crawls himself back up to the other two boys. Looks like he's gonna lead out ball, gaps them. And then he just rides away. He's stronger than he gave himself credit for, or maybe due to the latter weaker than the anticipated, but it was great TV. and a ball came in to round out at Burgos 12, which was insane. A Royal Card entry into this year's Vuelta, to get a 1-2 in Vuelta in their home tour. It's incredible achievement. Tactical Masterclass, if you're looking at it and how to work someone over in the local club league race, get on and do that. And it's also a great lesson for anyone watching, or listening, especially kids, or anyone with kids. It's a lesson I've never given up. So many people would have hit that climb until what I'm doing, I can't climb. We've been dropped all day, a teammate here but it's that never say di-mentality. Just keep giving until your legs give up. You know I've experienced it so many times where I thought you know I've done enough today. I have an easy out and I can still hold my head open. I have a pretty good story to go back to the lads with. And if you're just digging and dig in, dig in, dig in, amazing things happen. You learn a lot about yourself and the results follow. We had Benus. Benus is a funny one in commentary after you see him in the break where or whatever and he said he doesn't give much away. to me he had a few niggles and he just said, now I'm all right. But he was talking about the game, the sprinter's play, it's not more of a, I don't know if the game, he had a lot of Russian related games, this is a game. He said you're listening out for the finishing time on your earpiece and then you're calculating your minimum effort you need to get up to climb to make it inside the time cut. So that's pretty cool. Like I knew that that but that's really a Robbie McEon shit, that's brilliant. Also he said he's going to have a look out Maybe it's day jake, but he doesn't know how hard the last climb is So there you go. There you have it Sammy be fast as man in the race. Hopefully he has a look at stage eight and sees this see something that he likes tomorrow We're moving on to stage six Who it's a Thomas again day all over tomorrow. He's out up today You heard it here now to Thomas again day Before climbs tomorrow to cat trees 200 kilometer stage for stage six of this year's welter up, it's shaping up to be a great race. I really enjoyed it so far and it's amazing having something as I said I don't watch a whole part of the TV so it's pretty cool to be able to unplug for the last half an hour or 40 minutes of the stage. Just chuck it on and just sit back and enjoy some of the best athletes in the world just turn strips out of each other. You just need to look at the interview on Nicholas Roach at the end to see how much it means to these lads and see how deep they go every day for our entertainment. It's almost gladiatorial. and television. So, shout out to everyone in the bunch for giving us this entertainment weekend week out. Thanks very much for listening guys and again big shout out to that show sponsor Missing Piece. Our training camp is still available and the link for that is down below. Six days November 9th to 15th in the beautiful camp rails. Been there about five times now and we just keep going back because it's lethal. The riding in Catalonia is phenomenal. There's a reason and all the pros based themselves around Catalonia cost its class. But we're rolling out the full pro experience for this one with support cars, food at the top, so the climbs, guided rides, photographer, all the good chef, full pro experience. It's 650 to join us for the week. Link is in the description down below. Gonna cap it at about a 15 person camp, one fast group, well, one medium speed group, one slow group, so really as long as you can ride for kind of three hours and have done a sporty you're going to be fine. We're all in winter mode. It's not too crazy. Think of it more as a so I can hold it rather than trying to cap. I hope you can join us. That's going to be epic. I'm going to pop the link to that in the show notes down below. Thanks for listening. I'm going to catch you tomorrow for stage six to celebrate thumbs against win and another phenomenal prediction from me. Thanks for listening.