Roadman, it's Monday, welcome back to another Roadman podcast
Roadman, it's Monday, welcome back to another Roadman podcast. Today I want to talk to you about the crazy amount of bike racing that's going on at the moment. Look back at the Jure of the Talia, L'Eège Baston L'Eège. Before we do, you know the drill, 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's 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 Bytes short form podcast. Happy Monday to all you good folks wherever you are listening. It's a rainy, dreary October day in Dublin, Ireland and I'm a little bit disorientated at the moment because the Jiro d'Italia is just kicking off. We just finished Lièse Baston Liège, which was epic and I'm going to recap it in a moment. But yeah, it's October. I'm just about to take my winter break off the bike and chill out for a little bit, take a couple of weeks. I'm still going to ride the bike a little bit, but I'm not going to ride the indoor trainer. I'm not going to ride if it's rain. And that feels to me like winter time. You know, the bad weather kicks in. I'm taking my winter break off the bike. It feels like winter, but then I turn on Euro sport and the cycling zone. It's playing havoc with my clock. It's like the equivalent of changing time zones at this year with COVID and this new calendar. It's wrecking my internal cycling clock. Guys, I want to talk today about the Jiro. I want to talk about Lias Baston, Lias. I think Monday's, at least for the rest of this season. I'm going to use them as a little bit of a recap. I'm not going to do a daily sure to tally a podcast. I just, I don't have the energy for it. And now it's not even that I don't have the energy for it because I'm still going to bring you guys a daily podcast. It's more, I think there's topics out there that can help listeners more. I know we're all at different stages in this roadman journey where some of us are just coming into the sport and some of us are seasoned campaigners. And I like to think the podcast helps people out along the entire spectrum. Both the Jure of the Tally are the Tour de France Podcasts. They're flat out entertainment with less of the educational. So I think given that the tour is just finished, then I'm gonna focus on prioritizing the educational rather than the entertainment and then we'll revisit it, come to Vuelta. We'll see. Before I crack into the substantive part of the podcast, let me remind you all of how the podcast is funded. It's patreon.com forward slash Anthony underscore Walsh. If you're getting some value from the podcast, I would encourage you to head on over there and make a small contribution. If you buy me the price of a beer once a month, as a tank you will really help this podcast move forward and make sure it's sustainable, gets us closer to our break-even initial goal. And as a new added bonus once a month I'm bringing a secret episode. The secret episode, I just worked out the kinks on this and it's epic. So what's going on with the secret episode? You have your own private RSS feed. So it's a separate podcast that you can only get access to true Patreon. So it gives you the unique RSS feed, which I'll change every month. And you get access to this as a podcast. You're not, don't have to sit by your computer and listen to it. You can stick it in, listen to it on training, listen to it on the go. We covered a Reikatopics in the secret podcast this week from Photo, Boyon Modulation to help prevent saddle sores and a bunch of your training questions answered. Okay. It's Jiro D'Italia. are two stages in and today we're on to the third stage in Mount Etna. I want to recap briefly the last two stages then I want to move on to Lias Baston Ligage and then I want to talk about EF Education's jersey, Chris Froome getting dropped his future. I don't want to cram that all into a roadman short-form boys podcast. So this is like ready steady cook. Start your watches. We juriditalia. We had a crazy course for the juriditalia. It was basically an uphill first half and a downhill second half. The guys hit some crazy speeds and I hope you're a follower of my predictions and got to the bookies with because I nailed that prediction. Felipe Bogana, he talked to win. It was fairly obvious but look there's a lot of variables in this game so for the world champion and Italian to deliver insistly on the opening stage it is your Italian to take the first Maglia Rosa. Maglia Rosa is the leader's race. We have the Moyer-John in the Tour de France, we have the Maglia Rosa in the Jiro de Talia.
Actually, this is a good place. I was going to leave this right till…
Actually, this is a good place. I was going to leave this right till the end, but because we have a Maglia Rosa, pink jersey as the leader of the race and not a yellow jersey like the Tour de France, EF Education Pro-Soycling, who typically wear their pink and navy Rafa kit, decided to change up their kit. So, they've done a collab with a street brand called Palace, and they've come up with a very funky jersey design with a duck, but they have been fine. So initially they were being sound to the sheer of the Talia race organizers. They didn't have to do it, but it was tipped to the history and the culture of the race where they said, you know what, we're not going to wear a pink. We feel like it takes away from the Maglia rolls out of the race. So we're going to move away from pink for a jersey for the race. they had to submit this jersey to the UCI for approval, but apparently their jersey submission deviated from the actual finished product, so they've taken a fine on the head for that. The jersey is out there. It's very polarizing. A lot of people absolutely hate it. I actually think it's quite funky, but beyond that, I think the main thing that it's done is it's got me on the podcast talking about it. It's got you listening to it and now sharing this with buddies. It's got people talk and it's got that awareness, it's got that publicity. Now it hasn't got that publicity for EF Education because they're barely visible on the jersey so if I'm EF Education the title sponsor, I don't know maybe they've taken a back seat in terms of funding for the race but if Newton's changed I wouldn't be happy with that. One would assume it went through proper channels and they cleared it and were happy with it but it's a pretty funky jersey with ducks and shit on it and they've gone the helmets up and the bikes up like that. Raff is always a company that's going to cut an edge on these designs. And they are a great one of the great success stories in our industry. So it's cool to see this innovation. And because the jerseys have typically been a little bit boring. So Philip Bogana is in the Maglia Rosa. But the big story is Garand Thomas. Garand Thomas took a big, big chunk out of a lot of his rivals. Like 20 yards, I can say, or eight. But some of his bigger rivals, you would argue, our fürgelsang, and he took over a minute out of them in a TT. Like there was only 15 kilometres of time trial and he's taking a minute out of them. Now think about their 63 kilometres total time trial, this year's the Jiro d'Italia. So if you're to do the maths on that, that's over 5 minutes if you assume he's going to take the same amount of time out of them and coming, which is a big assumption in coming right, in common that's the total five minutes that they're going to have to find on him in the high mountains, which is crazy. And also he's a big momentum shift. He's gone from the guy who was, you know, looked over for a selection for the Tour de France, unfairly in my opinion. And we talked about this a lot during the Tour de France podcast, but isn't there a way to respond to adversity? Isn't there a way to respond to criticism? And I've actually just started watching after being nagged by so many people to watch the last dance on Netflix. I'm not much of a TV man. I've started getting into Netflix and watching it and you know obviously Michael Jordan is one of the great champions of all time and when you look at the hell Grant Thomas' responder to being looked over by Dave Bales for the first selection for the Tour de France, he caught a went on the pace, he caught a surge, you know what, fuck this, I'm going to go shopping around for a contract on the Tour de France winner. He didn't. He's in the twilight of his career as well. I think he's 35 years old, 24 years old. And it pains me to say toilet your career because he's younger than me. So yeah, that is painful, but look, that's the way we go. You go from being the only lad to the outlet on the thing very fast. But he rolled up his sleeves, he got stuck in and he said, you know what, I'm going to fucking show you. I'll show you what I'm capable of. I'll show you what I want to tour of France. I'll show you why I'm a Olympic gold medallist and that's what he's done and he's taking a massive, massive step already towards claiming the jear d'etalia and when you look at the bad look the fugelsang and team Astana have had In the force two days like we'd Lopez having an almost comical crash in the TT Where he went to change from the aero skis into holding the bars hit up a hole at the same time lost control of the bike And went career and into the barrier out on stage one And then we had the order call later of Lassoff today feeling sick and climbing off the bike So now Fjogelseung is the sole leader of Astana, but he has no team so he can't take to Jersey We've Mount Etna today, which is the force real tests.
We're still down on the island of Sicily the force real test It's one…
We're still down on the island of Sicily the force real test It's one of the really iconic climbs in world cycling So if you get a chance today tuning in definitely to the last 10 15 kilometers that up because it's epic Honestly, I'm rooting for a grand Thomas and it's not often I'm rooting for one of the any else's granddears but he fails to me like a wounded animal. He feels like the underdog. He's a Welsh lad. I love grand. He's humble. He's phony. He's charismatic. He's a great boy, grower and he's a chip on his shoulder and I always think a champion with a fucking chip on his shoulder, it's a dangerous thing and that's what we have, a wounded animal. So I'd love to see grand Thomas win the 0 and I actually love the same win that boy, a huge margin. just signal his intent for next season that don't look over me as the team later. It's not all about Carapaz and Bernal, I can still represent at the highest level of the sport. That's why it pained me today to watch Chris from home. Obviously I'm like everyone else. I love this arc people have in their careers. When someone has that momentum, they're three time, four time, five time defending Tour de France champion, you want to see the apple card upset. No one likes to see that dominance. But then when they have a setback under the underdog, we all love this comeback story. Like, I'm not sure who said it, it was a podcast I heard. And humans, we love this idea of someone doing well. But what we love a lot more than somebody doing well is, somebody who does well, then fucks it all away, and then comes back and does well again. That's what we absolutely love. And that's what I'm hoping for Chris Frill, but the five-time Tour de France champion, It's not looking good for him. He was dropped with 100k to go in Liers Baston, Liers today. I'm gonna leave it out there and you guys can answer me. Is Chris Froome ever gonna get back to his previous level? I don't know. I just don't know. Even if Froome, no matter where he is in his training block, even if he's on a train and it's been on training on Wales, you don't expect a great champion like him to get dropped with 100km to go. He just don't. So I fear for Froome at the moment, I really do. And he's wanted to go go. Is it a palatine as well? So yeah, for real me, I hope you recover fast and I hope you get back to that level soon because at the moment it's not looking great for his Vuelta challenge. What's super interesting with this sort of bubble setup we have and team has been isolated is we have essentially the same cast today for Liese Baston Liese and anyone who's not familiar with how it is one day classics work. We talked about last day how a three week race like this year it all plays out the whole tier plays out over three weeks, but in a one day race that's it. It's all on the day. It's a forceman across the line. You've none of these confusing rules about mountains, classifications, sprints, classifications. It's just every man against each other, forceman across the line on that day wins. We have the iconic one day races. We had flesh well on last week. We had liaison liaison this week. God willing, we'll have Parry Rubé, another classic next week, which is a little bit up in the air and tour of Flanders. These are some of our classics that we typically see in the spring, but because of the messed up calendar this year, what we're seeing is the same cast of Reuters in this bubble, from Tour de France to Worlds to Fleshwellone and now to Lia's Baston Liaish. So at the business end of this race, we had a cast of characters which from the Tour de France Daily podcast we are super familiar with. We had our former Under 23 World Champion Tour de France stage winner, Sunwebs Marakarshi. We had our current world champion Julian the housewives favourite, Aleph Aleep. We had Roglich who blew so catastrophically in La Plata Belfie in the final time trial and we had the young champion, the great Tajé Pogacha. We had these four dueling it out into the finish, four guys in a sprint, just no tactics left in this one and it's just Mano against Mano for coming to the line. I was expecting the two fast guys, Alif Leep and Hershey to actually cancel each other out and to watch each other. And I was expecting Roglic to take a flier and take the win. Roglic did take the win, but in very unexpected fashion, we had Alif Leep open and up a sprint, deviating from his line, nearly wiping out Mark Hershey who came on clips and he would have won it for me. He wins flesh last week, he would have won this. It would have been unbelievable. Tour de France stage, flesh will own, he is Baston Lege.
Don't have any roidder, has won a Tour de France stage in those two…
I don't have any roidder, has won a Tour de France stage in those two classics in the same year. But it wasn't to be because Alifeliek deviated, took her, she out of it, it looked Alifeliebs to win. It was Alifeliebs to win. He had a, he celebrated like, this is one of the first things I'm saying to guys when I'm coaching him all the time. You sprint past the line. You don't sprint for the line, you sprint five yards past the line. Alifeliek, it's a school boy era from the world champion. He sprinted short of the lion and he threw his hands up and Roglich, the great champions, printed past the lion, threw the bike, Roglich dips him on the lion. It was insane television, some of the best last 10km of racing. I've seen it a long time, but what's really interesting at the moment is, we have the four protagonists still at the front of the bike race, but it's flipped. You've Hershey and Alafleeb, the two specialists at these super long one day races who were actually stronger than Pogacha and Roglic. So there are the guys that are the antagonists, there are the guys who are pushing it on at the key points. Alifleap was actually relegated for his sprint, for that deviation, so deservedly so. But it's just a bad day all around. I'm not going to get into this course in the course of the Rainbow Jersey. Is it real? Is it not? Maybe it's a discussion for another day. But what are we getting to Boycraise from the Ez Baston, the Ez to the Jiro? And a tip of the cap up to EuroSport for probably the worst piece of coverage I've ever seen of a sporting event. This would be the equivalent of televising a penalty shootout in the Champions League final and as the fifth penalty is about to be shot, they cut to the tennis. The Roglic, the Alifleap, it's a photo finish, no one knows what's going on, Alifleap has his hands in the air, Roglic dips it on the line, it looks like Roglic is one but Alifleap is celebrating cuts to the two lads, Aleff Leibs confused, Roglicious confused, were waiting basic breaths going, oh my god, what's gonna happen? It cuts to the tennis. Are you joking me, EuroSport? Get your shit together. EuroSport's coverage is so frustrating at times. The breakaway show used to be brilliant and they all have relegated it to 7 o'clock shown after race finishes a 3 o'clock. Like no one wants to watch the interviews 4 hours later. They really don't. even though I'm the most doy-hard cycling fan and I can't bring myself to watch that. Whatever's going on at EuroSport at the moment. That's around for another day. Folks, I think I pulled it off. I think I pulled it off in a short condensed Roadman Boys podcast. We drew it to Alia. We liaised Baston, Liaige. And before I go, final reminder to check out that Patreon, our patreon.com. We're heading into the winter months and I really want to keep this podcast. It's been It's been amazing so far. It's been a whirlwind. I've got the chat to some of the best Reuters in the world and some awesome ones lined up for the common weeks. But it's one of these, help me help you. If you're getting value from it, I'd please ask you to go to Patreon. The link is in the bio. Buying me the price of a beer once a month, it supports the podcast. It's a small amount of cash for you, but it really, really matters for the podcast. Guys, thanks for listening and you know what, I'm going to be back tomorrow and every other day this week. Chat you then. out there, Rodeman. Hey everybody, it's Anthony again. Really quick, I want to invite you to join arguably the best thing I've ever put out inside the Rodeman community. It's a challenge. It's a challenge called a 14 day Kickstarter challenge. So regardless of where your fitness is at right now, this is going to be the catalyst for making you faster and making you leaner. I've created this challenge to take the guesswork out of everything. It's 14 days, training plans, regardless of what your level is. There's Masters, Beginner, Advanced, there's Meal Plans, Shopping List and even a video course holding your hand and talking you through at all. So what I recommend you do right now is just stop everything, press pause on this audio and go to roadmansoycling.com forward slash 14 day or check out the link in the bio. That's roadmansoycling.com slash 14 day.