Since everybody is going to say Pugachar, I'm going to say Mathew Vandepul.
He's Mr. Paritube, I think he's the most skilled rider on Kabbalz by far.
And especially Paritube is the one race that against Vandepul versus Pugachar. It's more the absolute power that primes compared to the power to weight.
“Yes. So, I think Vandepul will make it for in a row.”
Everybody, welcome back to the move. Plus, I'm Spencer Martin. I'm here with Yohan Berniel. We are going through the past week in cycling action, mainly to where the best country with Paul Seychoss, one in three stages, taking the GC lead into the final stage tomorrow.
Tim Merlier, winning his third straight, Skull to Price and then previewing Sunday's Perry Rubay going through who's going to win it, how it's going to play out, everything about that race, Yohan, before we get into Rubay, let's take a quick moment to reflect on some things that have been happening this week. Let's start.
We'll start with Bass Country, then we'll go to Skull to Price. So, just what's going on at Skull to Bass Country, Paul Seychoss looks unbelievable.
I've never seen, I take back every bad thing I've ever said about the guy.
I've never seen a 19-year-old do this. This is unbelievable, he's winning the GC by two and a half minutes, having one three stages, dominating the opening time trial, he wins today again over flying lipowits, but before we get into the Seychoss as dominance, you had a comment like today was a lesson in how not to win a bike race.
Do you want to go through what you met by that? Yeah, I mean, today was obviously, it was the Queen stage, the hardest stage. It was very hard. I mean, all the stages have been hard in the Bass Country, all of them.
“But today it might not have changed anything, right?”
But we saw the race breaking up quite early, then there was a group of 10-15 riders on the hardest climb of the day, the second last climb, which everybody knows, they've been doing this climb a lot of times in the Bass Country and Seychoss basically starts as soon as he's out of teammates, he starts to set the tempo and it's four riders initially, I think it's Seychoss, Lipowits, Roglic, and Utubruks, then, I mean, Roglic tries to make a move, doesn't
go anywhere, then Lipowits goes, the other two are dropped and then Seychoss basically pulls all the way to the top, with Roglic behind, then from the back, how the aroma came out of nowhere, impressive, and catches up, passes Roglic, catches up with the two guys in front,
the moment he catches up, he touches the wheel of Lipowits, a crashes and never makes it back.
But at that moment, it was Lipowits and Seychoss in front and Roglic and Roglic behind. And I don't know if it's Lipowits himself or if it's directions from the car that would even be worse, I'm assuming it's Lipowits himself, he just starts working with Seychoss after the downhill, when he knows that first of all, he's not going to take two minutes on Seychoss at that time, I don't know where from him on the flat, he should already
know that, okay, if I can stay with him, this is going to be great. And let's try to win a stage here, let's try to win a bike race, right? So you have your teammate behind working together with Roglic, and then all of a sudden I see Lipowits collaborating with Seychoss, I said, how is this possible? Then the car came for a moment, then he stopped working, but then he started working again,
and then to finish it off, he starts to sprint with like 700 meters to go, thinking on a false flat he's going to drop Paul Seychoss, I mean, you know, I've said this many times Spencer, you know, and everybody who has race at whatever level knows that when you're away with one guy and you guys take turns, they know who's the strongest rider, and you know if you're going to be able to drop him or not.
So it's clear that Lipowits was not going to get, you know, so I mean, I don't know man, I mean, I, you know, I said, yeah, how to not win a bike race, I mean, listen, there's a reason that Florian Lipowits has not won many bike races, he's a very, very good CC rider, he's very good, they're in all the big races, he's top three, top five, but he only won, I think,
“a stage in, was it Turf Slovenia or, no, it's just the C2, whatever, if you do, or NGC, I think, right?”
Well, and okay, no, you're right, he GC and the C2 or GC at the check tour, the only NGC he's
Ever won is the stage two of the check tour 2020-23.
Yeah, so, you know, I mean, this guy needs to learn how to win races, it's not easy for him because he's not fast in the sprint, and it was, I mean, he was still not going to win against, oh, say shots, unless, unless he was collaborating full gas and they made a deal, but that's not being, that's not done anymore, especially not with a young rider, like, say shots, that's not going to happen, or it must be a deal in the car between the two cars of Red Bull and, and they're quite long,
but that's also not happening. So, yeah, I don't know, man, I was, I was surprised to see these tactics, it was a guarantee not to win the race for sure. What's he being told, like, what's coming from
“the car when this is happening? I mean, you know, you would think, I think it's Bachi Ville in the car,”
you know, he's the bus, he's experienced, he's seen many things. I don't know, I don't know,
it was, first he was riding, then he was told to stop when the car came up and then he started riding again.
I don't know, man, are they just trying to secure second place because then now he's over a minute ahead of one is a Gary who was in the group behind. Well, they had second place already, I mean, they were already in second and third before the stage. I guess now they have a buffer in case. Yeah. It's a Gary. It takes us with that full anyway, I mean. I know, yeah, yeah, that's the only thing that, and that's the beauty of having a teammate in the chase group. You don't have to work.
Yeah, exactly, exactly. So, you know, we first, they, they do everything they can to isolate, say, shots. I don't know if that's actually better or worse for the guys who are on the limit,
because once the strong guy, we see, we always see this with Pogachar also, I mean, Pogachar's dominant.
“They all say, okay, we need to isolate. Yeah. Yeah. What happens when he isolate attacks?”
And everybody's well, you know, yeah, there's a very, it's a very good point. Yeah, isolate them. It's like, I, all right. But that's isolate him. So he doesn't attack. Yes, because now you're giving them no option, and you've made the race hard by dropping his teammates, which then helps him attack you. Yeah, you do mean I actually remember Pogachabela. There was a movie star documentary and they were like, hey, we've got to make the race hard for the final climb and Pogachabela is like, no,
because that does not help us. That is hurting us more than it's hurting anybody else. So yeah, that's actually a pretty good point. I thought it was a bit, a bit strange. I mean, lipowitz looks very good. Pogachabela sucks very good. Yeah. Pogachabela's is going to win this race. I think he's two and a half minutes up on lipowitz. No, he's going to win this race. What's really surprising
“Spencer to me is, you know, we've all seen he looks incredibly strong in the time trial that was”
clear already. That was like, okay, basically race over, right? I mean, if you're able to do that
performance on that short climb and then on top of that winning in the way he won stage one or stage two, uh, it was clear that nobody was able to follow him uphill. But today they were able to follow him. Lipowitz followed him, right? He was able to stay with him. We don't know if they shot went full gas or not, but that that's irrelevant. He stayed with him. But also, what's really, really remarkable is man, his confidence in his interviews. It's something for a 90 year old.
I mean, he sounds like a seasoned professional in his interviews also and he is so confident. I mean, you would say you would think, yeah, you know, a 19 year old, you know, it all comes to him, you know, it's a bit overwhelming. It's not overwhelming for him. That's where he expects to be. I could hear also in an interview three days ago, you know, that they had gone to the previous some stages. They knew where they would, they knew that stage one, they wanted to attack. So, I mean, yeah,
they came into this race, uh, really, really believing and thinking that he would win and they were right. You know, it blows my mind about him. He's so good in the time trial that 19, like that's usually what comes along later. Like to come out into that time trial super impressive. So, stage one, stage two, the first road stage. He attacks and rides away 25 minute climb, essentially. And I don't know if you watch this, Yohan, he didn't get out of the saddle. He just rode
and rode away from everybody. So 25 minutes, I estimated his power to around 440 watts. So, like 6.8, 6.9 once per kilo. But that's like, I would, I don't like about those numbers as they assume everyone weighs 60, that when you see those numbers on Twitter, it's, yeah, normalizing everyone's weight, but they do it so low that the watts per kilo are actually a little bit lower than they are if you're more than 60 kilos, would say shots. Yeah, and how high are these
these 65, 66, 60, he's listed at 64. So, we could assume 64 or 65, probably. Yeah, he's tall.
He's tall.
maybe, yeah, he's tall. Well, I'm penciling them for the tour. I actually put a little bit on the one the tour after stage. Who would be the tallest, the tallest tour winner? This year. No, no, who would be the tallest tour winner ever? Oh, ever.
“I mean, wagons has got to be up there. That guy in real life is so tall.”
Yeah, I was, I think exactly. Yeah. He's taller than in the right. He's taller than in the right. He's taller than George, who's very tall. Yeah, through him is pretty tall, too, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah, great. I mean, it's pulsation. We're talking in front of you. We're getting so emotional. No, we're talking. We're getting so shocked. We're getting so tall. And wagons looks like you can play in the NBA right now. So pulsation has 6.0 watts per kilo. In the
comments, people are like, oh, man, that stinks not even more than 7. To put this in perspective,
7, like, first of all, there's a 25 minute climb. Like, they're like, well, it found our dish.
He was better. It was like, well, that's a 16 minute climb and he did 7.2 watts per kilo. That's quite a bit longer. Like over 20 minute climbs. He actually don't see that many of them and proscycling because these guys go so fast. Like, I'm looking at Pagachar Odacom last year at the tour to tour winning performance. That was 6.8 watts per kilo. So there's not some like dud performance. And you got to remember pulsation is riding as hard as he needs to to win this race.
He's not riding to impress us with his power output. Like, he did what he needed to get a lead.
“He basically sealed the win on stage two today. I think he's not, he's not just good uphill.”
Do you see how he goes downhill? He was flying downhill. He's unbelievable. He's unbelievably good. An unbelievable descendor. So he has it. I mean, he can climb. He can downhill. He can time travel. He's not slow. He's pretty fast. Also, man, the guy has it all. Yeah, I think, I mean, in my opinion, Spencer, I don't know. Maybe we were looking ahead a bit far, but at this moment, I see him assuming he does the tour, but he's going to do the tour.
There's no other way. I think unless something unexpected happens, I see him up there with Vingigarca. This takes us. Yes, I agree. Physically, absolutely. I think he's already slotted into that second level of like, well, everyone's below Pagachar and then he's right there with Vingigarca. We should say, Jonas Vingigarca is very good at racing, especially for three weeks. I mean, this is I'm looking at Jonas Vingigarca. He's not finished lower than second and a
grand tour since 2020. So Jonas Vingigarca has got that figured out. Man, as you say with this
descending, he's such a complete rider. I've never seen anything like this. He's a far more complete
rider than Pagachar was at 19. You know, there's another another thing today, note wording. Spencer, my friend commentator at Urosport, Antonio Alex made me aware of something very unique. So at some some point we had four riders in front, so we had, say, Sassas, Lippovic, Roglic, and Romo. So Sassas, obviously is a phenomenon. He's a super talented rider. The other three riders come from different sports, other sports, Lippovic comes from Biotlong, Roglic, and Roma was a triathlete until COVID.
So, you know, and, and, and, and, and Roglic and Roma and, and Lippovic actually came relatively late to professional cycling. You know, we're all, there's all this hype about, you know, the 17, the 18, the 19-year-olds. All these games came to cycling much later. So, you know, it shows that if you're a good athletes, there is a possibility. Yeah, I've Roma very good to call that guy. That was super impressive, right? Yeah, came late. On this young rider thing, we didn't
“mention it in the pair of Rubes Show. Do you know who the youngest rider in the top 10 was at Rubes?”
Sorry, now I have flanners. It's a Rimko-evenapull. And, you know, the second youngest rider
was Tadipaghachar. Just kind of a funny thing that these young riders, it's one of all the monuments, different, it's a different animal, it's a different animal. Yeah, a monument, it's, you know, 278 different, yeah. That's, and a question mark, of course, around Bullseye shots right,
How is he gonna perform during three weeks?
something that he will need to discover. You know, if he goes really good for 10 days and then falls apart, it, you know, it could be a normal thing. It'd be expected, but maybe it doesn't, maybe it doesn't happen. Maybe he just goes out to treat me the whole three weeks. Let's see. I would say it's not likely because I was trying to explain this to someone who was a young rider themselves at one point. His experience is nothing like our experience, because to him,
and I mean, frankly, when he's in the group, it's probably easy, right? Because he's so much better than everybody else, he's not on the limit when normal people would be on the limit. And so I don't know if he's gonna fall apart. You know, like, he can burn all, not as talented, but kind of a similar situation, more like he's too young to be at the tour. And then you're just so much better than the average rider, you're not pressed to the same point as the
“average rider is. So it's, yeah, that's why the best riders win grand tours. But just a couple of”
the notes from this. He's like, del Toro crashes out. Who knows? Maybe he would have won it. I'm getting some heat on Instagram about he's like del Toro not winning this, but he could have won. We don't know, but he crashed out with a torn. It was like a torn hip flexor. What was this injury? It was not in a sense. It's not looks nice or a torn muscle. Yeah, it sounded, I mean, when you read the report, it doesn't look good. I think he's going to be
fine for the tour. But definitely, you know, it's definitely a bummer for him. And for the team, for the bus country, he's, listen, he was not going to challenge but got char. At all, counter
performance in the time trial. And then not there in stage one, even got dropped from the second group
at the end. So he was not at the top of his game, I think. Same with Kona Yusso, who, you know, did it really about time trial, then did a few bad stages and had to abandon it with stomach problems,
“I think. So, yeah, I mean, they have to just go home and rest and recover and prepare for the next”
goal. He's doing something. So I'm not on the commentary pointed out del Toro, I just del Toro and I used to as two examples. Very like started the season super hot and then almost looked to be paying for it. But what's crazy is, are you so beat Paul Seychaz that I'll carve a. And then flash forward to best country. They don't even look like they're in the same conversation. Like Seychaz is significantly better than he did earlier this year, which is that's, that's a scary progression.
We didn't fall in our rush. Yeah, I mean, they're really good in strada Bianca. And let's not forget that I used to have a pretty severe crash in Paranese while he was in the lead. You know, so we don't know what the consequences are. But at the same time, and I would think, okay, if he starts in Paisblasco, or it's Etsulia, we need to say it's Etsulia, you know, keep calling it a two of the
“past country. But if he starts, I think it's because he thought that he would be performance,”
you know, performance. So yeah, who knows? And yeah, I have no, yeah, he did crash hard Paranese. That it looked, is Etsulia mean tour or bass country? I don't know. I don't, I don't know what the means actually Etsulia was called Etsulia. We, we will defer to the bass. I just keep calling it what that Paisblasco. I remember some like TV network asked me to like, what should we list this as in the, you know, like what's on TV right now? And it's like, I don't know what to tell
you. Like, it's a, it's a, it changes every year. Um, so before we get to the base scalar price
was on Wednesday, midweek, cobbled classic kind of always in some of the first, there's a few
cobbles, but it's, it's, it's pretty flat. So it's, it's the sprint world jump at gyms basically. And, and it, it's not, that's not just that gets thrown around a lot. This is truly, if you look at the past winners, it is almost always the top spinner winning. Tim earlier wins it for the third year in row beats, paddle, bitner. That pretty impressive result by bitner, but like if you look at the past winners of this, it's my layer, my layer, my layer, my layer, Philipson, Kristoff, Philipson,
Caleb, you and Yacupson, Yacupson, Yacupson, Kittle, Kittle, Kittle, Kristoff, Kittle, Kittle, Kittle, Cavendish. So those are those are, those are the world's best sprinters in the year that they won. This is only Timerler's second race of the year. Is that neat problems? I, he won this y'all on it. I could just hear you in my head being like Tim, Timerler is the best spinner in the world, yourself. This is a pure sprinter. He was, he was a sprinter. He's, you know,
he just never gets his timing wrong. It's crazy. I mean, he has this, this jump.
I mean, when the other guy started sprinting, this sprint was over already. He just came from the back.
He's so good at surfing.
He was just finding his way. It's at some point it looked like he was boxed in for some reason. He always
was finding opening. And then he's able to judge this distance. And just when he goes, it's, it's, it's, it's game over. It's crazy. And there was not even a mean. It was, it was, it was, it was, it was, it was, it was, it was, it was, it was, nobody was second. And then, and then the third guy was, the third guy was second. But it was, there was nobody in second place because it was so far ahead. Yeah. And he just kind of had some weird luck in grand tours. And like, even, weird luck,
getting to grand tours. Like, there was years where he wasn't even really racing a lot of them. I'm curious of that. He won two stages of the tour last year. So if this guy shows up the tour, watch out. He could win a lot of stages. Yeah. Yeah. And now at the last moment, they also added
him to Paritube. And he's not, I mean, that's not the, I don't think that's a race specificly for him.
But, you know, I mean, obviously, Paritube is not going to be a bunch of print. So, but anyway, he does part of it. He just surprised, surprised by his win. He said, you know, I know that physically, I'm not 100%. I was just, you know, saw, saw the finish. I just, I said, okay, this is my distance. I'm going, he, he didn't understand how he won. He was extremely surprised. Well, I know, I know how he won because he was, he really fast way faster than anybody else.
“That's right. And he's just very good at positioning. Very good. If you want to learn how to”
sprinkle and just watch Tim earlier, you're right. He's the best peer spinner, the most peer spinner in this sport. Let's take a quick ad break. And then we'll talk about Paritube. I talk
about how Tim earlier is going to do there. And one minute, okay, y'all, when we're back, Paritube,
this Sunday, we will have a show with, hopefully, Lancer, I'm a Sean and Georgian Capy. I've not confirmed with both of them. But I trust they'll be here. It is a long race. 200. But George, George will be on the ground. Oh, yeah. Yeah, George, George is there with his team. His team is invited, modern adventure. So that's big for them. And I guess we'll just have to wait until George arrives at his hotel. But I think we need, I think we need to accommodate the schedule for
George to be on. I mean, he's Mr. Paritube on our team. Yes. Nobody can talk better about Paritube
“than him. You know, I think we did this last year where he had to go to Paris and we waited for him”
and then he like had an eating dinner and he was so hungry. Yeah. But 260k, long race. You probably know Paritube if you're listening to this episode. But if you don't, not, here's the cliff notes. Not too hilly. Many cobbles, very hard. Bigger writer is good here. Power, power is key. Climes are not as important. Well, you also have to be a great bike handler. And writing over the cobbles is incredibly unique. The favorites. This is just, I've just pulled this from
draft Kings. Just now. Here's the favorites in the Betty Market Tettica got chart plus 175. So if you bet a hundred and seventy five dollars, you would win a profit of a hundred. Sorry. No, that's the opposite. If you bet if you bet a hundred dollars, you would win a profit of a hundred and 75. Matthew Vanderpools the same plus 175. Mads Patterson plus 700. Well, when our plus 700, yes, per Phillips and plus 1200 fill. Leap, oh, gone. I'm plus 1200. Four and for me,
plus 1600. Christophe Leport plus 3000 Johnny per me, plus 8000. This used to be a harder race to predict. But it's, it's gotten almost, it's favors. I feel like the favorites more than it used to. As an example of that, the last three winners are Matthew Vanderpool, Matthew Vanderpool, Matthew Vanderpool. So you tend to get, you tend to know it's between, you know, a handful, two or three riders. A reason for this is the race is just getting harder and harder. It's like what we talked
about last week at Flanders. You know, last year, I went back and watched this race, you know, on the, the, the moves essentially were being set up at 170k out by a hundred K to go, the top three, out of the armburg forest, which is a key cobbled sector in the Peloton or Matthew Vanderpool, Ted, I forgot your Mads Patterson, which was the final podium. I expect the thing,
“same thing to happen this year, but who do you think's going to win and how is this going to play out?”
Yeah, the easy way, the easy thing would say, okay, pogachari, you know, but, but I think part of the best difference. And then, and that's taken out of the equation, bad luck, because that can happen and it will happen. Yeah. We don't know which of the favorites will be affected by that. Just remember last year, when the decisive move was going with pogachari and Vanderpool and Philipson, Patterson Flatter, had a flat at this, at the very same moment.
But since everybody is going to say pogachari, I'm going to say Mathew Vanderpool. He's Mr. Paritube, and he's the most skilled rider on cobbles by far. And especially Paritube is the
One race that against Vanderpool versus pogachari.
primes compared to the power to wait. Yes. So, I think Vanderpool will make it for in a row, which will be unique. This will be, he's not, it's not going to be the record holder. There's two
“riders who want it for times, Tom Bowen and Roger DeVlaming. That's the record. But I think Vanderpool”
will join them and win it for times in a row. You'd be the fastest to four. No one's everyone for a row. I mean, I think you say he's the best rider on the cobbles in this race. I think he's the best rider on the cobbles of all time. I mean, to have four, to get four flanners, to get three flanners wins as fast as he did and let's say he wins on Sunday, to get four Rubei wins in four years. That's absurd against a very good competition. Now, the thing is Spencer, you know,
what we already see is that pogachari, for pogachari to win, pogachari needs a hard race. So, you know, the best for that is that it's man against man and that the race explodes early. I would say, I would say, although after a hard race of 260k,
you never know, because if it's a two-man up sprint, you never know. You can't say if it's pogachari
around a pool's going to win. Logically, it should be from the pool, especially because pogachari needs to try and drop onto your swimmer pool. But what if he doesn't? And he just saves a bit and they ride together and vandalapool is always going to ride with pogachari, especially on the flats. And then it's a two-man sprint. But I still think, and also another thing, Spencer,
“for it, I mean, and I think it's actually, you can take it both ways, but for pogachari to be”
a hard race, it needs to be a fast race and it will be a slow race and a long race, because they predict cross-headwind the whole day. Interesting. It's going to be dry, good weather, 15 degrees, dusty, and cross-headwind. So, obviously, when you're sitting on the wheel, it's easier when it's kind of in generally headwind than when it's tailwind, because then on the road, they're going to be lost faster. People may think, okay, it's tailwind. It's easier. It's not. If it's tailwind,
you get dropped easier on the cobbels than if it's headwind. That's tickled. It's faster. Yeah, tailwind favors the attacking rider, especially tailcross. So here's my thoughts on this. I think you're, I tend to think you're right. It's actually a hard assignment here for pogachari, because as you said, what power is more important than what's per kilo than like weight averaged power? How does pogachari drop Matthew Vanderpool? That's not going to be so easy. I mean, frankly,
how does he drop Matt Spederson? How's he drop well? How's he drop flea pogana? Like that's not
going to be easy to drop any of these guys. I think the days of Jasper Phillips and finishing second
are over, because the increased pace has just stretched the race out as we saw last year. It was a little too hard for Phillips, and even though he made that initial selection with them, but to drop these guys is going to be so difficult for pogachari. I tend to think if he wins, he's going to have to win by either remember the year, it was 2023 where Vanderpool was with
“Van Art and Ben Art flatted. Like that's all, that's why you work with someone at bay, right?”
Because something could happen. Listen, don't go further than last year. Spencer, pogachari crashed, you know, but was pursuing Vanderpool, but then found the pool how the flat went while he was alone in the process. So yeah, I actually forgot about that until yesterday. I was like, I didn't remember Vanderpool flat in, but remember 2016 where Matt Hamon goes to the line
with Tom Boon and wins the sprint. So there is always something to be said to rebate. It was just
go to the finish and see if you can win the sprint. It happens. Weird stuff happens on that belladrome. I'm going to pick pogachari because I need him to win all five monuments because that's what I picked. The thing about this though is pogachari, I went back and calculated if you like, let's say the last years worth of major one-day races. You know, we always say like, oh, wow, the odds aren't very good. If you had just bet, like, if you bet a million dollars on
pogachari every time, your return would be like the best hedge fund in the world. This is seen that hard in retrospect, you're like, oh, so much should have done this. So it seems silly to bet I, in Spagachari, if he wins, he will have one five contiguous monuments, basically like a calendar sweep. And I think it sets him up for to win all five in the year. And then the last seven consecutive monuments, I believe, if he wins all the way to Lombardia, that would be
impressive. But I do, I am acknowledging, I think it could be hard to be Vanderpool here. This is
Vanderpool's Super Bowl as well.
doesn't win, who do you think could win out of the group behind? They're like, that cluster behind. Yeah, I mean, you see, listen, Vomitable, well, Vinar, this in good shape.
“Patterson is going to be, I think, better than in Flanders. He was already at a good level there,”
but he's getting better by the day. And then people Ghana, people Ghana set out Flanders on purpose to be top in Paritubet. He showed that he was in great shape in in Warigam, the worst of London. And I think he's somebody that they have to have in mind, you know, that you can't give people Ghana, like, on one of those sneaky, you know, trying to get away attacks. Once he gets 10, 50 meters, go get it, go find it, go get it, you know?
Yeah, especially, I think it's got your Vanderpool Ghana bidders and both Flanders. Those five, you know, you can say Philips, and you can say Yosper Stiven was up there. It was floating on for me. There's other riders, but you know, a lot would need to happen with one of those five riders for an underdog doing. Yeah, I would say that a lot, a lot would need to happen. The thing about verbatie is it's space constraint. So let's say we mentioned seven top favorites. There's this,
like, not physically that much more space for someone else to be there because you can't be sitting 20 wheels back going into these cobble sectors. You're going to get dropped. So not many people are going to make that front group. I do think, if we got your Vanderpool look at each other, you can tap Patterson, Ben Art, Ghana. I like those guys to maybe ride away. These are not, you would not say they're wild cars, but in modern cycling, they might be the thing about Ghana
is, okay, so he skipped Flanders to prepare. Kind of makes sense, right? You hear that? You're like,
all right, I get it. Almost never happens. Do you know the last rider to not race to win
Ruby without racing Flanders? Well, was it not your haven? Matthew Heyman only because he had a broken
“wrist. Yeah. Yeah. So, I don't know. I mean, you should never do things because history tells”
you to do things like you should use data and come to your own conclusion, but that does make me a little, just makes me think twice about if that was a good situation. Also Spencer with buddy to a bit compared to all the other races we've seen if it's, you know, wheelchair attacking getting away, in in Paris, it is easier to organize a group behind behind the guy who's escaped. Then in any other race we've seen, especially a lot easier than in Flanders because it's flat
in between the sectors. And, you know, let's say envision a scenario where, I mean, on the hardest part for the hardest sector is the armbrick forest, right? So, let's say Pugachar gets a way there. Flanders pool in Ghana and Baiterson and Van Art get together. They're catching him. He's not just, you know, he's not staying away. Yeah. Yeah. That's a good point. I mean, I forgot into that Pugachar attacked with like 70 K to go last year. And then started to whittle it down, but you bring
up a good point of, I mean, so I'm just going back to 2020, 2024, Vanderpool attacked from 60 K out and one by three minutes when he was a world champion, right? When he was a world champion, why was the chase, what happened there? Was he just that much faster on the couples? Did you see that, the fact? I mean, that attack was like, it was like a different race. It was crazy when he attacked. I remember Johnny Vermeer's was pulling and he was like surprised. All of a sudden, he saw a
white thing pass in the rainbow stripes. And it was he was like going double speed. But again,
you know, I mean, then check behind, you always need to see who is there. Like, if, you know,
if we're talking about these five riders here, if it's Pugachar by himself against Foner Pugana, Peterson and Van Art, you know, he's not going to stay away. The thing is that normally when Pugachar attacks, you know, it's a race of attrition. Everybody's, you know, slowly, slowly getting
“drained and then Pugachar goes and there's, there's not much left to chase behind you, right?”
Yeah. No matter how you want to collaborate, they're all dead already when he goes. Yeah. Yeah. You, you are right though. This is the race that it would happen. And now that I'm looking at it, Van Art pulls first two solo wins. He's won it solo three times, which is kind of unusual.
It's first two solo wins. Philipsen was an anchor in the chase group. So who in the right mind is
going to chase with Philipsen sitting there? Like, no, nobody because you're going to lose that sprint. So yeah, you are right that it could come back together. I tend to think this is going to be strong out. Like, from the moment most people turn on the TV, the race is essentially going to be
Almost over.
one for him to win. I think if he wins this, he can win though. He can win last year. We listen
“Spencer last year. We said, yeah, you know what, it no way. It's his first time. Man, he was second.”
And he, a bit out the crash, he would have sprinted for the victory. So, you know, if we, if we take into account that Spogarchar of this year is better than last year Spogarchar, he has the experience, he has team fully believed in him. I mean, he's, I mean, the fact that he's equal favorite
with Van Art Paul says says it all. You know, he can win it. You know, he can definitely win it.
I mean, you left his team camp to go preview this in December. So, yeah, definitely take this here. So there's an ex winner, a multiple winner of Paredo Bay, three time winner. You all miss you. He sent me a message today, and he's convinced Spogarchar's going to win. There you go. And yeah, I'm, so I'm sure the Belgian media is talking about this. If Fremco is starting, how much pretty win by? A couple minutes, probably. The fact that he didn't even consider going says it all.
That's a difference. That's, it isn't Paredo Bay's, it's a different animal Spencer. It's, it's it's completely different to any other. I mean, we tended to think that Flanders and Grube were different. You know, these guys have gotten so good now. They're so skilled on their bikes that Flanders is becoming a race of the strongest guys are there. No matter how much experience you have,
“the Paredo Bay is different. It's, it's, it's, I mean, you have to see it in real life to believe”
the state of those sectors, and then how is it possible that they can go over there with these road race bikes? It's crazy. Well, before Paredo Sharelaster, we didn't even think it was possible
for a modern GC rider to just roll up and do well. So yeah, yeah, it is different. I would second that.
It's not the same. Will you hunt anything else before we take off? No, I think that's it. I'm excited to watch it on Sunday. I mean, I think on your sport, they, they show it from start to finish.
“No, I think definitely show it from start to finish. Yeah. It's on peacock in the U.S.”
Which, yeah, we'll have it start to finish as well. It's certainly like if you're East Coast, probably 4 a.m. is when it's going to roll off. I mean, what is locally, it is that they started like 10, 30, 11 a.m., right? And 30, I think. Yeah. Yeah, 10, 30. I mean, 260k. So it's going to be five and a half hours at least. So yeah, I think maybe 11. I don't know. It could be 11. Finish by five. Yeah. One thing you don't realize when you're not in Europe and then you go to Europe
is it gives you a sense of scale of these races. It's like 10, 30 a.m. to dinner time. Is how long the race is happening? You're going to like, wow, this is a really, you know, some of these two or stages could start at one, 30, and they're over by 4 30, you know, 5.m. But these monuments are significantly longer. You don't really appreciate that until you're sitting through the entire thing, sir. Finish. Okay, Spencer. All right. Doctor there, you're on.
