Did Decathlon Blow the Vuelta? | La Vuelta a España 2026 Stage 9 | THEMOVE

I mean, I thought that Indigmas would be okay today, but I did expect a lot of the winner of the stage, but yeah, I mean, listen. After all, the negativity that has been around the person and Indigmas, especially in Spain, I've said it already many times. You know, what a way to shut up is haters. You know, he has a lot of haters. He has that with a lot of haters. Today, today, man, they need to shut up.

Everybody, welcome back to the move. I'm Spencer Martin. I'm here with Johan Berniel. We are breaking down stage nine of the Vulta Aspania, won by Inrick Moss. On a summer finish over Oscar only with Prima's Roglic 12 seconds back, Felix called 18 seconds further down the road.

Moss winning in his second stage win, Vulta's stage win of his career.

I thought it was his first, but it's his second in the Red jersey. Makes a huge statement. We'll also preview Tuesday, stage 10. I'll dive deep into the race where things stand after the first week or first block for nine days. And maybe even talk about Tom Pickock and Matthew Manipoll at the World Mount Bike Championships. But Johan, before we get into it, what is your?

And by the way, eight sleep is sponsoring our move of the day for this Vulta, eight sleep mattress toppers. They can go warm. They can go cold. UAs using them throughout the entire year. Tatte Pagotchi are sleeping on these at every race. As well as Pavles of the cough, clearly working out well for him.

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an eight-sleep mattress topper before the end of this Vulta, go to eightsleep.com/themove to redeem that and use code the move, Johan. What is your eightsleep move at the day for today's stage? Definitely. And Rick Mass Spencer. It looks like, you know, he got wings in the Red jersey race.

Yeah. It's a different rider we saw. I think he's very cautious in his interviews. I think he had so many disappointments through the years that he doesn't really feel confident to express his good form.

Before the Vulta, I heard him say that he was in great shape. I also heard him say that he likes the heat. Today, I think what is statement from Andrick Mass, you know, like, okay, obviously got into the Red jersey because of Pavles of Scratch yesterday, but today it was up to him to prove that he was the leader of his team.

And of the Vulta and man did he show that. On the climb on the last climb on to the onset of Eitana, there were some attacks. We all expected Dekatlohn and Felix Gaul to attack and destroy the front group.

“But Andrick Mass kind of, I think he gained confidence, kind of discovered him.”

Or he got more confidence on the climb and finally decided to accelerate.

And especially Spencer, I think the most impressive part of that performance was that he had Oscar only on the wheel. At first they collaborated a bit and then at some point Oscar only was on the limits. And Rick Mass did, I think almost the last two kilometers almost pulling. There was a crosswind.

You would think Oscar only is quite an explosive rider. You would think, okay, you know, he's going to win this stage. Ultimately, you know, that would not have been a problem for Andrick Mass because he was trying to gain time on Felix Gaul. And on the Primoz Rockledge, who were still closest opponents,

but he had so much on the limit that he won this stage. In red, man, what a day for Movistar, what a boost for the confidence and the morale of Andrick Mass. I mean, I thought that Andrick Mass would be okay today, but I did expect another winner of the stage.

But yeah, I mean, this and after all the negativity that has been around, the person Andrick Mass especially in Spain, I've said it already many times. You know, what a way to shut up is haters. You know, he has a lot of haters. He has a lot of haters.

Today, today, man, they need to shut up. I mean, it's like, okay, you know, I'm a really good rider. And yeah, I mean, it's nice to see a guy like a 31. You know, he's, he was a promise.

“I mean, straight away, I think he was second year pro or third year pro”

when he got second in the Delta.

He was on, let's not forget this guy was on Quickstep. Okay, that's forgot about that. Yes, you're right. On Quickstep, I think he was there for two or three years. Actually, it's a rider that comes from the,

from the team of Alberto Contador Development team. I saw him first.

There was a documentary about that team many years ago.

“He was super young and Contador was, I think he was still racing.”

And there was a, there was a program about the team of a training camp in Italy. And they did a climb and Contador was, you know, attacking. And these guys, these young kids were trying to follow him. And there was one rider who could follow up Contador and out of respect for the celebrity Contador. He didn't, he didn't pass him at the end of the climb.

It was, I think it was either the Stelvio or the Gavia. I'm not really a big climb. And I said, man, that guy is a climber. And then, yeah, the year after he went to quick step. And now he's still here at 31 years old in the Red Jersey and his favorite ground tour of his career.

So, when we're at Stelvio, I'd open though. Let's see what happens. It is wide open. We'll dive into it in a little bit more detail after the break. But it is, it's an important lesson.

Intercom, Intercom, Intercom, I was 31 years old, like you said, first Red Jersey of his career today.

Now looking like he's in pulp position to win this race, just an incredible, no matter what happens.

This wasn't an incredible ride from him. He deserves a lot of praise. But just like yesterday with Brian Cookard, you know, kind, not, I wouldn't say laughing stocks,

“but just the type of rider that people dismissively would say, like, why are they here?”

You know, look, these guys, even that good. And this vault has kind of been an exercise in reminding everyone about how good a lot of these riders actually are. And if you just stick with it, like, good things will come, you know. Like, how much has, as mass been banging his head against the wall at the vault? Like, a year's a decade almost.

And like, now how we could win the whole thing? It's very cool to see. Same thing with Movistar. Movistar, looking fantastic today. Long gone are the days of the Triden and the bad tactics.

They played it perfectly. But you'll hand, let's take a quick break. And then I'm going to get, we're going to talk about, do a Pagotcher update. And then talk about the tactics of Movistar and most importantly, to calf on. And I want to get your thoughts on that.

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So you're on before we dive into the tactics of the day. Do you want to give a quick update on Titan? But gosh, we talked about it yesterday after you crashed out of the race. We didn't have all the info. Right after we stopped recording, we heard that he had a broken clavicle not so

that he had a broken clavicle with a broken clavicle. Which was a little shocking and then most shocking to me was a C7 fracture, which is basically a broken neck. That's a vertebrae in your neck that's fractured. It's a super dangerous injury to have because that's a really common one that

people will break, not realize it, continue moving. And then you can be paralyzed from it. If the second break is bad enough. So it's really good. He stopped racing.

We saw a picture of him in the hospital day in Barcelona. He looked really, really banged up. He was going to be a long recovery. I assume we don't see him for the rest of the year, right? Yeah.

Yeah, the medical update was definitely devastating. Not alarming for the rest of his career. Colorbone is okay. I think the C7 fracture, they say it's a stable fracture. So it doesn't need any intervention.

That's going to be okay as long as he takes the necessary rest. So they've decided now that they're not going to operate him yet because of the concussion. That's going to delay the surgery.

Because it's a it's a deplaced fracture. So yeah, definitely worse than I expected. But man, if you look then afterwards, we obviously we made that. We copied it our comments straight after the stage. We didn't have repeats of the footage.

And then afterwards, we saw what would really happen.

“I mean, I think we talked about a potential rock that caused the crash.”

And then I saw some other images not confirmed, but apparently it's not a rock, but it seems to be a battery of a one of the cameras on the motorbikes. That's fellow. I did see a Twitter note that said that that's AI generate. Okay, okay.

Yeah, because you can't enhance like when you enhance poor footage, like that, a picture is just information. You can't get the information and the AI will create things to make sure. Okay. I mean, it's yeah, probably.

I did see. I mean, nowadays we don't know what's AI or not, right? So that could have been anything though, right? It could have been because of the road. I would personally think if it's something that is that,

you know, my way of thinking that this was possible was because okay, if it's if it's fallen off the motorbike just before the pallet on got there, there was nobody that could have seen it and took it out. I mean, a rock normally if there's cars passing motorbikes passing, you know, a long time before they would, they would take that,

that's thrown out of the of the road because you could see it. Our spectators could, you know, put it. I mean, I don't know if there was any spectators there, but but anyways, what is confirmed though, that there was something on the road. And that Pogacha was indeed drinking from a water bottle at that very moment.

So he only had one hand on the handlebars and he did that hit that,

that obstacle first, which is also, you know,

I mean, that's also shows you how much tension there was in the pallet on and how fast they were going because Roger was in four to fifth wheel.

“I think there was like 40 minutes in front of him.”

And nobody pointed out. Nobody pointed out. So everybody was surprised to see that all of a sudden it was too late. And then of course, you know, they probably shall they pay attention. But you know what, if you have one hand on the handlebars, yeah, you're done, you know.

So it's still, you know, I think everybody's still in shock that the big leader and the big favorites and the guy who was most likely going to win the race is not there anymore. But look, today we saw a different race. And it's going to be a big, a lot, a big different race from now on.

In that sense, that I think that breakaways of an hour, a lot more chances now to make it. In even in mountain stages, today was different because they got along decided that they wanted to go for the stage. Maybe we can talk a little bit about their plan and their tactics in a bit.

But yeah, I think he's, I mean, I don't think I'm sure he's out for the rest of the season. He should definitely not have any ambitions. I think to try to come back. Without the C7 and without the concussion, I would say maybe, with possibly, if it was only a collarbone.

“But still, you know, then you would think, okay, why?”

Why would you try to rush after, you know, such a successful season? You know what, okay, let's some of the also in the World Cup. Well, well, well, championships. Let's some of the also in Lombardy. I think he's big, you know what?

I think he's biggest regret is biggest regret. And you're playing as a leader in the European Championships. In Slovenia. So that's going to be a bummer for him. But unfortunately, that's the case.

And I think it would be very wise for him to just not rush it. And take time to properly recover. And sure that next year we'll see him back straight away from the beginning of the season in full force. We wish him his wrist. Yeah, it's really sad.

I find it just depressing sad because he was, he was functioning at a level.

We probably never seen before.

And it's just going to take a long time to build back to that. Tell me if I'm wrong. So he, you know, he hits, he hits something on the road. He's slip it sign around. And then he flips over the bars.

Is that a right handed person drinking with their right. Their right hand is drinking. And then they grab the break with their left hand. And it's the front break. He's in fast, but it'd be good.

It'd be. Because he, yeah, he kind of would've been fine. And then when he once you go over the handlebars like that, he'd get really hurt. Yeah, I don't think, I don't think, I don't think, Especially it doesn't really matter if you're right or left handed.

Okay, the break obviously he did go over it. So he did go over it. We saw the bike flying up. But I don't know if that's really, I mean, if you're on what with one hand on the break.

Yeah, and you lose control. You're done. Yeah.

I mean, the problem is if you're right handed, you grab your front break.

And you're going over immediately.

Like, it was shocking watching the replay. How quickly he just, like, summer salts over. That's probably how we broke his had the C7 fracture. Because you're hitting the ground with so much so much speed. Yeah.

Can't imagine that. Feel terrible for him.

“I think you're right that we won't see him the rest of the year.”

Kind of the interesting thing about that is, as we sit here and close our eyes and meditate. Someone that's not tatted for gotcha will win world championships. Yeah. Kind of an interesting thought.

Same thing with Lumber D, Lumber D. And you wonder, like, you know, obviously Remco would be the obvious pick. But you're like, is this how the next generation kind of starts to peep their head up a little bit. Like, does Del Toro get a chance? Does Paul Siksos get a chance?

Got it.

It's very, very interesting.

I definitely will play out. I mean, listen, sexists, they'll do it for the world's. I think Remco, personally, I think Remco is, for me, the big favorite, right? Yeah.

And then, I think we have to think. We have to talk about Tom Pitcock. Tom Pitcock for the world championships on the road. In my opinion, is going to be a very dangerous candidate. Interesting.

Interesting. We're from bedtime last night. We were going through the, the Belgian team-tut, likely team tactics at worlds. And it does like, it does seem like Belgium's going to be hard to be.

Like, they're going to be able to work a lot of teams over. Don't you think? I mean, they're not as strong team. But I've got you.

I will Remco with one heart.

Who else is in this election? I saw, you know, there's two, there's two, two or three riders. They're actually, for faded their, their selection. One of them, I think, is Tige Benot.

“I think he doesn't want to ride against full success.”

It's a really, really. Yeah, really. Interesting. Oh, yeah. And then Elon van Wilder also said that, I mean,

I, that's probably because he feels drained and is out of shape. Um. Yeah, I don't know. I think a lot of guys, like, for the vermixes, the one of the 50-per-room dishes they have that could all be fantastic.

Um, let's take another quick break in them. I'll talk about tactics for the day. Um, well, we'll talk about Tom Pickock. We will preview worlds and we can get closer to worlds. Um, but it's just in, as I said here, I'm very sad for Pagachar.

But then I was like, man, something like, World, it's just going to be so different. So like, it's just hard to imagine what that race is going to be. Like, I guess Paris Olympics would be the closest analog we have. And that was a really different race because Pagachar was in there.

That's also, it's a fix. Yeah, but the Olympics is different because, you know, there's only 80 riders at the start or something. Or 100 riders. And there was only like half of the riders were top professionals. And there was a bunch of riders that were not.

Yes. Now, from other countries that didn't have the level of elite professional cyclists. See, it is made it really weird. I had to break that news to George and Kappie and Bradley Wiggins. And they, like, couldn't believe it.

Like, what? He's talking about with the Olympics. Well, yeah, there's nobody at that race. This is during the tour. But let's take a quick break and we'll talk about the tactics in the day.

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Okay, Yohan, we are back. I think the big story from the day other than Inrogmas winning and looking fantastic is how it played out. Moves stars sat back. Let the break, the break formed over. It was like a hundred kilometers basically of attacking counter attacking.

Hard start to the day. Everything will charge day. But the break finally gets away. Very strong move with two UA riders Kevin Vermarca. As you call that yesterday, looking good, driving the pace with his teammate Powell.

Civic off up there.

I've always liked Powell.

Civic off, think he's a great rider. I'm just super classy as the euros would say. Civic off eventually is alone. I think this thing's going to go to the line. I've made over six minutes with the final climb coming up.

And then the calf line comes to the front. And you know, Moves are just managing the pace. Especially with twenty two kilometers uphill. Twenty two kilometers uphill. The last climb.

But you know, I grew up in numbers at the bottom of the climb. They had to put like 13 seconds per kilometer into them. That's that's that's pretty hard to do, you know. Yeah, but you know what I mean. Okay, the two last reminders of the of the break were CVAC off and Camp Ruby.

You know the Spanish champion. I mean not pure climbers. You don't add to that that they've been out there for a very long time. The hardest stage. I mean, five thousand two hundred meters of climbing. Yeah, I mean, once you saw that with like seven get a go or something,

they started to kind of get chunks of 30 seconds like within two minutes.

“So that's how much that how much faster it was.”

But yeah, I know, especially Dick at long deck. They had a lot of guys. Yeah, because then on the final climb, the calf line comes to the front. And as you say, like the calf line gets to the front. You can see the peloton is splitting up.

You know, they think 15 kilometers left of climbing. And the peloton shattering. And yeah, it was like four minutes down to two minutes in the blue. Yeah. And I, and you're like, okay, this isn't going to stay away.

The calf on pulling extremely hard extremely hard in the first half. Easier half of the climb. Seven k to go really. I thought really strange. So they have mole burger leading out.

Golf mole burgers super strong. You can see golf's face is he's in pain. On mole burgers wheel. It's not a steep part of the climb. It's kind of rolling to descent.

Like not not even on the climb really. It's like a brief rollers in the middle of the climb. And they launch golf and he looks. He looks like he's in pain before he even launches the attack. He attacks for maybe 10 seconds sits down and we get the stall.

But then now golf is isolated with all of his GC rivals who then just started attacking him. In Rick Moss plays this perfectly does not panic at all.

Yarno weed are who is who is always in the worst possible position.

He's always the last wheel going into climbs and somehow makes it up to the front. Really impressive from him. But he's attacking. He probably didn't need to take that on.

They get richer.

“Caripass attacking things are not looking.”

They're looking unstable at this point.

Oscar on the attacks. In Rick Moss, you know, feathers the pace closes that down because that's a dangerous attack. He realizes that they catch Civicov. Weed are attacks. Gallo attacks again, but he just does not.

You can tell he does not have the pace to create separation. And eventually, in Rick Moss, what launches a counter blow knocks everybody out. Oscar only follows him. It was Rodgurt's bridges up looks. Looking like, you know, like a shadow of the former pre-mose.

He's there. He's got the high pace. He looked like he was clippin' over to 140 RPMs. Keeping that was like crazy. His cadence was keeps the gap of 12 seconds, as you say.

Moss holds off on. He's telling us that he is absolutely flying because he pulled the final 2K.

“What did you think of DeCathons tactics on this one?”

I think, you know, they can do a count. Many riders, I think they overplayed their hand. They, I think they, okay. There's two things to consider. What did they really accomplish?

What did they want to accomplish? Did they want to take time on their main rivals? Or did they want to take the stage win? I mean, in my opinion, they pace too fast too early. They should have forgotten about the stage.

You know, that should not have been there worry. They should have tried to set it a proper pace, a hard pace, but keeping their four or five riders there for as long as possible. So then Felix Galko, they've attacked later seven K to go way too early. I mean, especially with, you know, it's a hard seven kilometers.

It's open. There's no way. I mean, look, Spencer, I mean, today we see this is how close these guys are. You know, of course, we were used to pogacha being miles above the rest. But today we have the hardest stage.

Of the whole of Welta in altitude meters, 5,000 to 200 meters. You know, I don't know, six or seven different climbs. A super hard climb and the difference between the first place and 9th place is 54 seconds. Yeah. It's nothing.

The time gaps are not big. You know, and so we have, and that means, I mean, look, the first four riders are within 18 seconds. So, you know, it was clear that you wouldn't, you know, with seven K to go, I don't know what they were thinking.

“It's a team also that is not used to do this, right?”

I mean, it's dated that discovering this kind of collective strength. And do they have the right guidance from the car? Is are the guys in the car not overexcited and pushing the guys too much, which on the contrary, Movistar is completely different. They have experienced in the car from, okay, I know some of the guys.

Now, it's always conservative, conservative.

Let's wait, let's see what happens, you know, which in the Volta, especially in the Volta, is almost always the right tactics. Now, you never know what's going to happen in the Volta. Yeah. And so, and especially with this quite even field right now.

So, I personally think they all played their their cards, and they were too excited and they finished God was alone way too early. At to that, that probably he didn't have his best day. You know, so, on his, at the same time, you know, there's not been any stage yet that Phoenix God has actually ridden the way dominantly from his rivals.

And on the contrary, he has lost a little bit of time now and then. So, he has to attack. But I think it was way too early. And Henryk Mossman, and Henryk Moss played it perfectly. You know, he was he did, he did.

Yeah. This is a whole minus 13. I mean, I mean, really just an impressive piece of work for me. Yeah, I mean, for them, they didn't want to catch the break. And maybe because probably they said, okay, you know what,

if there's no bonification in play, we already have that. And maybe we all wanted those bonification. So, it's the proof, Spencer, that you know, you can have tactics,

but you always have to wait and find out how your leader is going to perform.

And actually, the writer himself has to wait until it really comes down to the limit. Do you know, okay, am I 95%? Am I 98%? Am I 100%? You know, you never know until it really goes down for real. So, I think it was the opposite.

Here, Gal had these plans. They got to learn how these plans. They found out that Gal didn't have the power. And must discovered along the way that he was feeling better and better. You could also see very smart writing from ending,

must because he never reacted straight away.

which is after such a long and a hard stage is probably the right way. And then finally with, you know, they lost two kilometers. He was extraordinary. And yeah, I mean, the thing about the captain too, super strong team, you get to the final 7K of that race.

“It's like, would be nice to have some of those guys with you, right?”

If you're finished, that's all. That's what baffled me the most. It's like, well, you want Gregor Molberg or with 2K to go to close down these attacks. When Richard Carapaz is attacking. And I think, I think you're right.

It's a total mystery.

And the gap was always going to be made.

We're in across Moss made it in the last 2 or 3K. Yeah, not with 7K to go. So if you're really strong, blow everybody away with 2K to go and pick up some seconds. Also interesting to note, feel it's called.

So the gap between first and fourth today, 18 seconds, which is the amount of time, you know, this is a tough summit finish on the Queen stage of the Walta. Same time gap as the sprint stage on stage two, where Phil's golf found herself in the second in last 18 seconds.

So it shows you. And also important. That's also also how much. Also how much time. Things go last more or less on ending it.

Mass in the first time draw. Yeah, I think he does. That's true. 17 seconds in 9kms. I think do ending mass.

And so you can't just sit back and say, like, oh, these hard mountain stages are coming up. I'll take a bunch of time there. Because as you all these guys are equal, pretty much. You know, even if mass was best today,

they can't really ride away from each other. Because they're all producing almost exactly the same Watts per kilo.

“Today, I think the difference was in a monstrous road smarter than his rivals,”

or most of his rivals. And so it's going to be hard to create differences. It's going to be a tight race. Having said that, is Primus Roglic, the secret winner of today's stage.

Loses 12 seconds plus time versus not, not the best day. But now he's still one 18 back.

Like he's lurking, especially with a long time trial in the third week.

Yeah, I mean, listen, Roglic is, you know, he's the sleeping, I think he's the sleeping trap in my opinion. Still not the Roglic. I don't think we're going to see the Roglic.

We are used to seeing the vault. He's there. He's there. He's biting his time. I would definitely not count him out. He can be the interest at the end.

He's a big engine. Riding for a contract, still. Let's not forget this. If he wins this well, that does he get a contract.

That's the question. No, I mean, he's definitely going to get a contract. The question is which team will want him?

“Well, already now. I think already now Spencer is the first time, again,”

since a long time that we see Primo's Roglic competitive in a ground tour. It's been a while since we've seen that. I think it was the 2024 vault, right? Well, I mean, yeah, yeah, it's not that long ago. Yeah, it's not a long time.

If you think about the amount of money paid by Red Bull to him, since that time, they would probably say it's a long time. Yeah, and not last year and not this year, let's say. The way cycling evolves at the speed cycling evolves for the moment. It seems like a long time, right? Two years.

Two seasons or one and a half seasons. But yeah, I think he's making a case for himself, Primo's here. Well, yeah, if I would be my biggest concern, Primo's Roglic, you never know. It doesn't even give anything away in his interviews.

His interviews are so funny. No, you know, I'm super happy. You know, I'm so happy. You know, you could study him as a professional communicators on how to obscure a message.

I never, you never actually says anything of substance.

Yeah, I'm so happy. Today is done. It's like he's just stating facts. And we have to accept that's all we're going to get from him. Back in the day, in the olden day, we went back and looked 20, 21.

He puts two minutes over two minutes into inner mass in a 30, 3K, a long time trial at the end of the delta. I just calculated the recent, like the more recent head to heads against them. The most we could expect him to take in the final time trial is 123 from inner mass. So the thing is he's 18 now now.

He can't afford to keep leaking time. So at some point, he will have to like write the ship and almost start taking time. I'm a little chunks of time on inner mass. I don't know if he can do that, but it's also a pretty much wrong which. So I mean, who knows after the first rest day?

Like are we getting in the luggage territory? Do you remember? You know, we have to think he's going to improve Spencer. His preparation was horrible. Yes.

His preparation was horrible. So, you know, he's riding himself into shape here, which is difficult. You know, I mean, if you start at a lower level,

You can say, well, maybe I'm so much on the limit that I don't recover. I don't think recovery is an issue for roughly. She's a big engine. Tomorrow is the rest day. The day after is in a relatively easier stage.

And then we have a color alto. No, that's a huge stage. That's a very, really big. Those two last clients are really, really, really big. Good terrain for electric mass by the way.

But, but yeah, I would be, I would be most worried about the premise of it. If I'm more of a start in the McMaster. In like 2022, Volta, you know, started slow.

“After stage 10, I think he was almost three minutes down on Remco.”

And then by the time he crashed out, he was a minute down. So, you know, he's a guy that he can get better as a race, especially the Volta goes on. Yeah, I would be concerned about it from an intercomos. Tonight, Intercomos should not be concerned about it.

Anybody because he's, yeah, amazing.

And he should just enjoy his win. Any other, like, let's just say Moss, Roglic is the fight for the win. Who's the third rider now? God, I think this is still, if Gal is still in it also.

And as I said, Oscar only looks like he's improving a bit. No, if it's true that he was sick in Andora. And, you know, as he said, he was the whole night on the toilet or something. It's the day before that stage four, no? So, yeah, I mean, he's definitely there.

Today he was on the limit, but he was there. You know, so listen, it's the Volta. We don't know. But, yeah, the fourth, the first four. As I said, I don't think Carapass has it to,

when he to rival with those guys when it really matters. He comes back, he attacks his typical style. But I don't think Carapass has the legs to win this Volta. I think we saw that on display. Also, because not another, another great day today for Sabgus.

He lost how much he lost 144. 144. I mean, it's not much, but it's, you know, you can't, you can't do that.

“You can't have that if you want to, if you want to win, I'll be on the podium.”

Yeah, worse. I mean, we're seeing just, it's the repeated trend. The tour guys are feeling it. Like they are cooked. Carapass had as good a launch as you're going to get.

And he just is not the thing about today's finishes. It's a little laboratory climbing laboratory. So we, as we saw today, who the best climbers are? And we saw inner classes, probably the best climber. Oscar on these right there with them.

Oscar only, if you think about it, you know, he was probably better than Moss on stage four. So if you average together all the climbing stages, you know, it's like some people take time on him, but he's usually around right there.

He was sick on stage four, a little sicker the days after. You have Robert, she's very good. Goal, still looking okay, even though he is, he's in a bad spot, because he has time to make up and he's losing time to Moss. And he's in some time.

He's just so. Like if you win in right now, he might not even finish on the podium,

even though he's in third place.

Yeah, because it's wrong. And T, and T, right?

“Roblish and only on are the two best climber artists of those guys, right?”

Yes. So if we finished, if we enter the final time trial right now, it would probably be Moss first to ruggled second or first, close and then only third. So, yeah.

Goal has to make up time, but he's losing time on some of the finish. It's not great. Not a great trend. And the coos, it's like, you lose 144 on your preferred terrain. That's not a great sign for later in the race,

especially for guy with a lot of fatigue in the legs. Obviously, we didn't expect a lot from set coup. So I'm not like criticizing him. I'm just saying. I think I think so might be reaching the end of his GC.

The fact that set coups today got passed by skill moves and Karapas, were two guys who also did the tour and seemed to be okay. They are good shape, but they're not in top shape. They feel the tour. You know, it's a third round tour man.

Listen, what you can expect, we can't ask for more from set coups. You know, he's solid and we know. Is he going to keep fighting for a top 10 or is he going to lose more time and going to try to win a stage? I don't know.

He's another like CIA level interview where he like gives you no information. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. He's saying words. You're not getting any info.

That's words. He would be a good politician. He would be a good politician. He would be a good politician. I don't know.

He could clean up. But yeah, I think we're looking at Moss, Roglic, go only is probably the podium fight. You think he'd been carepazs out of it after today? I think got up as a result of it.

It's a few stages already.

He's never been able to keep up.

He came back always. When the big fight and the big war is on between the big favorites,

I don't think I don't think he can turn that around. Plus, listen, three, twenty, six. Spencer, he's also, he's also part of those, not really good time trialists. He's also one half minute in the middle.

You know, and I mean, today, that was as good of a chance as you're going to get. Everyone's looking at each other. Carapaz launches perfect attack. Two or carapaz makes that stick.

But he just is not the same rider he was. Yes, we go. Hey, well, I'm expecting. I mean, you know, they're nobles. They can try to recover, but then,

and then they feel fresh at the start,

but then finally after after a week is a ah,

the tour fatigue is coming back into my legs. I felt tired from the tour, like two weeks later. And I didn't write it. So I can only imagine how hard it is.

“But what did you think of the UAE shifting gears very fast?”

No, they even had sickness in the team. Yes, of course. A band and each other. It's not going to be easy, Spencer. You know, Pablo Torres, the DNF sick.

J. Vine loves not looking good. I'll make that not looking good. Today, Cifacoff and Kevin Vermark were looking really good. They're going to keep trying. But man, there's a lot of riders who and lot of teams who want to

win stages. Stage wins man and ground tours are super expensive. I don't know. I don't expect.

We're going to see the kind of turnaround we saw from UAE,

like we saw in the Giro. I don't expect this to happen. Well, it helped in the Giro that they had an ace in the hole, because Novaya's can finish fast. Yeah, so like stage 10 Tuesday stage and our bias

would probably win that. They don't have anybody that can finish like that. They got to win these long range assaults. They're my dreaming or did Cifacoff sign with the Kathlan for now.

Yes, three years. Three years going to the Kathlan. The Kathlan secretly building a handy little team over there. And the Cifacoff and this and in this welcome, they are training to support post-exhaust in the future.

Yeah. But they are losing moleburger and gall. Yeah. The rest of the core is staying, right? Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. It is a scary team. That's another subplot of this race. The Kathlan is learning how to race incredibly aggressively,

defend a leaders jersey even though they don't have it. And then they have like Cifacoff is such an impressive writer with a lot of experience writing for the best writer in the world. And he's coming over to that team with it. Pretty scary.

Yeah. Yeah. Do you anything else on the stage?

“Do you want to talk about Mike Roche and Pichips before we preview?”

Let's, let's do that. Yes. So Tom Pick, I don't even have the results in front of me. Tom Pick acquins his countrymen Charlie, do you know his last name? Aldrich Aldrich Charlie Aldrich really impressive finish a second.

You're a European champion by the European champion by the way. Interesting. It was a hard fought, like they were going back and forth. I did not know that for like was seven, was seven of eight laps done. I thought Aldrich might win.

And then do you know the name of the gentleman who got third the Canadian? No. What's his name? I'll find it. It's not.

If it's not. I think certain stats. I don't know. First of all, we, we, I mean disappointment.

I don't know what you want to pull, never got in the race.

I mean they, they didn't have, I mean pitcock and a few. I mean, but the pool of that didn't have a great starting position.

“So you have to kind of use a lot of energy in the beginning to make it to the front.”

I mean, I didn't see the first, the first few laps. So I think he's super disappointed. He was, you know, he was definitely trying to win the World Championships. Didn't happen. I mean, pitcock, man, pitcock, he was, I think it looked, you know, he moved up gradually.

To me, it looked like he had everything perfectly under control. He let those guys, you know, fight it out. I mean, at some point there was three friends right. The friends have been dominating the whole. Man, like seen, you know, like impressively.

Nobody in the podium today. No. And they're usually fighting for like every win the World Cup. I guess there is coal, coal punchard from Canada, Canadian. Yeah.

And the Chilean, gentlemen, cost man, sadly, flooded. And then got forced because of that. Okay, he's good. He's easy. But, but yeah, the big favorite was Adrian Boschie. Young French writer, World Champion, under 23 last year.

This year, as one of a few, a few World Cup races already.

Also, I think he did a few stage races.

“Even, I think, I even think he did the Tour of Poland before this.”

He's pretty good, really good, very explosive. But for some reason, it didn't go his way. And pitcock, you know, adds yet another rainbow jersey to his Palmaris. You know, second time double Olympic champion. Now, double World Champion in the elite on the mountain bike.

Multiple World Champion in a lot of other disciplines. You know, psyched across juniors. I think he, if I'm not mistaken, I think pitcock was even junior World Championship. World Champion, tantral. Yeah, that's right.

Yeah. So, in my opinion, we have to now also add him to the favorites for the World Championships on the road.

That would be something that nobody has ever been World Champion, cyclicross, mountain bike and road that has never happened.

So, that would be first. I mean, he is. So, the start of the race is not front row. You know, he's going deep to move up. And then you could tell he looked gast, right?

He said he, but he gets to the back of the front group and he looks gast. And then he just kind of sat there and recovered.

“I think he was fourth or fifth, and they go into the trees and they come out and he's first.”

And like, what, how did he even do that? I think you know, I don't know anything about mountain biking. I'm not, I'm not a mountain bike specialist. He's got to be the best of all time, right? It's never seen anywhere through this.

It's the most versatile rider that have ever existed. Yes. He's on a bike.

You know, we, we, we, we, we, we always talk about Thunderpool and, and well,

and they're amazing, right? But Pitcock is just another level. The skills of that guy on a bike. It's crazy. You know, he's crazy.

Yeah, I mean, what the guy to have as, as a bike brand, I mean, Pinarello, Pinarello, they cannot dream of any better ambassador and both and then Tom Pitcock. You know, wins on all the different possible bikes. Yeah. You know, models they have.

It kind of vindicates remember this wild goose chase where he was on any else. And they were going to go get them and they're going to have to pay it. Turn a money and we probably got 50 podcasts about where's Tom Pitcock going to go. That's a lot of money. Yeah.

Well, they kind of are making a work because, oh, yeah, if you own the team and you own Pinarello,

this, yeah, this is good.

“Yeah, I think of what they're selling these, these mountain bikes are costs so much money.”

Yeah. And you'd watch this race and think like, I got to go get a Pinarello mountain bike, because Tom Pitcock, like, you're, you're right. The control to this experiment is Vanderpool. So Vanderpool.

Think how good he is in cyclic cross the best cyclic cross rider of all time. Look, think how smooth he is on the road. The smooth one of the smoothest riders on the cobblers we ever see. He finished his five minutes behind Tom Pitcock in the mountain bike. And if I'm going to be frank, he looks kind of clunky when he's doing these mountain bike courses.

And Tom Pitcock looks like he's riding on butter. Yes. I think the day Spencer is also on the pool. Obviously, if you're out of chances for the wind, then it's obviously a mental game also. I don't think, but from the pool, once he saw that he wasn't going to make it,

then these guys just switch off, you know. But also, if you look at this in this map, okay, you know, Charlie Aldrich, Aldrich is kind of the exception, because you would think, oh, there's Bobby Bobby, Bobby saw a bird in the garden. He killed it, that's like he got to get that. Vanderpool, I think, and on this kind of course is my, it's so, it's so specialist that it is.

It's a stature and his weight is an issue. Yes. Charlie Aldrich is also big, but you know, he is a pure specialist. And so I would, I would guess technically he has the edge over, over multi-founder pool. And then, of course, Pidcock is the exception, you know, he just shows up.

He didn't even do a World Cup race in preparation like Wanderpool's it. It's just showed up today. It's possible to do that. Yeah. Yeah.

Because your skills degrade so fast and mount biking. If you're not mount biking all the time, oh, yeah. It comes so slow. As we saw with Vanderpool, he's not a specialist. He's going against guys who do this all the time.

You're just behind the eight ball, Pidcock. I can't believe. I'll say, he said he's like, I didn't ride the mountain bike for six months. And then he just comes in and he's crazy. It's crazy.

It's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's out of this world. It's crazy. It is, it is out of this world. It's, I, I, I feel like which just do like an entire podcast series on Tom Pidcock is doing things on a bike.

But what Tom Pidcock is doing almost is, it like escapes explanation. Like you shouldn't be able to do this. Spencer, he is about to be handled than anybody. At to this, at to this, that he's also podium in a ground tour. He was there in the wrong.

Just last year. Just last year. Just last year. It's like, it's, it's crazy. It's crazy.

It is crazy. It is crazy. It is crazy. How, I mean, how, how, how different. How wide can the different disciplines be?

You know, the cycle cross world champion multiple times. Mount and bike. Ground tour. Winner of on all of the West. I mean, how different can it be?

You know, like. So it's, yeah, I mean, he, he has to become world champion on the road now. He has no choice.

Well, he's never going to get a better chance than this.

It's kind of interesting you mentioned that. So just in the last 12 months, he finishes podium on the vault. Really impressive.

“And then you're like, well, how good is he in long one day road races?”

Well, world champions, chips last year. He's 10th. Sixth at Lombardia. Seventh at Strada. Second at Milan San Remo.

And then second at Eshborn. Frank for maybe the most impressive result of all of those. But he could, you're right. He could win the, the road world championships. It's a perfect course form.

And that gets the question would be, well, what's the training like? Like, how is he training for this mountain bike world championship? Is that, does he shift gears now or do you have any insight into that? Or is he just going to go right around and he gets in shape? I think he needs to do a stage race.

There's still, saw, is there, what is there? There's not. There's still options. What does there mean? I mean, there must, there has to be something.

I don't know if there is any stage. Well, let's go to the York tour.

“I think he's probably going to do the, the GPs, right?”

Quebecen. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It would, kind of make sense for there to be an American. This is where there's probably a hole in the calendar where there could be an American stage race that leads into the Canadian races. And then work well this year because there's the, I think there was supposed to be an American stage race actually that people were going to use.

But I mean, I don't know if there's that many. There's like the, there's like a race and freely, but. Well, I mean, it's a really subtle jump, it's a one day race. Bitcoin has the talent thing. Uh, yeah, then.

Especially here's a question for you. If he wins the world championships on the road. What else can we demand from top Bitcoin? Oh, we can still criticize him. I don't know.

Oh, no, no, don't you worry. We hope to hear it out. I have two more demands for him to be the greatest ever the most versatile. He needs to become World Champion gravel. But yeah, I think he can probably think. I think, and then we need to have one world title on the track.

That's not going to happen. Right. Well, yeah, what would he win on the track? It has to be that. I'm in it. I mean, but that's the hardest one to win.

I don't know. I don't know if that's going to happen. That could be the world championships.

“I think Olympic games and what's happening are different, right?”

So there's, you can be world champion and point race, for example, because that's an individual. That's an individual event. Yeah. And do we know if you have any track experience? No, no, I don't think so.

It's a very different style of racing. That's, that's even more specific than mountain biking, I think. If it wins the tour to France though, overall. Yeah. I can make up for a lack of a show.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, for show. If you're going to ground tour, we're going to ground tour. Yeah. Yeah, that's true.

If he, like, let's always show us up to the show next year and wins it.

Hmm. Like, we're talking about, it's not even a debate in terms of the most versatile rider ball. Yeah. Well, I think he's, he is already now. He's already now.

I mean, I think it's crazy. What's this fun is it's unbelievable. There's guys that, you know, we associate with. We maybe we do podcasts with from time to time. Who aren't impressed with this, you know, just like, well, this, it's road cycling.

That's what's important. Yeah. But I don't know. Like, if you really think about how hard this is, it's, I think, the pure talent of Tom Bittcock in almost everything is unrivaled. Uh, remember he, I mean, I don't know. I mean, but you know, he's also really good runner.

Yeah. He has a really fun sort of case or something, you know? Yeah. It's kind of a funny trend.

I noticed the summer where I noticed the world champion runner was always riding

in Richmond Park in the morning. Hmm. And they said they run, they ride more than they run. It's definitely becoming a trend now and running.

It's easier on the joints and the ligaments.

Yeah. And they probably do their, I bet they do only intensity running. Yeah. And then it endurance work is probably on the bike.

“So, you know, Tom Pittcock Olympic, what if he wins the Olympic 5,000?”

That would be, that would be incredible. It could, anything's on the table for this guy. But should we take a quick break and then, yeah, preview Tuesday's ditch then. Everybody this episode is brought to by NordVPN, which has become a must-have during this Delta Spaniard to keep up on all the streams I want to watch.

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That's drinkag1.com slash the move today for 20% off your first subscription. All right, Johan, we are back. And we're, unfortunately, we're going to miss the end of the fillet classic here. George is going to be living with us. We're not going to be able to give people a live watch along to the 33rd

Philadelphia. So I can classic, which did restart this year and has how many kid to go. There are like 103 kid to go. Derek G. We're not going to stay online for that Spencer.

I can you imagine. I like to have hours of us. I don't even know if it's televised. But we should just watch live commentary. Just the pros cycling stats updates.

Derek G's in the break. I mean, it actually seems, if you think about it, it could be hard for anyone to pull back. Derek G, I wouldn't want to be the guy to test with doing that. But so tomorrow, not tomorrow's. So tomorrow we have a rest day.

So nobody, nobody watched tomorrow. Take tomorrow off. Stage 10 on Tuesday. 184 kilometers. We're moving south.

We're in the coast of Blanca today. We're actually, a lot of the, a lot of the roads that we rode, you know, on they've been doing the last few days. But we go even further south on Tuesday. 184 kilometers.

Not, it's not an easy stage. 184 kilometers to 3000 meters of climbing. And probably will not be a GC day, but going to be tougher to be a sprint day. There's one, two, three categorized climbs. And then the up the finish is uphill.

I'm the last, the last, the last 4K are 3% uphill. How do you think this plays out? And who's going to win this? I think it's break away sponsor. I think so.

Do hard for sprinters difficult to control. GC teams will not have any problems letting a break away go. I'm going walk on out for the win. Yeah, this is, if we're out there, it's going to win a stage. It doesn't get better than this.

Because as you say, the difficulty of the stage, especially the finish, just kills any motivation for sprint teams to hold it together. So if that's not happening, it's probably going to be a break away.

“So there, you have to start working backwards.”

Who can sprint or get up or get away on a tough finish from a group? And can also make it into a break away that's going to form probably on a climb.

And the break away will probably form on one of those early in the stage.

You strong enough, could you say, well, maybe Matt's better. And you know, he's sprinting really good. He could win on that uphill finish, but he kind of Matt's better. And can make it in the break away right now. I mean, maybe he can, but I bet, while the Narcadrable.

He did say, he did say to wait the off to the rest day. So let's see, stage 10, stage 10. Okay. And we know, let's get it just there for the sprint points. If it's a sprint, if it's a sprint, if you say 3% at the end, then it's not your Brennan.

If it's a bunch, but I don't think it's going to be a sprint.

“Well, and I think just because of what you just said,”

you probably definitely won't be a bunch, because everyone knows if they take Matthew Brennan to the finish. He's going to beat him in a sprint. So then everyone's going to be wanting to get on the break away. I think Matthew Brennan getting in the break away and winning from the break away probably a little hard to imagine because who in the right mind would work in a break with Matthew Brennan. Yeah, for at least, people would be doing everything they can to drop him or get away from that group before the finish and everyone.

This isn't the tour, Britain, women. I don't know if you watched that, but like, learning to weave us was in breaks.

We're like, people were going to line with her.

It's like, no one should be doing that. Just that everyone should be attacking, and she should have to chase down every move, which is probably what would happen here if Matthew Brennan was up the road. If you say, well, Bernard, I'm going to say just just to be different. I'm going to say Matt's Patterson wins. I think it's probably one of those two guys.

Yeah, it should be actually, I think it's given me nice little palette cleanser coming out of the rest day. Not GC takes a break. We get to see these big superstars who came to the race to contest stages and point jerseys do their thing. I think it's going to be really fun almost like a little classic inside of a stage race. Yeah, for sure.

And you think no change on GC, right? No, no, no, no, no. I just really don't want to turn on, you know, because the broadcast isn't going to start until two hours into the stage. And then I just, I classic vaults would be like, oh, there's a group of 20 away. Oscar Onley is in it.

And Rick Moss is like now of 20 minutes out of the lead. Like, what has happened? Yeah. That's not going to happen. That's not going to happen.

All right, well, anything else before we take off, we'll be back on Tuesday. We'll check in tomorrow. Yeah, Spencer. One more thing I forgot today. The stage in the vault.

“I was actually not my most important race that I followed.”

I was on a bike ride. And my son was racing a stage race in Galicia, up north. And I had to stop. He called me very proudly on video to show me his yellow jersey. So he won the overall in the stage racing Galicia.

So very proud that day. I'm very, very proud of him. And yeah, that was my highlight of the day. It's overall when in the stage racing Galicia in a junior race. That's a big deal.

The congratulations Christian. Yeah, yeah. And he won. The really the key was we didn't know at the time. But he had a great opening time trial, right?

Yeah, yes. Yeah.

It was an uphill time trial was third there.

And then today he was second in the stage and won the overall. And the young, the young right. So he had two leaders jerseys. Yellow jersey. For the overall win and the blue jersey for best young rider.

That's huge. That's huge. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the level of racing to is so impressive.

And like, you know, Spain, that's probably not even the highest level of racing. You can do in Europe. But it does show you the handicap Americans have. Like, Christian is doing stage races that you just wouldn't be able to do in the US. But it shows you why there's probably not a lot of,

uh, there's not a ton of American riders coming out ready to win in the world to where I guess. They have to be, they have to be in Europe. They have to be. Yeah. They have to be in Europe.

Yeah. Like, look at all the guys are, you know, I Quinn Simmons got to Europe early early, something with like, went to a Jorgensen.

“Like, that's the key to going pro these days.”

But congrats. That's a big win. We'll let you celebrate it tonight. Anything else before we take off? I think that's it.

Tomorrow, rest day. I'm going to try to go on a ride. Um, don't very long because I have some back problems. But, uh, So they are doing a little ride in fellow case.

So hopefully tomorrow, I have another day on the bike. How about you? Yeah. We hope those get better.

I have, uh, I'm going to try to get out for a ride. I've been indoor riding while the stage is happening, which is not even so fun. So get out for a ride.

And maybe a lunch or dinner with Mr. Landsarm Strong to discuss. So we do business. Yeah. So it can work. It work and even rest day.

I'll keep you posted. We'll have a debrief on the show on Tuesday. I'm how it goes. Okay. Thanks.

Talk to you later on. Bye.