Did the Future of Pro Cycling Just Arrive? | Strade Bianche Breakdown | THEMOVE

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Let's not make a mistake here, he's like the autoro's a killer, and he was on the perfect position behind Paul say, it's not, if he was able to go with poetry, he would have gone with poetry, it's not like he held back and stayed on Paul's wheel, just to make it more tactically difficult. And if you had this strength there to go, he would have, I mean, it's just an indication of how much better Paul Gachari is than anybody else right now, or

has been for the last several years. Nope, we can touch him. First race of the year, no matter what

he does, he can race the Tori UAE, like he did last year, come to strada Bianca and beat everybody this year, this is his first race of the year. He's just been training up until now. A lot of these guys have all been racing stage races, so it's like you think, oh, maybe he hasn't race yet this year, maybe he'll be a little bit weaker, nope, doesn't matter. He can just come into the hardest race of the year, thus far, and just ride everybody off his wheel, so there's no stop in this guy.

Everybody welcome back to the move podcast. I'm Spencer Martin. I'm here with Yohan Brneolyn, George Hincap, both of whom are on the ground in Tuscany for the race, and we are breaking down strada Bianchi, 2026. One by, you probably could have guessed it before it happened. Today, we've got a char solo win with Paul Sashia. Second, Isaac Del Toro, we've got to chose UAE, teammate third, Rummingrey Guar Fourth, Gianni Vermiche fifth. I'll just run through

quick, the quick run through of the highlights, and then we'll get your guys to take on the win, and what this means for perhaps hopefully more interesting races down the line, but with 90 K to go, the TV coverage starts, the kind of annoying thing about strada Bianchi is they don't start TV coverage until after all the action has started. So with the TV turns on, we see UAE at the front, I believe Kevin Vermarker, Yohan, you said, he might be too busy early, but he was hammering that

pace. There's a really tough, I think it's the strado six sector, like a 11K long, very hard climb, UAE is lining it out already within 24 seconds of the early break, go ahead, and the significance of this is it tires, pogacher's competition out, but also makes it very hard to get on his wheel, because only the few riders can move up on that gravel. They get to the next sector, Storado 7,

the Monte San Monte, Santa Maria climb, which is where pogacher always attacks, which by the way,

we rode yesterday right, George. Yeah, that's a hard job. It's a hard job, George. You don't want to, you don't want to actually attack me on that section, did they do the proof of it?

“You have to keep an eye on that. We have, we have visual proof that I flew by George on the Monte San”

Monte. He did. He did. Yeah, so she was downhills man. You're ripping him. But it was going. But pogacher, UAE lines it up, but not a shock, pogacher attacks. It looks like Tom Pickock is going to follow him like last year. He was looking down in his chain, I couldn't quite figure out what was going on, but Pickock kind of falls back. Paul Seixas bridges up super impressive with Isaac Del Toro, who's clearly been briefed by the team to his one job at stay on Paul's wheel all day.

And Mateo, Jorgensen is with them briefly, but we all know what's going to happen here, eventually we've put out Chau-Wreston down, gets away solo. He already has like a 34 second gap with 77 K to go. And then there's the two, there's the Del Toro Seixas group in between the Chase group with Jorgensen and a few strong riders, like eventually wept in our Benjili, Quinn Simmons. Simmons though, he gets a little worked over by by the numbers. He closes a big gap. He gets

dropped at about 50 K to go. And pogacher has lead never really goes above two minutes. It hovers

between like 150 and 120. And the impressive thing to me is Paul Seixas was doing a lot of the work chasing because UA had two riders in that group with young Christian and Isaac Del Toro. And every climb, Paul Seixas would accelerate. Del Toro would stand as wheel. The others would, you know, they're fighting hard. Like they would show pogacher's power. It was almost a look like it was never

“below 460 Watts the entire time. He was away. And so they know, wow, like Valtvana, I think I was”

strong. He is back. They're just fighting to catch back onto that Chase group after every climb.

Rides though, 30 minutes to the finish line, pulling like pulling alone, narrowing the lead.

“The lead gets down to about, it's like it looked like it was in like 115. Like going towards a minute,”

he's asking Del Toro to pull through. Obviously, Del Toro's not going to do it. But then

impressively dropped Del Toro on the climb to the finish gets second. That's that I was blown away

by that after he pulled him for maybe even over half an hour. And then there's a sprint for fourth and fifth. Probably the most impressive room. And go ahead and grab the most impressive fourth place I've ever seen. I would say this is probably the most impressive podium. I've ever seen it this race. And I also think outside of Fragature, we're ending. We saw the future of the sport. We saw Paul Seixas 19 years old in 21-year-old Isaac Del Toro kind of leap frog everybody else

in the sport besides Pagachar. But Johan, George, Johan, you go first. What was your major take away from this race? That you probably kind of saw because you were on the side of the road. Yeah, we were on Mount Samarillo where Pagachar attacked. I mean, he was gone. He was already away. I mean, what I take it, I mean, being there and seeing those guys pass and having written that section yesterday. It's unbelievable. Those sections are a lot harder than what they look

on TV first. Like a lot harder. And then the speed that Pagachar came by and it was 75 K to go.

“I think on top of Mont Samarillo. I mean, he's done this already. But it looks to me like it's”

something that they have so much under control. The break, the nine-mind break away was never

got more than what was it. One minute, 30, they had the whole team pulling. And as we said, yesterday, actually when George and I were riding yesterday, we explained to the guys where he were with here. So this is what's going to happen. You are going to come in. It's going to be lined up. There's some as a climb. Then there's a downhill. It's going to be all stretched out. And then, you know, at the next corner, it's up hill again. Pagachar is going to go. It's exactly that

way. He already did that before on another occasion. And to me, it's really, I mean, it's mind blowing. How he has this exercise under control. He goes takes one minute and then just manages that minute. How many races have we seen now of Pagachar? Since the world champion since since before, like he just takes a minute and just has it completely under control? And as we said, also Spencer, it was going to be Saichas and the autoro. Saichas obviously has impressed a lot,

because if the situation happened like we said, Pagachar attacks, then it's the autoro and Saichas, the autoro sits on the wheel. So you logically would think he gets second. But yet, Saichas was stronger in the end. That's impressive. But yeah, I mean, it is, I can hear, you know, there's a

lot of people say, yeah, you know, it's always the same. It's boring. I mean, I love this. It's just

beautiful to watch this kind of dominance. And to watch this, it is art. You know, it's like, it's art. Pagachar just has the master the art of attacking and keeping the breakaway in any course, on any course, in any field. And he just does it. I mean, I was there in the, in the Piazza, the Sienna, it's an amazing arena. And the excitement of the people and the atmosphere was just just crazy. It's very beautiful day. I mean, he's like a boxer. He holds him just like at arms reach.

I mean, I've never seen you when do this. You're right with the World Champion jersey going across

“tuscany with the crowds. I thought it was, I think it's incredible. I could watch it all day. But”

George, what was your big takeaway from the race? Well, I mean, a couple of things. Yeah, one can say it's boring because he just rides away from the best riders in the world with 80 kilometers to go. But as a former professional cyclist, knowing how hard it is to one keep the team together on these roads here in tuscany where it's just, there's no, there's no straight roads. It's all up and down, windy, twisty, turning, very technical with the gravel. But to see the whole team up there,

Kevin Burmark, for instance, an American rider, like, really just leading the Peloton on some of these, some of the hardest, most technical roads in Europe is just super impressive to watch. You know, just to see these guys in formation, knowing that Poguchar wants to attack on that climb and getting them there to the front is already a victory in my mind as a team to get their all together, super, super hard to do. And it was very impressive to watch. And going back to

your very eloquent brief breakdown of the highlights of the race, let's not make a mistake here.

to go with Poguchar, he would have gone with Poguchar. It's not like he held back and stayed on Paul's wheel just to make him more tactically difficult. If he had to strike there to go, he would have. I mean, it's just an indication of how much better Poguchar is than anybody else right now,

or has been for the last several years. Nobody can touch him. First race of the year, no matter

what he does, he can race the Tori UAE, like he did last year, come to Stratobianca and beat everybody this year. This is his first race of the year. He's just been training up until now. A lot of these guys have all been racing stage races. So it's like, you think, oh, maybe he hasn't race yet this year. Maybe he'll be a little bit weaker, no, doesn't matter. He can just come into the hardest race of the year thus far and just ride everybody up his wheel. So there's no

stop in this guy. And it's just, yeah, just it's, we're waiting to sit in history every time this, he jumps on a bike. It's special to see how good he is and how good his team is. And how good

“the others are. I mean, Paul says, 19 years old, I think Johan said, you said he's going to turn”

20 in September. I mean, he's essentially a real junior year's of teenager. No, it's said to the

junior rider, yeah, getting second place, dropping exactal Toro, who just dropped the best

riders in the world last week in UAE. I'm just really impressive stuff. And you know, maybe he won't get the attention. He deserves because Bogotá still wrote away from everybody, but it's still super impressive and really exciting to to to to see such a young kid beating the best of the rest of the world. Yeah, I mean, if you look at Seixas, you know, I mean, and also don't forget, you know, this guy's young and there's already it tremendous amount of pressure on him. Everybody was saying,

okay, if there's one guy who can follow Bogotá Seixas, okay, he couldn't follow him, but, you know, he stayed there for a long time on that more summary. And what's really impressive is that after what he did the majority of the work, whether they were with two or with the breakaway, then or the group that joined them, he did all the work or the majority of the work and then still wrote away. That that says something about the engine of a guy, you know, he's he's a big engine. He's for the

moment not able to touch Bogotá, but yeah, I mean, there's no there's not been any surprises in this race.

“I think one of the one of the questions was before this race, okay, what we didn't have any”

indication because Bogotá hadn't raised yet, right? So we just have to go off what we saw on social media, you know, a training right he did, he published his data, he did a record on Cepressa last week. I think so obviously we knew he was good, but you know, how good is he going to be? And the question is is he the same or a bit better than I'm going to go for the moment, he's the same as usual. That's already, that's not necessarily negative thing. It's already scary for everybody, but I'm not

excluding, I'm not excluding that he's still going to be a bit better than last year this year. It's interesting to, sorry, I don't know how I heard on TV, like he will not be doing a stage race until I think was it the next Grand Tour, correct me if I'm wrong, like he's just doing a Swiss

know? Well, I'm going to Tour to Swiss to watch him, so he'd better be doing it. Hold on a second now,

now I'm feeling frazzled. I think he's doing a spring one. He's doing, he know you're right, it's Tour Swiss, I think it's, yeah, the next one is, and Tour Swiss is now only a five day race. It's not like the typical 10 day race. So was he, was he not so good? Was he not for Romney? I swear he was on there. I swear, I remember I've heard from him somewhere. I've heard from him. I thought it said in a room. It's still a different approach. I mean, no stage race is

this spring. Let's just say the most of the spring. And still, arguably, it'll probably win all the one day race as he does. It's just, it's wild, like the process they take. Today I was, today I was with Johnny Boonio in the car, right? And he said he is almost convinced that Paul Atchars winning me on some rainbow by attacking on the cheapest. That's still, we'll get that, we'll get to that after the brand. Well, that is interesting. Think about it. But it's interesting. You bring that

up George because he's almost not a stage racer. His part-time job is a stage racing. He's really

“a one day racer. Like that's what he's focusing on. It's like, oh, the tours here. I better go to”

Switzerland and get ready for that. And he's going to win the tour. But you don't want to ever tell I can a few weeks ago. The reason people might be asking, what's the big deal? Get on us, we'll follow him, drop him, sprint him. What is going on? Well, if you looked at those power numbers, they were thrown up on the screen. When it's a course like this and it's this demanding,

light as him. We're basically done. Like if you look at the one day racers that are this challenging, nobody can challenge them. It's not close. The only one we can hope for is Paul Sajas in the future.

Like he is monopolizing these helly one day racers. I just, I've never seen anyone be able to

put out this much power. I was, I was asking ask you guys this. So Paul Sajas last week

“does let's say 465 watts for almost 20 minutes at 64 kilos. I believe that's a better”

watt per kilo than Lance Armstrong's strong when he would do his madon test before the tour. Because we'll see about 72 kilos. Yeah, seven of the pieces. So not so easy to follow these guys. In that guy, and that's the guy getting second. So it's, it's a lot harder than just saying like, hey, why don't you guys just just follow the attack and drop them? Also, do you guys notice aerobics on the gravel last year? UAE was not riding their aerobics. They were riding it this year

and surveillance on an ultra aerobics as well. Like that. I think we're in the era of the aerobics. If they're doing it at this race, maybe they won't at Rubei, but I can't imagine there's any race where they're not riding at this point. And it obviously helps to celebrate boys. Well, just, and just going back to his power to wait like, yeah, nobody can touch his power to wait

“and that's crazy impressive, but we already know that. For me, the most impressive thing is just”

how good he is a positioning and has no fear in staying in the front of the peloton. I mean, these races are all about like how you can stay in the front while saving energy. Well, that's not even a question with him anymore. He's at the front of any section he wants to be up. Whether it's strata bianca, Paris, Rubei, Thoroughlanders, Milan, San Remo. This is so much, this is like one of the hardest things in cycling is like to be able to maneuver your way around

the peloton. That is not even an issue for him. He is there whenever he wants to be there and not only buy himself with his whole team, so it's just, it makes it that much harder to beat him or to try to present a different tactic because another team, like whether it's to calthron or be smelly is a bike. Like what do you do to beat the sky? I don't think anybody has the answer.

“I certainly don't. Nobody has the answer. Don't show up like Vanderpool. Yeah, that's not bad.”

Exactly. No, I mean, the thing is also, you know, you could say, well, you know, why people say, okay, why don't they just let him go and then or get organized behind the thing is when Pogache, when the moment of Pogache, when the moment is that he leaves, he takes off everybody's in the limit and everybody is already isolated. There's nobody left. It's because the UAE has made it so hard that it just blows up and it takes a very long time to, I mean,

now you could see he was by himself and then first there were two guys together. Of course,

it was only said, but once they were four riders relaying, that's whatever they had left. They had nothing else left. You know, it was basically, everybody's an autopilot after the it's a, and I imagine this is a 200 kilometer race in a monument. It's even worse because that's last hour is basically in Georgia, you've raised a lot of those. It's just, you know, dragging yourself to the finish with whatever you have left. And if you noticed that this race, the only

time they made headway was when it was Seychelles pulling alone. The group is actually slower because with there's just many climbs, they're losing time every climb if they're sticking together. So it almost doesn't help you to have a big group. It's why it's so difficult to put up a fight year. Yeah. Not as strong as the guy away, it aren't going to help you. Yeah, Pickock made a little bit of a difference when he attacked, you know, you think maybe if Pickock

Seychelles and went then arts, you're going to get together. But like you all said, these guys were running on fumes, they're doing everything they can. They can maybe cut the gap 20 seconds, but then Pokotard just keeps the same pace and he just brings the gap back up to 141. 52 minutes. It's just, yeah, it's hard to imagine being this guy in any way. What was really impressive today for me to see like firsthand was, you know, we were on at the end

of Mont San Mari. And so we were watching it on our our phone and we saw Pogaccia are going and Seychelles stayed there for quite a bit, you know, like 10 meters, 20 meters, then came back a little bit. And initially that gap was not very big, you know? And basically two minutes off to where it's all of a sudden the cars are day like just really fast. I thought there was still three four kilometers away. They were there and Pogaccia comes a huge gap. I mean crazy gap straight away.

Yeah, that's incredible. Yeah. And also Pogaccia, apparently said it before the

race that he was going to, he was expecting Ezec to make the first move. And then they interviewed

little, he likes to play these little mind games with his competitors, his teammates, for instance,

because arguably coming into this race, we saw how strong and how Dominic Ezec Tutora was in UAE. So people might think, well, maybe he's as strong as Pogaccia. He did a faster time than Pogaccia did in the UAE climb. So, you know, there's that, there's a little bit of a sense of excitement, like, well, maybe we're actually going to see a battle amongst teammates. But no, it's, it's, he's still head over heels better than anybody. He probably is better than Pogaccia at one day races at that age,

though. So there's still, these guys are coming. So Chas and Del Toro are coming.

“Pogaccia at some point will not be winning these because, well, I think I think here's Pogaccia,”

he might be right when Pogaccia decides to quit the retire. But right now, I don't see that happening. I think the difference, though, the difference with Pogaccia at that age is, it's, it's, it's, it's very different because, remember when Pogaccia was 19, 20 years old, he was, he, he looked like a kid. Yeah, he was absolutely not formed or optimized or, you know, I keep saying, you know,

let's not forget that Pogaccia R1 is first towards the France, not being absolutely a 100%

formed professional. He looked different. I mean, he was not, he didn't look like a great athlete. I mean, he, I mean, he, he wasn't a tour, but he, he, he, he, he transformed the afterwards, when he started, you know, he didn't have an attrition list, he didn't, he didn't know he was doing and training, and I think that's the difference with, with, with, especially with St. Charles and the author, or that they are already, like, super top professionals at that age. Yeah. And Charles was not,

“I mean, obviously he is now, and he, and that's how he got so much better. But he managed to win”

2,000, the tour without being 100% professional, in my opinion, and that's what I, from, from, from the outside, I, that's, that's an observation. Well, no, I mean, we've heard that when he, he went to the tour to France, then he got beat by Jonas, and then, like, then he really started focusing on his training, and since then we've seen the dominance, we're nobody can touch him. So yeah, I would agree with you on. Let's take a quick break, and then I want to give you guys some

some crazy stats, and then we're going to talk about how, how can this be stopped from happening next weekend, but we'll be right back. So yeah, Pagatro and solo, surprising, not surprising, probably. Do you guys know, in the last 23 major one day races, and this is Monuments, World Championships, Olympics, and Strada, how many were one solo? No, I'm sorry, about tell us. It's 21 of 23. Yeah, and what? Crazy is of those 21 solo wins. It's only three riders. Pagatro Vanderpool

and Rancuevna Paul. That's crazy, isn't it? Yeah, that is crazy. Yeah, and then these are Pagatro solo major one day wins, since March 2022, I'm not long ago. So today, Strada Bianchi 78K solo, a little embody at 33, European champ 75, World Championship 67, the age, but it's only age 35, two or flenders 18K, Strada Bianchi last year, 18K, Lombardia the year before that 49K World Championships, year before that 52K, GP Montréal, 23K solo, the age, but still the age 20, 24, 25K solo,

Strada Bianchi, 20, 24, 81K solo, Lombardia, 23, 31K solo, and still goal 23, 29K solo, to a flenders 23, 17K solo, Strada Bianchi, 20, 22, 50K solo. That's an average solo distance of 42 km, just in the last four years. That is unbelievable. And I don't think, I wonder if, like, Pagatro at some point will not be winning these, but the performance from the two guys behind her, they made me wonder, like, is this just here to stay? Like, when he's not winning

them solo, will somebody else be doing it? Or will he ever see a return to small bunch of finishes at the end of one day races? Yeah, I mean, I'm watching today, for instance, I'm watching the second group and thinking, this is, this would be super exciting if there was anything in

“that too. That's kind of like what we remember cycling to be like, but I guess this is new cycling.”

Yeah, yeah. And it's smart, I guess, because if you think about Peter Sagan would always

get put in these traps, and you know, he flittered away a lot of one day wins because of that, it's like, well, if you're the strongest rider, just go from 100K out, why not? Who's going to chase you down? And I worry, like, if Paul, I worry, like if Paul Sagan sees that, is he going to think, maybe I'll just go solo all the time. And we'll never see a return to interesting racing ever again,

I think it's become the best race in the calendar because it's a wide variety of people can win.

You know when the action is, the end is, it builds up to so much excitement. Johan, you said your friend Gianni Buno thinks it's in the bag for purgature. I'm not so sure, what do you guys think? What are the keys to stopping purgature next week at San Ramo? Is it next week or two weekends from now? Oh, wait, it's two weeks, because next weekend's period is

“yeah. Yeah. I think the key is the zone between the chiepressia and the pojo and how they manage that.”

So, purgature can get away on the chiepressia. Yes. But Milan San Ramo is a different race. It is a race where people can get back together. It's completely different, you know? So, even if it gets away on the chiepressia, I could still see some kind of organization behind him. And that's actually between the chiepressia and the pojo is complicated. You're going to depend on the wind also. The fact that he said a new record on the chiepressia

means obviously that he wants to try there to go away. Last year was it, it was from the pool

in Ghana, and I always stayed with him. Yeah. It didn't drop them on the chiepressia.

No, no, it was Ghana drop. No, I don't think Ghana was like dangling and then he, you know, he used this Ghana power to kind of at the top he got back on for the descent. Yeah, yeah.

“Listen, I think we will, I think on on Mars and Ramo, we will see if this is the same”

pogacha as always or if he just got a bit better. I mean, I don't know. Milan San Ramo, I would say it is not mission impossible. It is not mission impossible to get organized and get him back. Yeah. Because it is the most accessible race for a lot of teams and a lot of riders in terms of you know, having a good result and have your guys in the front. What do you think, George? Well, and we have to remember to suppress it. Yes, it's a hard climb. Yes, it's after 230

kilometers, but it's about 5% an average. But we see pogacha make a real different to like anything over eight, nine, ten percent. He can usually just ride away from people. 5% you see these sprinters now are like world class climbers at 5% and they could do the power like a vanipole.

“He can, we saw him not only hang on to pogacha, but also attack pogacha. I think anything”

under 5% is a completely different ballgame. This is what makes Milan San Ramo so exciting. This is what makes Milan San Ramo so accessible for some of these sprinters that can climb, some of these classic riders that can, you know, do the 300 kilometer distances. So I'm going to eventually say that he's not going to be able to ride away from guys like vanipole in San Ramo. Just in the hopes of an exciting race like we saw last year. So I'm going to, I think it's a different ballgame

being that it's only 5% average clock. I agree. Yeah, I think it's what you did very challenging. I would not say it's in the bag for pogacha. It's a hard race for him to win. I'm excited to see it. Before you guys go, I think the middle class is in trouble. Whether that be America or cycling because if you're Tom Pidcock, I don't know what your lane is now that these guys a generation younger than you are now coming up and then now they're better than you. That's not

great. But who do you guys think when pogacha retires, who of these two del Toro or Seixas is dominating

the future of the sport? You go first, Johan? I think it's early to say, you know, Seixas is super

young. It all depends, Spencer, how much margin of improvement they still have. How much do they have to improve though? Well, I mean, they're in the sense that they're top of the world. So if they improve, it's not good news for their other rivals, right? Yeah. And I don't think they have that much margin of improvement left, but still. I personally think the Toro is, I would say the Toro, Seixas, I don't know man, I don't know this in Seixas, it's damn good also, he's incredibly good.

The Toro, actually. I know. So you wouldn't necessarily think that looking at them. Let's, I'm going to say Seixas probably advantage Seixas because he's younger and his team is improving incredibly fast. They're, you know, they figured it out how to function as a team,

I'm going to say, I probably like the Toro more as a rider and as a personality, but advantage Seixas has because of his young age. What do you think? I'm, oh, I'm not going to, I'm not

“riding off Pickcock yet. Did any, I think you had a mechanical today during a really hard section?”

Yeah, so two mechanicals. Yeah, two mechanicals. Yeah, some really strong attacks with less than 25k to go. So I'm definitely not riding in them off. I think he's still one of the best in the world. And we'll still continue to see him win races. But if you look at what happened today in the final,

I mean, rewind to last year's zero with Del Toro and then our Del Toro basically

rode the last sectors on the front and still almost one, the start of Bianca stage in the zero was super dominant performance. And the opposite pretty much happened today. I mean Seixas rode Del Toro for the last 30 kilometers or 25k with Del Toro and was still dropped them at the end. So I'm going to go with advantage to Seixas because Del Toro is in pick fitness right now. He won't, he just won Toro of UAE in a dominant fashion. And still wasn't able to to be Seixas today

and with, with Seixas doing most of the work, I'm probably screwing up the way you pronounce the name. I'm sure you don't want to go. All of the work, all of the work. All of the work. And he's 19 years old. And I haven't, like, Spencer, I haven't seen the, the images because I was at the finish line, but one of, I mean, maybe I'm completely crazy for thinking this, but did Seixas actually, yeah, drop him or was, was Del Toro saying, okay, I haven't, I haven't

“pulled a single meter. I don't want to go for second. He's not going to say, I think he's not going to”

sit. He's not, I think a guy like Del Toro is a killer. Even if he wasn't going to give Seixas a second, he would have finished on his wheel, but he was, yeah, I'm thinking, I'm thinking he got dropped. And yeah, okay, I'm going to say that, not only that, like you all said, the team, they got some time, we're seeing them at the front of, you know, opening weekend. I mean, they had four or five guys there in the final group. That team is emerging to be one of the, you know,

the, the, the super top teams in the, in the Peloton. And they're all going to keep getting better and better. I mean, we saw Mateo Rikatello winning in France. They're winning all over Europe right now. And when they're not winning, they're having several guys in the first group. So I think the team is emerging to be one of the top teams in the Peloton and Seixas is riding without fear. And although he didn't win today, wasn't able to stay with Poguchar, like 19 years old,

that's super and super impressive. It's getting to be not funny. Last year was like, okay, French, next French help. Yeah, right, guys. And that's like, oh, my, like, I don't know. Yeah, it's just, it's just starting to get scary. I thought he was too tall, frankly. Like, you know, the last time we had a six foot tall grand tour winner, I thought we were past that

“as a society. But I believe it was Chris Freeman 2018, Jared Italia was the last time we had a”

tall man winning grand tour. But we could be going back to that. It's, it's kind of unbelievable what he's doing. I don't, I, I'm like you, Johan, Del Toro is probably one of my favorite writers. He's my favorite young writer. I wanted to see, I want to see him succeed, but this, I was really impressed with Poguchar. So we had, they, they, we had a Mexican American on our group at the Strada Bianca. And he was, I mean, I've heard the name of the Toro all day long.

There's, there's no, there's no doubt he's, like, incredible talent. He's going to keep winning

races. But, I mean, you, you got to think going to the Toro Francis of the Poguchar are, like, he's going to be there helping him out. You know, it's, it's, it's going to be interesting to see how the team at the time of his workout. But right, so far, Poguchar is still head over heels better than anybody in the Poguchar in his team. So they work well together. I think I'm impressed at how well they mesh and maybe their age difference helps that, because Del Toro can probably

see a future where he takes the mantle at some point he still has work. There's still work to be done there. And maybe he recognizes that, but Johan, you mentioned Poguchar's positioning in your right, like it's unbelievable where he can put himself. It does not help the other teams that he has potentially the strongest. Sometimes they, their seven or eight riders will be, you'd say, like, eight of the strongest 20 riders in the race. So that will help your positioning in some of the races.

I would say. Yeah, we have never seen anything like that. I mean, even with the, you know,

good teams behind them, but to have the whole team knowing, like, everybody knows Poguchar, going to talk with ADK to go today. And the whole Peloton knows that. And they still can't do anything

about it. Like, we've never seen that. I don't remember seeing that ever before in this sport.

No, I mean, we've seen dominant riders, dominant teams, but this is so predictable. Everybody knows it. And nobody can do anything about that. Yeah, that's exactly. In strada, strada is a very unique race, too. It's not, it's going to be a little more complicated when we get to the monuments later in the year. Should people run out and put a bet on Paul Seychias to win the Tour de France after this weekend? I'm asking for a friend, the friend being.

I'm not so sure. Yeah, this year's still front. No, no, no, no. Yeah, this year, I would say that I would say that would be a tough one.

“What, what would you have said after Teddit Pagachar finished 2020 that even do strada Bianchi?”

I mean, the thing I just keep thinking about is, you know, like UA Tour 2019, Pagachar gets, no, do you even do that? No, he gets like 30th at 2019 strada Bianchi. I just wouldn't

never in a million years have guessed he's going to win the Tour de France in 2020. So,

I'm always in the lookout for the next thing I don't expect coming. And I feel like this could change faster than we think. This was over really, I've never seen a teenage performance like I saw today. I think I'm safe to say this is the best teenage cycling performance I've ever seen in my life was set policy to say shots a second place today. Yeah, it was impressive performance, impressive performance. Now, speaking of the tour, you know, we, we have to give the guy some,

we have to be patient, you know, meaning he's never done at free week race. As you ever,

“yeah, as he even ever done a 10 day race. I think Dolphi Nace probably the longest race he's ever done.”

Yeah. So, I mean, I'm not saying he can't do it. Well, are there going to be a race anymore? If you, and if you think about it, this is a, you know, this is a long-term investment

for a team like the Catalan. He got a place in Dolphin, A last year, incredible results.

He's got a second place and he's tried to be on the today. Like, they're, they're happy with the, they're riders performance right now. They're not going to, I'll crush around the world on a 19 year old kid to win the Tour de France this year. I think they're super happy with the progression and their focus and around the future of the policy shots. They're happy with everything. It's going. Yeah. I was going to take them to put much pressure on this year. I think

the Tour de France for him this year is about learning using his team, getting confidence

“and whatever result they get. I think they'll be happy with because they're thinking long-term”

with all say shots. Yeah. I agree. Do riders, I know the team would be thinking that. Do riders that could ever think like that though? Like, I'm just here to learn. I mean, they're, they're, they're impatient, right? Also Spencer, we need this, both say shots doesn't have that much to learn. You know, he races like a true veteran. You know, he's in the front whenever he has to be in the front and when he attacks, it hurts,

and other than that, he tries to follow the big rider. So the learning, I think it's more getting his body used to, you know, multi-week performances. I think that's the learning he needs to do. Yeah. I mean, I don't know. I mean, they're all talking about the Tour de France. Let's give the guy, they guys some time, right? I mean, we all know, everybody expects sports has just to be on the podium. You know, if he's on the podium, no big deal, no big deal. It's not a problem. He'll

get there eventually. Yeah. I would say it's safe to say a teenager does not make the podium at the tour. He's not a bum. I don't have to read that about it. There's funny about it. It's also super exciting that like we have all these new podium contenders, you know, Paul Sajas and exactal Toro. And of course, you got Remco Jonas. It's making the Tour de France a lot more exciting in my opinion. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's funny you mentioned the Duffinic, he's 8th at 18. I'm like,

but we're a good result, pretty good result. And then just how he's like, the curve since then has been, he's significantly better than that result, which is to me, that's the most impressive thing. How are you improved from 18 to 19? Like you didn't stagnate. You see a lot of you guys stagnate when they get a result like that. But we also, I'm excited to see how this goes. I think I think we're seen in the first flowers of spring emerge from the Tadipagotcha nuclear winter that we've been in.

We have Perry needs tomorrow with Jonas from the guard versus one of you. So another interesting

Thanks guys for joining. We'll let you get to dinner unless you have anything else to add before

“we go. I think that's it. Thank you very much. Well, thank you so much. Enjoy your lovely Italian dinner”

or why I get a tomorrow tomorrow tonight and all our friends here. Right. The tomorrow. Yeah,

tomorrow. We ride this for out of Bianca. Yeah. How long? Do we finish in a do we finish in the

“Antiano? Yeah. The same finish. Same finish. Same finish. Okay. Same finish. Yeah. Awesome.”

Look at 100. 100k or something. No, no, it's a 138 kilometers. What are you each writing? What's the

machine? I'm running a grapple bike with roadwheels. 32, 35. The tires. I'm running different

“higher tires towards what you write. It's tires for you. I'm running. I'm running my factor with”

30 no tires. 30 no. Whoa. George is they were fine yesterday. George is still writing like the real cyclists. You know, it's just a road bike, road bike, normal wheels, tires, tires. You know, I'm going. I'm riding my Ventom GS1 single single chain ring and a huge mountain bike a set in the back with 35 millimeter tires. So when I was at the UA team camp, they were testing 35 mills on the road. You're right there on the trans. Yeah, you're on. Yeah. All right. Well,

thanks guys and have a good dinner. Thanks for joining me. Thank you. Thank you.