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- [00:00]
A
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B
This sport in Mexico needs a guy like Del Toro. So they obviously took advantage of his popularity and now he's the Mexican champion for the whole year. So I think it's only going to come to the benefit of the sport of cycling in Mexico and South America. Sorry, Mexico is not South America.
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C
North America.
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B
North America.
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C
Isaac Del Toro is the best North American cyclist right now, I think it's safe to say. Everybody, welcome back to the Move Plus. I'm Spencer Martin. I'm here with Johan Berniele. We are running down our weekly roundup of news stories and professional cycling as well as taking a few questions. And if you want to ask a question, you can send it to Infoweedo Team. If you want to make sure we see your question, you can become a WEDO member, link in the show notes and ask it live on we broadcast live to members. If you go to our private YouTube stream, you'll see it. It's in the members portal. You should get an email if you're a member member. If not, reach out and ask us what the heck's going on. But Johan, before we get it, we have some serious stuff to get into. Before we get into that, I'm going to start with some silly stuff. The Tour de France 2026. We we did the root reveal last week. I think we thought, well, that's pretty good for Tadpagar.
- [02:16]
B
And then Spencer Spencer, sorry, before you start, we have to Sorry to interrupt you. Off the top of the show, I want to talk about the hottest topic in the cycling world in the off season. Spencer, it's our Strava battle.
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C
I was going to do this at the end.
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B
So I've said, you know I'm coming for you. I just checked. Spencer. Spencer Martin. 10,255 kilometers to date this year. Me, 10,000, 10,096. So I'm 159 kilometers behind you now, Spencer. Holy smokes. I've been 800 kilometers behind or more. So I'm catching up. So for all the followers and the listeners, we have two months. What do you think, Spencer? Who's gonna get it?
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C
Well, who. Did you win last year? No, I can't remember.
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B
I did, I did. Well, I saw you started to panic because I saw. I checked your. You did a double session yesterday. You did two rides.
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C
Yeah, I. This is a concerted effort to increase the mileage for the end of the year. I am pretty nervous about it. I had a big lead. You tricked me. You said, oh, I'm not going to be able to ride. I've got some medical issues. I thought it was done and dusted, but now you're really close. I got to get out and ride right after this.
- [03:46]
B
Yeah, yeah, now. Anyways, you know, Spencer, doesn't really matter, but I think last year I. I got to 12, 000 kilometers. So I think I'm on schedule right now. If everything goes okay, you know, two months, 2,000 kilometers, that should be, that should be doable. No, that's my goal. Whether I win against you or lose. I mean, listen for all the listeners. Spencer's a young father, has two small kids, you know, very busy. I'm. I have grandkids, I have my, you know, my, my children are more or less grown up and I have a grandson, so I have more time, you know, so that's to my advantage. But I also, I'm also probably 25 years older or more than you.
- [04:35]
C
Yeah. How much older? How old are you?
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B
I'm 61.
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C
61. So, yeah, I mean, like 23 years older.
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B
24.
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C
So, yeah, but you've hacked the system because the goal is you get your kids into cycling, then you're cycling with your kids, then you're racking up the miles. That's the ultimate goal. I actually embarrassingly did adjust. My, My wife's family always wants to go somewhere after Christmas and we've been going a place with no riding the last few years, and I'm like, God, that's killing me. I'm losing like a week of miles at the end of every year. So we've adjusted it to Go someplace with cycle just for specific competition.
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B
Yeah, okay, well, you're gonna, you're gonna, you're gonna catch up there because when I, when I go to Belgium, I'm not taking my bike.
- [05:18]
C
So that's, that's the weakness right there. Well, to super serious topic. The Tour de France 2026. We thought it was pretty good for Teddy Picachar. Then Remco Evitable's father comes out and says he, he's heard information, he has secret information that none of us are privy to. And he knows that Tade is going to skip the Tour in 2026, do the Giro Vuelta double, the real pearl of the sport. What is this secret information? This cannot be true because Tade Picacho is making probably close to US$15 million a year to race and win the Tour de France from his team. I don't think he's skipping it. What do you think, Johan?
- [05:58]
B
No, he's not skipping it. I think I, you know, it was. I saw the interview. I saw the inter. I mean, listen, first of all, things constantly get taken out of context, right? I, I did see the quote. It was a podcast that Patrick Evenpool did, and they were talking about Remco and today. And you know, and, and then he says, well, you know, who says today will do the, do the Tour next year? Who says he will? Who? You know, so. And then the interviewer said, yeah, well, makes you say that. Ah, you know, maybe there's, there's, there's some rumors in the peloton, but you know, he didn't specifically say that he had heard that Piar wasn't going to do the Tour. And by the way, Machin has straight away corrected that and said, you know, there's absolutely no plan or no intention for the Pogar not to do the Tour of rounds next year. I mean, he's, if he wins next year, he has five, five victories.
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C
Yeah. Pretty important milestone there. Yeah, I mean, maybe it's a good idea. Maybe you have to speak it into existence. Like, if Patrick says it enough, Taday will think maybe I shouldn't do it.
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B
I don't think, I don't think. I don't think today cares too much about what Remco's dad says, but I, I am convinced that it's something that got blown out. Blown blown up and taken out of context.
- [07:19]
C
Yeah, I mean, well, it's this time. Like, Tom Pickock had a quote this week where he said. And you see it plastered all over. It's like, I don't Enjoy GC racing. And you see it, you think, well, that's kind of funny because didn't you say like two months ago that you wanted to focus on the GC at the Vuelta? But then you actually read the flow of the interview and a lot of these. What's common in modern media is someone is on a podcast and then you read, you read it and you think that it's an interview given to that publication, but that publication has just pulled quotes from a podcast. It might be an hour long interview.
- [07:55]
B
Oh, I was, I saw, I saw the interview. It was not even a podcast. It was, it was, it was Maurizio Fondriest, you know, the ex world champion who's, who's also there. Both at this gravel event in South Africa. The gravel burn looks amazing. I think it's eight days of gravel racing, slash social ride. I don't know what it is, but there's definitely a competition. I think the team owner of Pitcock's team is involved in the organization, so he's there probably to, you know, to, to represent the team and the sponsor in Pinarello. And Q 36.5 Foundriest is also sponsored by Q 36.5. So just. It was just Foundriest for his Instagram was asking a few questions at the Pitcock and he did say, you know, I, I'm not gonna say I enjoy it, but now that I got this taste of being on the podium, I want to pursue this to see how far I can get, obviously with the intention to try to win a Grand Tour. He didn't specifically say, you know, I'm not enjoying it. He said, it's what I enjoy the least. He specifically said, what I enjoy the most is mountain biking. That's. That's where my skills come to the front the most.
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C
Yeah. What deep. I mean, it's very hard to. And if you look at the quote, it's like, before it was kind of a goal in other people's heads. I'd never fully gotten behind it myself. Now it's a little bit different. I can see myself enjoying doing grand tours more. I mean, I assume he doesn't just do mountain biking because do you think it's the challenge of the road? Like, he wouldn't come out and say, if I focus fully on mountain biking, it's too easy because I win all the time. Or is it a money thing? Like, why do you think he even bothers with the road?
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B
Obviously, it's, It's. I mean, the road is. It's. I mean, there's no other discipline in cycling that is so famous make brings you more celebrity and money than the road. There's. I don't think you can name one mountain biker, the Top Mountain Biker, 1Top Cyclocross Riders Specialist, 1Top Track Rider, 1Top Gravel Rider who is even close to somebody who's just outside of the top 10 in road cycling in terms of contracts. So I think it's safe to say that you know, everybody who has the opportunity, they all make the shift. You know what mountain bike. Look, Alan Hadley, he made the shift to the road. I mean, he's world champion mountain bike. Again, he's focusing on the road. It's just the cyclocross riders and the Pure Velo Drum riders. But that's kind of my opinion completely. Especially the track. It's a completely different discipline of cycling and it makes it more difficult. Although I did watch some of the track world championships and Joshua Tarding, for example, won the world title point race in Chile last week.
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C
Points race? That's not what I thought you're gonna say. That's impressive for a guy like that.
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B
Yeah. By the way, hats off to Elia Viviani, retiring from cycling and in his last race got the world title elimination race in his last ever race. So that's quite the way to go.
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C
It also shows you the level of the road, right?
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B
Yeah.
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C
Where, where's he been in any.
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B
You say that, Spencer, but you know, I mean, you, you can't really compare, you know, it's, it is very, very, very specific. There are endurance disciplines, for example, points race and, you know, elimination and, and where you can carry the, the, the level you got on the road, but other than that, man, it's so specific. Cyclocross is the same, you know, I mean, if it were not for. I mean, obviously it's, it's a bad, it's a bad example. But Van der Poel, and Van Aert, once they show up, they are above everybody else, but they are just amazing athletes. You know, for me, the track, for example, that's impressive. You know, I mean, if you, if you have, you have you watched some of the track.
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C
I mean, I didn't even know these world championships were going on.
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B
Well, I mean, you know, Hari love racing. Who looks like the body. I mean, he's, you know, he's, he's a really big muscular guy, powerful guy. Won four, four world titles in one week. He got his 20th world title this week. And you could say, well, you know, it's a small world and it is, it's a very small world. You know, you're a world champion. I mean there's. I know a very famous cyclist who has been multiple world champion in various disciplines. And I have heard he said, well, you know, it's great, but basically you're, you're the champion of your neighborhood when you do, when you win this, right. Because it's such a small group. But then if you look at the performances, man, I mean, love racing did he won the kilometer standing start, 57 seconds. I mean that's with a huge gear. So basically if you call, if you count the first lap, it's, you know, you need the whole first lap to come up to speed and you only have three laps to, you know, if it's a 250 meter track to, to get there. So it's, it's 60, whatever, 65, 66 kilometers per hour. I mean the speed in the sprint in the last 200 meters, when I saw one rider, he reached 76 kilometers per hour. Jeez, it's. I was thinking the other day, Spencer, I was on the, when I was riding with a friend and we had a downhill, like it's a really fast downhill, all straight, you know, and I got to 74 km per hour and I was, and I had watched the world champ. I said, man, these guys did 67 on the flat yesterday, you know.
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C
Yeah. Pedaling. Pedaling, not coasting.
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B
Yeah.
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C
That is wild. Yeah, yeah, yeah. When was the last time a non roadie won the cyclocross World Championships? Like 2015 or something?
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B
A non roadie?
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C
Well, I'm counting Vanar Pidcock and Vanderpoel as roadies. Yeah, I don't know, like, like a decade ago probably.
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B
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, obviously these, these two or these three, whenever they show up, it's, you know, it's.
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C
Yeah. Nobody but like Dylan Gronovagan couldn't show up and win a, a top level cross race even though he's at a very high level. It's very specific. Speaking of specific, speaking of weird, why did be we skipped over this last week and I got a lot of questions about it. Why did Red Bull design a BMC bike that claims to be the fastest bike in the world when Red Bull owns a professional cycling team that runs Specialized?
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B
I saw that. Yeah, I saw that. I think it's completely separate. It's the Red Bull Performance center, which is not the team. So the team uses the facilities in the Red Bull Performance center in Salzburg in Austria. But I don't think Red Bull has any contractual obligation towards Specialized, The Red Bull as a company, you know, they do sponsor a lot of other athletes on other gear, you know, other equipment. Then look, they sponsor, they sponsor Pitcock who's on a Pinarello, they sponsor Vanart, who's on a Servolo, you know, they. So who is on bmc, by the way? Yeah.
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C
And they're going to race these bikes, I assume?
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B
I guess so. I guess so, yeah.
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C
Yeah. It's just, I mean it. I guess it's what happens when you own a multi billion dollar international business. You might have. They're not sitting around thinking, well, if we do this, the Red Bull bike teams unspecialized, but do you think it shows us that they might be on BMC at some point?
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B
Red Bull, you mean?
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C
Yeah, the team.
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B
I mean, maybe. I mean, it depends if there's the link there with the company Red Bull, who knows? I don't know.
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C
If I was the GM of the. If I was a person in charge at Red Bull of the cycling team, I'd be a little annoyed that we're racing against the fastest race bike in the world next year.
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B
That's what they say.
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C
That's a very good point, Spencer.
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B
I've done, you know, with several companies, I mean, mainly, I mean, the majority of the tests were with one company, with Trek and you know, doing tests in the wind tunnel with this and that. And I've never ever seen any result of a test where we didn't have the fastest equipment. So we were always the fastest, you.
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C
Know, and every new bike is somehow way faster than the bike before.
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B
If the brand pays the wind tunnel to give the results that they need.
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C
That's a very good point. Well, speaking of cynical and looking deeper, Johan, there was a Lascano. What? How do you say, his first name. The basket writer. He's on Red Bull. Bora Hansgro. If you're confused about this and say. What are you talking about? He's on movistar. No, he transferred to Red Bull over the off season. Didn't really race that much. Hasn't raced since Perry Roubaix. There been some rumors about why he's not been doing that. Why did Red Bull suddenly have a roster spot available? Well, it all makes sense now because the UCI has confirmed, confirmed that he had a provisional suspension after they detected an abnormal result and is abp, which is an athlete biological passport, which basically is a map of your blood values and they're supposed to be in a certain band and if they go above that band, it's. It's not a positive test, it's an abnormality. And then you can go explain it. And if the explanation doesn't, isn't good enough, you get suspended. It's very rare that you see suspensions from this. There was a Unibet Tetzima Rockets rider suspended earlier this year. It used to be more common. Like, I think we saw Roman Kreutziger caught up in this, but Roman Kreutziger took it to court and won. So because of that, you don't see them pull this trigger a lot. They said the infractions were between 2022 and 2024. So while he's on, Mob Star Movar says, we don't know anything about this. And the abp. ABP system can detect signs of blood doping, which it used to, I think, used to just be like, blood values, but now they can detect anabolic steroids, testosterone and human growth hormone. But the UCI has not specified what type of abnormality Lascano showed. Johan, what it. What. To me, the. My big takeaway here is that we were talking kind of off the record during the Tour about, you know, there's things like xenon gas that you can, any of us could use and are fantastic, right? You can go climb Mount Everest without acclimation. And we were saying, man, it would be tough to use that if you're a cyclist, even though you can't test positive, because they keep such a close eye on your values. And this, to me does confirm the good news of this test or this news is it confirms that they are keeping a very close eye on people's values. And it's very hard to get away with stuff. But what's your takeaway from this?
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B
Well, yeah, I mean, now finally, you know, we, we know the reason why OJ Lascano all of a sudden stopped racing, deleted his trava, deleted his Instagram or social media, and that the team Red Bull gave instructions to everybody on the team to not comment on. So obviously they've known since Paris Roubai. Yeah, I do believe that Movistar was not informed. And it's, you know, it's something that it. So if the UCI says it happened between 2022 and 2024, so they kept track of certain things that they saw in his values, whether it's, you know, hematocrit, hemoglobin, hormone, whatever, they are monitoring. And now finally they came out with, it's probably true what you say, that Lascano presented probably some arguments and they didn't accept them. And he got, now, I mean, provisionally suspended, but it's going to end up in a firm suspension. By the way, Red Bull has straight away terminated his contract. And so, yeah, I mean, what do I think about that? I think the Bio Passport is definitely a good tool. Started in 2008, if I'm not mistaken, and it got perfected over the years. It's strange to see that they are able to use this to sanction athletes and not just talking about cyclists, because the bio passport supposedly is mandatory for every sport that is WADA affiliated. I guess, you know, what really comes to my attention is that it's. Okay, let's not. We've seen, I mean, usually people who got caught by the Bio passport, it was years later sometimes. I mean, I remember in one case, I think two, three years ago, I think, or four years ago, all of a sudden they suspended Juan Jose Cobo, the winner of the tour of Spain 2011. I think.
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C
Yeah, it was the year before the Wiggins, 2011.
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B
Yeah, yeah. And 10 years later they said, okay, you're screwed now.
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C
That was from a biological bio passport. I didn't know that.
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B
Yes, yes. Y. Yes. So, you know what, what is surprising to me, I mean, I'm not surprised that they never do this with big names who have a lot, a lot, a lot of financial resources.
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C
Yeah.
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B
You know, I think the bio passport is a good tool to monitor and to, to target certain athletes that they see certain abnormalities. But there's a reason why no big champion with a lot of money has been put in this situation. Because if anybody who has a lot of resources, really good lawyers and a lot of time challenges is this, it falls, it falls. It's not going to stand. Now, the UCI has used the Bio Passport a few times with smaller fish. I mean, Alaskano is. I, I, I think, I think they really do their homework, you know, and they, they, they, they look okay, how long or how hard is this guy going to fight this?
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C
You know, how much money is, is.
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B
In his bank account? It, it costs a lot. Once you start in this, it costs a lot of money. A lot of money. And ultimately you have to go to ca. First of all, you will lose against the panel because the panel who, the experts that are chosen by UCI or wada, they're on board. Of course, they know what they have to do.