140. Kasia Niewiadoma Phinney, Tour de France champ and Canyon-SRAM zondacrypto ace

0:00Robyn: I've been riding with the Hammerhead Karoo for a fair bit now and beyond the slick screen and the 35 hour battery life I'm really getting into the Karoo's climber function. Now what climber does is show you any upcoming climb on a ride whether it's a pre-planned route or not and then when that climb comes up this data page pops up on screen and you get this little climb profile with gradients and color-coded sections for steepness and the distance to the top in length and elevation. so it's amazing for places I've never ridden like on a sportive where you've never ridden the course before but the crew guide you up a climb in this predictive way so you can pace out your effort it's like having a little team ds on your handlebars you can also look ahead at a route and see all the climbs on it so a bit like having a profile sticker on your stem like you see the pros have in races only this way it's way more detailed as you can pick out a climb and look at its specific details as you go.

0:59Robyn: So check out our full review of the Hammerhead crew at cyclist.co.uk and see why we gave it our cyclist recommended award. Then head to hammerhead.io and use the code cyclist to get a free heart rate strap with every purchase. Just be sure to add the strap to your cart then apply the code at checkout. Hello lovely listeners. I just wanted to tell you that cyclist isn't just a podcast. No, cyclist is also a beautiful print magazine. It's packed full of all the best rides from around the world, the newest bikes and kit, and loads of in-depth articles featuring guests just like on today's show. So head on over to cyclist.co.uk slash subscriptions and check out our latest cyclist magazine subscription offers.

1:53Robyn: Welcome back to the Cyclist Magazine podcast. Although I feel like you should say this bit, Robin, because this is your interview today coming up and Robin will introduce our guest. But yeah, I think you should kind of host this because I've been a real bit part and you've done an amazing job stepping into the breach for this and also Magnus Court coming up. I've already spoken too much, so go on. You say hey, you do the intros. Are you terrible at keeping secrets? Terrible at keeping secrets. It's all right if it's in the bag. Lovely stuff. Well, welcome back to the Cyclist Magazine podcast, everyone.

2:26I'm Robin. I'm here today with the legendary James Spender, who you'll all know by now. All know by now. Everyone will know James. Come on.

2:35Robyn: Well, it's worth it just for that. I would definitely not say legendary, but I have been here for an awful long time. It's true. I feel like I never really leave this chair. And as I gaze out... Superglued. Superglued. Well, this is life working from home, isn't it? Which lots of people still do. And that means that my attention always turns to looking out the window. And I don't know, this came up this week when I was talking to our boss, Mr. Pete Muir, who writes his Ed's letter every month for Cyclist the Magazine, because we are a magazine. And you can go and buy us in the shops and you can see our pretty little faces in print.

3:10Robyn: And Pete was bemoaning the fact that every month he has to come up with something to write. And it's getting harder and harder after 13 years. and he was like, and I think I've hit an all-time low because I'm talking about the weather. And I was like, mate, it's okay because I spend a lot of time thinking about the weather and we all spend ages talking about it because it's the one thing beyond, you know, birth and death and taxes that affects everybody. And I've got some really good weather stats because it's been raining here in Bristol almost non-stop for what feels like weeks. And I was having this conversation with my brother-in-law who's moved down here from London who went, bloody hell, it rains a lot in Bristol.

3:51Robyn: And I was like, yes, yes, it does. It rains twice as much in Bristol as it does in London, which is kind of crazy, which led me to look into the leaderboard. And bear with me because we will get to our amazing guest in a minute, but just allow me this conceit. The leaderboard of the wettest parts of the UK. Can you guess the wettest part of the UK, Robin? And you might know this because, you know, you kind of come from up there. I was going to say, as someone that moved down south from Manchester, I'll have you to guess that it's that area. But I feel like you're going to surprise me. No, it is that area.

4:26Robyn: Anyone that's done the Fred Witten Sportive will know that it routinely rains for that ride. And it's none other than the Lake District and specifically Barradale and Seathwaite. and they get 200, 200 rainy days a year, which is pretty rubbish, isn't it? Because that's more than half. That's terrible. Way more than half your year. London, by contrast, gets a mere 110 rainy days per year. Bristol's quite up there with 181, so that's a lot. It's near Wales. Other places, Snowdonia, pretty rainy there. Can you guess the driest part of the UK? The Sahara. Oh, of the UK. um i'll go i'll go for oh god i actually don't know maybe like there's a university there that's that's very famous there's two universities narrows it down two of our most prestigious elitist universities and it's not the one that ends in ford i was literally just about to say oxford really it's still down south it's cambridge cambridge is notoriously year by year very very dry but i have been reliably informed by the internet that the driest place in the uk is skegness um a wonderful holiday destination so we should all be going there next year it's got something going for it i know what do you mean it's got something going for it it's got 102 rainy days per year so way more two-thirds of the year it's super sunny in skegness sunny Skegness, as they say.

5:59Robyn: And it also has the Skegness Seal Sanctuary, which is a wonderful holiday family destination. And they rehabilitate seals. They take them, I don't know where they get them from. I guess people phone up and say there's a seal here. Please come and sort it out. It looks a bit emaciated. And they rehabilitate them. And this year, well, coming up in 2026, they're doing the penguin pool. They're redoing the penguin pool. So it's going to be an even more fantastic day out. but at the moment prices are reduced because the penguin pool's shut. Oh, that is quite sad. I'm happy for the penguins though. Someone in my family really loves penguins so I'm going to let them know.

6:39If you go to Skegness, you'll have a great time and you probably won't get rained on.

6:43Robyn: Exactly. So there we go. Plus points for Skegness. Lake District, beautiful, a bit, bit rainy. And I'm just going to hand it back to you, Robin, because I wasted enough of our listeners' ears. And Aiz, please do introduce our guest today. Well, with us on the podcast today is a rider that's a champion of resilience and has a special knack for always finishing on the Tour de France Femmes podium since its inception. Her recent journey to the top step came last year in a ferocious battle between herself and Demi Vollering with only four, check that again, four seconds separating the pair as it stands as the closest grantor of all time.

7:27Now in her eighth year with Canyon SRAM Zonda Crypto, she's embracing her leadership role within the team and is also someone who can be a mentor for the younger riders. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Cassia Nuiadoma Finney.

7:47welcome to the cyclist magazine podcast cassia nuoyedoma finney how are you today hello thank you so much thanks for having me again i'm really good i'm up in the mountains so couldn't ask for a better scenario which mountains are you up right now i'm in ambora Pyrenees it's like my happiest days happy spot for sure I love that I was gonna say I'm so jealous but then I realized you're probably doing a lot of training and it's like actually exactly that's definitely the final push of the year yeah it's all about the like the last two weeks of really hard preparation and then racing and the season is finished so yeah I still have motivation to push So I'm happy about that.

8:36Well, let's, I guess, delve into one of the highlights of the season, which, of course, the Tour de France fam. You went in as defending champion and were consistently near the head of the race. How do you believe that that race went for you as defending champion? To be honest, just when the race finished, when I got on the third spot, I was really happy because at that moment, And the podium was very satisfying. Yet when a couple of days or weeks went by and I had more time to reflect, I definitely started to feel this feeling of disappointment or lack of satisfaction. I think that I was prepared for better than what I achieved.

9:26There were some cracks here and there, I would say. and yeah just like having more time to reflect on what happened I definitely don't feel like super satisfied or happy with with my own performance or performance of our team I think there were things that we could have improved but that's also like a learning process that's something that you take on for the next year so definitely there were a few points that I already marked what I want to change for the next tour and how I want to prepare differently so you know with current speed of development and improvement that every single team shows, you really have to think outside of the box at all times in order to like, not only come to a race feeling better or stronger than last year, but having this extra something, you know, because everyone improves so much.

10:17So like simple improvement is just not enough. I guess in a good way, do you like having something to then chase and give you that extra level of motivation? Yeah, definitely. To be honest, it's really interesting, like reflecting on the past years of my career, because when I was a little younger, when I was in my mid 20s, let's say, I think I took just everything for granted. And I just kind of rolled with certain races. I didn't really pay attention to little details. And as I get older, I start to feel like the passion for cycling is getting even bigger, which may be scary in some ways, because then I'm like, when am I ever going to retire when I want to be doing more and more in this sport?

11:03But yeah, definitely, like you realize that the older you are, the more mature you are, the more you care about things and the more successful you want to be, the more you want to have impact on the sport. And you just see yourself not only as an athlete, but also as a person that then hopefully can show the example for other generations and like mark new territory in some ways. How would you define like your own success? Like what does success mean to you personally? like? I think success means like personal fulfillment when I know that all the hard work I put into one goal or all the sacrifices not only coming from my side but also from my family from my friends close ones everyone who contributed to the to the journey that I put myself into like with the team at the end of that we all can feel some sort of satisfaction that we all feel like nothing went like in vain nothing was just like a waste of time but that we actually achieved something that we can celebrate like success not only is about crossing the finish line first it's like about doing something together as a collective group I think that's very important and that's what I start to realize that quite often in life you know it's like how you share moments with your close ones and people that do the crazy things with you on the road you know We spend so much time away from homes and pursue the same goals.

12:34So it's nice to feel that everyone feels in some ways satisfied or happy. Yeah, definitely. And speaking of support, we've seen your husband, Taylor Finney, at the roadside cheering you on a lot of times. Your mother-in-law, Connie Carpenter Finney, we did a podcast with her a couple months ago, and she obviously said that it was nice having a daughter-in-law who's now sort of embracing this different period of cycling she was you know 80s 90s and now you're here sort of not reaping the benefits but like enjoying this this period because cycling is going through like a real a real boom on the women's side do you ever like go out training together trying to like pick her brain or oh yeah definitely um it's really nice and handy because connie saw us davis they ride e-bikes so they can keep up with tay and i wherever we go uh especially when we're in boulder because it's all about climbing so for them on the e-bike they actually put that into a pain cave quite often but yeah definitely i love listening to stories of like what what racing was like in 80s you know it's a different world like they had so much fun and in some ways i always feel like I wish I could experience that part of sport where uh you know men's and women's racing was happening at the same place every time they were traveling together they were building each other up training a lot together it was less about like okay I need to do one workout because this is what I'm scheduled with my coach and like everyone is kind of including myself I do the same that like I follow my words I follow my intervals and from what they were saying training was basically like getting out there with group of people and there were there was like no ego or no like who's gonna have real who but they were just having a pure fun so in some ways I wish I had that or I wish I had a group of people that I could just fool around with or get rid of this like I don't know how to even call it like sometimes you know when you train and you focus on your own work you just like focus only on yourself so I wish I could get rid of more yeah like more of a sort of community feel I guess exactly like you still go out and do a great work you still get like you still suffer but it's not that it's only you you know it's less like egoistic maybe and I guess just circling back to like when you were talking about how maybe in your mid-20s to where you are now what would you say is the biggest change that you notice in yourself not only as a cyclist but just as a human I think that just maturing is a is a great thing you know when you experience yourself all the situations that maybe at the times are not the most uplifting ones but then they teach you something they make you stronger they give you a different perspective So, you know, like basically spending so much time away from my home country, away from my family where I have to kind of like pave my own roads, taught me a lot about myself and where I find the happiness, what works with me, what doesn't.

15:56And I can see with my teammates right now, the ones that are in the mid 20s, that in some ways they struggle figuring out what they want and what they do in their lives or what's their motivation. And in some ways, I feel like I want to share that I also experienced that. But at the same time, I know that everyone has to go through it themselves because no sort of preaching or talks will help anyone. You just have to go through this period where you'll figure out what you want for yourself or who you are, basically. So it's kind of cool watching. It's not maybe cool for them, but it's cool for me to like see that, okay, this is what us women experience.

16:41And it's part of reality. And now you're like no longer a girl, but you're still not a proper woman, let's say. So there's like this transition. And I think it's a very interesting period. Who would you say was, I guess, that you looked towards maybe when you were in your mid-20s? Yeah, so one of my best friends that lives in Girona, she's from France, Marion Crump. She was definitely a person I was looking and I still look up to. She's older by 10 years and she always represented the strength and independence. And I remember feeling like fragile and I need to have so many people around me to feel happy.

17:21I would always see her being like, I do things that work with me and I don't think to like please others, for example. So I think she was definitely displaying a lot of strength that I was yearning to have. So, yeah, I am very glad to have her in my life. And it sounds like you kind of like being in this team leader role, would you say? Not only in Grand Tours, but being a kind of mentor maybe for women and teammates off the bike. Yeah, I think it like naturally comes with the leadership. Once you're put in a position that you're a leader for most of the races, it's you kind of want to also give something back you know you don't want to be just taking all the time and asking for more so I think like naturally also I feel like on my team we're very open with how we feel with our emotions experiences like no one really bottles their feelings up everyone tries to express so there's yeah honesty and better community and I guess when I feel like I'm saying that a lot and I guess and I guess like a lot like like and I try not to say like I do the same thing and it's only like when I I just said like it's only when I listen back I'm like oh my goodness stop yeah um so in terms of your victories incredibly impressive not only on the road but also gravel um but with a tour de france femme win in the bag are you sort of looking towards maybe a giro or a vueltor or is the tour de france femme still like the the main golfie uh definitely i'm looking especially towards the next year because finally all the grand tours are kind of separated from each other so you can aim to win most of them i always love doing Giro d 'Italia.

19:21Unfortunately, the last couple of years, it was only like two weeks before the tour. So usually that would mean that I'm just like on the attitude preparing for the tour. But for the next year, I'm definitely super excited to tackle all of the races. I think that still tour is like the cherry on the cake, but it doesn't mean that I don't want to prepare to my best for Vuelta or Giro. Definitely. And do you think yourself and Vollering will always be like the eternal podium at the Tour de France Femme because you two have been on it since the inception yeah oh yeah that will be great I feel like it's a great history we're making also so I feel like Damien and I we both have a lot of drive and love towards towards this race so uh we're gonna be fighting till we drop to hang on to the podium of course like victory is the best but yeah I think that I mean everyone is super competitive but sometimes you know you need to have this extra passion for the race do you think that the race needs to grow anymore in terms of stages available or do you think it's kind of hitting a sweet spot at the moment where we're kind of seeing like yeah more of a fight I guess I definitely to be honest at first I was saying I wouldn't want it to be longer but i would love to actually see a two-week grand tour race like something that's very exceptional something that's different from others uh we would raise zero for 10 days so i feel like nine days is less than than what we had in zero so i know it will be super challenging and definitely it's like up to organizers to make their profiles interesting and eventful because that always directs or drives the peloton how we race how we go through stages but yeah I think that two weeks would be would be something cool to experience I'm so glad you said that because I've also wanted a two-week grand tour so now I can be like well Cassia thinks the same as me so guys what are we doing yeah it's two of us two of us going for it and In terms of when we last spoke, I think it was 2022.

21:44And it was before you won the Amstel Gold Race. And you'd said to me like, oh, a couple of my main goals, Strada Bianchi, the Amstel Gold Race. Is Strada Bianchi still one of those that you kind of circle on the calendar when it's a new year? Oh, yeah, for sure. this race is haunting me now to be honest the more i wanted the harder harder it is to get because like even this year i was in great shape and i felt really ready for the race i came there a couple days earlier so i could do proper recon i was there with taylor doing different gravel sections on repeat and then i crashed out and then actually i had a bad crash that kind of like this not destroy my spring but definitely made it harder to survive so at that point I was like I don't want to do this freaking race anymore because it's been like heartbreaking you know every time I do get disappointed but always with time you realize how much you want it and maybe this year I can oh next year I want to approach it in a way that I don't care about this race to be like whatever so maybe then yeah you come up to it and you're like I actually I don't care about this race exactly that's how it works with relationships right like yeah exactly and you get chased is it the um because obviously you won the gravel world championships is it the the kind of gravelly aspect that you like is it just Tuscany in general it's super hard and I think the feeling you get after the finish line it's like I don't know it's so brutal it's so hard that once it's finished you just feel so proud of yourself even though you're disappointed even though like you're maybe cracked or whatever but there's this hint of like oh damn I was part of this crazy event and yeah it's I think that the brutality of it makes it so special I would say.

23:51And where are you on the uh the monument status are you team like monument do you think it still needs a few more years to be honest I would love love to have Dombardy happening in our calendar yes that would be amazing yeah that's one of the races I always watched and I wish just I was there it's also after the world so very often we prepare our shape to the best possible level for the world and then either it works out or not. So it's like many times I would be in great shape, but the season would be finishing. So I think that guys having Lombardy, they have still opportunity to show off themselves.

24:35So yeah, that will be a cool opportunity to like regain something if worlds are lost. Yeah, because I mean, a women's Milan Samarimo is still relatively new, but I was so excited when that was announced. I was like, this is amazing. would you would you like to see more obviously you just said that you wanted to see Lombardia um but do you like the kind of sort of establishing monuments that the men already have because there is a level of attention that would then come with it and as you said before like men and women's races at the same time there's like a community or would you rather sort of build more monuments from the ground up separate to the men's race?

25:21I think that monuments, they've got this history, you know, like when you even think about Tour de France fam, because it's Tour de France, it went up like this. It's not that it started to like gain some sort of recognition and then like people started to get more interested. It was directly like, boom, everyone wanted to be part of it. Everyone wanted to like get a piece and like be involved. so I think that just like the history and the fact that something is special like I definitely would love to see Milan San Remo longer than 200k for us you know like make it what it is which means super long race with a crazy hard Poggio at the end it's still great that we have the opportunity to race at Cipresa and Poggio and like finish at the same place but would be great to like make it for what it's recognized or you know so yeah i think that definitely would be great to see more races like i'm always a big fan of for example going to states for a couple weeks and racing over there and then coming back here it's always nice to have like the little break in the european season so so yeah maybe that's how it could evolve

26:39Robyn: I've been riding with the Hammerhead Karoo for a fair bit now and beyond the slick screen and the 35 hour battery life I'm really getting into the Karoo's climber function. Now what climber does is show you any upcoming climb on a ride whether it's a pre-planned route or not and then when that climb comes up this data page pops up on screen and you get this little climb profile with gradients and color-coded sections for steepness and the distance to the top in length and elevation. So it's amazing for places I've never ridden, like on a sportive where you've never ridden the course before, but the Karoo guides you up a climb in this predictive way so you can pace out your effort.

27:20Robyn: It's like having a little team DS on your handlebars. You can also look ahead at a route and see all the climbs on it. So a bit like having a profile sticker on your stem like you see the pros have in races. Only this way it's way more detailed as you can pick out a climb and look at its specific details as you go. So check out our full review of the Hammerhead crew at cyclist.co.uk and see why we gave it our cyclist recommended award. Then head to hammerhead.io and use the code cyclist to get a free heart rate strap with every purchase. Just be sure to add the strap to your cart then apply the code at checkout.

28:03so in terms of the next part of the season we have the world championships very exciting in africa for the first time how are you feeling yeah to be honest it's interesting just listening to people because there are people who say oh you're going to need to be careful you need to be vaccinated you need to be quarantining yourself while while you're there the other people are like Rwanda actually is super cool it's clean it's like a great coffee culture of what sidekicks of course love the most yeah so I didn't know that yeah personally I'm really looking forward to going there and experiencing it myself I don't want to go there with some sort of thought on like what is it going to be like because I just want to create my own opinion and the course looks super challenging so I think it's going to be a hard racing it's on altitude so I've never actually done a classic on altitude so I have no idea how my body's gonna behave so yeah that I guess but for everyone it's gonna be just a mystery you know until we arrive and we start racing yeah especially because who are you looking to as well as yourself as some favorites because defending champion Lottie Kopecky won't be there.

29:21Yeah, I think that the biggest opponent, let's say, for the race will be Elisa Longaborgini. See the course. There's also some cobble sections involved on the lap. I mean, one section, but quite long and steep. I can definitely see her thriving on that, you know. She's, yeah, I don't know. In some ways, I kind of have a feeling that she's going to be the strongest there. Yeah, keeping an eye out. You're watching her. I've been on the Italian team all the time. And have you ever, I know you haven't been to Rwanda, have you never been to like Africa before in general? No, never. So yeah, that's...

30:04Would you like to see more races there? I think I did read an article. I think it was like the Skoda We Love Cycling. And you were talking about sort of cycling being a Eurocentric sport. I mean talk to me about that yeah what are your what are your views yeah um yeah that's the thing that I feel like if you want to be cyclist you see with like people from Australia New Zealand Africa America they all have to travel to Europe and they have to be based in Europe in order to compete professionally so it would be just great if it was spread more across the world I think that it's of course easier said than done because then you need more people to like help travel with the equipment and you need more riders because you know you deal with the time zone changes but yeah it would be great to just have blocks you know that okay we start spring in Europe but then we have like what we used to have with Tour of California that everyone goes to America in May you can like do some other races there like Tour of Gila I things so there were some races you could like have a proper block of racing in one country and then you move back to europe maybe you do some stage racing races here and then you're like yeah either you go if rwanda continues their love for sport for cycling and they start having more races like i mean there is to rwanda for men but maybe there is going to be also one for women so it just would be great to expand the cycling and show it to other countries not only to european like based places yeah I I loved watching the tour of California I thought that was so fun yeah it was really cool race yeah yeah I remember it just always it was still hard but it felt more like you're in a different world you know because the roads are huge of course you're surrounded by Americans like the food is different it just feels like you get a little extra spark of motivation because it's just different yeah and do you do you get to go back to Poland much during the season or is it very much like Andorra, Girona based and then wherever a race is?

32:21Yeah I would say that in the last especially three years most of my like free time I would spend either in Andorra or actually in Boulder in Colorado so anytime I'm between the races then like yeah sometimes going to Girona it's just the easiest because there's a service course and it's in a long altitude just get a few nights and then bounce out again but I definitely wish I could be spending more time in Poland because yeah I just want to also show my husband more of my country you know just a bit more than what he saw when visiting my family so actually this off season we're playing on having a little Polish tour oh that would be so lovely that'd be so nice yeah I went to um Poland once in school and for some reason something that I remember is like on the end of every street there was sort of a little like bread I don't know mini like van or something I don't know how to describe it and it was beautiful it was like the best bread I've ever tasted I'm still like trying to hunt that high like the round one like kind of yes yeah what are they called is it just like I think you're talking about obba janky I can type it but thank you it's a good one for sure and so how would you I guess like to see the rest of your career play out like what are your future your goals um to be honest I take a lot of uh inspiration and like I don't know how to call maybe admiration from writers like Anemiek for example person who until the end of her career she kept on getting stronger she kept on winning races and say marking her territory so I definitely would want to race aggressively until the end of my career or always be the part of the race.

34:30I think on one hand, also, I see myself like becoming in some ways like a writer like Lizzie Dinan, a person that then shares the knowledge, experience with young writers and she guides them through races but on the other hand I'm not sure if my ego would allow me to like kind of step back from the final five it's like how much I don't know I guess once you get there you you you know what's best for you and um I guess what would has been the best day on a bike for you like you can have one from your career and then also one from from not racing that you just came back and you thought this was great oh yeah definitely the best days on a bike are the ones that like I wake up with my husband and we just decide to leave the house and I know that there there's no schedule I don't have to be anywhere at certain time and we just spend the whole day on a bike and we like go to places we've never been before we try different foods we just spend so much time on the bike but in a pace that like we race sometimes but then we go also super slow you know so it's something that definitely reminds me of just being a child being a kid and basically having fun you know so I definitely love those days that you get the satisfaction from riding so much and then the food tastes better and then you sleep better it's just like it's a great experience to like also see new roads meeting different people and yeah just living life in some ways you know as simple as that and is that what you learned on I think I saw after the tour de France you went on like this seven hour bike ride but like you you didn't want to like think about cycling and then you went cycling yeah that's what I that is like my addiction in some ways or that's something that Tay always laughs at or he cannot understand is that very often if I struggle with something or if I feel let's say emotionally unstable I just need to process it on my own and being on the bike helps me with that so much because like at first of course I get on the bike and I really feel triggered with everything you know I'm like why this person is looking at me why this car is cutting me off like I just have so much negativity but as I keep riding it all softens so then eventually I get to a point that I'm like descending with my arms wide open you know just like taking wind and loving it like feeling happy singing and it's just I feel that just spending a lot of time on the bike allows you to just kind of leave everything behind or just process things you don't want to have in your head anymore.

37:30So, yeah, I think that after the tour, there was also this crazy situation with Roman D. So I felt like there was a lot of like weirdly negative energy accumulated inside me. So all I needed was a long ride. yes I mean speaking of Roman D for people who don't know there was um god how do I even like try and narrow this down basically the they were trialing trackers that will be used in the world championships but I believe I'm writing saying that the teams didn't want to nominate one person but also the UCI was saying once it's on the bike it's like your responsibility and they didn't want that responsibility yeah I think to be honest that also the whole situation was not explained well to to others who were not involved in the situation and even to us riders I think that at least from what I understand it's not about the transponders there is something more that was happening between UCI and the teams and that situation was just like a pinnacle you know when everything started to explode and crack so i don't it's not you know the teams they would not have a problem to put a transponder one transponder on a single rider's bike but there was something more that of course they are now trying to figure out and i think it was very i just believe it's unfair for the riders to be punished for something that we had no say in in that way i think it's you know it's our career it's our we like spent months weeks preparing for something so it just cannot happen that all of a sudden you're disqualified for not basically breaking any rule you know yeah I get you it was a it was a weird situation I was trying to get a handle on it and I was like I I don't know like exactly and it's like yeah I I also don't understand why they would like impose something on the riders, like why you have to do something.

39:37There's another rule saying that you have to obey whatever they want you to have on the bike, you know? So, yeah, it's not like a two-way discussion kind of thing. Yeah, exactly. I understand. In some ways, you know, as if somebody was like, as we're having interview, you know, and they're like, oh, you have to wear a Santa Claus hat on. And you're like, why? And you're like, you have to. It's like, I can't even begin to approach Christmas without like Halloween first. Halloween's my main event. I'm not wearing a Santa hat, Cassia.

40:15Yeah, but I am not informed well enough to speak about this topic. But yeah, that's okay. in other cycling news what if you could design your dream race what would that look like um to be honest like for example i'm so cold race lab is great but if we just finish on the top of gauberg i like in the past we would have more often finishes like this like on a steep climb were on some sort of a hill we're now very open we are the finish is like located a lot further from the final climb for example so anything in ardent and finishing on the climb you know i love i don't know for some reason i really like kauberg i feel like it suits me very well so a couple times actually finish on there on the top and i would win that stage so maybe that's why I have a fond feelings with that well yeah something short and explosive would be great and if people say didn't know Cassianui Adoma Fini what a crazy concept first of all what is something that you hoped they would know about you oh wow um I don't know because I have different thoughts but I guess like the fact that uh I don't know I like being surrounded with people like being outside I like being in the nature and I just like being normal in you know I love simplicity of life meaning good food good weather good riding and I'm happy with all of that that's beautiful uh well the time just flies by I have one more question for you unless you just want to natter on forever I mean I'm fine with that it's fine but what would you want your legacy to be in cycling uh i would want to definitely be a rider that like other generations look up to and they think that they want to be as like fearless and like rider that listens to their gut feelings and less to the radio for example person that feels the race and locks cycling and just wants to be on the bike the most part for fun and not to be just like taking the hours off.

42:37I said last question, total lie. This is the last question. How does it feel when you're racing a race like the Tour de France, which hadn't been done for many, many years, and you see little girls stood at the roadside cheering you on? Oh, it's really cool for sure i at that moment i always feel i had like hundreds of bottles on me so i could like be giving each of them to to the to the little girls but it's super nice uh it's very cute to see especially i feel like a huge shout out to their parents that they bring them out so they can experience it because i know that watching a race on the tv feels completely different than actually experiencing it so close you know when the pelettes and passes by so quick next to you You just feel the energy and you feel the adrenaline.

43:27So I feel like that's the first part for people wanting to be a professional cyclist. Well, I don't want to let you go, but I'm going to have to, because at some point you've got to go to the World Championships. But thank you so much for your time, Cassia, for being on the Cyclist Magazine podcast. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me again.

43:53Robyn: kassia nui adoma finney ladies and gents brilliant interview robin thanks again for doing that on your todd flying solo is um i don't know actually sometimes it can be more fun i was gonna say it can be a bit kind of daunting um i find it a bit daunting anyway especially when you meet big names but then sometimes you're like yeah no i've got my flow and you can build up a bit of rapport and it's so it's a bit nicer but of your takeaways from that what was what sort of sticks out to you as a pertinent thing for Kazia looking down the tail end of the season and looking towards next. Yeah. Well, first of all, we had a great conversation about Prolish Bread.

44:30Love that. But also, she was talking about the World Championships in Kigali, Rwanda, which I'm very excited about. It'll be, I think, a very different experience for everyone. It's not really often that cycling, or even potentially women's cycling, I know there's a Tour de Lantard, but that it gets to go to Africa, a ride around Africa. And it's a hilly little course, very up there in terms of elevation. And, yeah, she feels like raring to go. I reckon, hey, potentially there could be a world championship jersey on the back of Cassia Nui Adoma Fini.

45:07Robyn: Do you reckon? Well, I mean, that would be pretty bloody spectacular because already gravel champion, add that to her, Palmares. Interesting one though, the Rwanda Worlds, is something that we were discussing as a team recently and it's almost gone quite quiet. So initially it's like this big reveal, whoa, UCI is going to take the Worlds to Rwanda, it's going to go to Africa. There are lots of mid-tier kind of Conti level races, but there's nothing at the top end World Tour. And obviously, technically, the world champs isn't, I don't think, a kind of classified race like that, because it's open to lots of different riders at different levels.

45:47Robyn: So it doesn't have a world tour status, but it is effectively a world tour race. You know, it's one of the biggest in the calendar. And I just think it's kind of, I don't know what's going on, but they are a little bit silent. And I wonder if part of that is, guys, we've had a terrible time at the Vuelta Espana. We saw politics enter into cycling, and Rwanda has a really difficult political situation at the moment. Lots of people, classic sort of thing, have been saying, this is an exercise in a way, not just purely, of course, I don't want to take anything away from the sport and the riders, but there's an element of, are we sports washing here?

46:30Robyn: Should it be going to a country like Rwanda? and I do wonder if there's sort of almost a silence in the PR hoping that people kind of don't remember what's happening and then it's like, oh, it's on, as opposed to alerting people and making this feel around it. And I might well be reading too much into it, but you pointed out before we went on air, you have got some big-name riders. Lottie Capecchi was one. Who else were you saying is not going to go? Nassie van der Poel. Wow, far not. Comes to mind. Yeah, just really big names. And even people like Jonathan Narvaez, who you think the course would kind of suit, isn't going.

47:08And it kind of just feels like on the men's side, it's almost a foregone conclusion that Tarei Pogaccio is simply going to defend his title.

47:17Robyn: Yeah. Like, yeah. Yeah, so I don't know. I'm not sure if that sort of means anything in the wider kind of context. I did say to you before we came on, let's not stray into the sports washing. all those sorts of that kind of armchair political commentary. And I've already done that. But yeah, just kind of throwing it out there. It's an interesting one. And I really hope it goes well. I mean, obviously, we all hope it goes well. It should be amazing. It's a spectacular country in terms of topography and stuff to race in. And yeah, I mean, it'd be wicked to see Kasia win. And I don't know, would it be great to see?

47:52Robyn: I'm always torn with Pogacar, right? I want him to do well. I really like him as a rider he just has good energy but then is sport more exciting when different people win should we sort of always want someone else to win as opposed to someone to defend yeah I think it's interesting I I always like someone I always want to see a fight for a victory and I think yeah sometimes it can kind of when you're watching a cycling race you want to be entertained you don't want to sort of already know how it's going to play out but But I think in terms of world championships, what sort of sets that apart is the rider's going to be world champion.

48:30And I think he'd be hard pressed to find someone that maybe fits that definition better of being just so dominant throughout the season of Tade Pigaccia. So, and I've, I think I wrote an article about it before. I was like, well, how else could you decide the world championships? and you can go by, say, UCI points or you can have more at a stage race where you have sprints and climbs and the mountains, whatever. But I think it would be expected to have a world champion in Tane Pagacar. But also, I remember the days when, you know, Roy Costa was world champion and that was like, whoa, what? Like, that's exciting.

49:09So I think it would be, it'd be fun to have someone maybe a little bit unexpected, like an outsider. I think that'd be great. But when you're talking world champion, it's just got to be Tare Fogaccia, hasn't it? Like for all his dominance so far and that we'll continue to see.

49:28Robyn: Yeah, and I do, you know, it's easy to support that in as much as, like I say, he's such a warm, nice boke that you kind of want that for him, which is, I think that's sometimes missing in champions of lots of sports, but particularly in cycling where you get the dominance but with that comes this kind of machine roboticness and so you see the performance but then you're not left with any personality and then you kind of go, yeah, take it or leave it. Team Sky, case in point, after a while you're like, can't really be arsed with this, mate. And then Geraint Thomas wins, kind of almost out of nowhere and then you're like, yeah, and you realise, oh, that's what we was missing here.

50:07Robyn: it's not that it isn't brilliant to see a British team smashing it and to see you know countless Grand Tours notched up it's actually the thing that you really liked was once upon a time Team Sky were kind of almost plucky underdogs coming in with a massive budget but equally completely unproven and then as soon as you reach that height of dominance then yeah the fans get a bit bored but then you get someone like G come along so yeah maybe there'll be something a surprise like that at the Worlds, but equally, if not, I'm happy with Tade. And if not, Kazia, we'll end on this. What else? What is Robin Davidson's second top pick for the women's road race?

50:45That is so... Put you on the spot now. That's such a good... If Elisa Longo-Borghini was going, it would be nice to see her up there. I think she is going. So I'll go for that. And then watch her like tomorrow and be like, actually, I'm not going. And then I'm like, oh, great. The Robin curse.

51:04Robyn: well I don't know who we can we can eagle eyes on the next few days and we can come back and re-edit this because this is going out on Thursday hopefully it's Thursday when you're listening to this hopefully you have joined us and it's been an absolute pleasure entertaining your ears and your eyes if you're watching this on YouTube and we will be back as we say at some point with another fabulous interview from Robin with Magnus Court may or may not be in a fortnight's time we haven't decided yet because we got a host of good names great names coming up for you guys So in the meantime, I don't know, do whatever you're doing.

51:35Robyn: Go to Skegness, go and see the seals. And if you can't do that, maybe get out on your bike.