155. George Hincapie: Paris-Roubaix, elbows out racing and his Modern Adventure

0:00It kind of pains me to admit this as a cyclist, but I rather like cars. And I think I've just been driving around in the nicest car I will ever, ever drive. And that's the Maserati Gricali, which it turns out is what happens if an Italian supercar company designed an SUV for people like me, for cyclists. Now, the Grakali is fast, like 0-60 in 4.1 seconds fast, but it is also, it's just delightful to sit in. It has the legroom of a first-class flight to Singapore. It's arguably more luxurious inside than my own house. And yet, I kind of can't believe I'm saying it because of what it is. It's a genuinely practical car.

0:36I could happily chuck a dirty bike in the back of it, then do the shopping, and then go and pick up the rest of the family. Now, I've been driving the electric Fulgori version, which has the equivalent of a 557 brake horsepower dual electric motor with a 360 mile range, which sounds incredibly impressive, I know, but let's just put that in cycling terms, which we actually understand. That is the same power output as a thousand Tadej Pogacchas, all racing with Ansan Remo at once and then racing back again. Now, as well as the electric version, there are multiple engine options too. Prices start from£59 ,990, which when you think about it, it's something of a bargain given Pogaccia's Tour de France winning Colnago from last year sold at auction for£143 ,000.

1:23You could have bought two brand new Maserati Gricalis for that. Now you can find out more and also find out where your local Maserati dealer is at maserati.com. Where else? So that's maserati.com and check out the Maserati Gricali. I reckon a while ago, the bike computer market looked all sewn up. There were two big players, end of. Kind of like how once upon a time group sets meant either Shimano or Campagnolo. So there's a wonderful synergy in the fact SRAM busted open the group set market back in 2006. And now SRAM's computer arm, Hammerhead, is blowing the doors off in the same way with the Hammerhead Karoo.

2:00My favorite thing about the Karoo is how much it's like a smartphone. So the touchscreen is really crisp and punchy. So data and mapping, which is way more like a phone's mapping than a classic by GPS, by the way, those things are super clear. But unlike a phone, battery life is a huge 35 hours with GPS on and your ride recording. Plus, it's also way smaller. It's up there with the smallest head units given what it does. And it does loads from predicting gradients in real time to making routes on the fly to running apps like Spotify. And it will even tell you how fast you're going. There's a whole lot more that we'll get into in other episodes, but for anyone who just needs things now, now, now, head over to cyclist.co.uk and search Hammerhead Crew 3 to read our in-depth review and find out why we gave it our cyclist recommended badge of honour.

2:49Then head to hammerhead.io and use the promo code cyclist to get a free heart rate monitor with every purchase of a crew. Just make sure we put everything in the basket it first before applying that promo code cyclist promo code hammerhead.io is where you can find all the gear hello and welcome back to the cyclist magazine podcast i'm your host jane spender and it is that time of year again where i wonder do you say rubay or ruby will ruby ruby ruby it's not it's not a debate it's not a debate it's not a debate sorry shouldn't notice by now Paris-Roubaix has happened. We all talk about it thusly.

3:33But we do have a great guest today in the form of George Hincapie, who is Mr. Paris-Roubaix in many respects, and will tell us not actually about what his team did there because we spoke to him ahead of Paris-Roubaix, but will tell us about his plans for Paris-Roubaix and his experiences riding ultimately the hardest race in the, I would say, in the pantheon of all racing, including the Grand National and certain Formula 1 races, which are inherently dangerous and rally car racing. But like ultra distance? What, more dangerous than ultra distance? Would you say? Well, I suppose there's less chance of getting done over by bandits in Paris-Roubaix.

4:10But you also might get gangrene if you crash on the Aranberg and get sepsis and nearly have to have your leg removed like Yohan Mazzei. So there's those things. I would say that's probably less likely in 2026 than it was when it happened. That's very true. but anyway let's move on and actually talk about Paribas because I've got one thought for you why can't they just stop getting bloody punctures right the race has been running since I don't know when finger in the wind 1890 something so that's a long many long years right where tires get punctured on the cobbles and that loses races why can't they just make a tire that doesn't get a puncture it's mad it just blows my mind it wouldn't fly in any other sport my question is if you clean peribet up of mechanical issues how much of the romance of the race is gone uh well the thing is i suppose you'll never get rid of all mechanical issues because there's always just well okay obviously you can't have an unpuncturable tire that has air in it because it can there's a certain circumstances where it can conceivably puncture but I do feel like you could really make it quite unlikely and there was a clip of some guys from Escape Collective looking at Van der Poel's bike and I think they said look he's got 32mm tyres on there and we've just we've got a bloke here who's just watched the mechanic pump them up to 4 bar which is like 40 PSI or something that's really low Van der Poel is 75kg or something, 73kg is so he's a pretty big guy riding on some really awful cobblestones with very very low pressure he's probably riding tubeless tires and he punches has the thing with his spare bike philipson's riding some pedals also that's another thing philipson riding some pedals which not only were they prototype pedals or something it wasn't even that they weren't just the same prototype shimon pedals why you wouldn't just go everyone on the team i mean they said this on the commentary, right?

6:14I'm just parroting them. But why would you not just say everyone on the team have the same pedals? So if there's a mechanical, you can swap bikes more easily. And maybe they should just do this for everything in cycling. Everyone's just had the same bike. I definitely agree with that. They should be like Japanese Kieran. They should all be on the same bike. Yeah. No money in that though, is there? Because you can't sell those bikes. Well, you can, but you're one company. You could, but yeah. That is my top stat for you. Maybe this has changed, but I reckon it probably hasn't. Do you know what the most winningest easy to say.

6:45You don't need to say that word, James. Okay. What's the most victorious successful bicycle in the history of the Tour de France? I don't know. What were they riding back in the day? Peugeot? No. Close, though. Alcyon. The Alcyon days. They were the Alcyon days. Exactly. I love it. One of the best things about facts are facts without actual data. That's my favourite type of fact. Anyway, I do have some facts for you now. I do have some data. I'm going to read off my little crib sheet here so that I can make sure I get it just so, because our guest today is George Hincapie. George was born in Queens, New York City, on the 29th of June, 1973, don't laugh at my accent, Will, to cycling mad Colombian dad, Ricardo.

7:29By 12, George was throwing elbows, racing adults in Central Park, and by his teens, he was showing the talent that would take him to the Olympics in 1992, which was where, Will? Was it Barcelona or was that the one after? It was Barcelona and Freddie Mercury famously sang that song. And then his first pro season with Motorola in 1994. Remember when they made phones and everyone had a Motorola phone? Very successful. What's happened to them? Anyway. Fumbled the bag. Fumbled the bag, as they say. Now, at first, Motorola was a self-confessed bunch of American upstarts, but it morphed into one of the most formidable teams of the 1990s and 2000s, US Postal and obviously infamous.

8:10let's say. So there, George forged his status as one of cycling's strongest and most dependable riders, supporting team leader Lance Armstrong as road captain and lieutenant across all seven of Armstrong's tour wins, which I'm doing in air quotes because, as we all know, sadly, those years are now remembered for all the wrong reasons. And in 2012, George admitted to using performance-enhancing substances at times during his career and was subsequently handed a six-month ban and nullification of all results between the 31st of May 2004 and 31st of July 2006. I hope I've got that right. Please don't sue me or litigate American lawyers.

8:50But I think that's true. And that is just, that's a fact. It's in the past. It's a match of a public record. And we don't talk about it in this podcast. Sorry to disappoint everybody. But George retired from the pro-peloton after 19 seasons in which he started the Tour de France 17 consecutive times, finishing it 16 times and winning one team time trial stage along the way. He also rode 50 monuments, including getting a second at Paris-Roubaix, got lots of top tens at Paris-Roubaix and Tour of Flanders, but he got second at Roubaix and he got third at Tour of Flanders. He also won Gent-Webgel in 2001 and was three-time national US champion.

9:28Now, if you're still with me on this very long introduction, today George is bringing all this experience to bear with his new team, modern adventure pro cycling with the express aim to give young riders a shot at the big time while becoming the next great american team who a bit like we've seen with tudor and fabian cancellara might one day compete in the grand tours with wild cards once you know they're on their pro team license at the moment eventually hoping to move up to a full world tour license we spoke to george as i said at the top of the show ahead of paris-roubaix he's in girona setting up the service course at this point in time where the team a couple of days ago had its first big wildcard entry and a really good showing with New Zealander Ben Oliver finishing 47th.

10:13So that was far too much from me, not enough from Will. So let's move into the interview and hopefully hear loads more from George and Cappy.

10:27so you're over in Girona at the moment normally you're based in the states how long how often do you end up in Europe and is Girona kind of your second home in a way is it you know does it feel like you go back and just see all your cycling buddies all of the all the guys used to ride with almost like this wonderful sort of retirement community yeah it's pretty wild well we're building our service course out here. So it's not essentially, it is our European base. And I just wanted to be here these 10 days just to oversee the build out a little bit, although it's a bit delayed. There's a lot of things here in Spain, but it's come together really nice.

11:07So that's quite exciting for us to build out our service course with plans for the future of the growth of the team we want to get it done right right now you know so we don't have like people coming in later on when the team is already established and all of our equipment's there we figure might as well invest in it right now and do it correctly and not worry about it in the future as we continue to grow and of course we have a bunch of riders here um so it's been just it's been nice to be here in Girona and catch up with some of them and my son lives here now as well uh so it's it's nice nice to be here.

11:41I mean, I'm still based in the US and I'll be there primarily, but I'll be back here, back and forth a bunch here now. So the team, obviously, Modern Adventure, Pro Cycling, are you as general manager going to follow the team around, go to all the races with them? Are you back on the road now, ostensibly, in a way where your family's a bit like, hang on, dad, husband, I thought we'd given all this up and you were going to spend a bit more time at home. um so in this initial part of the team's launch definitely i'm trying to be at as many races as possible especially the races that i really lobbied hard with the organizers like aso races or rcs races or just races that put faith in us early on to invite us before we were even the team last year i flew i traveled a bunch back and forth to europe all over the world to meet with organizers and pitch them on what we were trying to create so certainly those races i'm going to try to be at the classics obviously like ruby races that i have a big affinity for but i can't be at all the races like for instance 13 was just in croatia and um i didn't go there so like now this early part of the history of the team i want to be in as many races as possible but in terms of like day-to-day like we have a really solid uh team of directors and trainers that do a lot of the schedule during the races so i don't have to be at every race but i want to be able to be there these first few months as much as possible to observe how the directors work with the riders and you know being able to contribute where I can but I think that'll slow down in the second half of the season and then next year obviously I'll be able to target a lot more specific races as opposed to just try to be at as many races as possible but I'll certainly be on the road a lot more than I have been since I've retired yeah what was the reaction like obviously people were talking a lot about the team when you first announced it was going to be happening and what you're trying to do as sort of as a pathway for american riders and eventually try and become in the world tour because obviously that second i mean even world tour teams are struggling for budgets at the moment but pro teams i mean even this week we've seen in the news a few teams losing their sponsor the end of this year did you just have an inundation of you know riders and everyone being like i want to ride for your team yeah we did we had a bunch of riders and there's a huge gap, as you guys know, between world tour riders and continental riders.

14:04In the U.S., the gap is massive. It's really hard for them to make it as professional cyclists because they don't get paid any money. They get zero support or very little support from their team. So we wanted to try to close that gap a bit and pay them a decent wage, give them the best equipment, coaching, a great schedule. So we've so far done a great job with that. I mean, we're giving them a better schedule than I ever imagined. We're getting more invitations than I had ever anticipated. But we had, like I just mentioned to you guys earlier, we had a really solid group of directors that we kind of tasked them with finding us riders because two of them have basically just essentially left racing.

14:40So they were really still in tune with the current crop of American riders and current crop of pros. So Alex Alves, Ty Magner, and Joey Roscoff really led the charge in finding us these talents that we thought were far from their peak and that we could help them by giving them support by coaching equipment, help them reach the highest levels of the sport and reach their personal peaks as well. So, so far, we're really happy with the roster that we put together. We've gotten more results already than we anticipated. I was kind of planning on just starting off really, really slowly the first two years, getting our asses kicked in many ways, but we've actually gotten results here and there, and it's been really exciting to watch.

15:21and we truly feel like it's because of the ambience we've created and the culture we've created within the team of just like no pressure, just have fun and really trusting each other. And so far, that's been a good recipe for these guys riding well. Yeah, because you've already had invites to, I mean, world tour races, the UAE Tour, you know, several top tens. I think it was Riley Pickle that was riding really well. And then you've got some big classics coming up. obviously Roubaix, one of your favorites. How does it, you know, does that accelerate where you see the team going because you're already in those races, already picking up points and competing?

15:59Yeah, for sure. I would never have imagined, if we did this interview last year, that we would be doing Roubaix in 2026. No way. That was not even, you know, in my furthest hopes of the team. So the fact that we got the invitation to Roubaix is already a huge accomplishment. And yeah, in many ways, It could accelerate our growth plan, but also I don't want to feel rushed. I still like the plan we have of just growing organically, growing slowly, taking the first years to really establish ourselves as a team. And yes, we're getting more invitations that we had anticipated, but I also want to keep on that track where I don't want to put a bunch of pressure on the guys.

16:38I just want them to become better cyclists and just be part of a team that they're proud of being part of and proud to ride for. I mean, we're getting tons of compliments from riders, general managers, team owners on how good the team looks and, you know, how well we ride together already in the first couple of months of the season. So that's kind of already a huge accomplishment for me personally. And I want to stay on that track where we just kind of grow organically. And yes, we are in some of the biggest races in the world now. We're going to try to do our best. But I'm not telling these guys like, hey, I need you guys to finish top 10 in Paris-Roubaix.

17:14Bay, like I want these guys to have a great experience in Rebaix, although it's a very tough task to have a great experience in Rebaix, but to do everything they can to survive and get to the finish line and finish as high up as possible. Do you look at the guys you've assembled, the kit that they've got, the money, the infrastructure that's behind them and coming, you know, with things like the service course and think, man, you've got it lucky compared to my day. And particularly, you know, we've been taught, we've had David Miller on the podcast. I know you're good mates with and factor are sponsoring you guys with bikes.

17:46And we chatted a lot again on the pod about the factor one and I look at that bike and then you look back at bikes that you guys were racing on in the 90s. And it's like, it's mind blowing how different a bike like that looks. And I think, do you kind of go? Yeah, man, I wish I was racing now because this sort of stuff is pretty toppers yeah the bike the ones are awesome i just love uh i love that we have them and that wasn't even part of the initial plan of factor it was like we were going to be on the ostros but they really love what we're doing they they love the progression of the team so far so each rider has a one bike right now and they absolutely love them they ride them all the time but yeah i mean i definitely am really proud of the equipment they have and and i i think they realize that they they have it as good or better than they've ever had it even some of the guys that came from world tour teams they're saying like wow like this team has really been fun to race for and we've raised together better as a team than any teams that i've raced for before in the past so i just love hearing things like that and i think our equipment sponsors are are seeing that and feeling that as well and i really um have really doubled down on their support with us and it's been great to to watch can you remember the first bit of kit that you received as a neo pro or maybe even younger where you thought this sort of signifies i've made it and it was like insanely exciting to have that piece of kit can you remember what that was yeah 100 i was in como italy and i got a suitcase full of motorola team motorola gear like all in plastic bags and i'm like whoa i've never seen that much kid in my entire life and it was all mine so that was definitely that moment um but now these guys just you know they get it's like i think i don't know what the feeling is like for them but certainly uh i will never forget that feeling and i hope that they have a similar feeling when they got all of their stuff because your your career lasted longer than is that the distance from when you retired to now are you surprised by the jump in you know the technology the nutrition that how you know we're seeing record times on the climbs and whatever are you surprised by how far that's come in such a short period of time?

19:54Oh, yeah. I mean, I have a son that's a serious cyclist as well. So I see it at home as well. The amount of nutrition that he has was way more than anything we ever had for ourselves and how much he eats during training. I mean, back in our days, old school, it was like, if you came home completely bonked and out of energy, you had a good training ride. I mean, it's just like the mindset is completely different. These guys are so dialed in with their nutrition now. And And I mean, we have an awesome nutrition sponsor as well in Endurance that the amount of nutrition that the team like ours requires is mind boggling.

20:28I mean, we have a half a warehouse full of nutrition that we will go through in a couple of months time just because of the amount of stuff that they consume. But yeah, you see it in the times and how much faster they go and how much stronger they are at the end of races now. It's certainly changing the sport a lot. And you grew up in Queens, New York, right? and we're just talking about how you know you've got people who you're now friends with who you've known for decades in cycling who understand what talent looks like and they've got their finger on the pulse currently discovering young riders but how were you as a kid in the 70s and 80s you know growing up in a place like New York in let's be honest I can't think of many other cyclists that have come from New York it's not a particularly cycling sort of hub neither was America in that how did you manage to kind of make your way because it's absolutely not a natural path and you wouldn't have had the george hincapi tapping you on the shoulder i'm sure and saying hey come and sign for this exciting new outfit yeah well i was fortunate earlier on when i got like local support from new york city cycling aficionados like fred manjoni and casina cycling club the casino cycling club still around um so they helped my family and i out with equipment and some kids and but racing in like central park in prostitute park with a bunch of europeans and south americans as a kid like was actually quite an experience and it really helped pave the way of my the rest of my career because i got kind of pushed around as a 12 year old kid trying to race against these adults that have had cycling in their in their family and had cycling in their you know grew up doing cycling and whether it was in europe or in south america and they wanted And even though they weren't professionals, they took the sport very serious.

22:07So they wanted to win no matter what. So I think me racing against them as a kid just really helped me not be fearful on the bike and really helped my awareness on the bike as well, which when I got to Europe and racing in Belgium on small roads and cobblestones and that sort of chaos, it didn't seem that chaotic to me. It seemed like, okay, well, this isn't quite as crazy as like racing in New York City in the snow, like we have taxis pulling up and runners and people trying to crash you. I was like, this is kind of cool, at least. So I think it really just helped my mindset once I got to Europe.

22:40And yeah, it wasn't the traditional path to cycling, but I fell in love with the sport early on. My father loved the sport, got us into it, and it was a family sport for us. I always felt honored that I was able to keep the family tradition alive and take it to the next level by turning professional. have you got any of those kind of uh rocky style boot camps up your sleeve where you'll take your guys to new york and get them to race some messages around the city or i'm struggling to think i feel like we didn't johan bruniel have some mad training exercises that he did with you guys it's quite kind of like avant-garde at the time no no uh that i don't remember and um that would be fun to do that in new york city but i actually tell the guys like when i was a kid I would always like do these drills in the peloton and it's kind of funny like I would go in the back of the peloton and say I'm gonna I'm gonna move up 100 spots without burning one extra calorie like just like finding holes in the peloton and I would race like my friends like on the side like I'd say you start on that side of the side I bet you I'd beat you to the front but I'm not gonna spend any energy doing it and I would do these little drills and you know when the race was going easy or like when there wasn't much going on and I felt like it really helped like shape my awareness in the peloton which is so much of a factor on how like you arrive at finishes the race because every everybody does the same amount of training now everybody has the same amount of nutrition it's just like in my opinion it's like who can have the most finesse inside of a peloton and who can save the most energy so i always tell my guys like you know try to really be aware of like where you are in the peloton and just finding holes always and always moving up especially in these you know stressful belgium races like where it's so chaotic and where it's so important to be in a good position all the time i try to always try to get them to focus on that as much as possible yes interesting thing because you get a lot of talk nowadays about riders going pro young they're immediately leading teams and you know they're not experienced in the group and it's causing part or not necessarily causing but it means that the awareness is down whereas compared to you know 20 30 years ago you're all drilled into how to race and you were you know you weren't leading a team until your your mid-20s do you think that the experience of having a girl like you and obviously the other managers of the team having been through that means that the modern adventure team will you'll be drilling into them how to actually race how to be aware in the group or um you know chucking them around the belgian races just to get the elbows out yeah i mean that's that's the hope i mean we definitely come with a really solid or a big experience of racing uh of racers behind these guys that you know we try to put a lot of emphasis on teaching them about the race after the race as well we always have these like post race meetings where we say you know what went right what went wrong like what you could have done better what you did really good at so with the experience that the directors have alex joe Ian Tye, myself, Bobby Julik.

25:48I mean, I told these guys from our first December camp, it's not like fans or business people that are running this team. It's like we've been in the war with you. We know we've been in every scenario that you can experience in the Peloton. So really rely on us if you have questions or just rely on us when we tell you what we think you can do to be better inside of the Peloton or in races. And, you know, I think they really took that to heart and they know that they are led by a bunch of people that race all the races in the world. Did you sort of think that when you were starting, especially in the 90s on the Motorola team, quite a few American riders, obviously especially as you guys started winning, started going to the Tour de France and competing with these established teams, did you think that there was a little bit of target on the back to be like, you know, coming in here, thinking you can take over these loud Americans?

26:42Oh yeah, 100%. I mean, we got yelled at all the time, like, go home. Like, what are you doing here? And I mean, rightfully so. Sometimes we were in the way. Like, we didn't know what we were doing. So I actually take the same approach with my team as well, being a small team, an American team. Like, I don't, you know, expect to just be handed a ton of respect from the Peloton. Like, I told our guys, like, look, you guys need to earn the respect and race together as a team. I told them from the first camp or the second camp of January that, like, I just want to see you guys together racing as a team.

27:12like trusting each other riding together as much as possible make an impact when you can and results come second to that and so far they've done above and beyond that how do you manage what you kind of put your ability which you know you're now trying to impart that kind of wisdom into your younger guys but where do you find your own ability to be that incredibly um you know kind of someone with a lot of like guile and great race tactics and also someone who's very respected. I was just, you know, reading around, obviously. I mean, we do do, like, a little bit of research for the podcast, not just shooting from the hip, although it might seem like it.

27:49And the amount of praise for you, retrospectively and at the time, as an amazing rider. So people at Wigan say, you know, one of the most respected guys in the peloton and Christian van der Veld, you know, the ultimate road captain. And, you know, a couple of our journalists in the UK, one of the really nice lines I like is, you're one of the quietest guys but the most popular guys in the peloton. How do you, maybe not how do you become that? Because that's a sort of quite a strange question to ask somebody, because I guess you just say, well, because I'm me. What are the qualities that fed into that that you felt you nurtured that then led you to that position where, you know, you're one of the patrons of the Peloton by the time you retire, you know, in 2012?

28:30yeah that's a i mean that's a that's a that's a hard question to ask but one one i did it for so damn long i mean 19 years in the pro peloton it's like i went from you know being this like punk kid trying to survive in europe to slowly walking my way up the ranks to to racing on uh with some of the best riders in the history of the sport all kinds of riders climbers stage racers sprinters like i pretty much rode with every personality you can ride with i mean whether from lance Armstrong to Mark Cavendish to Cadell Evans to Alberto Contador and from them obviously all of their teammates and I was always just really every relationship I made within the sport was really important to me and I think that went a long way when I became a veteran rider I always tried to help the younger riders I feel like that went a long way as well and you know like I mentioned earlier pretty much done every race you can do in the sport and witnessed every scenario so as I went further along in my career, my opinion became of real importance to the teams that I was on, and in many ways expected to make a lot of the decisions that the director can't see in the car, or if he's watching on TV, you don't see those last-second attacks that are getting away, or the danger that's coming up, or the wind changes.

29:43I mean, obviously now there's a lot more technology with VeloViewer, but back then I really relied on riders like me to make those calls. So I think it just garnered a lot of respect from the people that were on my team and the peloton around that. You know, it's a small circle. I mean, word spreads pretty quickly. So I guess that would be the answer. I mean, I can't really speak for why people saw me that way, but I would just I guess that would be one of the reasons. It is just an incredible career that you had, which I think people some people know, you know, real keen fans of the sport will know.

30:15but a lot of people may have just almost seen you as a kind of just a fixture without ever really thinking like what it meant to be seeing you so often. And what that meant is 20 grand tours, 17 tours de France on the start line, 16 finished. That's, I think, makes you the joint record holder with, I want to say Sylvain Chavnell and Jupp Zutemelk, who rode in like, I don't know, the 70s, completely different ballgame, right? Yeah. And there's people like Adam Hansen who have, I think, records now broken, but one of your kind of colleagues at the time, in a way, in the peloton, who rode consecutive tours back to back.

30:53But that longevity, I think, seems remarkable and also remarkable in all the sport these days where people seem to burn very brightly and then they're sort of gone. Like, again, how do you manage to keep going year after year when it must just take it out of you to do three weeks in France, let alone that, you know, I think the 50 classics over your career as well, probably I'm counting plus everything else. Like how on earth do you get out of bed and tell those legs to keep going? Well, one, I never took my position for granted. Like I always truly enjoyed being a professional cyclist. It was like my dream to become a professional cyclist.

31:31So I always had the mindset that if I made it, I'm going to do everything I can to perform on my best and dedicate my life to the sport. And yeah, it definitely gets, you know, after that many years, it starts weighing on you a bunch. But I always just really enjoyed the process and enjoyed the people that I was around. And I was fortunate enough to be around a lot of some of the best personalities the sport's ever had. And I really enjoyed that part of it. Like it's hard to replicate like the team ambiance inside of a bus when you know you've gone to essentially war with your eight other teammates or seven other teammates.

32:06And you guys have all worked so hard just to get there. And then you have a successful race or you've come together as a team. It's, you know, that that's always a feeling that's it's hard to to leave. So it's great that I'm back in this role of having my own team and hopefully being able to witness that sort of feeling again with my riders. it's really appealing and motivating for me that's um to be back in this this format with uh trying to get this team to the next level and obviously you're most associated with armstrong's seven wins but you're also part of teams that won the torte france with contador and cadel evans how do you sort of compare and contrast those three as leaders as you know bike riders oh they were like all three were different uh totally different i mean lance was uh always super confident like he he had that killer mentality contador was more like the time he was more like a kid like just having fun like a practical joker like had no idea how good he was but like was also secretly really confident but wasn't very vocal in terms of leadership but just really relied on riders like myself to help shepherd him around keep him out of the wind or you know um get him to the finish line safely and then cadel was just like this detail oriented person like would study the race book knew every corner like he would he would be in the bus just studying the map of the of every stage uh before every race and it was just really detail oriented in that sense but also wasn't very vocal in terms of leadership but really wanted to be around guys that he trusted because he'd been part of teams so for so many years that like i wouldn't say they wouldn't always be all in on him but they wouldn't be all in on him like bmc was and like riders like me were and the riders that the team that he uh that he had around them for his sort of friends when so they were all certainly very very different but also really fun to be part of those wins as well yeah could I clearly trust you because you didn't use cape epic with him a few years after you retired as well yeah yeah yeah he said hey let's go to cape epic for you know a fun race like eight day race and we won't race it we'll just have fun like we get there we're going like full gas every day but it was fun that was also a super fun experience yeah how does that compare because i've had have heard people say that is one of the hardest two-wheeled events going i know that you know even against grand tours yeah no it's definitely tough and i wasn't expecting that uh it's but cadel and i had a great time obviously he was like ex-world mountain bike champion and And I did a lot of mountain biking growing up, so I have good technical skills as well.

34:41So we were a really good match. But yeah, it's tough. It's like five hours a day on the bike. And I think I did it like three or four years after I retired. I'm pretty sure at the end of that race, I was like, I could have probably stepped back into the pro peloton. I was so fit again. Yeah, so that's one of those things when I was sort of thinking about, you know, building the team around the pathway of getting Americans into, you know, road racing into the world tour. You sort of look at the circuit and you think, well, it kind of almost seems like the way in for most Americans now is more obviously getting into gravel and building that way.

35:13Do you think that gravel can form a pathway for young riders as an easier or different way to get into road racing? Or do you think these people, they just love riding off road? There's certainly something to it because, I mean, nowadays, you know, I actually told, I did a camp like with some friends in Siena the other day. and we did a lot of the Strada Bianca sections. And it's funny because when I did Strada Bianca in 2011, I showed up in the US, it was my first race, and I just would fly past the peloton in the corners. I could move up 50, 60 spots without even trying because back then, riders were very one-dimensional.

35:51They could ride road really good, but when you put them on dirt, they were lost. Now, fast forward to now, I mean, every pro has pretty much got some good skills on the gravel and it's like, They're all very dynamic in terms of their racing skills. So the sports changed a lot. And I could see the gravel skills cross over a lot to the pro skills now, to road skills as well, where back in my day, there was very few guys that can handle their bike really good on off-road. And I was fortunate enough to do a lot of mountain biking for training in the winter time. So I felt super comfortable on the gravel.

36:23It was never an issue for me, but there was a lot of guys that had no idea how to race it. and certainly a lot of them now are really really good at it obviously you got to use your technical ability in the cobble classics as well how did that season pivot for you when you're doing you know tour de france in the summer when you're working for lance and for constant or whatever and but you get your time in the classics to try and win the races obviously you didn't win monument you won game level game um but you came close so many times at ruby i think you had a couple of close results at flanders and san rame as well i don't i think you only did liege like once but you've obviously got to stick to the real hard man classics you mean come on how did you find that pivot between leading in the one-day races and you know taking more of a backseat role it was just a nice way to for me to split up the season it would like the spring the winter time would be all about getting ready for flanders and roubaix and the races leading up to that my training was catered around that like my even my weight i'd be a little bit heavier to have more power and then after Roubaix, sometimes I go to Amsoor, like you said, Liege once, maybe extend the spring season a little bit, but I'd always have a break, like a three-week to a month break without racing and take a week off the bike and just go home and try to enjoy being at home with family and friends and then just really change my mindset and start doing longer distance climbs, try to shed the weight.

37:49And it was just a good way for me to split up the season and really give me separate goals to where I can get through the end of the end of July like essentially fresh mentally and then I would hang on August as long as I could to the form I got in the tour and then pretty much shut it down at the end of August every year how do you look back on those sort of Roubaix I think probably more memorably appearances now onwards because it must be quite frustrating because you came so close you got second And obviously you can't have too much hope sprinting against Tom Burnham. It's, you know, no one's really going to think that they're going to win that one.

38:24And then obviously you had the one, I think, was it the year after when you had the bike incident? Do you look back on it and say, yeah, I had a lot of fun. I raced myself. It was great. Or do you think I was so close to coming away with a win? It certainly paved my career. And, you know, it was, I know that I gave everything I had every time I raced for Bay and I was top 10 many times. And, you know, you watch it now and I'm like, how the hell did I get top 10 in this race? Because it's so crazy. In fact, I rode the recon with the guys last week and just, I mean, it's just madness. And, you know, the fact that I actually did that race 17 times and I'm still like healthy and riding my bike is already a big victory.

39:06And it was just, it was fun to be part of that experience. And I don't have any regrets. I know that I couldn't have done anything different. like you said getting to the finish line with Tom Bonin best friend in the world it was just unlucky at the time but I know that I left everything I had on the road in Roubaix

39:26I reckon a while ago the bike computer market looked all sewn up there were two big players end of kind of like how once upon a time group sets meant either Shimano or Campagnolo so there's a wonderful synergy in the fact SRAM busted open the group set market back in 2006 and now SRAM's computer arm, Hammerhead, is blowing the doors off in the same way with the Hammerhead Karoo. My favourite thing about the Karoo is how much it's like a smartphone. So the touchscreen is really crisp and punchy, so data and mapping, which is way more like a phone's mapping than a classic bike GPS, by the way. Those things are super clear.

40:02But unlike a phone, battery life is a huge 35 hours with GPS on and your ride recording, plus it's also way smaller. it's up there with the smallest head units given what it does and it does loads from predicting gradients in real time to making routes on the fly to running apps like spotify and it will even tell you how fast you're going there's a whole lot more that we'll get into in other episodes but for anyone who just needs things now now now head over to cyclist.co.uk and search hammerhead crew 3 to read our in-depth review and find out why we gave it our cyclist recommended badge of honor.

40:37Then head to hammerhead.io and use the promo code cyclist to get a free heart rate monitor with every purchase of a Karoo. Just make sure you put everything in the basket first before applying that promo code. Cyclist promo code hammerhead.io is where you can find all the gear.

40:58It kind of pains me to admit this as a cyclist, but I rather like cars and I think I've just been driving around in the nicest car I will ever, ever drive. And that's the Maserati Gricali, which it turns out is what happens if an Italian supercar company designed an SUV for people like me, for cyclists. Now, the Gricali is fast, like 0 to 60 in 4.1 seconds fast, but it is also, it's just delightful to sit in. It has the legroom of a first class flight to Singapore. It's arguably more luxurious inside than my own house. And yet, I kind of can't believe I'm saying it because of what it is. It's a genuinely practical car.

41:34I could happily chuck a dirty bike in the back of it, then do the shopping and then go and pick up the rest of the family. Now, I've been driving the electric Forgory version, which has the equivalent of a 557 brake horsepower dual electric motor with a 360 mile range, which sounds incredibly impressive, I know, but let's just put that in cycling terms, which we actually understand. That is the same power output as a thousand Tadej Pogacchas all racing Milan-San Remo at once and then racing back again. Now, as well as the electric version, there are multiple engine options too, and prices start from£59 ,990, which, when you think about it, is something of a bargain, given Pogaccha's Tour de France-winning Colnago from last year sold at auction for£143 ,000.

42:22You could have bought two brand new Maserati Gricalis for that. Now you can find out more and also find out where your local Maserati dealer is at maserati.com where else. So that's maserati.com and check out the Maserati Gricali.

42:41Could you settle something for us? Because I've heard so many different stories about your Trek bike in, so yeah, the 2006 steerer tube snapped in the fork, which is just a horrendous thing to happen because obviously you suddenly lose the front end of your bike so just in that alone horrible crash horrible incident what what led to that what you know what was the cause of that i've heard it was a fork taken from a hybrid trek bike so a bike from the hybrid line because you couldn't get the tire clearance for the tires you wanted to run with the standard road forks albeit you also had a special frame didn't you with a little rear shock the spa frame yeah i i hadn't heard that one um trek actually did like a hundred page report and essentially I crashed early on in the first 100k before we hit the sectors.

43:27I think apparently, allegedly that compromised the integrity of the steer tube and it slowly started chipping away at it to 100k later or 120k later, the thing just snapped on me. So that was the report that I got. But yeah, it sucked either way. Whatever happened, how it happened it was uh like a really bad day in my career is it quite hard to then kind of keep racing with a bike not you know obviously it's not the same bike but like then have that trust in your kit we were talking um to a rider recently who um had some problems with tires and then just said it's completely undermined his season because he's just like i can't now think that i've got the the grip and the lean in the corners that i want because i had this one incident where i just had some bad tires and now it's just i've lost my confidence and you lose that extra little percentage that's the difference do you find that did you find that um so after that incident i had a month off the bike and no as a professional cyclist like you gotta get back in it or you're gonna be struggling that said though from that moment on if i ever felt anything strange again in the front end of my bike i stopped immediately and changed bikes like i never questioned whether or not it was something weird or should i no i would stop and change bikes right away after that moment obviously we spoke before modern adventure are doing roubaix this year what do you say to riders you know you say just enjoy it be careful or you know it's going to be hell out there oh no i'm going to tell them that all of the above enjoy it i mean this is a dream for anybody uh to to be at the start line of this race, but I'm not going to sugarcoat it either.

45:08It's going to be absolute hell. It's going to be the worst pain of your entire life. You're going to take more risks than you probably ever have in your entire life, but just try to be there and enjoy the process and race with gratefulness. Just be proud to be there. What's the bit that hurts most? We were talking about Zoe Baxter, so Magnus's daughter on the pod, and she was just saying how she's really meticulous about her bar tape. how she tapes her hands, whether she wears gloves or not, because it's just the blisters. Obviously, other bits hurt, but for her, that's just a massive thing. What was the bit of your body where you're just like, I know that I'm just going to have the most mega arm pump, or I'm going to have the sorest bum at the end of this.

45:50What did you really beat up? Your undercarriage, where you sit. That's definitely painful, just because of the bumping. No matter what chamois you have on, that's just going to be beat up. But also just everything. It's the one race where everything gets destroyed. Your arms, your hands, like Zoe said, your hands. You just get blisters that you never thought you'd ever get. Just that, like once you get to the California, those last sections, just the rattling of your body. It feels like your brain is starting to come loose because it's just so, so intense and so rough on the body. and when you sort of i don't know when you put those those riders into a race is there a part of you that thinks like i don't know if i want to risk this particular horse in this particular race because it's just so much of a gamble well we're certainly not bringing like you know we're bringing the guys that we feel like that are suited to that sort of race but like we're we're 21 rider roster it's not like we have a ton of choices but we have we're fortunate enough to have had race already a couple times in belgium we got a couple more races this week in belgium so we're going to have a couple warm-up races for roubaix and we know which riders are suited for that and which aren't and we're gonna you know send those guys and like i said it's like a dream for a lot of the guys just to be at the start did it surprise you when pagaccia turned around and said yeah i'm riding roubaix and did it and you know as the tour de france winner several times and several times more inevitably.

47:25Was that in your mind thinking, why is he doing that? He's taking a big risk. I can't imagine Lance coming out every year and risking himself at Poirier Bay. Yeah, well, I mean, Pogacar's writing his own book. I mean, it's not like any of us can really predict what he's going to do next, but it makes sense that he's won everything you can win and he hasn't won San Remo and Ribé. So it seems like he wants to win all of those. And in that sense, it makes a lot of sense that he wants to do it and he's the only one that could actually do it that could win Perry Bain win the Tour de France so it'll be exciting to see him there and it's not going to be easy for him to win it's you know a lot of people think just because he's Pogacar like he's going to get to the finish line like it's incredible how good he is at positioning and how he actually gets to these things without crashing and many times even without teammates I mean he's just so incredibly good talented at positioning and tactically that it's it's quite impressive for somebody that's done it so many times to watch how uh how good he is what do you reckon what would be your sort of like hunch about how his career is going to pan out in terms of him within the sport is it just a case of you know almost like i think riders probably did back in the day with eddie merx where you just sort of had to wait for him to stop racing and then other people could come and start winning or do you actually think okay i if i was racing now i can see chinks in his armor i think that people will be able to close the gap whether it's through different race tactics or different you know team setups or training yeah has is he a runaway train or are they going to pull him back in the next couple of years maybe even this season yeah i mean i haven't seen any kinks in his armor uh the only thing is you see guys like you know the young guys like del toro and saxes that are coming up still really young and perhaps maybe as strong as he was at that age or even stronger in many ways.

49:19So that's the only thing we see coming. And you think that they would get stronger and stronger as they get older. So maybe they'll start closing the gap. I haven't seen up until now any kinks in the armor. And yeah, for now, it's a matter of him deciding to stop racing because he's won everything. Does watching the way he dominates make you think differently about when you race, obviously seven tours in a row and what obviously Pogaccio lost a couple and and the early ones there to make you reflect on how maybe other people would have seen you know u.s postal discovery when lance was winning all those tours uh i honestly it's wild to see how dominant he is um you know he now he goes 60 70 sometimes 80k to go and i just don't remember racing back in my day anybody being that dominant i mean even lance or even contour caddell like there was a lot more tactics involved it's like he's so dominant that people like in strada bianca last week they know when he's going to go like everybody knows he's going to go in this section like it's not like a surprise attack but he still rides away from everybody so yeah it's it's a new tactic in cycling we have not witnessed and he seems to be able to do it almost with ease and does it seem to you that it's something that is just innate in him or is he somebody that can really just like pull on data and you can go right i've got a head unit it's telling me i'm doing this many watts and i'm you know i know my watts per kilo and so basically i can just tell myself objectively i can go harder than this or i can tell myself objectively this is the exact sweet spot to go in so it's more mathematical and also got race radios so it's almost more of an equation which Do you think it is innate or a kind of, yeah, a mathematical equation for him?

51:06Yeah. Yeah. In many ways, once he gets away, it is. He's just, he probably knows the exact pace he can ride. He knows that, like, even no matter who's chasing behind, like, they might be able to close it for a couple seconds, but his consistency will be able to keep him away. But I always factor in, like, the, you know, the things, the different variables in races, which is the positioning, the crashes, the danger, which doesn't seem to affect him at all. But you think at some point they'll start maybe affecting him. But so far, we haven't seen that affect him at all. And no matter what tactics riders try to do against him, they've been really unaffected.

51:46So yeah, not only does he have the data behind him, he knows exactly what he can do, but he's got the mad positioning and technical abilities to back that up as well. So it's just, it's a pretty tough combo to beat. I was looking back through all your different teammates over the years. I was basically sort of trying to list out the notable ones. And I don't think I have enough space on a page for the amount of notable, talented teammates that you had. Apart from, you know, the obvious one that you go to is Lance. But among the massive others, were there many that others stood out? Like people you learn from or, you know, were just great people to be around.

52:24obviously we all saw the results of people like boner and that but that might surprise people to hear that you were sort of taking things from yeah certainly my first year i was around steve bauer phil anderson and sean yates i mean those guys were like really really well respected they weren't from like okay sean yates was from england but like they they all kind of left their homes to make it in the in the european peloton so i kind of had you know that similarity to them but By the time I got there, they were already well-established professionals, and they were really helpful to me. And I learned a lot just riding with them.

53:02And yeah, those three guys played a big factor in my career. And then later on, riding with guys like Bernie Eisel, he was always really knowledgeable about the sport, knew everybody in the peloton. André is clear on HCC. He knew the classics like nobody's business. He knew exactly where the roads were, where he can move up. And you see now he's on EF Education and he plays a big factor in a lot of their equipment choices and tactics. So guys like that, that a lot of people probably didn't know were that astute when it came to tactics and professional cycling. Do you think riders now still have that?

53:42Do you get that sense that young pros now have that kind of studied, almost academic approach to cycling where they just know an awful lot about it? They know about the history of races. They also know about the tactics for specific courses. And they know about the other people that have come before them in the way that you guys, you know, you're just alluding to. Or is it more riders just get handed the bike? They've got an engine. They've done some great tests and off they go. And they're more blasé about what they do. They just happen to be cyclists. Yeah, I think it's a little bit of both.

54:13I mean, I know with our guys on Modern Adventure, I mean, they all have, you know, before the races, they watch the YouTube videos of how the races played out the year before. And so they try to, like, factor in a lot of what's happened in the past in the races. And obviously now with Bella Buur, they know exactly which way the wind's coming. So they have a lot more information at their disposal. So it's just a question of how they use that in the races. But for Mara guys, I was quite impressed with how much emphasis they try to put on the tactics and what the race course is bringing them on a daily basis.

54:46So if you're in a team car, I mean, I'm not sure as a general manager role, would you be in a team car on race radio? Is that part of the remit? um so no i'm not usually usually not on the race radio although in belgium or like the really chaotic races where the director is you know navigating people getting dropped crashes riders moving forward cars moving back and forth in belgium northern france the roads are tiny like i help on the radio uh but i'm in the car um and that seems to have been uh received quite well from the riders but normal races like uae or the other races we're at i usually just let them do their thing and you know i'll talk to the directors when i have something to say like i think that they should tell them but not let them do that's sort of their job and i try to you know let them do their job yeah because i'm always curious as to what sort of tools you've got at your disposal when you're you know talking to people remotely so you mentioned fellow viewer i mean are you looking at have you got multiple screen you know when you are in a car or even when you're you'll not be on the radio from somewhere else are you looking at multiple screens with like i don't know a weather app um velo viewer stuff coming up about the climbs plus some sort of feed from the race organizers saying who's where and what the time gaps are like what's the data at your disposal that you're kind of working your tactics off the back of uh yeah we're still we're still working through that i mean when i'm in the car with them yeah we certainly have velo viewer i have the race on tv we have race radio we have rider uh staff along the route as well, letting us know if there's something, you know, in the road, if the wind is changing, the weather's changing.

56:26So it's a bunch of different things coming at us. And it's just how we use them. But a lot of the teams, I mean, I'd say all the teams now have this at their disposal. Except for Jumbo, they still, well, LisaBuy now, they still allowed their black fan that followed the tour around with its crazy data processing going on. Exactly, yeah. But when you're riding, and also from your perspective now from team management, how much of an impact does a DS have on the outcome of a race? So, I don't know, cast your mind back to riding in the 90s, got nine guys out on the road. You're all making decisions for each other and talking to each other because you're literally riding next to each other.

57:09Are you kind of deciding at that point what happens realistically, the riders? or is there someone masterminding it, telling you what to do? You don't even realize you should be doing it, but you do it anyway. And then you go, bloody hell, that just won us the race. Well, it just, it really depends on which race and which scenario, which team. I mean, for me personally, which team I was on now, like we're sort of too young in the history of our team to know exactly who's going to make those calls. But thus far, I mean, the directors have a huge play in the tactics and what's happening at the moment.

57:44We have Mark Stewart, who has been a real sort of road captain for us, and Riley Pickrell. They're really vocal on the radios and really communicated with the directors and with our young riders. So, so far, we're putting a lot of emphasis on the communication between Mark Stewart and Riley and our directors in the car. And that's worked well so far. And just touching on Rebaix, who would be your outside picks from your guys for us to take to the bookies to make a few quid off? I'm really excited about our young rider, Ezra Cardell. He's 19 years old. And, you know, he raced his first pro tour race ever in UAE, made the breakaway a couple of times.

58:23And just he's built for a type of race like that. I mean, he comes from a mountain bike background. And, you know, I'm not going to say we're going to see him up there racing for the top five or 10, but I'd love to see him just get to the finish line. And I think that's a race that could be suited for him in the future. So I'd love to see him have a good experience. And Ben Oliver has had a couple of really good results so far this year and has a real knack for racing in Belgium. So I could see him finishing pretty far up if everything goes right. And Riley Pickrell has been our top 10 guy. I'm hoping that he has a good Roubaix as well.

58:58So I'm really excited about those three guys and their guys that are racing with them are going to play a huge factor in their success. So quite interesting the time you're coming back into it, because it seems like a lot of the other teams and managers or DSs are people that you rode with or against. Have you sort of had conversations with any of them, any of your old teammates about, you know, running a team about different things that might have changed? Have they sort of looking at you like, oh, no, he's coming to take our glory again? well a lot of my ex-teammates are either agents or still or gms or directors in the sport so i mean i haven't had a ton of conversations with them on in terms of me leading this team but certainly catching up with them has been really good and you know it's it's fun to be back amongst it with them and seeing how a lot of us are still in the sport in different albeit in many different aspects of the sport but we're still in there we're still uh here for the love of the sport because i was reading the i was looking at the modern adventure website i just want to read out the team motto that sort of hits you when you go on says modern adventure pro cycling is here to make history we are building america's team not does cowboys one that will not only compete on cycling's biggest stage but honor it we're ready to compete ready to lead and ready to endure So America's team, obviously EF is an American team as well.

1:00:17Are you trying to sort of take their funding and say, no, Jonathan, this is mine now? I'm sure he would love to hear that. You know, obviously they have an American, they're registered as an American rider. The one difference we have is no matter how big we get and no matter which races we get into, the identity of the team will always be American. it'll always be minimum 50 % American roster team. So if we go up to 30 riders, it'll be at least 15 riders to be American. That will never change. We're a team like EF, I think has like two Americans or something like that. But our mandate from my co-owner is that it'll be at minimum 50 % American riders.

1:01:02So you're already eyeing up the American riders on the other team being like, come on guys, come over. I'm sure Quinn Simmons has got one eye. Come on. We're definitely, you know, we're not big enough now to go after those guys, but certainly they know we're here and they know that we're going to be around for a while. And, you know, let's say we managed to come back here on a podcast like this in 10 years time and you're looking back at what Modern Adventure have achieved. would it be more important to you to have taken them to um world tour level and to got you know get some really big results or to have changed the complexion of cycling in america you know the amount of people that have access to it can see races on tv obviously you have your own series of um of races personally and you've done things with with cycling kit and you know you're about the industry is it more important for you to make cycling great in america or just to win races as modern venture and it just so happens you're american yeah one is just to give young american riders um a shot to make it into the their dream races and two is certainly to reinvigorate the sport in the united states like have a real team that american fans like not only the hardcore cyclists but american fans that sort of like cycling are like this is my team like the goal is to reinvigorate cycling in America and give fans like a team to really stand behind.

1:02:30Do you think it's important for that then to hopefully, not even as a side part of this, for some of those American races to come back or new races to start where people can go to the roadside and see it? So I feel like when you had races like the Tour of California, a big race happening in America, that must have inspired quite a lot of young Californians to want to race bikes. Yeah, certainly a byproduct we hope of the team is that it'll reinvigorate organizers as well and states who want big cycling races back in their backyard. I mean, back in my day, we had a tour of Georgia, a tour of Utah, a tour of Colorado, a tour of California, a tour of Missouri.

1:03:08There was several periods of time that we couldn't go race in the United States, and that was great for the fan base in the United States. It was great for the professional riders to get to go home and race at home as well. so that's certainly part of the hope of the team is that those races will start coming back as well and being an american on the ground in america is there any danger there'll be a tour de trump coming back anytime soon that i doubt will happen but if you needed one kind of marquee event if you were going to set the race agenda for the states for the next couple of years what sort of race does america need to see to get people back into cycling because i'm assuming i don't know what coverage for the tour de france looks like it is the world's biggest cycling race but i don't know how much of that really gets through to americans what would you want you know what needs to be in the calendar to really like kind of speak to the domestic scene yeah just another a couple one week stage races in the in the big in the big states of the united states and hopefully with the olympics coming as well to la in 2028 that's going to start really rebuilding the fan base and motivating others to create that race again.

1:04:16But it's like the Tour of California came back or Tour of Colorado, that would be already a big positive for the sport. But you are basically going to be part of the Tour de France coverage this year and the move is going to be on Peacock. So you're going to be one of the main... I'm sure you're going to be using that to promote modern adventure, try and get the Peacock viewers into supporting finding their team. Yeah, I mean, that's, I don't know if we're actually on Peacock this year. I have not gotten confirmation from my team, but we were on last year and we were already discussing it on last year's show.

1:04:51And that's very helpful because we have a big following on that show. So yeah, hopefully we can get some more eyes behind the team through the show as well. And now you're the general manager, you have your own team and then also your son, Enzo is a junior still. So he's with one of the Red Bull teams, I think Grenca, Alto, Eda. How do you view that then as not involved and you're seeing other people do these races, especially at a time when there's a lot of talk about rider safety? You know, obviously when you were racing, there were riders that died and one of your teammates, obviously famously Casatelli died.

1:05:29And then the last few years has really bubbled back up again. As, you know, as a dad, especially, and as a team manager, how do you see those things? How do you see what needs to be improved? And are you sort of nervously watching when your son's riding or are you sort of like, you know, he's like me, you know how to race, he's built like a hincapi. Yeah, I mean, the nerves will never go away. Like even, you know, I get that now, of course, when my son races. In fact, I'm going to watch him race in Belgium this coming weekend. But even with our riders, you know, in the UAE, we had a couple of crashes and of course you're scared, you're nervous but I mean it's part of it I mean it's part of really any sport at a high level is going to be danger and you know hopefully the courses get safer and safer but it's something that we just try not to think too much of and just hope for the best and finally if you had to be inserted into a race yourself you're kind of player manager in this situation you've got a squad of 21 but they've been whittled down to seven and they need an eighth for a race which one are you going to put yourself in for which one are you going to back hink happy now to farewell in and to get around but also to have fun maybe even to conquer some old demons i don't know i'm just saying man i think i i've raced long enough to where that doesn't even enter my mind anymore like i have no no desire to be back in that war i love my my new role um and i'm gonna let the pros do their job.

1:07:00I have no desire to be back in it. Fantastic. Well, George, thanks so much for joining us on the Cyclist Magazine podcast. It's been a real privilege and a pleasure to chat to you. Best of luck with the coming season. We'll be following you guys keenly. Everyone, get on now. Google Modern Adventure Pro Cycling. See what the Race Canada looks like and where you can catch up. Probably the big thing that people are going to see is Roubaix in a couple of weeks and see you guys there. Best of luck. And Catalonia this week. May starts Catalonia. Of course. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Brilliant. Well, George, thanks so much.

1:07:32Thank you, guys. Appreciate it.

1:07:36George Hinkapi, ladies and gents, keep your eyes peeled on the newsstand or if you're subscribed to Cyclist Magazine because there's also a profile on George that we made off the back of this podcast too. So keep your eyes peeled for that. I wrote it myself, so I'm a little bit biased. Do you know what? It's probably crap. I hate everything I write. But there we go. That's the signature of the beast. Now, just now, I did ask Will, is there anything you want to talk about in the outro because we always try and have a topic often we try and link it to what we've actually just been listening to but today we'll just said space so go for it what do you want to say about space i just didn't really know what to say and all that space stuff recently yeah what do you make of it i don't make anything of it no it's pretty cool good pictures pretty cool i generally find space pretty scary i can't imagine being in that situation but fair play so someone said to you you could go to space and um absolutely you know certified definite come home okay but you would have to suffer eight minutes of basically feeling incredibly sick and like you want to pass out as you exit the atmosphere and you find yourself floating around in a whole heap of nothing looking at a tiny pinprick earth would you say yes or no if i could guarantee that i wouldn't die i'd probably be intrigued i'd probably be long depressed afterwards i'd probably say yes as long as it was like a proper space trip and not like katie barry kind of that kind of thing yeah not like a kind of hen do in space do you what do you feel like you'd be depressed afterwards yeah i just think space is just pretty pretty depressing i think it'd be life-affirming yeah in a way but also it's like if you're at the other side of the moon or ever looking at how small earth is you'd be like christ i think most i mean maybe maybe you i think most most um space travelers find it kind of puts things in perspective in a good way makes them lover love earth more yeah i'm sure but there's also a thing about about astronauts that they've been working on that for so long and you know studying it for so long and you know that is the pinnacle of their careers right i mean yeah obviously and if you're there you're predisposed to loving it but i still think on some sort of like for you yeah when you reach the pinnacle of your career writing a profile on george hinkaby yes you have the same kind of life affirming moment that's true and then afterwards when i finished i kind of do i do feel depressed because it's like there's nothing left to do now i actually interestingly sort of side notes sort of it's the same topic i watched a few quite a few years ago now i watched the documentary on england winning the rugby world cup in 2003 and there's the moment where johnny wilkinson scores the drop goal to win and i was just a moment wait if you're him you score that that moment yeah you know your life well i don't know about life because you know the life things happen but your career is never getting better than that yeah that's it yeah it's quite literally obviously could have won it again and basically got robbed in 2007, but whatever.

1:10:40Basically all downhill from there. That is a pretty crazy place to be. It is a pretty crazy place to be, and that is why the gold and silver medalists are the least happy of the three on the podium. Because gold is just like, how am I going to repeat this? Silver's like, damn it, I missed out. And bronze is like, just happy to be here. Yeah, I think that is one of those things where it depends on the event. Because there's so many times where you can win bronze. and in that case i think bronze would be really happy because they're not quite made it but they've won the bronze they've still you when they have like the where it's two versus two and you have to play for the bronze or you know like track sprinting where you race for bronze you've redeemed yourself you've won that rather than lost first to get third exactly but is yeah i mean this is this is the curse of the sports person is never being able to find those highs again yeah is a happiest sports person actually probably one that knows they don't have a chance of winning it was like a domestic career domestic well linking it back to george shink happy i'm not going to put words in his mouth but yes arguably i could imagine somehow overall that's a career that maybe had more kind of continued satisfaction than careers where you yeah you reach a height that you never reach again or you chase something that you desperately want you never quite make it Yeah, although he was a key part of teams that won nine to Ole Francis, because even after Armstrong, there was the other ones.

1:12:07Pretty good. And then he slightly missed out on Roubaix himself. He did, but I know, yeah, okay, the Roubaix thing, but as a complete side quest to this conversation, I'm never quite convinced that winning as part of a team is as good as winning being the person who wins GC. I know it's always a team effort, and the GC winner will thank the teammates and mean it and the teammates will be genuinely happy that their teammate won and their team won. But ultimately it wasn't them and the name on the Palmares is not theirs. Although the event is not on their Palmares. Yeah, there's something to be said about that, but I think it would probably be different if you're a rider that you're never going to win that.

1:12:51You would never have had the capability to win the Tour de France. I think you'd be a lot happier than say like super domestic, really good climber, didn't win. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I get that. But still, yeah. Because also if you look at bringing it back to Wout van Aert winning Paris-Roubaix, his former teammate, Nartan van Hooydonk, had to retire quite young because of health issues. Very close friend of Wout. I see him being very emotional on the finish line. he's just genuinely happy for his friend and I would say he can have he's having that moment without he's part of that journey and obviously he feels for him as a friend separately but you don't have to win to feel that you don't have to win to feel something of it but you'll never feel the same as the person winning if you're enjoying the emotion sort of by proxy yeah, cycling is just kind of like half a team sport Exactly.

1:13:52But it was once upon a time when everyone was riding Halcyon bikes, and that was your team, and Halcyon bike won, everyone was happy. Because it's the team that won. That's why the Halcyon days. Yeah, I think we've really lost our way. We should go. And next time on the Psychology Magazine podcast. Next time, yeah. Next time on the COD Psychology armchair pocketbook nonsense ride that is the Cyclist Magazine podcast, we will pontificate about further subjects of which we know very little or nothing. But we'll enjoy doing it, and hopefully you'll enjoy listening to us. And we will be back. And I think I'm right in saying that we will be back with Guy Martin, who is not a cyclist in the strict sense, but does ride a push bike.

1:14:34And you might know him from Channel 4's various TV shows with Guy Martin. Motorbike racer. You look at me blankly, Will. You know Guy Martin. No, I know who he is. You know who he is. Anyway, he's coming up in, I think, the next episode, if not the episode after. So don't hold me to that. But do hold me to this. We will see you in two weeks time.

1:15:19www.subscriptions.co.uk and check out our latest Cyclist Magazine subscription offers.