Are You Ready To Race At The Moment?

This episode of the Get Fast podcast is brought to you by Trivello Coaching, where we help triathletes and cyclists like you train smarter to race faster. You are joined again today, as always, in these Covid conditions, virtually over video, we're doing this podcast. Hopefully the audio stays well. It's actually been okay the last this last period when we've had to do these video podcasts rather than both being in the studio. But your host for today, as always got former Australian Ironman champion Jared Donnelly. And I am Jordan Donnelly. In today's episode, we are continuing to talk all things the Tour de France. If you don't like the Tour de France, then this episode might not be for you. We endeavor to talk everything about training smarter and racing faster on this podcast. And there is so much to unpack in the Tour de France week two that we've got so many awesome points to talk about. So many exciting things have happened that it's going to take up most of the podcast. We really want to talk about some of the best race tactics that have happened so far. The clear differences in training methods. We've been able to see reports of the different teams training methods and what they've actually done in preparation for the Tour and the results are actually showing now. So we're going to do a bit of a deep dive into the analysis and tactics of different teams preparation and different teams tactics for the Tour. But to start us off, dad, it's been a massive week two. What's been your favorite part and what's really stood out to you so far?

Yeah, and a great summary you've just done there. And look, it's something that we are just talking about the Tour de France, but from a podcast point of view, it is such a great learning tool. It's like having, you know, a thousand videos that you can draw on, but everybody's watched them and we can discuss it and we can. You know, the thing I love doing with a lot of the athletes that we coach is going over their race after they've done it and they learn more about the post race summary than they do actually in the race. And they might not have even realized the mistakes they were making during the race until they actually start talking about. And I might ask a particular question, why did you do that at that particular time of the race? And they'll go, I actually don't know what the purpose was of that. I'm not sure. And automatically makes you rethink the sections of the race that were good and bad about Your performance. So we're using the Tour de France really as a topical discussion where we can use really good examples that people have actually witnessed live. The professionals make really good decisions, but they also make really bad decisions. And they're no different to you and I. And that's what's fun about it is actually analyzing, you know, the person who makes the least amount of mistakes is probably going to be the one who's going to go to win this race. And if you can limit your losses and limit your mistakes, it's no different to a tennis game. You know, the person who hits 50,000 winners but makes 10,000 more mistakes is still not going to probably win the match. The person who makes the least amount of errors is probably going to win the match. So this is the same. It's a real tactical game of chess. But yeah, what stood out? Well, from a passionate side, and this is what, you know, all listeners, we're very passionate about our Australian riders and we're so grateful to have two elite riders and Caleb Ewan and Richie Port in the race. And they're completely different riders. One's going for the sprints victories and one's going for seemingly GC and probably the odd stage win here or there. So, yeah, that's what stood out to me is the trials and tribulations of our two Aussies and how they're going in the Tour and things that have happened that have possibly could put them in different scenarios. Had things gone differently in the race, for example, Caleb, had he won stage one, would have had a yellow jersey and that would be forever. He's always been known as a five time Tour de France stage winner plus yellow jersey. But at the moment he's still just a five time Tour de France stage winner. Just a tactical sprint on stage one. He's clearly showed that he's won two stages in the sprints. He's a good, he's one of the better sprinters there. But, you know, he should have got that yellow jersey. So. And let's take Richie Port. You know, he's riding fantastic. His form's coming. You know, we're probably a bit critical of him, you know, in recent times, but we're passionate and we want to see him do well. And that's where our criticism's probably coming from because we get frustrated when we see him make tactical errors. It's easy for us to sit here. We're not in the race. The race is the elite race and the hardest race in the world. But we see tactical errors that he repeatedly makes, which is not positioning himself well in the crosswinds. Had he not lost that and whatever he lost in the crosswind, he would be third place now. And it's proven right now that he is equally the third best rider in the race on the climbs. So he could actually be vying in the Tour de France had he not had that massive tactical error in the crosswind. And you can make excuses for it, you know, for why that happened, but the fact is it didn't happen to Jumbo Visma and it didn't happen to, you know, Yates. Jumbo Visma had a team collective working. Yates had no team, yet he didn't get found out and Richie did. And it was the second year in a row. So that's a frustration for me.

That's.

That's, you know, I feel sorry for Caleb and I. And I feel sorry for Richie, but, you know, it's easy in hindsight, but they're the things that, you know from a passionate supporter. I really, I think that Richie Porte could be in a position to win the Tour had he not lost that time, because, you know, the time trial is an uphill time trial, and he's already proven he's. He's as good as Roglic and Poga and.

And he's elite time trials and.

And the three stages left that are important are hill climbs. So, you know, he could actually have won the Tour had he not lost that time. Who knows? Those guys could. Could make mistakes from this point on. There's still plenty of writing to go, but, oh, he could have been in a better position had that one day not occurred.

We were talking about off air, how we talk every day about each stage and what happens and we unpack it. And that's why we decided to talk about it on the podcast, because often you'll point out things or see things that I go, oh, geez. So valuable from a coaching perspective for people to hear. So that's why we really want to pack it into these podcasts. But we were talking off air about how we felt like we were a bit harsh from Richie Porte last week, and you said, it does come from that passionate side. We want to see him do well. But it is frustrating when you, I think someone calculated how much time he's lost just if you took out the wind or how much time he's actually just lost on the hills, and he's only lost 28 seconds. So he would actually, yeah, you're right. Be in third place right now, 28 seconds behind Roglic. Which is. Which actually would put him in second. Although if you use the same logic, you know, Kloguchow also lost time in that win, so he would actually be in the yellow jersey had he not lost that, because he's. With his time bonuses, he would actually be ahead of Rogvic. And it's even more unlucky on Pogaar's side because he was actually in the group and he had a mechanical that stage. So Richie Porte wasn't bad luck. He got caught out in the wind. But Poga had a mechanical. He was there right to the end and had a mechanical at the end. So it's super unlucky for him. He should actually be in the yellow jersey right now.

Yes. And on that day, I remember. I don't know if you remember this, but as they came into the final K, Poga, Char was on the front driving the peloton to limit the seconds. And yet Richie and some other GC rider who'd lost time as well was sitting back and didn't. Didn't contribute to the limiting the time. And I was shocked at that. I was asking why isn't he. Why isn't he helping? 10 seconds here or there could be the difference at the end of this tour, but by coming 9th or 10th or 2nd or 3rd or 1st, you know, every second counts in every race you do. And I'm not sure what the tactic was of sitting back and letting others do the work. I'm confused.

Yeah. And like we said, it's easy to sit on the couch and watch and criticize. I say this from my perspective, but I know, I mean, you've performed at the highest level in Australia, so you might have a bit more merit behind you to talk about strategy and physical and mental performance. But with Richie, you know, you said before it's been a couple of years in a row. It's probably been since he was a favorite four or five years ago, it's been four or five years of bad luck. And I guess that's where that frustration boils over. As a fan. You know, he's writing unbelievable this year. That's probably the best he's ridden in four or five years since he's had that pressure on him. And if you look at him in all the post race interviews or post stage interviews, he's really relaxed. He just had a baby last week who he hasn't been able to see yet, but he seems really relaxed. And his whole method is taking the pressure off himself this year. And that seems to be working for him. And so it's interesting that even in the position he's in and the fact that he should be coming second or third overall, he's still very relaxed. He's still not saying, I want to win this. He's still not saying, oh, I'm just here. I mean, he's kind of saying, I'm just aiming for a third place, which I know you wouldn't like. You would say, how can you not be aiming for the top? You know, how can you not be hoping that you can change things? Anything can happen. Roglic or Poga Chow could crash. That could catapult him into first. But it seems to be working for him to take the pressure off and not be thinking in that kind of mindset of wanting to win.

Yeah. And it could just be that that's the Persona that he wants to portray. And he might have a burning desire deep down that he's just keeping to himself. And. And that's because we're armchair critics and we'.

We don't know all the information.

That's right. We don't have every piece of information. And I want to know what the tactic was for that day when he didn't contribute. If someone could explain that to me, then I'm all for it. And, you know, there's a whole lot of other things we're going to bring up as well that I'm questioning tactics. And if I can understand what the director Sportif was trying to achieve, then it makes sense. Some of the decisions the director Sportif makes, some of the decisions the writer makes. I was watching the interview with Bernal on the day where he did a little attack towards the end of the stage that the sunweb guy, Anderson.

Yep.

Craig Anderson won. And Bernal took off.

On that hill. On that hill when Alaphilippe took off. Yep.

Alaphilippe and Benal, and they interviewed him and said, oh, was that a tactic from the team? He said, no, I just felt good, so I thought I'd have a go.

And.

And, you know, I love hearing that and just the honesty of, you know, it was an opportune time. And I thought, I feel good. I'm in the right position. And I didn't even think about it. I just went, yeah. And that's kind of. That's kind of good to hear. But, you know, you think the race is such a game of chess that every single move they make is a dictated one from the car. And you love to hear the riders, you know, taking control of their own Destiny sometimes. And, and yeah, I just think some of the director sport is unbelievably practically brilliant. And you know we talk about the sunweb director who we've met on our Belgium tour and he took us through the sunweb buses and the hotel and we got to see how they think and function and it was a very professional outfit and their tactics have been unbelievably spot on.

That's probably our next point, isn't it? Just being able to see how good someweb have been tactically. And just before we go into that, I mean want to touch on that point you just made about you know, the art of racing versus how dictated it is by the director sportifs. You know Mark Renshaw actually said last night, I think in the stage that the tour organizers have tried a range of things to try and make the race more exciting. You know, taking away the race radios, bringing them back in, changing the way the stages are and it seems to have little impact which shows that teams might have plans but you know they can only perform to the riders best ability. And the director, you know they might have an impact but it's obviously not everything if you take the radios away and riders are still pretty similar. So that, that makes it pretty interesting.

Yeah. And some of the stages looked seemingly on paper like it's just a boring sprinters stage. But two of those stages were one of the best. They were like classic one day races. The day when the Bora Hansgrove team took off and went to the front and it didn't get the outcome. But the other stage was the one where Krug Anderson won where that was like a single. That was like watching Milan San Remo. That was that, you know the last climb on the hill before the finish at Milan San Remo which was elephant.

The last 10km was just attacks, attacks.

And yeah the poggio and, and yeah it was, it was fantastic to watch and, and the. We talked a little bit about this off air about how the sunweb guys manipulated that with the counter attacks and, and they got so carried away. Anderson actually attacked the peloton when there was a sunweb guy up the road and he had to get called back saying, you know there's something you can't chase your own man down. That's how, that's how into the, you know when one guy got brought back, the next guy was ready to launch. And I just love that the race directors have got a plan and this is what we're going to do. You go first you go second, you go third, and it's a victory for Anderson, but it's a victory for the team. And all the riders played a major role in their first and second attacks.

They don't care who wins as long as the team wins.

Yeah, there's a lot to be learned from just riders in road races where they might have attacked once and didn't work, and then they have another crack at it didn't work, and then they have a third go at it, and it works. You know, you never know when it's gonna work. And you could be in a race where there's 10 attacks, and then you don't go with the 11th one, and that's the one that stays away, and you just go, oh, you've got to be kidding. How did that happen? You know, it's just. That's racing, and that's the beauty of it. You know, it's unpredictableness of. Of, you know, just got to be ready and alert for anything that's happening. So there's been so many examples of that that's happened, especially this week, where the hill. The hill climbing stuff is a bit more predictable because it's just you against the hill and whoever's the best climber. There's a few tactics that you can try and, you know, do some mini attacks and like Yates did at 7K to go, you know, have a crack. And if it wasn't for Jumbo Visma with Dumoulin driving it and absolutely burying himself from, you know, he's a Grand Tour winner, sacrificing himself to bridge the gap for his team and then just swing off and roll over and die. You know, Yates would have stayed away had Jumbo Visma not had a team tactic that was going to allow that, because it would have taken a lot of effort for Poga Char and for Roglic to. And for any of the other GC riders to ride across without someone sacrificing, because sitting on the front, even if you're doing 10 or 12Ks an hour, if you've got a headwind, you're still getting a sit compared to, you know, having to do it yourself.

I want to bring up a brilliant point you made about the someweb tactics in that. In that stage we were talking about just a moment ago, where it was something that most people probably wouldn't notice or wouldn't remember, but towards the start of the stage, when a lot of the breakaways were forming, two Sunweb guys were away, and then they got called back, and so they just floated back and relaxed and took their time back to the peloton. And you pointed out that they almost looked a bit silly and it seemed like a bit of a funny move calling them right back. But they're not, they're not laughing at the end when they. They win the stage, you know, it all pays off. And that was something small that most people actually wouldn't notice. But is how dedicated they are to winning is they're thinking about is this the right move or is this not the right move in there? They don't just stay with the move for the sake of it.

Yeah. What? You know, the getting in the break, you know, it's got different objectives. For some teams, getting the break is purely about advertising on telly because they know the break is doomed. There is no way they're going to get to the end of this stage and fight out for the victory. That's one particular style of getting in the break that's purely for advertising. The second reason is because you actually want to win the stage and your best opportunity. As Jens Voigt has always said, the chances of me winning in the peloton are zero. The chances of me winning the stage in the break are 0.1. I'll take 0.1% chance over zero every day of the week. And so getting the break should mean that you have a better chance of winning, but not necessarily. And it does, depending on who's in the break, what the stage is and the value of the riders in the group, how far away they are from GC and whether the GC riders need to take. Because you get time. Second bonuses on the finish. Do they allow the breakaway win the stage and take the time? Second bonuses and of course the team who's in yellow want that to happen and the team that isn't in yellow don't want that to happen. So there's a little bit of another little mini race happening between the breakaway and the GC riders. It's such an intriguing game of chess that's happening throughout the whole. The whole stage, every stage, every day of the race. So I was just going to say just before we move off the sun web, I almost said the giant sunweb because they've changed the change teams now. But the sunweb team, the last 2K, it was so intriguing and I don't know whether this was accidental or intentional, but There was only 40, 30 riders left in the peloton and two Sunweb riders were on the front at the particular time when Anderson made his jump. But the two sunweb riders took the whole peloton to the left hand side of the road and there was a little bit of road furniture and some traffic island stuff in the middle of the road and they directed the whole peloton to the left. So everybody in the peloton's bike were heading left to follow the two guys in the front. They happen to be the giant guy, the subwave guys. And that opened up the road for Anderson to attack down the right hand side. And if you're moving across the road, you have to really think quickly on your feet to say, oh God, there's an attack and I have to change my whole bike angle. And then I'll go, now I'll wait for someone else to jump. No. And then 3 seconds, 4 seconds, 5 seconds. No. Someone else is going to move. Surely someone else is going to move. The opportunity is gone because he is now riding 400 watts. He's only got 2 1/2 K to go, and he happens to be a time trial threshold rider who can handle 400 watts for five minutes. So that was the victory move right there. Whether some web meant to move the bunch across the road to open up, that I'm not sure. But. But if I say that that's what they meant to do, it was unbelievably brilliant move.

Well, I don't know. Yeah. If they meant to do that specifically, but I did hear in a podcast, I listened to a podcast with Johan Bruneel, who is the ex, maybe infamous director now because he was the director of all the Lance Armstrong wins and he's still pretty popular in the sport. I think maybe he served his time. I don't know the details, but his podcast is incredibly fascinating because he has so much insight into the race and he actually still has a lot of connections into the cycling world and so he gets to give some great insight onto his podcast. And when he was saying on that stage, they actually planned, someone planned very specifically that Anderson would attack at that mark. And so whether they planned it to get the other two somewhere else to take the whole peloton across or not, and the fact is they planned that attack and they actually planned it down to the power numbers. So you talk a lot about knowing your own numbers. They know his critical power numbers for that kind of effort from 2k out. And they said he has to attack between 500 and 600 watts at that moment because he knows they know he can hold that right to the finish line. And that's what they did. And he held it and he won. So I found that fascinating that they, they launched that attack so specifically to his critical power numbers.

Yeah. And from, from an everyday cyclist point of view, I know a lot, I get questioned a lot about why we do so much threshold training and riding to our critical power, which is, you know, your best 1 minute, your best 5 minute, your best 10 minute, 20 minute, 30 minute, 1 hour. All of our riders know what their critical power numbers are, and this is the opportunity to use it because, you know, races can either be one with a solo attack, which means you have to time trial and you need to know your numbers and you need to know, I've broken away, this 5K to go. That could take me eight minutes. What's my critical power for eight minutes? You know, I've broken away, there's 2K to go. What's my critical power for two minutes? So that information is gold. If you know that and if the other scenario is it's just a bunch ride, well, the actual power numbers you're riding is irrelevant till after the race when you analyze. Well, I pushed 1500 watts in that sprint to win that race. You know, that's, that's great to look back on, but that's not what you're using. So there's different aspects that you, you need to, to know about your ability for different scenarios to end a bike race. And that's a fascinating point of view that a lot of bike riders refuse to accept that knowing your threshold number or your critical power number is important for a bike race. And the sooner they start to understand that, the better. I'm not talking about if someone breaks away and you go and look down at your bike, at your data and say, oh, this is over my number for this amount of time, I'm going to let that person go. Well, you know, you have to still race and chase that person down. You don't know how long they're going to sustain that for, but you have to go with the race. So you have to make decisions based on the information you've got. And if you don't have any information about what your numbers are, then you don't have all the data in front of you. So you're probably going to make a poor decision about what you should be doing in the race.

Yeah, that was actually, that's a really important point. And I think Johan Brunel brought up a very similar point with knowing your numbers and how riders of this day and age pretty much all do know their numbers and they've Got so much information in front of them, which makes racing so different to what it was 20 years ago, when power meters weren't really a thing even in pro racing. And he actually said that he thinks that's a reason why we're seeing the emergence of a lot younger riders a lot earlier. You know, normally you wouldn't see riders peaking until 28 plus after they've had years of experience, but because now they're training to such specific data, they know their numbers, they know their capabilities. It allows them to perform really well at the top level straight away without that experience, which probably shows how important power is, that you can perform at the top level and skip years of experience because you've got so much more information. But one last question, if you want to touch on that as well. But one last question I wanted to ask you about that stage was in the last 5K, there were so many attacks which could have been the winning moment. You know, you saw Thomas de Ghent or Lenny Kammer went up the road and then Thomas de Ghent went after him, and then Alaphilippe went, then Bernal went, and then Hershey went from Sunweb, which was the second Sunweb attack. And then Sanderson Anderson went.

Sagan also chased.

Yeah, we chased Hershey. Yeah. And so out of all those moves, if you're sitting in the peloton and if you were sitting there in that top 15 position, watching these attacks go, what do you do? Because you can't try and cover everything, how do you know which one's going to be the winning move, which one you let go? Because everyone that looked at each other and let Anderson go, you know, he won. So how do you, how do you possibly mentally cope with that in that scenario and, and not burn yourself out, but not miss the win. Winning move.

Yeah. And I think Sagan found himself in exactly that situation jaw because he desperately wanted to win the stage and so he was faced with, oh my God, another attack. And it's his worst case scenario, you know, the guy who has got his hopes on, he has to. In order to win the green jersey, he has to get the points so he has to win the race. All these other guys have got so little risk in whatever they're doing, but Sagan can't follow every single move because it's too risky and he could end up getting no points in the sprint. So he's got to really measure who he thinks is going to actually this is the winning move or not. So logic will say, well, if Alaphilippe Goes, this guy's proven that he has jumped away from bunches before and stay. So Bernal, you know an elite rider who won the race last year, so you would have to think that he's a chance. But, but some of the, some of the sunweb riders, you know, they don't rate them as much, so they get, they get more. What's the word? Leeway almost. And then all of a sudden it's too late to change your mind. So you make decisions and you have to actually live with them. And there would probably be five or six guys in that peloton who probably could have won that race, who would be going, geez, that was an opportunity for me to win that race in a bunch sprint. But because there wasn't enough team riders left, this is the opportunist. And this is what's such a beautiful thing about this race. That particular stage was the opportunists had their chance. And you know, there's six guys who wanted it to be a sprint, bunch sprint. And there were 15 guys who wanted to do what Anderson did. Alaphilippe Bernal, you know, the other sunweb riders, Thomas de Gent, you know, we saw six guys have a, have a crack at doing exactly that. And one time out of ten that will work. And you just gotta hope that this is your day. So there is no real answer to what do you do. You've just gotta think about how far's left. Is it possible for them to sustain that against this bunch who've got a lot of people with different goals? Some people want to be a breakaway, some people want it to be a bunch. So. And you'd have to take notice of how many team members are left to keep closing it down. And the less amount of team members that are left, the more options are going to be for the breakaway to win and not a bunch sprint. So that would be my mindset. I'm looking around going, is there anybody in Bora left to chase these moves down? Is there anybody left in Jumbo Visma to make sure that, you know, Bernal doesn't get away or Poga Char doesn't get away so that I don't screw my bickies? So, you know, Roglich, he would want to win stages every day, but he's defending the yellow jersey so he doesn't have to attack the other guys have to attack him. He's just got to defend. So there's so many scenarios and decisions and that would be the way I would go about it is Try to sum up who's in the bunch that can actually contribute to making it a bunch sprint. And if I look around and go, oh, there's not a lot of guys here who can chase down some of these attacks. And the only guys are going to chase it down, the ones who want to counter. You know, someone who's gone up the road. And that's where the team of Sunweb's plan worked beautifully because they had three or four riders left who could just go, 1, 2, 1, 2. And that was just like perfect execution.

So it sounds like if you're at your local crit, you are paying attention to the guys in your race. And if you're racing locally, you generally know who's in your race, so you're really paying attention to who it is that's attacked and who's still left in the bunch. That's kind of the number one factor that you're making your decision based off.

Yeah, and if I'm in a national titles race compared to a club race, I probably don't know the ability of the national guys unless I've done my homework, which, by the way, I would have, and seen who's the strongest and who's winning state races and who's winning club races. And then in your own little club, you would know all the riders. He's a good sprinter. He won't chase down anything because he wants it to be a bunch sprint. So if one of the good time trialers goes up the road, I'm panicking because I know he can stay away and I'm gonna have to time trial myself to get across to him faster than he's time trialing. So, you know, if I don't react straight away, he's going to get right away. So you've only got literally two or three seconds before the 30 meter gap is unbridgeable because by the time you accelerate, 30 meters then becomes 50 because it takes you at least 10, 20 meters for you to get to the same speed as the guys already going. And then you've got to ride a kilometer an hour faster than him to get across to him. So. So there's so many things that you have to think about and you've got to be quick on your feet to think, you know, and you've got to be looking around and you've got to position yourself in the bunch so you can not have someone come from behind you and surprise you. So where you're sitting in the bunch counts. You don't want to be a rabbit Sitting in the first three. So guys who are better than you, I'm always going to be hiding behind the person I'm most worried about, so that if I see them move, I follow the move. I don't want the person I'm most worried about behind me. Yeah, that's a bad idea. I've given them the surprise tactic and the surprise tactics are beauty and you.

See that a lot in the pros that you see them completely just mark someone. Sprinters do it in the lead up last 3k if they lose the wheel of their teammate. You know, Sagan is on Bennett's wheel and he's staying there. You know, and Bennett might be on Wood Van Aert's wheel or Caleb Ewan's on Bennett's wheel. You know, they, they pick their person and they just stick on them. And with 10k to go, you know, some of the really good riders who are looking for a last minute breakaway or something are doing that. I can't remember if it was that stage or maybe it was a different stage, but Van Avermaet went and you could see he was getting ready to go. He was in the top 10. As soon as he went, another rider, actually can't remember who it was, followed him straight away. And that was really smart by that rider because he knew Van Avermaet was going to go and he just said, I'm getting on his wheel and doing exactly what you said.

Yeah. And in the, in the bunch as a sprinter, you know, you talked about exactly that. That was when Avermata is taking an attacking role, but, you know, positioning as a sprinter. We saw Sagan try to bump Van Aert out of the way to get onto Bennett's wheel because he wanted, you know, the last 500 to be on Bennett's wheel and he was willing to do, you know, pretty much illegal move which actually cost him. You know, he got relegated because of it. And that's, you know, Sagan years ago wouldn't have been in that position. He would, you know, I just think he's, his form is dictating poor tactics and that's something we wanted to touch on a little bit. You know, you can only make good decisions based on your knowledge of where your ability is. And if you're not quite informed what you think you used to be able to do, you actually can't execute as well because you haven't got the fitness. And I think Geraint Thomas, I was reading and he's actually in the Torino Adriatica race at the moment. And Yates was in yellow when I was hearing about Gerrien Thomas's interview saying, I'm really disappointed. I really wasted the COVID lockdown period. And I kind of went through the motions and it really exposed me. And when I was riding in the Dauphine, I was on the ropes the whole time and it really, I felt, I felt really bad that I had not prepared properly and I was behind where I wanted to be in my preparation. And he was disappointed with himself, but he said, you know, I've realized that and I've knuckled down, I've put my head down and I can feel the form building. And two days later, now he's in yellow in the Torino Adriatica. And I just thought it was a really good, open, honest, transparent summation of, you know, they can get it wrong. And we did talk about this at the start in March about, you know, there will be a day when you are putting a number on to race. Are you going to be happy looking backwards to what the preparation is? And we were talking about, now we've got two months ahead of us or six months ahead of us. We don't know how long this is going to last.

Yeah.

Are you going to be someone who's going to follow a plan and put your head down or are you just going to go through the motions and come race day? Hopefully everybody else has not not followed a plan and is the same as you. And it's so easy now in hindsight to look back, but we did predict this and some people are in such great cracking form and others are in average form and others are in hopeless form. And it's just, you know, the COVID experience has really highlighted. Whereas in normal years, you know, you come to the Tour and you're either informing you're out form, there's no reason or excuse. It's up to you. Well, now we've actually got an excuse, which is the pandemic has created, you know, a different lifestyle of training. And those who have accepted it and moved on are doing fantastic. Those who didn't adapt have got left behind. And that was one of the things I said right at the start. Adapt or get left behind. And it's been interesting to see those who have adapted and those who have been left behind.

Yeah, this brings up a really interesting point because we've spoken about this with our own athletes and maybe you needed to be Geraint Thomas coach, because you did say at the start that we don't know how long this period is going to be for, but races Will start again eventually. So your goal should be maintain fitness, keep your motivation up, not trying to over train and get under motivated or lose your motivation and be ready for when races start at any time. You know, when you want to get your athletes into a position where they build a really good base and be ready to race at any time. And not to pump up our own tyres, but that's exactly what has happened to the Triballo athletes and again we've shown it. A lot of them are in scintillating form. We had another 25 FTP PBS last week and they're all really in a position that they are ready to race, but also they can just maintain and simmer their form. And this is, I mean there was probably no excuse for the pro riders because they knew exactly when their races were coming back so they had the exact time to prepare. Whereas a lot of us amateur athletes don't know when races are coming back and so actually can't prepare for a specific date. So that's a really interesting point to think about. And on that note, you know, we heard that someone like Egan Bernal was doing the opposite of Geraint Thomas and training the house down and probably doing what we said too much of a couple of weeks ago when we spoke about indoor versus outdoor training and we've even had some updates in the last few weeks about this, that indoor training is great, but it is really fatiguing. And he was doing publicly on Strava insane sessions on the indoor trainer. 7, 8, 9 hour sessions and he's really not informal at the moment. It may be that he, some analysts are saying that he's really over trained and he's really just too fatigued and you can do too much on the indoor trainer. So it's interesting, this balance between people on the same team, Bernal versus Thomas, someone doing too much indoor training, someone not doing enough, you know, getting that right.

Yeah. And look, Bernal could come out and win a stage in the next two or three days and people go well, he trained so well, you know, and you can use it both ways. But I definitely, you know, it's almost like we've had a science lab experiment going on with the Trivalo athletes because you know, in some states it's been, you're not even allowed to ride outside for more than an hour. So, you know, and you're not allowed to ride more than 5km away from where you live. So you've got no choice really to do an endurance ride. You actually have to ride for a Couple of hours indoor, then do your one hour outdoor and then do some more training indoor on the same session. So you can actually, you know, the pressure on the pedals, on the indoor stuff we've talked about many times, it is very fatiguing and. And I'm being really particular about. And some of the riders in Trivalo are questioning the amount of recovery. I'm giving a lot more recovery than I ever have as a coach and I'm conscious of how fatiguing it is doing all your sessions indoor, especially endurance sessions. And the endurance sessions are fantastic. They've got so many positive things about it. They've got intensity, they've got pressure on the pedals, they've got unpredictableness. With your race on Zwift, you're getting so many valuable things from it. But at the same time, if you do it too much, you will get to a point where you become stale and you start to lose form rather than progressively gaining form. And we know that fatigue and form go together. Fatigue, fitness and form, they're all part of each other. They entwined with each other. As your fitness rises, your fatigue rises. So if you're not careful, you keep the fatigue going and your form will go into the toilet, so to speak. The only way to keep your form simmering underneath so you can jump up to a really good level of form is to reduce the fatigue all the time. Your fitness doesn't drop as quick as fatigue drops. You can have two or three easy days and your fatigue can go from minus 30 to positive 15. Yet your fitness line might drop from 80 to 78. So that's something to consider. You know, you need to keep building fitness, but you need to let yourself recover, otherwise the fatigue will create havoc with your form.

Yeah, it's funny how you had to adapt in that regard. And first you had to convince everyone to spend four hours on the trainer because it can be so boring and get around to do the endurance sessions. And now everyone loves it so much and they see the fitness gain. You can't get them off and you're really having to say, no, no, we're not doing that this week. You know, you really have to convince some riders to take it easy.

Yeah, it's been so I'm having to tell people, oh, this week we're actually not doing that. We need to recover. And, you know, it takes a lot of as long as people understand the reason. And we've got examples of poor outcomes and good outcomes. And even at the pro level, we've got exactly that we've got every, every distinct facet of what's happened. People have done too much, people have done not enough and people have done in the middle. And you know, we all know that a three week tour, you know, some of the best riders like Chris Froome have started the tour not quite at the top of their form, but by the third week when it comes scintillating and that's the art of really good training, preparation. And that's one of the things we want to point out this, this Tour. Anything can happen between now and, you know, Champs Elysees. It reminds me of the 2011 Tour with Cadell. It's so similar to that. Anybody could have won that tour. And there were stages, we had Alpe d' Huez and Gilibier and the time trial, it's almost the same. We've got, you know, we're going to Grenoble, we've got the same mountains. Well, they're not exactly the same mountains. You know, we've got similar, but it's the same. It's the Alps and we've got a time trial yet this time trial is uphill. And I remember years land Swamp, which was a time trial uphill, which I've actually written that, that course and I thought, oh my God, how do they do a time trial up this hill? It was really exhausting. And this is, this whole tour is set exactly the same and the person who holds their head in the next two or three days is going to be the eventual winner. And it seems like you would think that Quintana is sort of out of it and you'd think that Bernal is out of it too. And you think that really only Poga and Roglic have a chance, but Richie is still there and Landa and a few of the others are still a chance. You know, you never know. As in the Dauphine, Roglic didn't finish. He was in yellow up until the last day and couldn't finish due to his crash. So you just don't give up. You never know what happened next. And that's the beauty of racing.

And you know, when we predict the next few days, it seems to be a race for first and second between Boguchar and Roglic and then four or five guys racing for third. But anything can happen. And I did want to ask you this kind of leading into the next week and the last week of predictions, you know, how do you measure your effort? Because we had a really massive mountain stage last night, then a day off and it's three more pretty big mountain stages. And then I can't remember the flat stage, then the time trial or straight to the time trial, I can't quite remember. But the point is there's pretty much four mountain stages in a row to try and measure your effort.

There's one more day in between.

Jordan, There is a flat stage in between that last.

Yeah. The next four stages, we have two climbs, one time trial and one other stage before.

It's after this rest day. It's definitely three mountain stages in a row. Um, one's not. Not so hectic. It's not like category one, one whore category. Um, but my point is, how do you measure your effort? You know, if you were struggling last night, you know, you've got the rest day to recover. But in these next three days, if you are just losing the wheel or you're going into the red zone, do you. Knowing that there's, you know, this is the third week of the tour, you really want to make it to the end because you can't. Well, to the last two days and then completely capitulate. So do you lose 20 seconds in order to save more time the next day, or do you really throw yourself into the red zone and just hope that the next day you can still ride? Well, what do you do with such a long effort?

Yeah, great, great questions. And that's the question every single GC rider is asking themselves and the team director. And it comes down to, what are your goals? What are you here for? Are you here to be a top 10 GC rider? That's what your total commitment is, your whole team commitment is to just to get a top 10 place. And that's a really good goal. I mean, obviously the goal is to win, then the goal is to be top three, then top 10, and that's, you know, to come 11th, 12th, or 13th, you know, maybe even fourth to 10th. No one ever remembers. And, you know, as many people said, no one remembers second or third, really. But, you know, as you go down the train of what's acceptable if you're. If you're there purely for gc, then you need to limit your losses. You need to. If someone attacks and that's going to put you in the red zone, and you could lose five minutes by trying to follow that attack, and you just stay steady tempo and probably lose a minute, then you're still going to defend your top 10 position. So. So that's one train of thought. But the other train of thought is if I was. Let's Just take for example Yates, he originally came and Chavez, they originally came purely to win stages and yet they ended up with the yellow jersey. So technically Mitchelton Scott would be happy with the Tour, but they really still want to win a stage. So I would be predicting that either Chavez or Yates will be totally concentrating on one of these stages to win. And they'll have the opportunity, both of them together. So we'll both try to win this stage. And if it seems like you get the break and they don't follow you, then I won't chase and vice versa. It's. They're going to both of them going to use the same tactic, but they're not worried about top 10. They want a stage win. So you know, watch this space because they will. If I was the director and Matt White knows much more than I do, but I would be waiting till later stage, maybe the third stage, but I'll be looking at what suits because the steeper and the high altitudes suits the Colombian Chavez more than it suits Yates. So I would be looking at the profile to see which one suits the which one. But if you do it on the last hill climb, the other GC contenders are less likely to chase you down a because they're just looking at each other, marking at each other. And you're quite irrelevant because you're not going to displace them from first or second. So they've also probably had two hard days plus the whole Tour, so they're more than likely to let you go. So that would be what I would be the tactic. So there's two ways to think about it. If you're fighting for first and second, you would be only covering people who are going to be challenging you for that. If you're holding top 10 place and you don't care about the stage or you want to win a stage, but you just want to defend your top 10, you would limit your losses and try and use that tactic. But if you're in the top 10 and you don't care about that, you want to win a stage, I would be delaying it till the end. It's like the biggest gains in time trial when the bike's going slowest, I would be delaying the attack when everybody's hurting the most and that's when I would be going for my glory for stage win. So that would be the thought process I would have if I was the director sportive or if I was the rider who was hell bent on winning a stage, knowing that the other guys are thinking about other things. And you have more opportunity that way to get your goal.

Yep. I want to touch on Mitchell from Scott to finish off with, because I've been watching their backstage pass and when they got the yellow jersey in a couple of days after, in the backstage pass, there was a couple of subtle comments that they included in the video where some of the other riders were saying, ah, we'll keep going as normal. Great to have the yellow jersey, but we're not going for the. For gc. And they did a wink and then it happened another time. I said, oh, yeah, we're not going for gc. And at first I thought it was just a bit of a joke, like, oh, maybe they are actually going for gc, but they're trying to hide it. But then they actually don't care if people know or not. But then in last night's backstage pass, now that Yates is really comfortably in fifth, it was the kind of the theme of the video. They kept saying, we're not going for gc and they're, like, nodding their head. So it seems pretty obvious that they might have actually switched tactics and they do want him to come top five. They're not going to go for stage wins or they're still playing games. But I found that really interesting in the backstage pass. So it will be fascinating to see what Chavez can do or Yates in the last few days.

Yeah. And I think those two are the ones who are going to either go for the glory for a stage win or try to climb up because, you know, Yates is riding well, Chavez is coming into form, and I just think they're two guys to watch. And of course, you know, Quintana looks like he's done, but, you know, don't underestimate a guy who's won a Grand Tour. You know, he's been injured from his crashes and stuff, but he's in good.

Form before that crash.

Yeah, yeah. So, you know, don't underestimate these guys. They've got something to prove. And I can't see them just going through the Tour without firing a shot. That's. That's kind of what I'm saying. And look, Yates fired a shot last night, don't you worry about that. When he took off at 7k to go, and, you know, Duman not being there, I reckon he would have got away with that. That would have been a brilliant move. But, you know, Danbo Visma's team were too good, or it would have taken.

Roglic to give everything to. To bring him back after Milan wasn't There and would have wasted a lot of energy from Roglic.

Yeah, and don't underestimate. You know, Roglic can still crack at this particular point. You know, he's not. He's human. You know, we've seen banal crack last night, so, you know, anything can happen. We don't know how fatigued he is. He could have been putting on a great brave face and you just never know what's happening in the inner circle.

So predictions of the last few days. I mean, last week you did say that, mark my words, you'll see Hershey again. And a few days later he came out and won the stage. That's a great prediction. You did say that the race is between Roglic and Pogajar. And I was saying last week, you know, it's. It's a great race because it seems like it's pretty even among the top eight. And now it seems like you were right. There is that barrier between the top two. But also anything can happen. So what do you think is going to happen the next few days?

Yeah, well, my gut wants me to think that Richie Porte's going to win a stage in these mountains and move up the GC and possibly get third. That would be on the podium. My best case scenario is if Roglic and Pogicha crack and Richie gets his minute 30 back and goes on and wins the Tour. That would be incredible result. And, you know, that would be the number one thing. I just still think that Mitchell and Scott have got some ammunition to fire. And it could be that they're gunning for Yates to win the jersey by attacking, by using Chavez as a decoy up the road. And if no one chases him, Chavez gets the stage win. And Yates doesn't have to do anything in the bunch because the other guys, you know, maybe have to do all the work to keep going. And Yates can just sit in with Xaves up the road. So they've got lots of things that they can throw. But, you know, Jumbo Visma, I've got so many guys that can cover almost every tactic that. So the way it plays out, you know, Jumbo Visma are really in control of this race. And Ineos are the real disappointment. You know, they put all their eggs into banal and, you know, hasn't worked. Hasn't worked. But Kiatowski is, you know, world champion and, you know, he's almost released now, so he could be the dark horse to win one of these stages. And they won't chase him because he's so far down. So, yeah, I think I'm really excited because there's some. There's some really opportunist chances for people to win stages of the Tour de France that won't have any impact on the gc. The only person who could have an impact on the GC is Poga, Char, and Richie and probably Lander. And maybe I don't think Quintana can come back, but. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And then. And we touched on Richie a lot at the start, but Land is in the exact same position, so he missed the win. He had bad tactics, but he's been the fourth best climber. Clearly he's been just behind Richie. So when Richie's only lost 28 seconds in the hills, Lander's only lost 29 seconds, so he should technically be in fourth. So he's riding quite well.

Yeah. So those guys really got to decide whether they're just going to hold and defend their GC position or they're going to try and win a stage and. Or they're going to try and crack Poga or Roglic. But I just find it, you know, Rogvich has to crack big time. He's got such a great team around him to protect him.

But that means if Poga Cha stays with him and manages to get some more time bonuses and gets within 20 seconds, it could all come down to the time trial, which would be really exciting.

Yeah. Yeah. And they're all pretty even. That's the thing. Who wants it the most on that day and who's practiced the time trial threshold? Writing that would be the thing that's going to be the difference. And I said that last week. I'd love it to come down to that time trial to decide the Tour would be absolutely unreal.

Well, that's a good way to finish. I can't wait to see what the rest of the week brings in. We've still got so much to talk about. We'll keep ticking off all the things that have been coming up in these podcasts. I've got probably more notes, but that's enough for today. We can bring into next week's podcast and depending on how the tool goes, we'll see what else comes up. Thank you very much for listening, as always. If you want to get the best tips and advice to train smarter and race faster, go to get fastpodcast. Com. You can join our email list there. That's the best way to get our coaching programs to help you train smarter and race faster. If you do that, you also get a bonus cheat sheet to help you train smarter and race faster. So that's getfastpodcast. Com. Thanks very much for listening, and we'll see you next time.