Super Nice

Björn: Welcome to the Afasteryou Podcast, where it's all about endurance sports and training. Sebastian Schluricke, Björn Kafka, and Niclas Ranker bring you valuable tips and insights to help take your performance to the next level. Welcome to a new episode of the Afasteryou Podcast in the new year. Hi Björn.

Niclas: Hi Niclas. I'm already moving a microphone around so we get some cracking noises while we record.

Björn: Makes everyone's day. Oh, nice. Hi. So — new year, new tasks and projects.

Niclas: Right, and we've of course known for a long time and talked about it for a while. Or — what does long mean? I don't even know when I told you there might be changes on my end.

Björn: Pretty early, right? You already told me when you applied and the idea came up — okay, I'll apply there, and the whole thing started.

Niclas: No, I think I told you after the first interview. Okay, let the cat out of the bag. I became a coach at Uno-X. They had a position posted and I applied. The position was open in August. A really good friend of mine wrote — please move on this. It fits super well. And I did. A few weeks later I got a message from Olaf Alexander Bu asking if I wanted to talk with them. I did. A few weeks after that, another email asking if I wanted to talk again. That's always a good sign. Always a good sign. Then a bit of delay, and then I got an email saying, we want you as a coach. That's a cool thing, in several ways. First, the team is good. Mega — if you look at what's been going on around them on Insta and so on, always a very positive team. The whole development is awesome. Just a cool grassroots team. It started really small.

Björn: Right, I think that's what's remarkable about Uno-X — a meteoric rise, because in the last years they were ProConti, and from the moment they were ProConti everyone was saying, yeah, okay, they actually have to ride WorldTour, because they were immediately super successful. Yeah. Collected a ton of points, and now from 2026 they're a direct WorldTour team.

Niclas: Right, exactly. But it really started really small. I've unfortunately forgotten where. Mea culpa. But it was really mainly a small club and especially a school — or a boarding school, more precisely — that trained all their cyclists there. Everything grew out of that, and some of the coaches, Lars Holm and Arne Gunnar, they've been there forever. They really started there. The students, boarding-school students, Thorstein, Tren, Abrahamsen and whatever their names are — they were all at the boarding school. And these coaches were always teachers there too.

Björn: So all the guys know each other from school.

Niclas: Since they were twelve.

Björn: Ah, okay. That's super crazy for team chemistry.

Niclas: Yeah, and it's a really intense cycling boarding school. If you look at how many good Norwegian athletes there are, who all come from these boarding-school networks. And they end up at Uno-X or Visma or Ineos. You should look at where all the young Norwegians end up — they all come from up there.

Björn: Okay.

Niclas: Right, but of course I was really happy. That was already pretty cool, because it's always —

Björn: Kind of the dream, I'd almost say, of every coach, right? Because it's the top league in cycling.

Niclas: Sure, I've done a lot in the top league with very, very big teams. We don't even need to talk about that. But being on a team where you say, okay, here we start — not from scratch, but we're in the WorldTour and you can actually move something yourself. It's not locked-in structures. I'd never applied to another team before. I'd never set that up. I never wanted to, because for me it was all super pleasant with the WorldTour teams I worked with. But I noticed a bit last year — okay, maybe I need to take a step further. And it came up just then, and that was exciting. And then of course I was happy, because they had an insane number of applications. Do you know roughly how many? Over 200, 250 applications. Over 250.

Björn: That's solid.

Niclas: I think that was communicated, and a lot of really good people too. I can't say much about it, but it was cool that they ended up taking me.

Björn: Okay. What was — since you just touched on it — what was the main trigger to say, okay, I'll apply to a team now? Was it somehow the feeling, okay — as a freelance coach, from that perspective maybe you'd won everything you could win in MTB Marathon with your athletes. Right. Did that play in?

Niclas: Yeah, definitely. Not to exaggerate, but you look back and think, okay, as a freelance coach I've done this and that. Yeah. What else is there? In mountain bike, marathon, I pretty much grazed everything possible. On the road in the development space also pretty much a lot.

Björn: You worked with multiple continental teams.

Niclas: Yeah, I also have U23 world championship titles, time trial, back then with Clemens Hesse together, U23 European championships, women's, also with Clemens together. Then continental space, back when I did things with Team Rinkhoff — from a really small low-level team to Bundesliga winners, multiple times in a row, overall winner team and overall classification rider, I think. Then won Friuli with the riders. I think we also won Malopolska, Sachsen-Tour. Got people into the WorldTour who were actually out of the development pipeline, into the WorldTour — several riders. And it's pretty cool when you have riders who were out of that space — who were never really in it and were basically out of the game, that's how hard it is — and you still get them into the WorldTour. That was pretty cool. And of course Visma and the other WorldTour teams we work with at Afasteryou, working with them in an advisory role. In aerodynamics, training and so on. Yeah, but then I was like, okay, what more can I move? Where can I put my own stamp on things? Or where do I see a team that leaves so much room for you to develop? And I mean, Olaf Alexander Bu — we don't need to talk about him. He's really good. Very good. He went there last year too.

Björn: Yeah, he's basically now heading Performance Management.

Niclas: Head of Performance. And so I already knew there was a lot of fresh wind there. And then it was really about — do you fit together? And that, I think, is really the decisive point in a team structure. Can you get along, can you sit in a car together for six, seven hours a day at training camp. That's what it boils down to. And apparently I left a pretty good impression, as we say in northern Germany.

Björn: No, it was good. Can I ask — how many coaches are you? Because you surely work somehow in a team where each has their areas.

Niclas: Very, very, very, very tightly together. Low athlete-to-coach ratio. I think with the men's side we're about six, seven now. We're always a bit mixed. And men's and women's teams work completely together. One tier. Meaning at every coaching summit, also training camps, the men and women do it together.

Björn: Ah, so the teams aren't — that's often the case — where they just share sponsors, the whole surroundings, but —

Niclas: Absolutely equal. Which is great. Women can also train just as much. Period. Honestly. Why not? Most likely — you'd have to calculate energy rates per kilo bodyweight or per muscle mass. But it's really relatively close. So the idea that women have to do significantly less — I also let my women, the women I've trained, train brutally much. It works. They can handle it as long as energy balance is right and you eat enough. By the way — quick note, we talked about this last time. Go on. And it occurred to me — we're always saying eat, eat, eat. It's kind of the elephant in the room. You see all sorts of studies. The training, VO2max rises, blah blah blah. Now we — Sebastian and I — ran a real beefy analysis across all the data we have from the athletes.

Björn: Okay, so you basically have all the data you have at Afasteryou?

Niclas: All of it. And it's a lot. We have an insane number of tests. I'd claim more tests than pretty much any other platform. And then of course a lot of data — training data, also brutally a lot. Especially historical data. And fundamentally, it looks like VO2max development always goes hand in hand with either stable lactate production, glycolytic power, or a slight increase. Which makes sense — VO2max always has a glycolytic share. Absolutely. Lactate production rate dropping always also means VO2max, best case stays the same, tends to drop. What does that mean for training? You could of course say intervals are super for it. Whatever. You could depict that causal relationship. But we don't know what the people ate. And all these studies are brutally delimited. How much energy flow did the athlete generate? And how much did they eat? Is it still positive or already negative? Because negative most likely means lactate production drops, glycolytic power becomes more efficient. You might want that sometimes. And this elephant in the room is really paid little attention. Do the guys and girls have a balanced calorie balance? And the funny thing — in strength training, in bodybuilding, nobody in bodybuilding would come up with the idea. It's carved in stone there. There it's: muscle growth only with a positive calorie balance. Period.

Björn: That's not even debated. And ultimately muscle growth in cycling — in quotes — not to 100%, but performance growth. Right, performance growth. Simple. If you want to get better, you need more energy.

Niclas: If you want to get better, you need energy so your body adapts. Done. And there's this dogma, this anachronism that cyclists have to be spaghetti-people. At least that thin. Barilla Number One or Three or whatever the thin ones are called. And now all of a sudden, oh crazy, they all ride super fast and so on. Of course — they eat now too. We can use the energy now, and we don't go to bed with sleeping pills so we don't wake up from hunger. What a perverse behavior. I think that's — I mean, we both too. You still have athletes you see and think, that can't be. Then you do a longer, harder session and the next day, nothing works and so on. What did you eat?

Björn: Yeah, it's actually really harsh toward all athletes. But I'm active myself and I do all of this myself, and I'd claim I probably train harder than at least 90 or 95 percent of my athletes. And I know — if you manage to sleep eight hours and you manage to cover your energy balance, then you can train 30 hours a week, and you can train 30 hours a week with intervals, and you don't end up gray afterwards. You can train 120 hours a month in Girona if you manage to cover your energy balance. Sure, you're stressed and tired afterwards, but you're not that gray. And you don't have — oh, my legs burn every time I go up stairs. Yeah, that's because you rode yourself dead, dude. That's because you ate way too little.

Niclas: With a pinch of caviar — enjoy with caution. If you have the oxygen uptake, it works.

Björn: Yeah, of course. That was deliberately exaggerated and provocative.

Niclas: Protein synthesis has to be behind it a bit. But many people don't even get there, because they shut off their own tap beforehand. Because it's always — I'm too heavy. But simple calculation — are you building a motor, do you have 45 hp or do you have a V8 motor in there? And once the V8 motor is running, it pulls 19 liters through. And then the whole topic of — I need to lose weight — becomes a totally different ballgame when I ride 300 watts base vs 150 watts.

Björn: Simple. Then the weight-loss topic clears up really fast, because you lose weight really fast. Right, exactly.

Niclas: You lose weight really fast. So — I hope now — and the listeners might already be annoyed, but you really can't say it often enough.

Björn: I have to honestly say — we preach it here a lot, and I'm slowly getting the feeling, also through athletes — I think the most prominent is Jonas Abrahamsen — through athletes who increasingly show, hey, what we even eat. Right now I think there's an interview somewhere on social media with Mads Pedersen too, who also said — hey, what we eat these days, it's partly also — yeah, partly it's exhausting to force 6,000, 7,000 calories into yourself every day, definitely, especially when you want to do it healthy. But that's the path that leads to performance, and leads to me riding 300 watts the whole time, grinning, with heart rate at 130 — exaggerated.

Niclas: I remember when Andi had his first world title —

Björn: Yeah, about Andi people always say, at least in the peloton — there's nobody who can eat more rice than Andi.

Niclas: Yeah, on the world champion jersey it also says, thanks for — I don't know — eight years of work, or eight years of training. And always eat, eat, eat. That's the standard line I've been preaching for ages. And since I've been a coach, since we started with all of this stuff — and that's well over ten years ago — we've seen how much energy flow happens. We simulated all the stuff, and I always said — hey, eat, eat, eat, eat, otherwise it doesn't work. And that's no joke. And the success I've had up to now — you can say it's pretty good — and the filled tank for sure has a very big share in it.

Björn: Yeah, definitely. But on top of that — every athlete, you don't need fancy apps, you don't need a food coach, you don't need Hexis, Fuelin, whatever they're called. Download MyFitnessPal. MyFitnessPal can connect to TrainingPeaks, it's free. Download it, set up the standard stuff according to their formulas — your baseline energy turnover. Then ride your training, look at the end — if you rode with a power meter — what does it say in kilojoules, just take the kilojoules you actually burned in training 1:1, add them to your daily turnover, and see if you can even eat that plus-minus 5% of what it says, and that every day. And on days like Saturday and Sunday when the normal hobby athlete rides five hours. You have to cover it. If you manage to ride five hours Saturday, ride five hours Sunday, and cover your energy cleanly on both days first, you'll see — ah, I'm actually not feeling so bad on Monday.

Niclas: And then there's no Monday 4000-kcal binge flash.

Björn: Right. And then you don't lie in bed at night thinking, ah shit, I'm so hungry, I'm so hungry. Or have to get up at night and eat a piece of chocolate, or I don't know what stories I've heard where I think, yeah, you just have to start eating properly. And not hang in some old classical dogmas, but actually eat good stuff.

Niclas: Yeah, it's super simple really, but you have to keep — it's also an emotional topic. Let's see if things are slowly — well, things are already changing a lot, so.

Björn: I also have more and more athletes — and this makes me really happy — coming to me. Hey Niclas, you talked about nutrition, can we do something? And I'm like, yeah, anyone who feels like it and wants to tackle it, I'll gladly help. You have to — I'd say — at least bring a certain level of discipline to track it properly for at least a week or two, so you have a basis to work with. The willingness has to be there. Right.

Niclas: So, Uno-X. Right. For me that also meant — a lot changes in terms of my athletes. That was the main thing. I had a really good relationship with many athletes — actually with all athletes — and had to of course first call the athletes I work with a lot and regularly and sort that out.

Björn: Relatively many, relatively uncomfortable phone calls, I'd claim, right?

Niclas: Yeah, although everyone was really happy for me. That was great. Nobody was like, I suck now or so. No, they really all were happy. I also tried to find new coaches for the athletes. Niklas took some on, and Peter Schermann too. And then I still had some athletes — track or whatever — that I had to place elsewhere. That took a really long time sometimes, until I had them placed. That mattered to me. So — about a solid month of phone calls and back-and-forth. And it was really crazy. I underestimated it a bit. Then I had a list I worked through. Then I had to write a bit more training. Does this fit now? And talk to the new coach and all that stuff. It was a lot of effort, exactly.

Björn: And to be honest as a coach — who saw the other side — it's always difficult, you basically take over an athlete who was happy with their coach, who didn't really want to switch.

Niclas: I don't think I had a single athlete who wanted to switch. That didn't exist. None. That's in that sense not cool. I mean, you talked to the people and they were, I think, for the most part all pretty happy.

Björn: Yeah. That's definitely always a relatively difficult situation for the new coach. Normally you become the new coach because the person was unhappy before — and in this case the person was happy and had to switch anyway.

Niclas: Yeah, exactly. But I'm not gone from the world. I'm still there, and so that all fits too. And for people like Andi and the big ones, they know what they're doing. I'm still in contact, a bit of mentoring. That's also contractually regulated. So all good. Yeah. And now I'm there. Officially started January 1st. Of course did a lot before so I wouldn't have such a rough start, because Tour Down Under starts soon. When's the start? They fly down there in two days. But you're not flying? No. I'm somewhere else. You'll see soon enough on Instagram where I am.

Björn: Okay, but for you that means — you'll travel a lot now, mostly training camps, do you have to go to races? How much are you involved there?

Niclas: Don't know yet. But above all, focus is time spent with athletes. And I have that time now, because I've given up a lot of athletes.

Björn: Yeah, that just means being at training camp, sitting in the back of the car, watching what the guys do, giving input as best you can.

Niclas: Yeah, ultimately it's what I always say — I don't train robots, I train humans. You have to develop a feel for how this human ticks. And you do that best when you're with the people. Especially at this level it has to go fast. That's not like with other athletes where — some athletes I barely even saw, and where that relationship builds slowly over years, which also works super well. But here it has to go faster. I really have to get to know them. And yeah, we'll see.

Björn: Now — if I ask something you can't answer, just say so. Then I'll say, no idea. Good. What is — I'd say — probably the main goal of the team is to win the Tour de France, right?

Niclas: Yeah, I think they've communicated that.

Björn: Yeah, okay. So the development goes in the direction of — ideally — developing a Norwegian rider so he can win the Tour, and the team being in a position to support that rider in the mountains. Because so far — at least in my perception — Uno-X was above all a team of, okay, these are all somehow 1.90 giants with insanely high VO2max, who shine all the time at Classics. In the mountains — though one rider did very well at the Tour this year. Sixth. Right. But I'd say, as a stage race team, in the broad perception, they hadn't quite been there yet. They've topped up a bit.

Niclas: We saw — Thorstein Træen is now on the team. Okay. Who wore the red jersey at the Vuelta last year. I think ninth overall, then unfortunately he got sick in the last week.

Björn: When I saw the transfer — I think it was Abrahamsen. Abrahamsen posted a picture where he's with him from young years — because they come from the same corner. They're buddies. Yeah, yeah. And they both rode on that team? So Torstein just — basically — comes back? He comes back. Ah, okay.

Niclas: And Anton Charmig too, who was at Astana — really good climber, strong rider, Tour du Var, stage winner, mountain stage, ahead of really good guys. So they've topped up a bit, so they also have climber-strong riders for stage races. Okay, okay.

Björn: Now — for me at least the most obvious question — I know the answer, we've talked about it, but for the listeners — is it true, Norwegian Method, are they doing something different? Is it different, or is it ultimately just — I'd say — communication and marketing? How do you see it?

Niclas: Ah, I can still do this. So — anyone can spin their own narrative about that. But what I can say is — the first thing that struck me when I sat together with all the coaches and with the Director Sportif — I sat in a room where I had the feeling, wow, these are all people who tick like me. All very different in their own way, but all extremely respectful dealing. All with a high understanding that someone needs a break sometimes. Everything very flexible. You're given a lot of space. Performance pressure is the wrong word. The willingness, the desire, to do something together, for each other, is massive. I haven't experienced that in teams. Or in the corporate world either. In working life. Sure, I've worked at various companies. Maybe that's not right — when Clemens and I worked together, it was also like this. At the start, there was really an extreme team spirit — that we said, hey, we're doing this thing together, and so on. And that has such a radiance, outward and inward, that everyone pulls on it, and everything's very, very calm. That's maybe typically Scandinavian. I mean, I grew up at the border to Denmark, learned Danish in school, studied Scandinavian Studies — the languages, which are of course pretty rusty, but that might change now. There are no show-offs, they disappear. Everything very calm.

Björn: So ultimately, if someone has something to say, they hold back first and then try to present it as factually and orderly as possible, without stepping on anyone's toes.

Niclas: Super flat hierarchies. There's no rulebook. There's no — this is how you must — and that. It's codes of conduct. Common sense. Exactly. There's certainly — I'd say — value-led action. You oscillate between these values and move in your spectrum. And that's great, because A, decision processes go super fast. What can you do, what can't you do? There's no rulebook on page 583, paragraph 1, sub-point, blah blah blah. You know, okay, that's crap, and in doubt you just ask.

Björn: And I think — you have to add this — there are teams in the WorldTour where, at least from what I've heard, there's a very strict rulebook and set of rules for staff and riders.

Niclas: Well, that can definitely be good. But at least what I've observed is, it's always talked with each other, not about each other, which I think is really cool. So if someone's not in the room — I mean, it's just a team the way you'd imagine it. So it's just amazing, I have to say. You walk in and think, okay, alright. Thanks for waiting for me.

Björn: So ultimately it's basically a team, but you wouldn't say — from the training side, the performance side — they really do something fundamentally different.

Niclas: They do things differently. Of course they do things differently, just like Visma does things differently. But every team has its signature. Massively. Whichever WorldTour team you take, everyone does something different. And what's successful or not decides at the end of the day through results. I think it's of course a nice marketing headline when you say, here's the method or that or — and I'd say, bringing together all the threads lying around, rethinking them, and not over-complicating processes leads at the end of the day to positive results. And above all, from what I've seen so far, riders aren't used as — how do I say — cattle, like — go race that and that race, we don't care if you're half dead. And by the way, here's your plane ticket, next morning you're at airport XY. That doesn't exist — the rider has an extremely high value. The whole team has an extremely high value. Meaning — the guys who ride the Tour can only ride the Tour because there are 20 other riders who grind through the season so the others have time to prepare for the Tour de France. And that's not a given, from what I've seen. So that — treating the riders like race horses properly and doing good things for them — has a very, very high value. And also among each other, yeah, it's really an extremely respectful dealing. Period.

Björn: I think — the way you've told it so far — it's also a massive difference whether riders — I'll say provocatively — are just bought together, or whether the guys basically grew up together. Many riders still active on the team lived through this process from — Conti team, ProConti team to WorldTour — they went through it and basically grew with the team. And that's of course a huge thing — they all pulled on one rope together, and ideally continue to pull on one rope. And best case, the riders coming in the next years come from the same school and have the same goal — okay, I want to ride for Uno-X, and I want to... ...move the team forward.

Niclas: Yeah, exactly. Very, very high team spirit. Extremely high.

Björn: Okay, okay. How was your impression? You said earlier Olaf Alexander Bu is very good — because I mean, he's given lots of interviews now. And I have to say — sometimes I find his interviews very good, but sometimes you sit there and listen and think, what is he talking about? Because partly — he gets a question and then he drifts ultra-far in a direction and gets super specific. In one interview I thought, that wasn't what you were asked. It was super interesting what you were saying, but that was actually way too deep in another thing. So I think he comes across from the outside as a really intense brain when it comes to all these little intricacies.

Niclas: Yeah — definitely what you hear from the interviews. But you of course also get to know him from a different side. I find overall, he's the right man in the place he's now in. Definitely. He doesn't have athletes, he oversees it. He moves processes forward. Very, very elegantly, I'd say. From what I've seen so far — he didn't arrive in the time he's been there and hammer on the table and say, now we do it differently. Rather transformative, slow, not disruptive. Also the good things — and you have to honestly say, there were very, very many, otherwise they wouldn't have gotten this far. Looking at them, taking them over, his own direction. There's never — from what I've seen so far, this decision process from above just doesn't happen. Completely.

Björn: So — you sit together at the table, look at things, and say, okay, we do this, we don't do that.

Niclas: Right. And many coaches have their specialty. And they get asked for that and used and so on. And this expertise is mega. You have a Len Parker, who comes from the track, who did a lot with the women's track leader. Yeah, he has a mega strength training background. Nils de Jong, who was at DSM earlier. Super guy. Olaf Alexander Bu of course. Then you have Jesper Winkel, former road rider, very good. Torkil, former road rider, also super guy. Arne Gunnar, Lars Holm, who above all really, really did this youth development work well. Kaspar von Holstein, who's really, really good on track and aero side, did a ton with the Danes. A really broad, big mass of super much expertise comes together. And fostering that — yeah, that's maybe what Olaf sees — that okay, we have a coach structure here with super much specialized knowledge in individual areas, and we use that maximally for everyone. That's pretty cool.

Björn: Okay. Who's Jonas's coach — that video that just came out the other day? Ah, Lars Wolff. That was Lars Wolff, okay. Who flipped out at Jonas's win at the Tour. Lars Wolff is super. So cool to see how the guy in his boxer shorts on his armchair completely flips out. Lars is super.

Niclas: Super nice. They're all super nice. It sounds a bit like — but it's really, as I said, as my friend told me — you can also name him — it's Jan Oellerich. He's at DT Swiss, and Jan Oellerich was the first athlete I trained. Back then at Team Stölting. Team Stölting — or he came there to the team. And that was still before the millennium when I worked with him. And Team Stölting back then was the shit. It was the development team. Silvio Herklotz, Nils Pollitt, Lennart Schemmer, and whoever they were called. They were all on that team. Jan too. And Jan knows Uno-X pretty well and pretty long now, because DT of course also has a sponsorship deal with them. And he sent me this link and said, yeah — that's your team, I know you so well, you fit perfectly there — at least according to his statement or thinking. And apparently there was something to it. Okay, awesome. Yeah, right. Now let's see what that means for us, for the podcast. I'm of course still at Afasteryou. That's where I have my shares and so on. So nothing changes there. I'll maybe not be on the podcast as often. That'll definitely be the case. Because you're on the road more. Right, exactly. Possibly on the road. Maybe we'll bring someone else in, more guests. So Niklas will do a bit more. Sebastian will come in too. More. But that'll work out. And I naturally won't talk as detailed about other riders. Meaning, on the road and so on, I'll hold back a bit, which is clear.

Björn: Then I have to do the Tour de France analyses. You're allowed to do it. Gladly. And Björn just sits there, nods or shakes his head, so you don't see or catch it.

Niclas: You can imagine that yourself. Yeah, but a good solution will emerge. But I'm not gone, and I think that's pretty good.

Björn: One more question. Do you think we can get Olaf Alexander Bu as a guest on the podcast sometime? Oof, that — that'd be cool.

Niclas: But so is everyone else — all great. That's really mega. I'd also like to have a good DS on the podcast — I think that'd also be super exciting.

Björn: We take anyone. Anyone who wants to talk and tell a story is very welcome.

Niclas: Raúl Celdrán is now at Bora-Hansgrohe. Okay. Just saying. And maybe in the show notes you can include this link. We had Raúl on the podcast three-quarters of a year ago.

Björn: You were alone that day. Ah, I was alone.

Niclas: Look.

Björn: I only uploaded the episode. You were alone and did the episode with him on nutrition. The coach of — nutrition coach of Carapaz and Klimatisa.

Niclas: He was nutritionist at Caravagh and now he's at Bora-Hansgrohe. Awesome. Yeah, exactly. Just mentioning. Yeah, but hey — we've just talked a lot about me. Now Niklas — there are changes for you too. Niklas steps into my shoes, but involuntarily. That wasn't arranged.

Björn: Well — first. Exactly. I will — or since January 1st I work for — with — first as an external consultant for the Bike Aid Continental team. Yeah, we don't really have a proper name for it all. It just came about because I've known Matthias Schnappke, the team boss, for... A while now, from all the events here in Saarland. So you keep running into each other, and through a few events last year where I was at races in Saarland — We kept talking, and basically the main point is proximity — I'm basically 25 minutes away by bike from Blieskastel, where the team is, 15 minutes by car, and can just — I have very direct access to the team. We also — since we're a Saarland team — there are some riders here. So to the riders I now also have a bit more direct access. We're trying to set up a small training group where we regularly go train with all the young riders. Main goal is actually that I'm first there for the riders, if the riders have any questions about training, nutrition, equipment. Something like — first, there's a contact person from the team. When things don't go well for a rider, first, supportively, as far as the riders are concerned. And then the next step, where we have to see how much room there is from the team and how much we can do there, is basically trying to make the team better — so looking at the equipment — can we fundamentally influence the equipment the riders use at races, around the races? Where do we have influence? So — what's fixed by sponsors? Where do we have no influence? And where might we have influence that we can improve? Right, and then just see, are there any processes where we can make it easier for the riders. How's nutrition? First plan is that I at least come along to the first training camp, tell the riders a bit about nutrition — how you train here and there maybe better, because we also partly have 18-year-old athlete riders. And first just try to support the team so that each rider can develop as well as possible. And then see.

Niclas: Fun fact, Niklas. You don't even know. Bike Aid was the first road team I worked with. Okay. And that was, I think, 2018. That's a while. And there I had a similar job to yours. Later it differentiated a bit more, so I then only took on individual riders. Olli Matthias and Peermin Vincent and whoever they all were. Jasper Palke. Some — I've definitely forgotten some. And — yeah, it was always super fun working with the riders. And Matthias Schnappke, the team boss — if you've ever been at his place in Blieskastel — he lives the topic. It's amazing. Matthias lives for this team. He lives for this team. I really have to say — it's not that he's milking the team and trying to stuff money into his pillow. Zero. Not just him — his wife too. The whole family. The whole family is amazing. He has this huge old townhouse with an extension. The riders who come from Africa live there, or the other riders overnight when they head to races in France or wherever. He had a little — yeah, around 16 beds where the athletes sleep. And it's amazing. I mean, this man lives for this team.

Björn: And I just find — Matthias Schnappke is the Bike Aid team. He does everything for it, lives for it, really tries — I'd say — you don't have to — that has in places nothing to do with a WorldTour team. The budget compared to a WorldTour team is vanishingly small. The budget of a continental team maybe doesn't cover even one month of a WorldTour team. And you just have to say, the man manages to make this team — on a small budget — pick up lots of UCI race wins and get race wins all over the world.

Niclas: And he just has a nose for riders. You can say what you want. He's really — not just in numbers, but simply — he just sees who can do what. I mean, not for nothing — Anton Schiffer now goes to Visma — he brought him in. Nobody thought, okay, age-group athlete, maybe good numbers, we don't really care. Now he gets him, brings him in, and boom, he's at Visma — really good job, both by Matthias and by Anton. Then he brought in Vincent Dorn as a mountain biker. He has Olli Matthijs, who was basically already sorted out — career over — did his apprenticeship. I think his master's too, as an auto mechanic, mechatronics — and now races around and finishes third at Rwanda and otherwise rides around crazy. He has an incredible nose for riders who can do something. That's amazing. I can't understand how well he does it.

Björn: I have to say — and this impressed me personally — I thought, cool, I'd really like this. He also knows a lot about training and many other things. So Matthias really understands the whole cosmos of cycling, road cycling.

Niclas: Not for nothing — let's mention it — Matthias is also an expert at the Tour de France for ARD. Meaning when the Tour is on, he's either in France or in the broadcast center, pulling out all the insights. There are these funny things — he asked me how fast Pogačar would do this time trial, and I was relatively close. We had that, I think, one time. Yeah. And really, I take my hat off — because I think with the abilities he has and the desire he has for this team — if he were in the private sector, he'd definitely earn significantly more money. But then he probably also doesn't — that's not what he burns for. And I find it super. And this team really needs to be supported massively. Because it's just a cool thing. First he brings Bike Aid — this thought, this association behind it. That's great. And the development of talents from Africa. And the other is also the support of German riders who aren't on the screen. Yeah. I find that impressive and good. Good man.

Björn: What I like about it is a bit the approach — saying clearly, okay, we're not really a classic continental development team trying to just pull U19 riders up and get them into the WorldTour. The main focus of the team is to win UCI races. That's basically the goal. You don't really see the riders riding criteriums or Bundesliga or whatever. The point is to win UCI-classified races, and best case 1.1 or 1.2 UCI-categorized races — not even the ones where amateur teams are at the start, but really the bigger ones. Bike Aid is also the only German team that even manages to regularly win UCI races. There aren't really any others. Well, the only one — but I wouldn't count that as a classic continental team — is the Red Bull Rookies team, which is basically by Bora-Hansgrohe — they have lots of points in the ranking too. But that's a development team of Bora, where all the young riders are. Sure.

Niclas: And then you have Lotto-Kern-Haus, which is basically the national team.

Björn: Basically, yeah. Yeah, so I'm definitely excited to see how I can help the team or just do my job there. I just really — as a Saarland native — have an extreme desire for it, because — I don't know, since I've been cycling, I've been watching Team Bike Aid a bit and thinking, yeah cool, Saarland pro team. And now having the chance to support, optimally to make the team better — that definitely gives me joy. Definitely. Right.

Niclas: So. Björn. I think let's leave the episode here. I wouldn't start now with — say Björn, what do you do here and there in training.

Björn: Okay, so we'll see when the next episode comes, when you have time. Yeah. You can also invite someone. I can also invite someone. And then in the classic style I'd prep something with us for the next episode. I have some ideas. And then we'll see about getting a few guests. And optimally do the podcast a bit more regularly again. Right. Very good. Then — nice. I wish all listeners a good — yeah, a bit delayed — start into the new year. As we just said — eat properly, train properly.

Niclas: Yeah.

Björn: And then all the best. See you. Ciao, ciao.

Niclas: Ciao.