Comment devient-on Vice-championne du Monde ?

Björn: Hey, this is Björn. Just a quick note before we start — this episode is an AI-generated English version of our original German Afasteryou podcast. The voices you hear are cloned with AI. Enjoy the show. Welcome to the Afasteryou Podcast, where everything revolves around endurance sports and training. Here Sebastian Schluricke, Björn Kafka, and Niclas Ranker bring you valuable tips and insights to help you take your performance to the next level. Welcome to a new episode of the Afasteryou Podcast. Good morning, Björn. Good morning. How did you survive the first Tour week?

Niclas: It hasn't even been a week yet. Yeah, five days. Okay, fair. For me it's all pretty relaxed. I just sit on the side and watch. I don't have much skin in the game, let's put it that way. We provide software and give advice here and there. So I'm pretty relaxed about these things.

Björn: Are you actively coaching a rider who's in the race? Oh, I can't tell you that. Well, that answers it. Okay, okay. Should we start with the Tour, or do a bit of Andorra first? Let's start with the Tour.

Niclas: The Tour is awesome, it's exciting. The Tour is just sick. You have to be honest, since Pogacar and Vingegaard are in the mix, it's gotten so much better. It's no longer this grind at the front, Sky flattening everything out and it's just an extremely boring race. Although I always liked the innovations they brought in. But the sport is just cooler now because it's become, well, not unpredictable, but like a differential equation where a few more variables got thrown in. That makes it super exciting. I mean, today's stage is a killer again. Look at it. Several climbs, third category. And yesterday some people conserved energy, even on the big teams. It's going to be hell. They're going to hammer it. Absolutely. I'm curious.

Björn: I have to say, I find it really cool how Vingegaard and Pogacar ride, but also great to see that Mathieu has form this year. And I even have the feeling, in the past Remco was always riding a bit like a kid who just wanted to play along. And I have the feeling they have a plan behind how he's riding. He's riding a bit conservatively. But yesterday in the time trial you could see he has the form. He's super fit.

Niclas: Yeah, I simulated it a few days beforehand. And I had the values from the Dauphine. I didn't have Remco Evenepoel's values, obviously. But you can piece it together yourself. Done. And I came up with 36... what did I simulate? Give me a second, let me check. 36:53. I was actually pretty close.

Björn: What was the finishing time?

Niclas: He rode 36:47 or 36:41. Not bad. Not bad. And the problem is, the final section is where you lose a lot of time. I had a bit of trouble with that. I'd first simulated too aggressively at 36:10. But after I saw the course live, how they actually rode it, I recalculated.

Björn: The last corners were tricky, right?

Niclas: Yeah, you couldn't just blast through at 55 anymore, so I re-simulated and you land on that time. It's pretty cool because I now have a good feel for Evenepoel's CdA, where he sits, and it's low. Power-wise he's not better, he's just... really aerodynamic, and little things make a big difference. He's a penguin. He's a penguin, yeah. Although Wout van Aert is also a penguin. In terms of body shape. And yeah, I was pretty happy with it. And the nice thing is, once you've verified it a bit, I was at the Dauphine and could reproduce it well, now you know the best rider in the world, when he's in shape with that CdA, rides that fast. It's pretty cool to know which reference you can currently use.

Björn: So you can actually reverse-engineer pretty well where Pogacar stands? They've done a lot on aerodynamics again. They're riding a new helmet. He's got slightly changed positions compared to before. Probably adapted to the new helmet.

Niclas: Yeah, they put intensive work into it. But Pogacar also just comes through power.

Björn: What was the biggest surprise for you yesterday in the time trial?

Niclas: The surprise is definitely that Jorgenson and Vingegaard didn't ride that fast.

Björn: Yeah, I would have expected differently. Vingegaard lost just over a minute to Pogacar. That's a lot.

Niclas: That's bad. A minute on such a fast course is really a lot. People sometimes don't realize how much that matters. Let me quickly calculate it on the side.

Björn: I have to say, if you look at it, I think Lipowitz was only a few seconds slower than Pogacar, and Roglic too. Those two rode really well. And you could see Roglic apparently isn't in the form to ride up front, and Lipowitz is still a bit off here and there, seems fit, but maybe positioned poorly or having an off moment. Didn't quite have the form on stage four, but fundamentally they're good and they're riding faster. And because of this Vingegaard has lost 1:13 in GC to Pogacar, and the brutal stages are still to come.

Niclas: Fundamentally there's always this problem... light riders have really bad cards on a course like that. Honestly, Vingegaard is an absolute lightweight. Back in the day, Pantani, Escartin and whatever their names were, they really got hammered on stages like this. Sometimes two minutes would go through. So it's not so, well, it's not good, but it's not a total catastrophe. He just maybe didn't have the best day in the world. Just as an example. On a four... wait, how long was it? 33 kilometers. Yeah. Okay. So we have 36... yeah, 36, high 36s. 36.7 minutes. So, and now he lost... a minute and a half to... 1:26. 1:26. Crazy.

Björn: Yeah, that hurts. Lost 1:26 to Remco. Pogacar was I think 17 seconds or 16 seconds slower than Remco.

Niclas: Just so you get a feel for the relation. Not calculating weights in detail. That's... 25, CRR is fine, yeah, 35 watts less. That's heavy. 35 watts less. So if Evenepoel rides 35 watts less, he rides as fast as Vingegaard. That's a statement.

Björn: Yeah, that's over 33 minutes, or over 36 minutes or whatever it was.

Niclas: Exactly, that's the time you lose. And I assume, first of all, Evenepoel is heavier, which is definitely good on that course, because overall he has a higher compound score, so to speak, and a better CdA. Most likely a better CdA.

Björn: Yeah, but you also have to say, from what I saw, Castelli made a new suit again, looks very much like the Fusion time trial suit from a few years back. I know they have almost exactly that suit, Fusion had it three years ago already. I had it on an athlete in a bike fitting, with those grooves over the back. Fusion said back then it was supposedly the fastest suit. And Castelli apparently copied it now and it seems to work.

Niclas: Yeah, I mean, Remco Evenepoel has won everything. He's a mega time trialist, you can't forget that. The body makes a huge difference. But good point on the suit. It's always the question. Just a thought experiment. I saw it and I discussed with Sebastian, and the first thing I said was, Affini was wearing the same suit as usual, the European champion suit. Mattia and Vingegaard both wore a new suit. They'd most likely tested it, I strongly assume. Let's hope. I don't go into their data. It's most likely just dyed differently. But hey, you never know. These are sometimes crazy things. I have a friend who works in the clothing industry. Very intensively. And it really is like this... maybe the manufacturer, the thing gets produced somewhere, who knows where, China or wherever, maybe Europe, no idea. And now the manufacturer wants to save a bit of money, the production company. And they'll use a different thread in the stitching or make the fabric slightly differently. And suddenly you have a suit that's fast at 40 km/h, but maybe isn't fast at 55. You can't forget that. These are different suits. And then you might suddenly get something from the manufacturer side, from the production side, that's just totally slow. Crazy things happen. We once... built time trial suits ourselves. For fun. Just made some prototypes. And the fabric we had, it was a bikini fabric. We built it out of bikini fabric because we just made a dummy. Just to see if the cut fits. That was the fastest suit. Crazy. It was bikini fabric. By far the fastest suit. We couldn't believe it. So... Jorgenson's statement after the time trial, you can read it everywhere, he basically rode good numbers, felt good, rode solid numbers. Why did he lose so much?

Björn: Then something was off somewhere.

Niclas: And you can't compare the others, because everyone else rode slow. Wout van Aert, Thisbeno, Campenaerts and so on, they rode slow because today is a super hard stage. Affini was the test pilot to see how fast you could hammer it. And he rode very well, mega time. He's a top time trialist, otherwise he wouldn't be European champion. But he wore the European champion outfit. Yeah, maybe they'll optimize their... wild theory, I can't say anything on it. Sure, we do stuff with Wismar, but I don't know exactly what, how, when, where was tested. That was surprising, let's say.

Björn: I thought he'd lose a bit, but... yeah, especially after what Vingegaard showed at the Dauphine. That's what actually surprised me so much. It can't have been the position, and the bike material at least can't have been it either. The only thing that fits in, either he's had a bad day, rode bad numbers, but Jorgenson kind of rules that out, because Jorgenson lost a similar amount of time to Vingegaard, and then really all that's left is the suit, which was apparently a bit different and maybe that's why they lost time.

Niclas: And remember, thinking back to the first stage last year, I think Bardet won that one, they rode it out as a pair, Pogacar attacked and the only one who could go with him was Vingegaard. And I think, we had the same thing last year. Why is everyone suddenly saying he's totally different now, that's not true at all. He rode exactly the same way last year.

Björn: No, I find it different in the sense that these days he's actually been the one attacking.

Niclas: Okay, yeah, and now the next thing comes into play, how high did the glycolytic rate go? That can become a bit of a boomerang, we all know it, high glycolytic rate, you can really hammer it short-term, but it lowers your threshold power, so you can play with that a bit. that it will come down, but in the first days it's really a bit sluggish. Most likely we'll see a Vingegaard who, in the... well, what do I mean most likely? No idea, pure theory. If that's the case, he'll... in the last, or after half of the race, he'll most likely be able to unload quite a bit. If oxygen uptake is higher, most likely, glycolysis a bit higher too, then he'll absolutely hammer the climbs at the latest. I mean, he's a minute behind Pogacar now, who knows, a lot of water will flow under the bridge. I mean... yeah, it's not a disaster, for god's sake.

Björn: Stage 12 is where it really starts. At the end the Col du Kamm goes up, HC, 13 kilometers, 8 percent. That will get really exciting, and right the day after, an 11 kilometer mountain time trial. That will get really interesting. There too, I think it'll be exciting in terms of equipment. Do they go up with the TT bike, do they go up with the regular bike? What is it? Should we simulate it? We're talking 8.1 kilometers of climbing at 7.6 percent average, and I think at the end the climb has ramps of 16 percent. Were they all time-trial related? Do you think they'll ride that whole thing on the time trial bike?

Niclas: The bike weighs what, seven kilos.

Björn: Why would anyone use the road bike... yeah, the new Wismar has gotten ultra light.

Niclas: The old Wismar was already ultra light. The question is, which helmet do they wear? Do you think they'll make a difference in the helmet? Yeah, if you think about it. So, I need the GPX file. Or wait, maybe I already have it. Let's check.

Björn: Tour de France. Let's just look into Jamie's data, what he did. I can't do that. I'm not allowed to do that.

Niclas: I can't do it either. I know. Stage 21, no, that was last year. I don't have the GPX yet. Is the GPX somewhere? Oh man, you're asking me, no idea. Wait, here I have another time trial. Wait, I need to check what kind of time trial this is. One sec.

Björn: It's Loudenvielle to Peyragudes.

Niclas: July 18th. Yeah, I can, we can chat on the side about multitasking. That usually works pretty well. Wait, here, check this out. So, time trial test, what is this? Oh no, someone uploaded this. Whoever it was. Interesting. Okay, um...

Björn: So you'd just go by the 8.1 kilometers and 7.6 percent average gradient. Time trial bike, maybe not such a deep wheel like on a flat stage, maybe in the front, maybe no disc, right? Because a disc only makes real sense at really high speeds. You probably won't ride that.

Niclas: Yeah, exactly. And if you have wind, right? Yeah. So, look, here I've got it, I think I found it, Loudenvielle, ITT GPX, 11 kilometers. Exactly. That looks good. No idea how good the file is. I hope so. So, I'll load it now. Time trial, TDF, stage 18.

Björn: People are live with us now when Björn Kafka works his magic.

Niclas: I don't do magic. The system does magic. Which was built in handcraft by me and above all by Sebastian Schluricke. Ah, look here, that's nice. Yeah, it goes up a good 640 meters. Yeah, it's listed as 645, exactly. Oh, Belgium is calling, I need to decline. Okay. We've got it in. Now let's simulate. New simulation. Time trial is TDF stage 18 here. When is this? We don't have the best weather data yet. July 18th. Stage 13. Local times, start time, they start at 4 PM.

Björn: Let's take that. That's what I find so pleasant for the guys. They can just ride in the afternoon, sleep in in the morning, have a relaxed breakfast. That's so much more pleasant than when you have to start super early.

Niclas: Now let's take someone who's fast, aerodynamic. What does Evenepoel weigh?

Björn: Do you know? Supposedly two to three kilos less than before. And I think he was always around 65, right? Yeah, 62 with equipment we'll take him. 70? 71.

Niclas: So, we can just... I don't think we need to brake much.

Björn: 61 kilos, yeah? At 1.71 meters. Supposedly now.

Niclas: Then let's say with clothes and everything, 71, yeah? Then we'll take that as threshold. Like this and this. What did you give him as threshold? Everyone can read it up. I think, what does he have? 410? Yeah, probably.

Björn: It's so uncomfortably much on 61 kilos. Yeah, it's good. Yeah, of course it's good. He's Olympic champion.

Niclas: So, I think... hey, this will be fast. Um... 22:40. No, 22:40? Mhm.

Björn: So basically a 20-minute test.

Niclas: Average speed 28, so 29 km/h.

Björn: That means Evenepoel will probably ride a 4:30 to 4:40 up it.

Niclas: So, watch this, I'll check something real quick. I forgot something. Take, aha, here, that's not right. So, here, zack. We have to adjust the aerodynamics curves a bit. And he'll obviously, on the climb, I'll leave the aerodynamics the same. And on downhills too, for all I care. Although we don't have a downhill. So, Make Speed for Climbing. That fits, that fits. Now I'll change it a bit more. 22. Yeah. 22 minutes, so a bit over 22 minutes, and basically throughout at 414, and later he'll ramp up to 420, 430 watts. He's obviously fresh, right? A lot of water still has to flow down the mountain.

Björn: Yeah, especially how fresh are you after a day where you did 180 kilometers and 3,800 meters of climbing. The day before goes over a fourth category, first category, second category and then up Hautacam HC, right? Right. And that will really bang.

Niclas: Yeah. Most likely you'd do a negative split race. I think you can even ride the corners a bit faster. We'd have to look. Wait, let me check that. Or balanced, moderate breaking, I'd set it to sporty breaking. The problem is always, how are the corners. You really have to have ridden the course live.

Björn: How much difference does it make, for example, which tires he rides? Is that interesting for the simulation? Do you think the differences between tires are that big? For example, Conti just released a new tire for the Tour, which they said is supposedly three to five percent faster than their previous TT tire. It's definitely gotten lighter. Yeah. They say so themselves, it's always the question how they measure. But do you think it really makes a difference? Are you riding the Specialized TT tire, are you riding the Conti, are you riding Vittoria?

Niclas: Yeah, especially on the climb it makes a difference how fast the tire is. So if I adjust the rolling resistance a bit, let's say, a really really fast tire. A 1.0. So, now I changed the rolling resistance a bit. Let's see what... yeah, that makes... Rolling resistance makes 12 seconds difference.

Björn: Yeah, that's crazy.

Niclas: Yeah, almost 30 average. Totally fresh. I don't know how good the road is. That also makes a difference. And the CdA hardly changes. Yeah, and ultimately... You'd ride it with a negative split, meaning you ride 410, 415, then you increase to 420, and at the end at kilometer 87, 88 you have to pull out everything you've got. Then you have, um, do I have the time here? Right, you're at 17, so you have to ride full-throttle for another 5 minutes. About 90 percent VO2max, if possible.

Björn: So, I don't know if people can picture, you go out and do a four-minute all-out test.

Niclas: It's a 20-minute test, quite simple.

Björn: Exactly, but they're still doing a 20-minute test where they'll probably get close to their best values, and they do that on day 13. After already twelve days with really heavy loads even the day before.

Niclas: So I assume they'll, most likely they won't go up that fast, not as fast as simulated now, yeah, that would be the best-case scenario, but, who knows, that happens too. But they've really poured it on beforehand, yeah. In 20 minutes they'll push through 130 grams of carbs real quick.

Björn: That's just crazy. What the guys are able to deliver. I find it crazy to see. What's actually possible with them, and above all everyone who's ever ridden a stage race and notices, okay, how do you feel after a few days of stage racing, they do that 21 times and sometimes they don't get much worse, because the guys are that good, because they're simply the best in the world. They're the ones who handle that period the best, or get the least bad, let's put it that way.

Niclas: Yeah, exactly. I once, the PCr storage is also funny, yeah, they'll really be, they'll be really blue when they reach the top. But there's no other way, yeah. You have to at the start, it starts relatively flat. Yeah. And it only really starts around kilometer, woah, just after three it starts, and at four it really gets going. And, yeah, it gets really brutal, really nasty. I'm curious. I'm curious how it will be. Well, now you can say, watch, this would be the best-case scenario on aerodynamics. This is the optimal aerodynamics for a rider. What would it be if we sent someone like, say, Tony Martin up there? Or no, wrong, with Tony Martin's CdA. Which you can back-calculate a bit.

Björn: Do you know what his best CdA was? Probably at the end at Wismar, or in the last years at Jumbo, as it was called back then.

Niclas: Rumor is around 20. Maybe even 19, no idea. But let's say 20, which is already good. Back then it was really good.

Björn: He was also always riding with this old grip position, where you were pretty flat.

Niclas: Yeah, exactly. Interesting, it doesn't even make a huge difference. It makes a difference of 25 seconds. That's heavy. Well, heavy, that's a huge CdA jump. If you think about it, with that CdA you lose about 25 seconds, and if I put that CdA onto the other course from yesterday,

Björn: 0.2. Of course, then the whole thing makes a significantly bigger difference, because the speeds are significantly higher.

Niclas: Yeah, in watts, just so you get an idea, Evenepoel would have to push 483 watts with that CdA instead of 410. High speed always means better CdA is more important. So I strongly assume Vingegaard will really unleash something there. And Pogacar obviously too. And the real question is, how well did the guys handle the days before?

Björn: Would you say stage 12, 13 and 14 will decide the Tour, because stage 13 we ride up Hautacam, it's an HC mountain finish. No, 12. 13 is the mountain time trial and 14 is another HC finish, Luchon-Superbagneres. So that'll probably, those three days will decide the Tour.

Niclas: The Tour will be decided and cemented there, depending on how it plays out. For sure. Until then, I mean, if they keep riding the way they're riding, they'll all really have unleashed. And the question is how fit the people are there.

Björn: It's pretty crazy, three days back to back. And then really only the last week comes, with Mont Ventoux again, with Col de la Loze again, and then La Plagne. Three more brutal mountain finishes come at the back end. Even though there were kind of already these three brutal stages. So in total six stages that can really be decisive, if it even gets that far. If the whole fire isn't already through.

Niclas: Now I'll mess around a bit more. Here, CdA position, road bike, good CdA position on the road bike. What difference that would make, time-wise.

Björn: Before you type it in, what does your gut say? Do you think it makes sense at all?

Niclas: I'd say no, it doesn't make sense. 22:45, you lose a minute.

Björn: Crazy. That's already... you really see, even on an 8 or 7.6 percent climb.

Niclas: That's calculated with 25 aero points. So with 0.25 CdA, which would already be a killer road bike position. It would already be really good. Even with a 27, you're already pretty good.

Björn: That shows, I think, once again, that this weight thing that many people have... tips at a certain point. So aerodynamics is usually more of a killer than this crazy, I have some super light 5-kilo bike or something. If you look at Oetztal or something, faster times would probably be ridden if they rode a mix of light but still with aerodynamics, and focused a bit more on aerodynamics compared to, okay, I'll ride a 5-kilo bike.

Niclas: Yeah, but if you want, we can simulate that too, because, okay, at 20 minutes, you don't quite lose a minute with a bad CdA, but definitely 50 seconds. Now let's make the whole system 2 kilos heavier, with the same CdA. 2 kilos, zack. 21:54, let's see how much time you lose for that. Yeah, two kilos, 25 seconds. That's heavy. So if your time trial bike is heavy, that's where it starts. Well, I think... yeah, you have to see. The best time trialist on the road bike has, I think, a very low 20, 21. If that person were light, you could think about it. A one-kilo heavier time trial bike or a kilo-and-a-half heavier time trial bike is a problem.

Björn: That's just crazy.

Niclas: It makes a relatively big difference on that thing. Yeah, you can play around with it however you want. But light... will probably be ridden on the TT bike. I assume that if you have a really light TT bike, you'll do that, yeah.

Björn: Okay.

Niclas: So, now we've talked a lot about this one topic. I hope it wasn't too boring.

Björn: What do you say about the first five days? How have you liked the spectacle so far? I love it and the level is just so crazy, right? This race is completely bananas. Actually, if you, let's say as a layman or hobbyist, looked at this first week, you'd think, okay, this won't be that exciting. But when you watch, say, the last 20, 30 kilometers, then you see, okay, it always gets really hard toward the end.

Niclas: Yeah, what I find exciting is the following: how much a good team matters. If you look at the German championships, for example, road nationals, which was really an individual contest. Not much to do team-wise. I mean, what we experienced before with Bora for example, where eight men from Bora were at the start, controlling the race, everyone got to attack, then the back was locked down. That didn't happen anymore. It was really everyone against everyone. Open exchange, right? Open exchange, open visor and so on. And now to see, yeah, how a Georg Zimmermann or an Emu Buchmann, how they're riding, you think, that can't be right, why aren't they really good like at the German nationals, where they really put on a show, the course was also hard and so on. Hey, they just don't have the teams, yeah. It's just crazy. The Frenchman is riding mega well, the kid, it's crazy how well he rides, also how well he can push through.

Björn: You mean Kevin Vauquelin?

Niclas: Yeah, exactly. Most likely he knows the route inside out, has studied it intensively, but that's also another thing. Sick team at the start. Makes a huge difference in a race like this. That's why some performances over the last days seem completely crazy. How can it be that they're so much better? Well, they just have a real train pushing them forward. I mean, all the riders around these top riders, they're all world-class mega riders. Look at Almeida.

Björn: He did such a sick job.

Niclas: Yeah, Almeida, what's his name again? Narvaez, who they bought from Ineos. Is also an absolute killing machine, won the Tour of Austria. Also a super versatile rider. Pollitt, I mean, rode a good time trial, by the way. Kind of the test balloon. And he's also a real beast. And Tim Wellens is also at UAE, right? Yeah, yeah. So these are all just machines, and then at Visma you just have Affini, Campenaerts, Wout van Aert, Thisbeno, all guys who've already won Strade Bianche, Tour stages, and and and. Yeah, it's just like that.

Björn: And I found it so telling. On the crosswind stage, you saw what Pogi and the team make of it. And I thought, Remco and Bora really gave away 30 seconds because they weren't well positioned.

Niclas: You have to manage that first. Try it in a peloton where you have two teams that have six killers at the start. However, at Bora you don't quite have the firepower, and at Quick-Step even less. But then on the other hand, Alpecin, where you have guys who can do exactly that. You have a whole classics team at the start. They can sprint mega well, they can push through the field super well. You have a boss like Van der Poel, where everyone makes way, where everyone says, okay, let's let him loose. Yeah, I mean, with Lipowitz you won't do it. People don't give a damn. Yeah, still don't give a damn. Yeah, team is always A and O there. Yeah.

Björn: Based on what you've seen so far, would you say Pogacar wins the thing in the end?

Niclas: Oh man, I don't want to commit. No way. I'd say the pendulum is swinging. After yesterday, I'd say that was already a really solid performance. He can really finish this off. After the day before, I'd say, oh. he really had to catch up so that he even won the stage, and he was probably surprised himself. I mean, he attacked, Vingegaard goes with him, leaves a small gap, and then Vingegaard closes it down again, right? So that was really like, phew.

Björn: Yeah, but I thought, I think you didn't quite see it, but I think Pogacar ran out of breath a bit at the top. That could be, yeah. I thought it looked on TV like Vingegaard just kept chugging along and Pogacar kind of backed off at the top and couldn't fully sustain his own pace.

Niclas: With Vingegaard, I found it astonishing, he had to pull that off, he's riding full gas up there and then looks around. Really like, I'll back off, look around, and then he closes the gap again moped-style. So, really tough. I can't say anything. We probably need to do another episode on this. It's going to get really exciting.

Björn: Yeah, absolutely. Alright, should we talk briefly about the past Andorra Epic? You delivered again from a coach's perspective, I'd say.

Niclas: Yeah, it was great, it was fun. Vera Looze had her partner struggling a bit, she wasn't quite as strong, but it was okay, she pushed her through a bit. At least came second.

Björn: Above all, won the first stage. First stage was 43 kilometers, 1600 meters of climbing. We rode on road and wide gravel paths uphill for a relatively long time. At the top, bike park and more gravel uphill. Then came a somewhat technical descent. That's unfortunately where Georg Egger's tire blew. Then a very amusing running section, where you really had to climb and your bike got taken from you by people because you had to climb up a small two-meter rock wall. Oh, they couldn't get the bike up. Yeah, only southerners put something like that in a race. In Germany you wouldn't have gotten that through, because you could have slipped and fallen. No idea. And then at the end, another really nice sick bike park descent. That was really fun. But so many people wrecked their tires that day. Björn included. But Vera Luisa, they won the thing relatively convincingly on day one.

Niclas: I think she could also really push on the climb. Yeah. That was the huge advantage. With the men, Frey's wheel blew on the first stage. Otherwise it would have been much more exciting, I'd guess.

Björn: Then they probably would have won it. I think at the finish it was three seconds or four seconds in GC that Stutzmann and Gesche saved. No, more. No, no, much more.

Niclas: Sure? Yeah, please check. Much more.

Björn: Okay, sorry. I'll check.

Niclas: Yeah, so, Niclas is correcting his false statement.

Björn: Yeah, okay. It was two minutes twelve in GC.

Niclas: But it would have been exciting if Frey and Stibi hadn't had that mechanical damage. Then it would have been a really tight affair. What totally pleases me is that Martin Frey has finally put all the illness misery behind him and rode a very stable race. And above all, I think it was the third stage, where it went up really long. Also where it went up. Last year he really exploded and lost seven minutes. And this time I told him, watch, you ride at watts X up the mountain and don't go over, just ride that. And he did exactly that and it was exactly right. We got super good, rode super well. And Marc, Gesche is really strong uphill. I think he's been living for six or eight weeks in the Sierra Nevada, so you handle altitude well. As far as I know he actually moved there permanently, right? Could be, yeah. I don't know, but he's been up there for a long time now. And he's really good uphill. Downhill not quite as good. But he has the advantage of having someone like Marc who patrols him through. And Marc, every day, first you have to keep up, and second Marc got better from day to day and got better on the climbs too. He could ride really really fast.

Björn: What you have to say about the descents, the trails in Andorra are ultra fun, but they're partly really technical and gnarly. I think especially a Singer, Stibi Frey, man, they put down downhill times where your jaw drops. On day one they rode a top-10 Strava time on this commercial trail in the bike park with cross-country full-suspension bikes. I think only 20 seconds behind, on a segment I think Stibi needed 6:45 and the KOM is 6:20 with a downhill bike. You have to imagine how crazy fast the guys flew down on cross-country full-suspension bikes. Yeah. That was mostly kind of a rolling track underneath, but still, there are braking bumps, with a downhill bike you have completely different possibilities, completely different grip. That was ultra impressive.

Niclas: It's hammer how well those two ride. That's the perfect team for something like that. If you watch the videos of how they go down, I mean... the others, they shift the bikes around super fast. And zack it keeps going. And you think, crazy, they just do that. That's pretty out there.

Björn: Yeah, we had a few days where Speed Company, they had a few slumps here and there. And we were ahead of them in the race. And then they just, on the last descents, because it always went downhill to the finish, they flew past us, also on the bike park stage. Where a tree suddenly flew by next to me in the jumps, and I thought, okay brother, no problem, he's going at what feels like double the speed, so we were riding behind Lasse and Michi, Aaron already had a rear flat and was riding on the insert. And suddenly this Lukas Baumann just flies past us and we were like, okay, what's going on with you?

Niclas: And then Georg, with slightly cracked thoracic spine. With the motto, ride the race easy.

Björn: Yeah, on stage three they come along, we just had to push up this counter-wave, and Georg and Lukas ride past us, Georg looks at me and says, do you need something to eat? And I'm like, no no, I'm gray, we're only going downhill, all good, I'd already pushed a gel in, and then they just let it run again and left and right only rocks are flying, where I thought, Georg, that's not easy, but okay.

Niclas: Yeah, but Georg is actually in pretty good shape. Brutal.

Björn: Well, for after a thoracic vertebra fracture.

Niclas: Man.

Björn: Overpressure.

Niclas: Yeah, I'm curious. Now it's Kirchzarten. Yeah. World Cup. Let's see. Maybe I'll be able to swing by, after celebrating birthday with ex-racer Piermin Eisenbad. Very nice. Themed party. I'm curious.

Björn: But in any case, from your perspective, your athletes, Stutzmann, Frey and Egger were all top fit in the race. They definitely delivered, and Vera too, it wasn't on her.

Niclas: Look, it paid off that you get money shoved down your throat. Yeah exactly, and so, Andorra Epic mega, yeah, that really made me happy, first for Marc to win this thing in his new team. That I liked a lot. Then for Simon Gesche, who's never pulled off such a thing. He was really emotionally overwhelmed. What pleased me too was for his coach, for Raul Celdran, with whom I also do a lot and help out a bit. It really made me happy that it was well received, that I was able to give a few hints. So really good. Vera second place, not really really good. Shows again what form and quality she has. Then there was also Singen, right? Singen here. Ah, Gravel World Series. Yeah. That was Simon Schneller, he rode solidly. What did he get? Seventh? I think eighth.

Björn: Something between seven and nine.

Niclas: It was more of a spontaneous decision. With these narrow handlebars, she first had to, and it all felt very strange. He's riding stably, and it was apparently a really hard and fast race. So I was happy with that. And with the women, big praise first to Jill Bruegger, who as a doctor provided first aid after someone got very badly injured. And she let her own race and her own World Championship qualification go in order to give first aid. I thought that was very cool. And Dr. Martin Volz, who I've known forever from Zenturium VD, wrote me shortly before, eight weeks before, Björn, I want to become German doctors' champion, can you help me? That's also a nice question. I mean, if I'm his age and such a machine, I've done everything right. He became German champion of the doctors. That pleased me again. Or at least in his age category. He became second overall among all doctors. Which only happened because the race was interrupted, otherwise he'd have won it too. Cool to watch, or to see the performance, yeah.

Björn: Absolutely. You already mentioned, this weekend there's first World Cup in Kirchzarten, 115 kilometers, 3,600, 3,500 meters of climbing, right? Very fast course. What's your tip?

Niclas: Seh bald.

Björn: It's hard to say anything else, right?

Niclas: It's like picking Pogacar in some races. No, Marc Stutzmann isn't there. The Swiss aren't there, but they have Swiss championships.

Björn: I was just going to say, they still have Swiss championships.

Niclas: Right. Sure, a Stibi also has top shape. He's won the thing already. I trust him with a lot too. Egger is for sure also going well. Need to see how well he can climb there. Is Egger riding? Egger is riding.

Björn: No kidding, Egger is climbing brutally well right now.

Niclas: How funny was that video of this dog and then Egger gets spliced in?

Björn: That was sick, yeah. Yeah, I have to say, Georg made a really good impression. I also, I find it very interesting at these events to see how these different types deal with the competition. So many... don't talk much and I have to say, big praise to Speed Company and especially Georg, who's very open, he talks to a lot of people around, and that's just, I'll say as a non-rider who rides at the very front, it's always very pleasant. Sure, super guy.

Niclas: I like everyone I coach. I like all people. Yeah,

Björn: Nice. Then I'll press thumbs for all 50 minutes. I'll press thumbs for all Kafka-coached athletes and also for all my athletes. I hope, I'm curious. I also have a few athletes at the Ultra Biker. I hope it works well for all of them. But I think it's actually a pretty rewarding race.

Niclas: It's great. It's well organized and so on. I mean, it's an ancient, established, great race. Now with World Cup status. I think that's super. So it pleases me totally. Yeah, especially that we have a race in Germany with World Cup status. Yeah, that's great. And it's also been around forever. I mean, I know myself from the time when I studied in Freiburg, which is also a long, long time ago. The race existed back then too, and that was cool.

Björn: Yeah. I only hope that maybe in Germany, in terms of courses, a bit more happens. You have to say, when you race in Spain, Andorra, France, or also Italy, the courses are just way more fun than the German courses. Let's see now how Brocken goes, the German championships. It's supposed to be good. I sent you the GPX file.

Niclas: Yeah.

Björn: Good. Good. Then have fun watching the Tour de France. Yeah. And let's see if your prediction for the mountain time trial is right.

Niclas: That has to be revised, if they go at each other's throats in the next days, they'll ride slower up. That was calculated optimistically. I think they'll ride slower.

Björn: Okay. Good. Björn, have a nice week.

Niclas: We'll talk. Ciao.