The cycling
interviews and quotes
worth your time.

Good morning,

These are today's quotes and interviews worth your time.

Stood out to me today: "He told me it was 'privileged information', so I said okay, then I won't tell my team either. And I didn't, of course."

¡Vamos!

🎤 INTERESTING INTERVIEWS

"Manchester United won 2-1 and Tobias celebrated on the bike"

Danish cycling reporter Anders Mielke on the unexpected spring campaign of Tobias Lund Andresen

Tobias Lund Andresen was only supposed to ride one classic this spring. Then Olav Kooij and Tiesj Benoot got injured, and suddenly Decathlon CMA CGM needed a replacement. The 23-year-old Dane stepped in and has not stopped since: 6th in the Omloop, 7th in Kuurne-Brussel-Kuurne, 13th in Milano-Sanremo, 6th in the E3 Saxo Classic, and 2nd in In Flanders Fields. "He was so happy about it," Danish cycling reporter Anders Mielke told Sporza, recalling the moment Lund Andresen found out he was racing the opening weekend.

The groundwork was laid in Flanders long before any of this. As a junior, Lund Andresen drove to Belgium with his father to race cyclocross. Sint-Niklaas, Heusden-Zolder, Bredene, Diegem. He was 16 and playing a minor role in those races. "But he developed a solid technique there, and since then he's embraced cobbled classics with obstacles and a lot of chaos," Mielke said. His bike helps too. After his stage win at the Tour Down Under, Lund Andresen said his sprint bike was far faster than anything he had at his previous team. "The Van Rysel sprint bike is a real game-changer," Mielke confirmed.

The Paris-Roubaix obsession runs deep. It was apparently devastating for the then-junior Lund Andresen when the 2020 edition was cancelled due to Covid. For now, though, Roubaix will have to wait.

He is heading to a sprint camp for the Giro d'Italia with sports director Mark Renshaw to fine-tune his lead-out. His goal there is the opening pink jersey in Bulgaria.

The picture Mielke paints of a rider who, during a mountain stage at the 2024 Giro, asked his team car for live updates on the Manchester United versus Manchester City FA Cup final, and then celebrated on the bike when United won, makes for an unusually vivid portrait. "United won 2-1 and Tobias celebrated on the bike. He could afford to, because it was the Monte Grappa stage, where Tadej Pogačar attacked and Tobias came across the line in fourth from last place."

"Wout van Aert set his own trap."

Jan Bakelants on the psychological warfare ahead of the Ronde van Vlaanderen

Jan Bakelants, former pro and now analyst and race commentator, used his HLN column after In Flanders Fields to lay out what he saw as a piece of deliberate psychological warfare by Alpecin-Premier Tech. His read: Wout van Aert handed them the opportunity himself. "In Flanders Fields can be interpreted as psychological warfare by the Roodhooft brothers, but really Wout van Aert set his own trap. He made himself vulnerable by not racing the E3 Saxo Classic, and so he needed a result in Wevelgem heading into the Ronde."

The calculation Bakelants attributes to the Alpecin-Premier Tech team car was cold and precise. "At some point they did the math in the team car. It didn't have to be specifically for Mathieu van der Poel, but it was absolutely essential to prevent Wout from getting a mental boost a week before the Ronde."

The method: put Van der Poel on Van Aert's wheel at half-effort, taunting him. "By putting Van der Poel in a slightly provocative manner on his wheel at half effort, Wout was checkmated. He really only had one option: push at 110 percent all the way to the line, and be beaten there by a laughing Van der Poel. Anything less than 110 percent and they would have been caught." That Jasper Philipsen ended up winning the sprint was a bonus, not the plan.

Bakelants is direct about Visma | Lease a Bike's handling of Florian Vermeersch. He argues they should have waited for him on the Kemmelberg, and goes further: he thinks Per Strand Hagenes already cost Vermeersch a legitimate shot at winning the E3 Saxo Classic by looking the other way when Vermeersch needed support. Now, he says, the dynamic has real consequences for the Ronde. "Vermeersch gets on very well with Van der Poel right now. If Vermeersch ends up in a situation where he can decide who wins the race on Sunday or at Roubaix, he will prefer to choose Van der Poel over Van Aert."

On Van Aert himself, Bakelants is careful to separate the physical from the psychological: "On the second Kemmelberg he was genuinely strong. We may have seen the best spring form of Van Aert since he crashed heavily at Dwars door Vlaanderen two years ago."

"You have to hold her back more than motivate her."

Sports directors Sven Nys and Ina-Yoko Teutenberg on Fleur Moors

Twenty years old, and Fleur Moors came within a wheel of beating Lorena Wiebes in In Flanders Fields. Neither of the directors who know her best was surprised. "It was only a matter of time before this breakthrough came," said Sven Nys, who coaches Moors in cyclocross at his team Baloise Verzekeringen - Het Poetsbureau Lions, speaking to Sporza. "She has shown flashes in the past that made me think: this rider has something special, and at a very young age." Ina-Yoko Teutenberg, her sports director at Lidl-Trek Women, was equally direct: "It was very impressive to see how she was able to follow a world-class rider like Lorena Wiebes."

Moors grew up in a handball family and only picked up cycling during the Covid pandemic, when individual outdoor sport was the easier path. The cyclocross background is, both directors agree, the engine behind her acceleration. "Her explosive punch has become a major asset thanks to the cyclocross training," Nys explained. "If she can add a bit more volume and races are contested at a high average speed, she will also be able to win sprints at the end of hard races."

On her personality, the two align: ambitious behind a modest exterior. "She is very modest outwardly, but inwardly she is very ambitious. You have to hold her back more than motivate her." Teutenberg kept it short: "The sky is the limit."

Moors has already said publicly she dreams of the Tour de France Femmes and the Ronde van Vlaanderen. Nys doesn't dismiss either. "She has everything it takes to, as a Belgian, challenge the Dutch dominance."

He stops short of comparisons to Lotte Kopecky. "Fleur has a completely different build. She is lighter and can climb more easily, but Kopecky has also shown she can do that very well." The limits, he says, are simply not yet visible. "It's very difficult to pinpoint her limits right now."

🏆 THE SERGE BAGUET AWARD

"It doesn't help a fucking bit. And that idea that you can just ride it off, that's also fucking bullshit. As a chemist you'd say: that's bullshit, man. If you're sick, stay home."

— Mads Pedersen, offering an unusually blunt take on the myth of 'riding out' illness, aimed at amateur cyclists, Lang Distance

Wonder what The Serge Baguet Award is all about? Check it out here.

💬 QUICK QUOTES

"I had taken quite a lot of wind in my positioning for Tobias on the Plugstreets. Wout is on my left and Mathieu on my right. I say to Mathieu: 'it would suit me well if we didn't go too hard right now, I've just taken quite a bit of wind.' He says to me: 'no stress, we want to sprint.' It was pretty remarkable that he just said it to me so matter-of-factly. He told me it was 'privileged information', so I said okay, then I won't tell my team either. And I didn't, of course." — Oliver Naesen, HLN Wielerpodcast, sharing his remarkable anecdote from inside the finale of In Flanders Fields.

"As he said: 'You've won it 3 times. Wouldn't it be better to focus on Flanders and maybe give up the chance of winning it a 4th time this year.' I could only agree with that." — Mads Pedersen, Lang Distance, recounting his team doctor's argument for skipping In Flanders Fields.

"Fortunately I practiced front flips on my bed as a child 🤣 Considering the crash I'm happy to come out of it how I did with nothing broken, I just feel like Mike Tyson punched me in the back. 🫠" — Ben Turner, Instagram, giving an update after his spectacular crash in In Flanders Fields.

"OK, when you're in a group with the likes of Van Aert and Van der Poel, there is an element of respect, but when you're in the running for a one-day win in Flanders, you can throw that respect out of the window for a little while." — Sean Kelly, CyclingNews, on how Florian Vermeersch should have raced on Sunday by skipping more turns to conserve energy for the last time Kemmelberg.

"It’s a different squad, and we have to get used to riding together compared to before. But there’s no one anymore we need to share leadership with. It’s pretty clear that when I start, the team rides for me. Even on a half-bad day, there’s no doubt about that. It’s very comfortable for me to go into races now. No one is a co-captain or gets to sit up and try to go for their own result. That’s a no-go." — Mads Pedersen, Lang Distance, on the changed squad dynamics at Lidl-Trek following major departures, and his sole leadership.

"I believe in it, but I am also very realistic — I am certainly not going to say I will beat them. But I do believe I can add a few more percent over the coming years. Maybe it's still too early, maybe I'll hit a wall, maybe I'll surprise myself again. But somewhere I feel like it's possible." — Thibau Nys, WielerFlits, when asked directly whether he believes he can battle Tadej Pogačar, Remco Evenepoel, and Mathieu van der Poel.

"The crash has nothing to do with it. I was already feeling quite bad since starting, even before the race started. I just need to rest a bit and maybe see what's wrong with me, and keep working hard towards the next goal." — João Almeida, CyclingNews, after a disappointing 38th-place finish at the Volta a Catalunya, ahead of medical tests to diagnose his form slump.

"After an overload earlier this season, I've been forced to take full rest. Unfortunately, this means I'll miss the entire Spring Classics." — Julie De Wilde, Instagram.

"I've honestly been struggling a bit with these sprints lately, because I've been training sprints for 2 months while seated, because I haven't been able to stand up and sprint. So they've been seated ones. So I can feel it — when I needed to sprint, the top-end speed just isn't there." — Mads Pedersen, Lang Distance, on why his sprint is currently a blunt weapon.

"There's this big debate in Belgium — the Belgian media, they're all applauding and adoring you when you win, and then when you disappoint two or three times, they're criticizing you. Now it's all, 'Remco should forget GCs and go for the classics.' I don't think that's true. He's definitely a complete rider. But I feel like Remco is always stressed. I never see him relaxed. And I think that's what he needs. He needs to switch off, obsess less, and just take things as they come and ride on feeling a little bit." — Johan Bruyneel, THEMOVE, with a candid psychological assessment of Remco Evenepoel.

"I heard from Evenepoel's soigneur David Geeroms that in the evening, at the hotel, they had to physically tear his lycra off. Because so much of his skin was damaged and they simply couldn't get his kit off normally." — Journalist Stijn Vlaeminck, HLN Wielerpodcast, revealing that the damage from Remco Evenepoel's crash at the Volta a Catalunya was worse than reported.

That's it for today. See you tomorrow 👋

Jay