"If I wasn't conscious, how could they ever have found me?"
Good morning,
These are today's quotes and interviews worth your time.
Stood out to me today: "And that was the moment that I really hated the Tour of Flanders. And I was thinking, what am I doing here? I hate it."
¡Vamos!
🎤 INTERESTING INTERVIEWS
"With his 85 kilos he can get a result at E3 or Flanders, but winning?"
Elia Viviani, sports director at INEOS Grenadiers, on the chaos and calculation behind Filippo Ganna's win
Grischa Niermann had already called it: two mechanicals and still winning makes you the best. Elia Viviani, in the second team car for INEOS Grenadiers at Dwars door Vlaanderen, experienced that dynamic firsthand. Speaking to In de Leiderstrui after the race, Viviani explained why this win meant what it did for Filippo Ganna.
"Filippo had made Milano-Sanremo a major goal, so when that didn't go the way he hoped, he was very disappointed. The next goal was In Flanders Fields and he wanted to show himself there too, but he didn't get a result. So then Dwars door Vlaanderen automatically becomes a very important race."
The Italian rode into a pothole and broke his front wheel, then after returning to the bunch, his handlebars snapped. That's when Viviani had to move up from the second car with the spare bike. "That's something we learned today: for our leader, we need two good spare bikes on the first car."
The calm returned near the end. "When I heard he was back at the front, that was a relief. On the last cobbled section we knew he would go full gas, and I already felt something special could happen. But it was close, I tell you... though I can't say anything other than, after a finale like that, it was simply his day. He did it perfectly."
The tactical setup behind the win is equally revealing. Viviani confirmed what many suspected: INEOS built Ganna's spring around the races they thought he could actually win. "With his 85 kilos he can get a result at E3 or Flanders, but winning? That's a whole other challenge. And you can't forget how much energy it costs to go that deep on those climbs at that weight, over and over. Our approach is proving itself now." Paris-Roubaix remains the big goal for Ganna.
"They decide more than most people realise."
Jakob Fuglsang on motorbikes, racing dynamics, and what the UCI is getting wrong
Jakob Fuglsang retired last year after 16 years as a professional. That distance hasn't softened his view on motorbikes. Speaking to Feltet, he joined a growing chorus of voices in the peloton who believe the issue is structural and decisive.
"I have held this view for several years: motorbikes decide more than almost anything else. They determine whether the rider who gets away holds on, depending on how close they are."
Fuglsang is specific about the mechanism: "The trick is to attack first. Because if you do, you get the motorbike's draft, and then they can't catch you even if four of them are riding and working together. Mathieu van der Poel probably wouldn't have won E3 if he hadn't had a motorbike leading the way. It was one man against four."
He describes a strategic culture that developed at teams like Quick-Step when they rode the Belgian Classics: attack first, catch the motorbike's draft, use the slipstream to stay away. "The motorbikes can't easily pull clear because the roads are so winding, and they need decent TV pictures."
On the UCI's priorities, Fuglsang is blunt. "When they talk about limiting gearing to reduce speeds in the peloton, I think: it's not the gearing that makes the difference. It's the motorbikes. When the rider at the front of the bunch has a motorbike just a bit too close, he can ride faster than the rider in 100th place."
His solution: move them further back first, and then, he admits with some self-awareness, try to get a gentleman's agreement in the peloton not to chase them. "Which will probably never work. But that's my naive hope."
"If I wasn't conscious, how could they ever have found me?"
Marlen Reusser on GPS trackers, a crash in a thorn field, and why it's personal
The debate around GPS trackers in cycling has names attached to it now. Muriel Furrer. Gino Mäder. And, less publicly, Marlen Reusser. Speaking to CyclingNews at Dwars door Vlaanderen, the Swiss rider placed her own experience alongside those losses.
"In Switzerland, the cycling community, the organizers — Tour de Suisse, Tour de Romandie — are very aware of this problem and are pushing, as you know. Tour de Suisse is also pushing to have these trackers after the case of Muriel and also the case of Gino Mäder. So I think there is a lot of awareness and I am also really happy that this is going forward."
The road to implementation has not been smooth. Teams were disqualified at the women's Tour de Romandie for refusing a GPS tracker test, with disagreements over how the devices would be fitted and who owned the data. At the Tour de Suisse, teams could opt out.
What makes Reusser's voice different is that she is not speaking from principle alone. "I also had this experience once when I was new in cycling and I crashed out of a corner in a Spanish race and I was wrapped into a thorn field down the hill somehow and they couldn't find me. Only because I was still conscious, but I was really wrapped up, I was on my bike, and suddenly I could hear that my team car turned and was out of the race just to search for me. After I don't know how long, I suddenly heard them and I could say 'you're coming closer, I hear you' and then after maybe an hour they found me."
That moment, five or six years ago, is when she started thinking about the problem. "Then I was thinking, if I was not conscious, then how could they ever find me? Not in races like here in Belgium, we have a lot of people, you know where people are, it's open fields, but in stage races in the middle of nowhere, it's a good thing to have."
"Finally I could beat that old guy"
Peter Sagan on Tadej Pogačar, his own exit, and what he'd tell the best rider in the world
Ten years after winning Flanders, Peter Sagan is watching cycling from a distance. In an interview with Het Nieuwsblad, the Slovak is reflective, dry, and clear-eyed about what he's left behind.
On Tadej Pogačar, the admiration is genuine but the edge is there. "For the sport, Pogačar is amazing. They should just let him race in a separate category. The WorldTour is too small for him. Because of that, he makes cycling boring in a certain way. You can't put it any other way."
On the question of Milano-Sanremo, Sagan puts it precisely: "There is only one reason why Milan-San Remo was interesting this year: because he crashed and we suddenly got a great battle. Even I never thought he would still attack on the Cipressa after his crash. But Pogačar is crazy enough to do even that. They sometimes say that racing isn't a PlayStation. Well, for him, it is. Even easier than a PlayStation."
When asked to compare his own 2016 Flanders solo with Pogačar's approach today, Sagan is characteristically honest. "Tadej Pogačar rides away 120km from the finish. Times have changed. I was much smarter. I did like winning races, but I didn't like suffering. If I could choose between an attack from afar or staying in the peloton for another 50km and then attacking, I would choose the latter. That was easier. Less pain."
The Flanders win itself, he remembers differently than most might expect: "What I liked most? Who finished second. Fabian Cancellara. I had been second or third behind him so many times. Finally I could beat that old guy."
His last years of racing are described without sentiment. "The last three years were a nightmare. More and more often I asked myself: 'What am I doing here? I should be at home with my son.'"
He knows Pogačar's life firsthand, and the advice he offers carries that weight. "I've already talked to him about that once. Of course, he has won much more than I have, but the life he is leading now is the life I was leading ten years ago. And honestly: I'd rather him than me. I was a pro for 14 years, I've had my share of fame. I don't need it anymore." His one piece of advice to Pogačar: "Live your life and your career the way you want. Which isn't easy when you're in the middle of it."
"Between 2028 and 2033, I want to win Paris-Roubaix."
Per Strand Hagenes on growing up near Stavanger, a lost pandemic year that wasn't, and building toward a dream race
Per Strand Hagenes is 22 and already has a plan. Following his second place at the E3 Saxo Classic, WielerFlits published an in-depth profile of the Visma | Lease a Bike rider, tracing the path from a small cycling community near Stavanger to the front of the Belgian Classics.
The beginning of it was unremarkable, which is almost the point. He started riding because his neighbour did. "It wasn't until my neighbour started road cycling at some point. That was Johan Ravnøy. After that I started too. Until 2015 or 2016, I barely watched cycling. Of course I knew Thor Hushovd and Alexander Kristoff."
Then came the pandemic year, 2020, which the cycling world generally treated as lost time for his generation. Strand Hagenes experienced it differently. "I only raced in Norway. At national level I had some good results. I beat Johannes Staune-Mittet a few times, and I knew he was a quality rider. When I knew that, I thought: okay, then I could probably do well as a cyclist myself." The absence of travel and school meant training quality jumped. "The volume would have been considerably lower otherwise."
2021 arrived and the results confirmed it. He won the Peace Race, finished second in the road race at the European Championships, and won the junior world title in Leuven.
Still, the trajectory was managed carefully. "For me, a guided path to the top was a better route. My strength lies in punchy efforts of around a minute. That's where I've always made the difference." The Visma | Lease a Bike door opened after he outperformed Staune-Mittet in 2020, and the Dutch team's professionalism aligned with what he'd already come to expect from the Norwegian system.
His idol was Peter Sagan: "He really inspired me to go for it." His dream race is Paris-Roubaix, shaped partly by his father's stories of riding the sportive version. "For me it's simply the best race. The best doesn't always win. That means something." The target window is specific: "Between 2028 and 2033, I want to win Paris-Roubaix."
🏆 THE SERGE BAGUET AWARD
Not awarded today
Wonder what The Serge Baguet Award is all about? Check it out here.
💬 QUICK QUOTES
"It was the first time I got hate messages and small threats. I wasn't doing well. It hit harder than I expected, but I've managed to find a way to deal with it now." — Florian Vermeersch, Vive le vélo, after receiving abuse for trying to chase down Wout van Aert in the finale of Dwars door Vlaanderen.
"I had nothing left, I had cramps." — Florian Vermeersch, Vive le vélo, on why he was dropped by Filippo Ganna in the final kilometers of Dwars door Vlaanderen.
"In the Ronde van Vlaanderen you also come across a lot of potholes in the roads." — Dylan van Baarle, Vive le Vélo, a dry dig at Remco Evenepoel's crash at the Volta Ciclista a Catalunya.
"My first thought was that I know why he took it easy in Catalunya... No, my first thought was I will call Jonas now that he comes here." — Grischa Niermann, sports director at Visma | Lease a Bike, Domestique, joking about the news of Remco Evenepoel's entry into the Ronde van Vlaanderen.
"I don't think that Wout, Mathieu and Remco are going to gang up on Pogačar as a trio. All four of them want to be the first over the line. I think Pogačar is so good that he has the legs to simply neutralise any kind of alliance anyway. So yes, would they be stronger against him with a pact? Maybe. But if he goes on the hard climbs — the Koppenberg, the Taaienberg, the Oude Kruisberg — he can just close 20 seconds on those guys whenever he wants." — Dylan van Baarle, NOS Wielerpodcast.
"It wasn't in the plan, but it was handled in the best possible way." — Richard Carapaz, as reported by Marca, on undergoing unexpected surgery for a perineal condition just five weeks before the Giro d'Italia.
"I reckon my motivation will decrease in the coming years, and we'll have to find something to keep motivating me." — Tadej Pogačar, Vive le vélo.
"First, you need to survive the first two, three hours of obstacles where you're fighting with the whole peloton for position. And that was the moment that I really hated the Tour of Flanders. And I was thinking, what am I doing here? I hate it. Why did I think I was so looking forward to Tour of Flanders because I hate this fight for positioning." — Annemiek van Vleuten, Domestique Cycling Podcast, the two-time Ronde van Vlaanderen winner on her genuine love-hate relationship with the race.
"It is also crazy that you are racing, and suddenly you are forming a team with your biggest competitors of the whole year. Sometimes I make the comparison like: you are working in your job, and suddenly one time per year you are with your biggest rivals and you need to finish a project — a one-day project. And on top of that, you also need to sleep with that person in the same room. So you are sleeping with your biggest rival. And then I see people from business thinking, 'Oh yeah, maybe it is not so weird that it is a bit hard.' We are wearing the same jersey, but yeah — in 99% of races, you are fighting each other." — Annemiek van Vleuten, Domestique Cycling Podcast, on the structural absurdity of the national team setup at the World Championships.
"I was sitting at the dinner table, and one of the lads was saying that it takes three times the amount of time you had off to build back up the form you had, and I said, 'for fucks sake, that means I won't be ready until I'm 40.'" — Sam Bennett, Daniel Benson Substack, on his comeback after heart surgery.
That's it for today. See you tomorrow 👋
Jay