Episode 222
Tour de France special.
SPONSOR: Jenson USA
Sunday 28th July 2019
HOST: Carlton Reid
GUESTS:
Attorney Jim Moss
Joe Robinson, writer for Cyclist magazine
Casper Hughes of Rollapaluza and Stop Killing Cyclists
TOPICS: Tour de France special.
We talk NBC Sports and Lance Armstrong’s rehabilitation as a Tour de France pundit
Capping of team budgets.
Freaky weather at the Tour, the heat as well as snow storms in July, The first – but definitely note the last – Tour de France adversely impacted by climate change.
Could 22-year-old Colombian phenom Egal Bernal go on to win another 10 tours?
Apple should create an iTunes category for “Cycling”.
Main pic by A.S.O./Pauline BALLET
Alternatively:
SHOW TRANSCRIPT
Machine transcribed, pardon any mistakes.
Welcome to Episode 222 of the Spokesmen Cycling Roundtable Podcast. This show was recorded on Sunday 28th of July 2019. The spokesmen cycling roundtable podcast is brought to you by Jensen USA, where you’ll always find a great selection of products at amazing prices with unparalleled customer service. For more information, just go to Jensonusa.com/the spokesmen. Hey everybody, it’s David from the Fredcast cycling podcast at www.theFred cast.com. I’m one of the hosts and producers of the spokesman cycling roundtable podcast. For show notes, links and all sorts of other information please visit our website.
1:00
And now, here are the spokesmen. Hi there. I’m Carlton Reid, and I’m glad to report that for today’s episode – a Tour de France special – we’ve dragged out of storage, the roundtable part of this podcast. We’ve got a new guest on the show today as we say hi to Joe Robinson, a writer on Cyclist magazine. Show regular attorney Jim Moss joins us from Denver, Colorado a few minutes after we started. And we also have Casper Hughes of Rollapaluza and the Stop Killing Cyclists campaign group. We talk NBC Sports, Lance Armstrong’s rehabilitation as a tour de france pundit, capping of team budgets and the awful Team Ineos typography. We also chat about that
Carlton Reid 2:00
freaky weather at the tour, the heat as well as the snow storms in July, and whether 22 year old Colombian phenom Egan Burnal now could go on to win another 10 tours
Carlton Reid 2:15
For that he’d need some epic and high mountain stages. But as we also discuss climate change may mean that future two different stages could look very different in the near future.
Carlton Reid 2:29
And it is nearly time for the Tour de France finale – the last day of the Tour de France. It’s actually another evening kickoff as it were for for Egan Burnal. To see if he does keep that yellow jersey which 99.9% of every final stage you’re going to keep that final jersey. But I’m going to come to today’s guests and we’re going to discuss what’s been a pretty much a pretty boring Tour de France Joe Joe is it’s been the most boring tour for the past 20 years.
Joe Robinson 3:00
It’s been a perfect three weeks to get some naps in during the day.
Mixed Speakers 3:07
So, Joe, where you haven’t been on the show before my next guest tonight laughing there has been on the show before. But Joe, where do you come from? Why we got you on the show today. So I’m Joe Robinson. I’m one of the writers for Cyclist magazine in the UK and the website there as well, which is a fabulous magazine. So what what kind of articles do you write Joe? So everything from lots of travel pieces for the magazine about riding abroad in Europe and around the world or professional cycling articles about the Tour de France on our website. So it’s quite a wide ranging
Carlton Reid 3:42
sort of brand now with the internet.
Carlton Reid 3:45
So Jim is actually joining us here from from America, which and I was going to just point out there that to American listeners of this show, that you are an award winning website, Joe UM, magazine you like
Joe Robinson 4:00
We are we are like your top mag. We are we are an award winning magazine that’s magazine I think we won the magazine of the year two years on the trot a couple of years ago.
Joe Robinson 4:11
We are I think still the highest circulating magazine worldwide cycling
Joe Robinson 4:17
and we also have editions in France, Turkey.
Carlton Reid 4:21
Italy, around the world. So yeah, very very I would have to stop you there and just say that can be pretty tough because mags like Bicycling have hundreds and hundreds of thousands of subscribers. So it’s it’d be tough to get it to Bicycling
Carlton Reid 4:37
will we’ll get on to your your fantastic magazine in a minute. first before I bring in Casper. I’m going to try and bring in Jim Jim, are you there? I’m here. Can you hear me? I can hear you because normally we do microphone setups beforehand. We haven’t been able to do that with you. So I just hope you’re golden as per last time Jim, should be
Carlton Reid 4:55
Jim, I’m gonna tell you you’ve got on the show here because you didn’t come on.
Mixed speakers 5:00
The the preamble so we introduced Joe . Did you hear Joe’s intro there, Jim? Yes, he’s got a magazine. It’s so good even in Turkey. Excellent, perfect. Joe. Jim is a US Attorney. So you can say hi to him. But I will now bring in our bringing Jim completely in a second but for right now, Casper, Casper, you have been on the show before. But that doesn’t mean to say you can’t introduce yourself again. So to tell us exactly where you’re where you’ve come from.
Casper Hughes 5:33
So I am Casper Hughes I started a road racing company. 12 years ago, the cycle career started about racing company and
Casper Hughes 5:42
with that company pretty much reintroduced road racing to the, to the to Europe, basically, having had hundreds of thousands of races, probably 100,000 races already in the last decade or there about 12 years. We’ve been going
Casper Hughes 6:00
It’s going to come to an end soon and and the other thing that I do is quite a bit of active transport, project management and a little bit of consultancy, and I’m an active
Carlton Reid 6:17
activist and increasing week more so that stop killing cyclists and extinction rebellion I presume
Carlton Reid 6:26
that stop killing cyclists an extinction rebellion. Exactly, yes. Yep. Okay. Jim, you’ve come on the show. A couple of minutes after we started up. I think you’ve heard pretty much everything. I kind of saw your little wave form come up there. So I’m assuming you’re in Colorado, you’re not somewhere exotic at the moment. You have. Colorado is exotic, of course. But you’re not. You’re in your home state. Yes. I’m home in Colorado. Right. Perfect. And maybe you heard when I was introducing Joe to say it’s kind of a boring to
Carlton Reid 7:00
This year would you agree, Jim? No.
Jim Moss 7:04
Absolutely not. It’s been the most exciting tour we’ve had in 10 years. In fact, everybody I’ve talked to is talking about the tour because it’s so exciting. Because there’s no predetermined winner. No, but there is today, but yes, I see what you mean. But now, yeah, I mean, it’s it’s every day that I mean, everyday people been talking about the tour, because no one knew who was going to win. I mean, it’s actually a topic of conversation here in the United States for the first time in years.
Jim Moss 7:34
I was at the dentist two weeks ago and he started talking about the tour. And of course, I was all dentist ride bikes. JM old dentist right by $10,000 bikes. Come on. Okay, well, that’s not a good example, dentists. Jim, you in the show notes you put something about we won’t
Jim Moss 7:55
assume we don’t burn here apart from this is on podcast, but you you’re talking about
Mixed Speakers 8:00
Lance Armstrong’s
Carlton Reid 8:02
comedy duties. Yeah. So tell it tell us a little bit before we get into the the tour itself. Let’s let you tell us about Lance Armstrong’s commentary and what it’s been like and how people are responding to that.
Jim Moss 8:14
In the last 365 days, Lance Armstrong, in it from what I’ve been listening to is gone from
Jim Moss 8:25
a scourge to a hero
Jim Moss 8:29
that he was still in Aspen. I’m 90% sure, but they would bring him in once a day most days. For his opinion more of a more of a Jens Voigt type of opinion on Who do you thinks gonna win? How’s it going? that type of stuff and he was loved.
Jim Moss 8:50
I mean, if it went over big time, that’s a rehabilitation. So what what station was this on Jim? NBC Sports which was carrying the race
Jim Moss 9:03
would bring him in and and here again, when I was at the dentist my dentist said that he listens to the pod via Lance’s podcast and loves them has nothing negative to say about Lance. And when I brought up the doping he said well the you know they haven’t given these jerseys away because everybody else was doping.
Carlton Reid 9:24
So in Europe Jim we’ve we’ve got a choice we can watch Eurosport we can watch a TV with there’s a few different ways of watching the two if we want to on on TV is NBC The only way you can watch it? Can you switch channels or no on TV The only way I can watch it is MBC.
Jim Moss 9:42
And that’s even in its own weird way. And we have NBC Sports, which broadcasts the show.
Jim Moss 9:51
Monday through Friday, usually live show 4, 5, or 6 in the morning, depending on when the race starts. And then there’s a race
Jim Moss 10:00
broadcasts edited version usually at 10. And one seven, sometimes 10 o’clock at night, the weekends and this show is on NBC, the main show, but it’s only on like one o’clock. So yesterday I missed, you know, all I could see was a YouTube version of the show because I was writing at one o’clock and missed a show because they don’t show on NBC Sports and the way they show it on NBC. And that’s such a if you’ve got only so as I say that’s not because of
Jim Moss 10:33
sports channels in America. It’s just because it’s competing with so much golf. Yeah. And NASCAR and, and football training has started. During my ride. I went past the football stadium football meeting the American sport here.
Jim Moss 10:52
And they they had the Denver Broncos had a practice and they let out the
Jim Moss 11:00
Practice, right as we were coming through, and we were literally crawling through throngs of people in orange jerseys who just watch people practice.
Carlton Reid 11:12
It’s hilarious. So where I was going with that was that because you’ve only got that one channel, you can’t really avoid Lance Armstrong and in the UK if we if we’ve got a if somebody doesn’t like David Millar, who’s one of the commentators here, you can switch and you can watch you know, one or two other channels. So you can’t in the US, you’ve got Lance Armstrong, the whether you like it or not, yeah, he’s not on the YouTube report that we can access but he’s he’s on NBC and you cannot miss it. But but I have not heard any negative about it, not one and and the first time he popped on I was like, you know, shocked.
Jim Moss 11:52
hadn’t really read the news, lead ups here in the US too, because they’re sort of
Unknown Speaker 11:58
well, just stupid.
Jim Moss 12:01
You know the advertising for it and all of a sudden he’s there and next time he’s there and and in all honesty I thought he did a good job. I mean he was
Jim Moss Joe Robinson 12:12
you know, he knew what he’s talking about he gave solid statements and of course it was who’s gonna win tomorrow and who’s gonna win the Tour? And he said I don’t know because because and it was it was good he did a good job. So Joe How do you watch the the what do you what channels are you watching? I go for Eurosport predominantly over ITV. So we have to obviously we have the two options in the UK of European ITV but I stick with us for as it’s for how I watch you know all of my cycling throughout the year not because I have a preference on commentators or not because I object to David Millar being at being a commentator despite his past I just yeah, it’s creature of habit was this one I guess.
Joe Robinson 12:57
It’s
Joe Robinson 12:59
I think
Joe Robinson 13:00
The UK I mean, I’ve seen a lot of this sort of controversy around Lance commentating in America. And in one one aspect I do get it because Lance’s situation is unique. It’s not like other people, other riders in cycling who don’t. There’s the entire backstory of the bullying etc. But then people that are outspoken about Lance, commentating and have an opinion on cycling, you know, do you do sports adverts for the last three weeks I’ve had an advert for Festina watches that’s had Richard Virenque,
Joe Robinson 13:39
you know, tested positive in his career, you know, the whole sport is still awash with people that tested positive so because Lance has come in back in and is now offering his opinion i i’m not necessarily one of those saying that it’s wrong.
Joe Robinson 13:54
And I think as long as as long as we understand what launch did and and that’s never forget
Joe Robinson 14:02
I don’t see why there’s not room for him to offer these opinions and have his own podcast etc and people want to listen to his opinion people do is he’s got a very successful podcast and and that’s not because it’s because he says interesting stuff and he was at that top level of the sport not too very long day so people respect still respect for yesterday and I you know, admittedly he said some stuff that I find very interesting sometimes I don’t agree with what he says, but that’s that’s life isn’t it?
Carlton Reid 14:31
Hmm So Casper, how do you watch
Casper Hughes 14:36
it before? It’s it’s shortened distinct tonight. I haven’t got as much time to watch it as I would love to basically watch the record highlights at seven o’clock.
Casper Hughes 14:48
Yeah, yeah. It’s interesting talking about Lance Armstrong though, because he was that explosion in popularity in US when when he was with
Casper Hughes 15:00
Too much was when I was walking to
Casper Hughes 15:06
London and that’s not the sort of my way in the walk in the grand tools. And, you know, he’s given me this real mixed relationship with him since because, you know, it was it was really fascinating time for deciding for me to get involved and watch it and and and then learn about it and especially learning from it we were we were really fortunate with the company I was working with we had the he was frequently the Dutch Junior national champion was working with us, in particularly gave me a real schooling in,
Casper Hughes 15:42
in how doping the history of cycling and in cycles racing on the continent and on the depth of the relationship between the two. And you know that that at the time when I was watching this and then watching it all unfold was just just really, really fast.
Casper Hughes 16:00
It’s
Casper Hughes 16:02
time to be involved in getting into watching cycling and obviously you know like like Joe was saying it’s trippy you know
Carlton Reid 16:17
and there’s also liked everything there is still so many people that are from that recent past and it’s it’s just it’s just as fascinated by now as it was then. Probably with a lot less debut believer Bradley Wiggins hasn’t got a he’s one of the other commentators on your sport on the motorbike he hasn’t got a totally squeaky clean
Carlton Reid 16:43
backstory because of the overhanging Jiffy bag thing, Joe so you really can’t you can’t you can’t escape but you’re gonna have a commentator on on cycling who’s you know,
Carlton Reid 16:55
by absolute didn’t have you need the experts on the experts who are probably the people who are riding today.
Joe Robinson 17:00
1520 years ago, well, that was the doping year. So yeah, that you’re going to have a lot of doping people commentating on site. No one, no one wants to hear the opinion of the man who finished 120. Third at the 1989 Tour de France. No one. No one really cares what someone like Edwin van Hoyt on has to say about cycling. Because not a household name. People want to know what Armstrong has to say people are into interest in what marks have to say that feel free to
Joe Robinson 17:28
be it will idolise him well.
Jim Moss 17:31
One day the Americans had Bradley weekend come over from his commentary, and he showed up at a T shirt, the white t shirt, you know, and talked about
Jim Moss 17:43
what he was doing and his ideas of the race. And it was it was quite hilarious, actually.
Jim Moss 17:48
To bring in somebody to bring in Bradley Wiggins for the American broadcast.
Carlton Reid 17:55
Well, I’ll just tell you that I actually watched ITV,
Carlton Reid 18:00
And I think it is more as Joe was saying it’s more of a
Carlton Reid 18:05
it’s kind of a habit I just have. I’ve always grabbed grew up with watching it on TV in the Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwin era and I just kept on going and so I think Ned Boulting is excellent.
Carlton Reid 18:19
I used to like obviously Chris Boardman and and his comments he’s not there this year I think that’s a big a big Miss not having Chris Boardman there because he was another person you had a unbelievably good linguistic knowledge of. You know that the top right is that the Tour de France so that’s a huge mess not to have Chris there but I watch TV. And like Casper, I would probably watch 70% I’d watch recorded as in the evening shows, and then only the shows that are
Carlton Reid 18:53
I’d watch live will be like maybe the top three of the the mountain stages. I’d watch
Carlton Reid 19:00
The last two or three hours of of that.
Carlton Reid 19:03
So, show coming back to you and because we started off by talking about
Carlton Reid 19:09
what kind of a tour this was this Yeah. Did you have any inkling it would be Egan Bernal? Did you have any like sweepstakes in the office? Hi, Emmys I’m very partial to the Flatiron cycling.
Joe Robinson 19:25
always have been. And I did did believe but now with podium.
Joe Robinson 19:31
I
Joe Robinson 19:33
will I be I believe to podium I still believe that they would have you know, Geraint Thomas would have been the number one choice and I believe that and Thomas is probably the number one choice and it all changed because of do the analysis leap.
Joe Robinson 19:47
I don’t think anyone could have expected what Alaphilippe did during this tour to have happened. And if Alaphilippe got dropped on the Tourmalet we would probably be seeing I reckon Geraint Thomas riding into
Joe Robinson 20:00
Paris in yellow today because would only last time on that stage he would have been in here to finish the day in yellow and team in your sort of been able to defend it until Paris whether the you know the weather that had happened in the last week it happened or not. I think because of other Felipe lighting up the stage to pain I was as well was a threatened to obviously have to drop out for injury. They had to change their tactic and the man to shake things up Zika now
Joe Robinson 20:29
and I
Joe Robinson 20:31
feel like but now is probably a new wave for cycling. I feel like there’s maybe a changing of the guard. I’m not a massive fan of that that phrase, but I think he’s 22 he’s won a tour de france and that could be the next decade of the sport almost.
Joe Robinson 20:47
He’s got eight years of Jersey wins here has, he’s got he’s got anybody any is I reckon I think, you know, he’s 10 years younger than Geraint Thomas is now he’s 12 years younger than …
Joe Robinson 21:00
is now we still touted them as the first two favourites to three months ago. So, and if he if too many are still exist, and they still have the money that they have for the next five years, I don’t I think will be very hard to match.
Carlton Reid 21:16
Where do you stand? I’ll go with everybody else here. I’ll start with you, Joe, where do you stand on the concept of putting caps on how much you can spend on a team player? Yeah.
Joe Robinson 21:26
I think it’s a good idea in practice. But having seen it from other sports, it doesn’t always necessarily work. Firstly, there’s always ways to get around spending caps
Joe Robinson 21:39
because Okay, I can cap a team to 20 million euros a year in their budget. But as we’ve seen, funnily enough we rugby union in the UK recently is that I can pay you X amount but if I give you this button over, invest in businesses, etc, that doesn’t count but
Joe Robinson 21:57
it can be attractive and
Joe Robinson 22:00
I don’t necessarily know if that’s the first that’s the solution to what’s happening and Tour de France
Carlton Reid 22:09
and Casper Do you Sorry I know. Casper Do you? Do you think there should be a cap on the amount of spend because Ineos is clearly so far ahead of every other team even though it’s only six months ago didn’t exist but Team Ineos – neé Team Sky – Brailsford wherever he puts his hand to he gets the big bucks and then he can he can get the best riders do you do you think that’s a hindrance to the sport? Should there be a cap?
Casper Hughes 22:36
Yes, yeah, I think they should be I think they should be a cap – even with creative accounting and other methods being able to to to access funding that would content that capital I still think level the playing field and make make the racing interesting.
Jim Moss 23:00
You know, that last night, I was watching the race on on TV with two friends. Both cyclists, both longtime cyclists. And
Jim Moss 23:09
you know when when we saw for ourselves who was winning what the first comment was, money buys a victory. And that was in I mean, it’s I mean, Alaphilippe had nobody support him the last few days his team was basically dead.
Jim Moss 23:25
And as Phil Liggett here in the US says, yellow jersey gives you the strength of two men. You know, he was he was riding on his own and writing like a madman and was doing a good job if you would have had team would have had some money might have had some more support and it might have been a little bit different.
Joe Robinson 23:45
I gotta jump in with the spending cap. When you look at it. Team Sky/ Team Ineos have not spent that much more than some other teams in the world tour, notably Bahrain-Merida have not too dissimilar
Joe Robinson 24:00
sort of structure, and BMC – when they existed had a very similar budget to Ineos – gone over the sort of 30 million mark before and have not performed the same way. I think what happens is Team Ineos is a one race team, and everything they do is geared towards winning a yellow jersey in July.
Joe Robinson 24:21
Deceuninck–Quick-Step don’t do that. Other teams don’t do that. They have multiple goals during the season, they want to win monuments, they want to win one week races team and Ineos could go for a whole year not having won anything. But as long as they win the Tour de France in July then they’re pretty happy.
Joe Robinson 24:39
it see you know, if used to cut their budget by 15 million, they’d go Okay, that’s fine. We’ll just get rid of x, y and Z from the roster who races in the one day classics and the the one week races and we’ll just keep on the light to Burnal and Thomas and for him, and we’ll still win the Tour de France and if you said okay
Joe Robinson 25:00
He took the budget cap is now 20 million. They’re already paying that they’re already paying out a million. So they’re not going to have the money to bring in someone like an hour. Thomas. I don’t think the talent that much. I think if another team came in, I think somebody like Jumbo This is an interesting example with Jumbo. This man decided to take grant or racing seriously, which they are. And it looks like they’re going to bring in tonnes of new land from Team somewhere. Now that’s a team that could, despite not having the same page structure, but they would be completely building a team for grand tours the same way in which Mitchelton-SCOTT have started to work then they were all about racing for grand tours and who they buy is very much dictated on who can help the twins. And that I mean, that’s how you challenge Team Ineos and Team Sky and that domination which is you know, ultimately the problem. It’s not so much the the pay if if team in the US were paying 14 million euros a year in terms of its budget but didn’t win the Tour de France every year.
Carlton Reid 26:00
Can we really be that concerned?
Carlton Reid 26:03
is it Brailsford? Than it? Is that then the secret ingredient not the money? It’s not even the members of the team. Perhaps it’s actually Brailsford is the one who’s the one who’s he’s his masterminded these, what is it seven victories now?
Joe Robinson
Yeah, I think it’s a combination of things. I think it’s the combination of that they have probably had the best team manager, and maybe in terms of being able to orchestrate and to build a team. Yes, the money does play a part. But I think it’s just their their whole team’s focus that the fact that they will buy into winning the other jersey
Joe Robinson 26:37
You know, riders who are riders who are looking for opportunities have gotten there in the past people like Viviani, Mark Cavendish, and it hasn’t worked because they get forgotten about these are incredible riders who when you incredible races throughout the year, Team Sky were not interested in that. They were interested in anything that could help Bradley Wiggins, Chris Froome, Geraint Thomas, and now Egal Bernal.
Carlton Reid 27:00
Joe, you mentioned Team Sky there. So I’d actually like to jump in and talk about this to Casper. And that is are you now more likely to favour fracking in the UK? Now that there’s this wonderful Tour de France team, called this wonderful company in your town never have before. You know, who are they? Oh, they do all this lovely fracking. Is this something that you decry from the rooftops Casper that there’s a there’s this kind of company is into cycle sport?
Casper Hughes 27:29
Yes.
Casper Hughes 27:32
And, you know, at a national level HSBC as well, unfortunately. But yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean,
Casper Hughes 27:43
I mean, where do you start with with [Jim] Radcliffe from fracking? He’s, he said
Casper Hughes 27:48
that the
Casper Hughes 27:51
absolutely dreadful procedure. And certainly not where we should be looking at automation really have anything to do with fracking whatsoever.
Carlton Reid 28:00
And,
Carlton Reid 28:02
Joe, can I just ask a question about the funding for these teams is the the longevity of the funding for sky and now Anything else? Is there any other teams that have matched that level of funding for that link?
Joe Robinson 28:16
No, I don’t think there’s any of that sort of.
Joe Robinson 28:20
Actually Movistar, I think Movistar have confirmed that they’re going to go through to 2023 and that’s a pretty stable financial base for the Spanish team. It’s been there for I think 40 years now.
Joe Robinson 28:34
And I think a couple of the other teams have got a long longer term structure, but none as secure. I don’t think there’s anything else or definitely secure and as sort of fruitful as anything else will have.
Carlton Reid 28:47
I mean, Ineos did keep the team intact. Ratcliffe has kept the team intact, but it didn’t exist six months ago. You know Brailsford was going around the world looking for people with with with money.
Carlton Reid 29:00
Money. And he founded it, in Ineos. I’m coming to Jim here. Jim, fracking in the US is a really normal thing. And the Europe, it’s still an incredibly contentious issue. is the fact any offices that had any coverage in the US of what is this team in yours? Who, where they come from? It’s just this fracking company, or is it?
Jim Moss
It’s, it’s hasn’t registered on the US audiences at all. It hasn’t registered at all. The only people that know what Team Ineos does that that affects them are those who are really into cycling because we’re following the industry on a day to day basis.
Jim Moss 29:41
So everybody I’ve talked to the only people who who know are the ones that that either I’ve taught about based on my conversations with you, or are really, really into the cycling world the rest of the world doesn’t care or know and in all honesty, here in the United States
Jim Mos 30:00
We’ve been doing it for so long it is not an issue whatsoever. Even it’s so for the people who even know it’s like that we frack it’s Wow, we get more oil and gas out.
Jim Moss 30:11
Well and here in Colorado, of course, we frack our wells for our water wells because so many people are on a … system in the mountains so they frack them to get more water out of their wells when their wells starts to dry so it’s it’s no issue here in the United States at all.
Carlton Reid 30:31
But Caspar with you but it would it would it does it put you off Pro Cycling a bit that Team Ineos is now part of the setup?
Caspar Hughes 30:41
I guess
Casper Hughes 30:44
a number of reasons not the protest as well but but the man to you know, he’s he’s massive tax … He should paying tax rather than fronting a fracking cycling team.
Carlton Reid 31:00
I guess there’s not that many people in the UK have ever heard of Ineos so it is it is this is pretty much their first really raising above the the parapet, raising their their profile. So, Caspar, but I know you wouldn’t buy anything from Ineos because of … but do you buy Quickstep laminate flooring, you know, all these names in cycling that we know so well and they do these really obscure things like you know, Quickstep is is is tiles and laminate flooring and so are you influenced? Are you influenced by what a team is called?
Caspar Hughes 31:40
The sponsor? I’m not no no. But you know what? No, you know, Quickstep though
Carlton Reid 31:46
you know the name Quickstep because of cycling. You don’t know if many other any other place.
Caspar Hughes 31:52
Yeah, and the same for Alpecin either
Caspar Hughes 32:00
And Sky, but then certainly I wouldn’t touch anything with Murdoch’s name on it.
Carlton Reid
That’s a good point in yours is like it’s just
Carlton Reid 32:09
the fire into the into the frying pan into the fire was it was a pretty contentious team before wasn’t it Really? So?
Jim Moss 32:16
Now obviously these guys name
Jim Moss 32:18
names going on and better. But yeah, I mean it completely is
Jim Moss 32:24
an enterprise here in the United States. The names are just comical. Nobody understands what they mean nobody I mean the last time I team was recognised here in the United States was called US Postal Service.
Carlton Reid 32:36
And that’ went well…
Jim Moss 32:41
And then the other the other name The only other name that’s known as as and they’re gone also, which would be the the jelly belly sport beans.
Jim Moss 32:52
And that’s it and that’s because mainly their jersey was so
Jim Moss 32:56
you could see themm coming two miles away the cause of the other than that nobody
Jim Moss 33:00
Yes, what team names are in here in the US? It’s hilarious the questions you get.
Jim Moss 33:07
And people people just think it’s a name somebody came up with the race, you know, and and no clue that it’s connected to the marketing or the payment or the, you know, how the team is put together. T
Joe Robinson
This is also not a new problem for cycling. It’s, you know, Eddy Merckx raced for a team sponsored by BP
Joe Robinson 33:28
you know, Shell sponsored cycling things.
Joe Robinson 33:32
There’s another team that the Tour de France sponsored by Total, which is a massive fossil fuel French fossil fuel company.
Joe Robinson 33:41
So it’s not it’s not a new problem. It’s just that the biggest team in the world have the most money has bought them on as a sponsor. So it’s more under the spotlight.
Joe Robinson 33:51
And I think you know, whether that’s that is rightfully so maybe we should scrutinise where sponsors come in from the sport you know, we have we will
Joe Robinson 34:00
some nation state sponsored world for teams that don’t have the cleanest world you know, human rights record.
Carlton Reid 34:07
So maybe this is so there’s a lot of green green, a lot of green washing going on a lot of nation state washing there’s an awful lot of trying to scrub up.
Joe Robinson
Yeah, maybe that should should put more of a spotlight on where the money comes into our sport because
Carlton Reid 34:24
Should it though because we it’s not a rich sport
Carlton Reid 34:28
in grand scheme of things?
Joe Robinson 34:32
It’s sometimes it’s may be necessary, you know, it’s
Joe Robinson 34:36
just because it’s happening doesn’t mean it’s right.
Joe Robinson 34:40
And I would, would we be okay, if any of us were replaced by a less wealthy team that couldn’t pump as much money into the sport and make cycling as big as it is in the UK, but they are green and greener. I think we’d all be okay with that. Would the general person on the street be okay with that? I’m not sure I don’t think they care now.
Joe Robinson 35:00
A lot of people wouldn’t be to
Joe Robinson 35:02
sort of hit neither here or there about it
Carlton Reid 35:06
hmm I I object to the Ineos logo I hate the logo typographical point of view – who designed that awful logo? fresh and then I might come into your like your team
Jim Moss 35:20
see here in the US Cycling is such an far out fringe sport that I don’t think it would matter what so ever. What they did I think the bigger issue would be if there’s not enough money and not enough interest to get it on TV once a year. I mean, I remember this is our only this is the only cycling show cycling race you can see unless
Jim Moss 35:44
you have access to local TV and are watching local races.
Jim Moss 35:50
I think it’d be a disaster
Jim Moss 35:53
because it’s it’s Are you know, the US is so far out there and yet it’s such a big market. So it’ll be interesting.
Carlton Reid 36:00
So Team Ineos is a is a British team, it’s got a Colombian won’t need mustn’t say who’s going to win tonight because you may be there’s somebody there’s a a crash and Bernal going to win all doesn’t win tonight, but 99% of chance he is going to win tonight. So we’ve got a Colombian who’s going to win for British team tonight.
Joe Robinson
Could I just ask about the ceremonial stages – people’s opinion on it?
Joe Robinson 36:23
Partly because I’ve heard a lot of anger on social media that stage 21 of the Tour de France is ceremonial.
Joe Robinson 36:30
But I don’t understand the anger because the Tour de France will end in Paris, regardless of where it’s ceremonial or not. It’s it’s been tradition for the best part of 40, 50 years now. It’s a flat stage in which, even if, say the kind of Quickstep decided to try and race to take back time to do another fleet. It wouldn’t happen because it’s a flat stage around a circuit and I just don’t understand
Joe Robinson 36:59
it. So this
Joe Robinson 37:00
Many people there so have so much hatred for the fantasy ceremonial stage is I don’t think even if there wasn’t ceremonial unless it was a time trial, of course, but I don’t think people would actually race it anyway. I think they’d all turn up do you think sort of 50% and then jostle out for a sprint at the end anyway
Carlton Reid 37:18
is the anger though because of the last two stages have been weird stages and they wanted something right like okay, we normally ceremonial but let’s make this last one. Not ceremonial because of these weird weather states. I think he’s saying that happened. I see appear every year this sort of people that are like, yeah, Joe, that that’s just forget, forget those people. They are not worth
Jim Moss 37:39
what are their sport? What are the sport has a ceremonial last stage. No other sport has it. We raced to the very end. It’s not into the final second of any activity, any sport, but you know who the winner is, except the Tour de France, you know, at the end of stage 20 who the winner is going to be? But that’s that’s the end of the state. That’s the end of the race.
Carlton Reid 38:00
Or the GC that’s absolutely fine it’s just a once you get your head round it’s like what bad is the end? And then literally it is as it as Joe was saying it’s ceremonial. And then you give a chance for the sprinter because they haven’t had a chance for the like you know 10 days I see no problem with it well but if it’s the end you go home
Jim Moss 38:21
you don’t watch you go home I mean, here in the United States are our sports have one teams winning you know, in the middle of the third quarter or whatever, or we go home then.
Jim Moss 38:34
you know, it’s got to be close to make us stick around even even then.
Carlton Reid
So Casper, what what’s your views on this?
Casper Hughes
I don’t mind I mean, I few times I’ve been to Paris for what the final stage I’ve absolutely adored it. And you know, it’s such a spectacle and I love what’s in the sprint thing. It’s in I’m not you know, the fact that the the
Casper Hughes 38:56
the yellow jersey is tied up by then. Isn’t isn’t
Carlton Reid 39:00
Really nation for me, there’s so much other stuff going on. Yeah, I love the fact that Cycling is just chess it you know at 40 miles an hour, you know how many different races within races are happening and once you get your head round, there’s not just one winner. You know there’s an overall winner but it’s just there’s lots of other races within races. Once you get your head around that it’s easy to think well of course that’s fine to have that ceremonial stage. Now let’s just go around the table now it’s a British team with a Colombian winner. But am I the only one here and I suspect I’m not who wanted a French winner here who didn’t want you know, a Thomas to win. I was very happy I was rooting for for Alaphillipe. So what are people’s positions on this? Joe were you were you rooting forward towards the end I
Joe Robinson
I’m still not emotionally over the scenes of Thibaut Pinot being forced into his team car, crying.
Joe Robinson 39:54
I believe Pinot I was probably the strongest climber in this race and he showed me
Joe Robinson 40:00
Thibaut
Joe Robinson 40:02
Pinot has the sort of humanist quality about him. This vulnerability that makes us as amateur cyclists relate to him because so many times during his career, he’s shown that vulnerability, whether that’s through illness at the Giro, last year, it was, you know, he did the same thing he pulled out on stage 19. And, you know, he’s an inability to descend a large part of his career through fear.
Joe Robinson 40:27
And then and then this another another injury that’s taken away, probably his best opportunity to win the Tour is so relatable compared to the robot like actions we see from so many other cyclists where they, they have no sort of chinks in their armour.
Carlton Reid 40:44
And so you thought, you know, he would come up on the outside?
Joe Robinson 40:48
and do it but now, you know, if Pinot had not not sustain that injury, and the weather hadn’t happened, which is a lot of ifs and buts. I believe that Pinot would have had the had what it takes to overturn the time
Joe Robinson 41:00
upset and he would have definitely much better now on the is around and the upper climbs in which they’re now managed to escape from the other GC favourites in my opinion my opinion
Carlton Reid 41:11
We’ll never know but Casper who were you rooting for?
Casper Hughes
But I wasn’t I wasn’t sure this won’t be much of a surprise to anybody I wasn’t really rooting for anybody I enjoyed I just enjoyed what I watched unfold in front of me on the screen
Carlton Reid
And Jim who were you rooting for?
Jim Moss 41:33
hearing how was it really for anybody but here again but it’s also I wasn’t
Jim Moss 41:38
I was rooting against teams
Jim Moss 41:42
You know was so frustrating to watch Movistar just
Jim Moss 41:47
stupid move up just stupid. Stupid move. Everything weird things. Yeah. And and you know you’re always against the last year’s winner. So everyone hates team Enos because they keep winning.
Jim Moss 42:00
And so it was it was I didn’t know who was going to win. I was listening to everybody. And I didn’t care.
Unknown Speaker 42:10
And and but I didn’t want certain people to win certain groups to win. As far as our belief goes, I was I was rooting for him. I thought the French needed a win. It’s been the 70s since the French won one. But you could tell that …
Carlton Reid
Well, 80s.
Jim Moss
Yes 80s, excuse me.. Yeah, it was a it was a solo, solo run. And as everyone always says, you need a team to win in the tour. And that’s, that’s so true.
Carlton Reid 42:35
So get such him. There’s no American interest in this. Because obviously, NBC I’m assuming with the broadcaster when it was in the Armstrong years, you haven’t had any American interest for for a while. So did you get a flavour of who? The commentators, the broadcasters in general, who would they rooting for who would they like to see? It was not an amateur
Jim Moss 43:00
And it doesn’t matter or what did you think the most some bias that they wanted to see a set nationality, certain individuals to win. So we had we had, first of all the commentators and former racers So Bob Roll stepped up to fill Paul Sherwin’s position and changed his whole life to do it. It wasn’t the old Bob Roll comedian, slapstick – he actually did a really, really good job.
Jim Moss 43:25
And everybody, so nobody else, even though they’re all Americans, except Phil Liggett. Nobody looked at an American is anything and there were only three or four Americans in the race. And then Tejay van Garderen dropped
Jim Moss 43:43
as he does
Carlton Reid 43:46
so so it was hard to root for anybody just because you didn’t know them for most people, or couldn’t find an American that even had a chance
Carlton Reid 43:59
in
Jim Moss 44:00
All for America here. You know, we want an American, even in
Carlton Reid
America first, Jim, America First, right?
Jim Moss
What you got? Yeah. And people hadn’t figured out that the American team had now had a different name. And so EF Education I don’t think many people really recognise that as an American team, even though I’m really is and there are no Americans on basically.
Carlton Reid
So. So going looking at this long term, do you see? Do you see a future for for the NBC to keep that come if you haven’t gotten an American interest there and you haven’t had for some time? Why would an in a mainstream broadcaster like NBC carry on broadcasting the Tour de France?
Jim Moss
I think that there is growing interest in bicycle racing here in the United States. And I think that TV is the only way it’s going to happen
Jim Moss 44:53
on a national level level or an international level because there’s just no interest
Jim Moss 45:00
Yeah, here we are here in Denver, Colorado, Boulder, Colorado. Colorado is cycling Mecca in the United States. And yet nobody shows up to watch the when the pro teams come by.
Jim Moss 45:14
Our streets are void.
Jim Moss 45:17
you know, our one pro race is now women’s race. There will not be any men racing and i’m i’m hopeful but concerned about, you know how many people are going to show up to watch the race. But I think that watching cycling racing is finally being understood by people. I think Americans are finally understanding how and why it’s a team sport, not just the fact that you know, but it’s still frustrating. We don’t you know, there’s no racing on the final day.
Joe Robinson
Is it? Is it still struggling from the fallout from Armstrong?
Jim Moss 45:51
No, I think that’s an fact. That’s what caught me off guard this year the most is I think that’s reversed itself. I think Armstrong is coming back his
Jim Moss
everyone
Jim Moss 46:00
loves his podcast. Yeah. And I think he’s coming back big time. People forgotten about that, or, or people have gone and said, the justification. He’s not any worse than anybody else.
Jim Moss 46:16
From that, from that era from that era, yeah. Well, worse than anybody else from any era. I don’t, you know, as long as there’s sports is going to be people trying to get around, you know, the ways of winning legally and I don’t think that’s going to change.
Jim Mos 46:33
I mean, I, I still believe people are doping, you know,
Jim Moss 46:37
and I don’t have any proof right now, but somebody will pop something.
Joe Robinson 46:42
Oh you don’t need proof, because riders still test positive.
Jim Moss
So right.
Well, you’re right. But I mean, it’s not making it’s not making front page news like it did you know 510 years ago, and we you know, Floyd, Landis is now living in Colorado and they just they were saying
Jim Moss 47:00
interviews of Floyd mostly business interviews about how well these businesses doing.
Jim Moss 47:07
But But you know, it always comes in and it’s always the introduction to any business interview with Floyd about his businesses. He was a tour de france winner who got caught. So
Jim Moss 47:20
what one of the better friends he’s got called
Carlton Reid
Casper let let’s let’s let’s talk weather. Let’s talk climate, in fact, not weather, climate. Because the Tour de France has been a pretty good example of freaky weather conditions being very visible, because there was some pretty amazing
Carlton Reid 47:41
snow at that time of the year. And not just a little bit of snow, a lot of snow and, and the landslides and it’s basically it’s a metaphor for maybe what’s coming up as well. I mean, there’s the weather patterns. We’ve got a clearly freaky, yeah, yeah, particularly
Caspar Hughes 48:00
The second example in France this year of week weather isn’t there was there was a storm earlier on this year was know that that the wrecked
Caspar Hughes 48:11
the farmers crops 80% of farmers crops in a 10 kilometre square area were destroyed by giant hailstones. You know this the size of ping pong balls, smashing car windows and whipping through crops.
Caspar Hughes 48:26
And, you know that that was at the, at the very beginning, late spring, I think,
Joe Robinson 48:32
you know, this is the same as that, you know, one of the consequences of the climate crisis is is more frequent, frequent basis. And that’s exactly what we saw. There’s also been two periods over there’s also been a period in France where the weather’s got some sort of 45,46 degrees this year. I was in the Alps in June. Yeah. late June. With Cyclist magazine
Joe Robinson 49:00
Doing a feature, and we were above 2000 metres in altitude and it was still 37 degrees, which is insane when you think about how high you aren’t we shouldn’t it shouldn’t be that hot up that high. And we got down into the valley and the temperatures are 45, 46 degrees in the middle of the Alps, which is bonkers, really.
Carlton Reid
So we are going to have I mean, if you have that kind of weird stuff, they’re going to have to redesign
Carlton Reid 49:29
the tour for certain time and you can’t be having the tour going up mountains like that, where you’re going to get weather like that. Or do you think that’s a one off or differently we’re going to see more and more of this.
Jim Moss
I mean, I live in Denver at 5000 -6000 feet
Jim Moss 49:49
2000 metres
Unknown Speaker 49:51
and, you know live in a state that goes up to 14,000 feet and have several passes above 10,000
Jim Moss 50:00
You have a community living at 10,000 feet that’s has a lot of cycling and back. There’s bicycle races going on and Leadville, Colorado right now and I think in one week or two, and this is the Leadville 100, this hundred mile mountain bike race that goes above 13,000 foot several times. But you accept the fact that you may get snowed on and you may end up slogging through stuff and people have been pulled off the race because of hypothermia. We had our ski areas were open July 4 here and most of them didn’t close into late May when normally they close mid April so but it’s not in common. I mean, it’s, you know, this Arapahoe Basin will be open until such a such this year and it’s been five years since they were open this late. So it’s not uncommon for us to have snow in June and July in the mountains.
Jim Mos 51:00
We had snow here in Denver in May.
Jim Moss 51:04
We’ve had a tonne of water. We’ve had so much rain that is off the chart for us.
Jim Moss 51:10
But, you know what, what are you going to do? I mean, are you not going to race the high mountains? I mean, that’s what the Tour de France the same as for here from the United States perspective is they get high, they make people hurt.
Joe Robinson
So it’s a tricky one because it’s also you look, the Giro, albeit that is in May, that is why it doesn’t go to passes like the Nivolet and Stelvio every year, but this year was was cancelled because of bad weather. Weather is unpredictable when you go the 2000 metres as you said, Jim, and there was always this risk with this last week the tour by taking the race over 2000 metres that much whenever you bring in as a factor, even though it’s July, unfortunately.
Joe Robinson 51:52
And we’ve I think climate change is happening but I think we also were quite unlucky with this to have had two stages affected by this.
Joe Robinson 52:00
freak storm. We could have we could have could have passed about that day.
Carlton Reid
It wasn’t just those two stages because Sagan even before the those weather, you know wipeout stages, you had Sagan saying you should be going to the CPA, the professional cyclists association to complain about riders having to ride over mountains in the severe heat. So the heat was also a factor even before these two very obvious days. So in future, if we’re going to have hotter, hotter stages, and we’re talking, you know, up to 45 degrees, if you’re doing 150 mile bike rides and turning over mountains at 45 degrees, well, CPA is going to have to get involved and say we can’t do that. We’re going to have to shorten stages. So do you see that in the future, we’re going to have to adjust that this sporting event will have to be redesigned, going forward because you the heat, the weird snow, all these different factors are going to be
Joe Robinson 53:00
Much, much more prevalent in the future. Yeah, I think they’ll be w changes to how the grand tours sort of designed, why people are so but that’s common, you know, look back 5060 years and we used to have 100 mile team time trials that no longer exists. And I think there will be a push toward shorter mountain stages because it encapsulate encapsulates the interest more than a 200 kilometre eight hour stage. If like yesterday, everything happens in just two hours, I think they can sort of capture a bigger audience.
Joe Robinson 53:38
For that shorter amount of time. I think there is a push for that for more exciting racing. And to get sort of the layman in who doesn’t understand cycling as much and as well.
Carlton Reid 53:50
Cricket here or cycling? Because that’s the same argument used with cricket. Exactly the same argument, isn’t it? Let’s bring the TV audiences and get the newbies in, but doesn’t that then
Carlton Reid 54:00
Yeah, but the people who’ve been following this for 40 years side you no way yeah it does it does it sort of the
Carlton Reid 54:08
the traditionalist or will not be happy maybe that there’s not no longer these 220 kilometre epic mountain stages?
Joe Robinsin
But also Racing’s changed as well. And unlike 20 years ago, when in a 200 kilometre stage someone would attack after the first 50 K and you’d never see him again.
Joe Robinson 54:26
That doesn’t happen really anymore because it Racing’s changed. So, you know, we have to as a sport, it has to adapt as well to how people are racing the sport and, and it’s a lot different. It’s a much, much more of a team sport now than it was back then.
Carlton Reid
So are you bringing in race radios there is an issue Yeah, there’s a war against race radios?
Joe Robinson
the race radios I think, the use of power metres. The fact that people like to numbers rather than on instinct and feel, I also do feel I do agree with Jim and Casper that I don’t believe that the peloton
Joe Robinson 55:00
But it’s cleaner so riders can no longer ride off the front with 100 miles to go and not be caught
Joe Robinson 55:09
because they have the ability to ride at their threshold for four hours over free mountain passes.
Joe Robinson 55:15
So so things are don’t changing and ASO people like that RCS who organised the Giro, they have to add that to that to make the race still interesting and bring in different aspects and, and different things that will invigorate the sport.
Joe Robinson 55:31
Joe, do you talk about doping there? Do you subscribe to the theory that the one of the theories that the French haven’t had a tour de france winners is because they’ve been clean for 20 years you know since Virenque, you know they’ve been clean since Virenque and that’s why they haven’t won Do you? Do you subscribe to that and and that’s why was it more a case of that you haven’t got a
Joe Robinson 55:55
fantastic team and you need the team as Jim was saying before and I think it is
Joe Robinson 56:00
Six and a half dozen other I think there was a problem with French cycling in that it was adverse to modernization at to FDJ when we’re not willing to bring on stuff like aerodynamic experts and didn’t put riders in the wind tunnel and then we’d ask questions why they last four minutes in time trials. And they wouldn’t you know, perfect example of it. Jim will probably remember 1989 tool. Greg LeMond has an era helmet and Aero bars and beats Laurent Fignon. on the Champs Elysees, why did he do that? Because he used modern kit and France until now and you see it with Groupama–FDJ started to use wind tunnels in time trial time trialling and now Thibaut Pinot is a very capable time trial rider
Joe Robinson 56:49
it they’ve started to do that their diet, you know the diet and probably are improving the way they treat their riders. The way that the riders train is probably changing by
Joe Robinson 57:00
So do you think I do consider someone like Pinot who I believe is clean. I don’t you know, in past tours if someone had a knee knee injury like Pinot know, hadn’t that final week, would they have just been put sort of filter the eyeballs off Tramadol? probably. And they would have probably got through the rest of that. That grants or it’s ironic, actually, Jim, because Lance Armstrong any podcast was saying how he’d ridden and not got off the bike.
Joe Robinson 57:29
But Lance Armstrong would have probably taken a lot of painkillers and
Joe Robinson 57:35
testosterone to get himself through that final three days. Yeah, and probably adequate as a cortisone, steroids steroid injection, which Pinot would not have had. And that’s why pain I had to step off the bike.
Jim Moss 57:48
Yeah, it’s interesting. I hadn’t thought of that before. Here in the US, one of the big reasons why we’ve started to like cycling, especially the Tour de France is it’s like
Jim Mos 57:58
the fact that it is
Jim Moss 58:00
hilly and steep and long I think as as much of a draw as anything. I would like to see viewership numbers but I suspect that the team time trial and the individual time trial are not as not as many people watch that
Jim Moss 58:20
it wasn’t that I’m not sure I’m process right for the names to names day. I skipped most of it. I just sort of watched who won because no one was going to suffer.
Carlton Reid
Yeah, so you also have the basic problem of time differences of course. Yeah. You’re watching this in the morning is
Jim Moss 58:40
network TV. So I said my struggle with with broadcasting this in the morning well, that you can get up early as usually for 530 or sometimes 6am that you can watch is 50 to 60% of the race and you see it somewhat unfiltered with with the
Jim Moss 59:00
broadcasters making tonnes of mistakes it’s it’s more of a comedy show as much as anything else first morning, and then by time 10 o’clock of the one o’clock show comes around, it’s cleaned up it’s shortened and it’s just the highlights
Jim Moss 59:16
and so
Jim Moss 59:18
you get you get a kick out of that so they do make it for an American American audience. All the commentators now are Americans.
Jim Moss 59:28
And, and,
Jim Moss 59:31
I mean, they know their audience. NBC Sports is finally I think, figured out a lot better how
Jim Moss 59:38
American audiences want to watch TV and so we we get the last 15 minutes of every hillclimb and we get the last, you know, 15 minutes of every sprint finish and the rest of it, they just talk and it’s commentary and they, they break away to the commentators doing some visual things.
Carlton Reid 1:00:00
We’re having a conversation.
Carlton Reid 1:00:02
So we don’t engine this today’s final stage is perfect timing for the US. So it’s nine, nine o’clock.
Carlton Reid 1:00:10
French time is when it kicks off. And that’s perfect for you watching in the US almost designed for watching in the US.
Jim Moss
I don’t know anybody watching it here in the us today. The final stage nobody watches here in the US. The race is done. We’re done. We went home.
Jim Moss 1:00:28
Okay, you know, I mean, I understand it’s gonna be a sprint. I want to see the sprint. But, but race is done.
Joe Robinson 1:00:36
It’s funny. Sorry, JIm. I was gonna say it’s funny. You say that about the packaging, because I watch a lot of American football. So time differences mean if I want to watch an American football game. It’s either start on a sort of 9,10 o’clock at night here on the east coast. For one o’clock in the morning, two o’clock in the morning if it’s on the west coast. And even though I’m a massive fan, I won’t stay up and watch
Joe Robinson 1:01:00
it. But what I will do is I will call it the hour long highlight show in packages to highlight best highlights of every game that have been played out that evening. And has a lot of commentary and a lot of sort of analysis, rather than recording the whole game. And I think the issue is, is that you’re never going to have live cycling to watch in America because at that time difference in the same way, I’m never going to have live American football to watch because I’ll be a bed. So you need to package it in a way that’s going to make people come back to it without just checking the result online. Or on, you know, BBC or I’m guessing the view figures.
Carlton Reid 1:01:36
I’m guessing the viewing figures in Colombia have gone through the roof?
Jim Moss 1:01:40
we’ve been getting ads here in the United States. Advertising the fact that Colombia is the is a great cycling country right now. I mean, showing up on TV and magazines prior to the tour. And I suspect that this is going to put millions into the economy.
Jim Moss 1:02:00
Colombia.
Jim Moss 1:02:02
I mean, it’s just yeah, I suspect the whole city is just dancing in the streets, you know, and will be for the next couple of he will be.
Carlton Reid
I mean, Quintana is a national A- list celebrity in Colombia, and he hasn’t won the Tour de France. So, you know, Bernal winning the Tour de France, that catapults him straight into will-never-be-forgotten-ever territory n Colombia. He’s now a major, major personality. And as we said at the start of the show, he’s 22. So he’s a big star in Colombia right now. You know it.
Jim Moss 1:02:39
There is a lot of frustration here in the us about the race because it’s so hard for for most Americans to understand.
Jim Moss 1:02:49
Which is sort of interesting in the fact that here in the United States, most of our sports figures are in their 20s the exception being quarterbacks.
JIm. Moss 1:03:00
Our football teams are allowed to be in the 30s. And so people still haven’t understood the fact that 22 is a really young age, you know, for someone to win the Tour de France for this kind of endurance, yeah, normally be at least 25 before you can start thinking of even entering the tournament winning the damn, you know, and yet and so right now we have all these storeys about the the 2021 22 year olds going out to playing football and how many of them are going to be on the front lines, you know, starting for their team members. And a lot of them will not all a lot of them will. So it’s it’s another confusing thing. What do you mean a 30 year old, you know, because because the other thing we don’t get into if we don’t have their ages. I think I only heard one of our commentators once they say he’s the youngest person or the youngest of this, but they never say
Jim Moss 1:03:55
you know, he was 22 I had to look up his age because they kept saying he’s just you
Jim Moss 1:04:00
And so I looked up his age online to find out how young he actually was
Carlton Reid 1:04:05
I was just thinking this the other day, it won’t be that long before we have a winner of the Tour de France who wasn’t even born in the 20th century. So somebody who is a 21st century born athlete
Joe Robinson
well we already have
Joe Robinson 1:04:19
we already have a rider in the World Tour born post 2000, Evenepoel Remco
Joe Robinson 1:04:26
He’s probably a future Tour de France winer
Jim Moss 1:04:29
that hurts I can remember you know, when the first American won the Tour de France watching that sort of
Carlton Reid 1:04:38
I’m sure we’re showing our age here obviously know where we have gone over the hour there so I don’t want to go too far over the hour just to come into Casper cast because we haven’t heard you for a while. I’m hoping you’re actually still back cuz I can see your sound waves. I can see you’re breathing still. But anyway, so I know you’re a live Caspar, but are you gonna be watching tonight and if you are, who do you think might win the sprint ceremonial stage?
Caspar Hughes 1:05:00
Well, I mean,
Caspar Hughes 1:05:03
it’s gonna be a boring, boring prediction for me, but I would have hopes again. Well, Sagan you reckon? I wouldn’t have put him there but anyway, that’s that’s that’s a valid truck. Well, he’s got the green jersey doesn’t need to do anything, does it? Yeah. But he’s not. There’s there’s no.
JIm Moss 1:05:19
But see, the Americans love Peter Sagon because he doesn’t quit racing. And I think that he’s still going to go I mean, when I didn’t even know who Peter Sagon was, and he was just starting to come up the people who follow cycling even more than I do or having their pictures taken with him.
Jim Moss 1:05:38
When he was over here racing in our in our one race in Denver, a lot of people asked me to take pictures of themselves standing next to Peter. He was a young kid but he never stopped trying to win.
Jim Moss 1:05:52
And and that’s what Americans love. You know, we love the person who get they got it in the bag, but they still
Unknown Speaker 1:06:00
Till they try and kick butt and get it an even bigger win. So, interesting.
Joe Robinsin
Well, you’re going to you’re going to look forward to Mathieu van der Poel in the next few years, America will tell you know, warmly to him.
Jim Moss
Yes. His name popped up in our conversations last night it was quite interesting.
Jim Moss 1:06:19
So, hey Jim . Hey, are you predicting Are you just hoping?
Unknown Speaker 1:06:24
I hope you pick pick a rider you’re going to say mainly because I don’t know who the rest of the sprinters are here again, mountains and who’s going to win the tour’s you know, most people don’t understand that the little pictures up in the top left hand corner of the screen or the jersey winners where they are the race that point in time. They just want to know I’m gonna go to when
Carlton 1:06:47
I’d quite like Sagon to win but I think Viviani today. That’s that’s what I’m going to pick.. Joe, who are you going to pick for today?
Joe Robinson
Tonight, I believe because of how the mountain stages were working.
Joe Robinson 1:07:00
shortened over the last few days, I think some of the sprinters are going to have recovered a lot better.
Joe Robinson 1:07:05
And I think it’s going to be a straight up sprint between Dylan Groenewegen of Jumbo-Visma and Caleb Ewan who’s had an excellent Tour de France, from Lotto–Soudal.
Carlton Reid 1:07:14
Yeah, yeah, two stages he’s won, you’re right.
Joe Robinson
I I love Viviani but he he worked incredibly hard for Alaphillipe in the mountains more more than anyone else would have expected him do and more than sprinters should should work so yeah
Carlton Reid 1:07:34
he’s a small guy yeah smart small guy good. I like small no reason why I like small guys. Let’s go around the table because we have gone over that our as I said, and let’s just find out where we can find each other on on social media. So Jim, I’m going to go to you first tell everybody even though everybody knows where you are, tell tell everybody
Jim Moss
recreation dash law. com recreation dot law at gmail. com.
Jim Moss 1:08:00
Or at recreation law one word, Google recreational law you’ll find me okay
Carlton Reid
and Casper. So Rollapaluza which is same on Twitter or
Carlton Reid 1:08:19
on Twitter
Carlton Reid 1:08:21
and Stopkillingcyclists as well
Caspar Hughes
yeah let’s stop killing cyc on Twitter
Carlton Reid 1:08:26
I think we’re all going to subscribe to that point of view Casper I think that’s a campaign we can all get behind and and Joe, where can we can we find you? You can read some of my work on cyclist co UK. I’ll actually be doing the race report today and there’ll be a piece in the morning about Allaphiliipe at this tour. And then on social media at Joe p Robinson, is my personal account for all my musings about cycling and Joe we were talking to you. You’re in London. Yeah.
Carlton Reid 1:09:00
Yes. So do you normally go? Do you normally get a press pass and go to the Tour?
Joe Robinson
Yeah, I went to the Tour de France this year, I went to the first stage Grand Depart in Brussels.
Joe Robinson 1:09:12
And we went to the madness of it all the long days and
Joe Robinson 1:09:17
sort of your feet don’t touch the ground during the Tour de France, but it’s amazing. And it’s one of the True, true best things about being a cycling journalist is covering something like the Tour de France.
Carlton Reid
Certainly, I completely agree. And I am Carlton Reid it now but I agree with Joe there because I’ve been a few times on the Tour de France embedded behind it’s fantastic because it’s so claustrophobic when you go to Paris. And then you have this magical press pass. And then you get behind the barriers and then all of a sudden Paris becomes beautiful again, because you’re just in these enclosures, which was absolutely fantastic. So I am Carlton Reid on Twitter and carltonreidbike on Instagram, which is mainly dogs and I write for
Carlton Reid 1:10:00
forbes.com so thank you ever so much to Joe to Casper and to Jim for a very much a tour de france theme. Thanks to Jim Moss, Joe Robinson and Casper Hughes. For show notes and more can be found at the-spokesmen.com. And that’s with a dash with a hyphen spokesmen.com. Do please leave a review for the show on iTunes, especially since Apple has just deleted a whole load of podcast categories, including the one this show used to be listed under. Check out my article about that on LinkedIn where I described how this show and the cycling tips podcast got dumped into the wilderness podcast category. Go figure. Also on that article, I suggest that Apple ought to create a cycling category on iTunes wrestling. Is there soccer, is there plenty of sports out there? But cycling isn’t no
Carlton Reid 1:11:00
Is it listed in the same space as automotive? I might rant about that again in the next show, meanwhile get out there and ride!
Be First to Comment