Primož Roglič Fires A Warning | Giro d’Italia 2025 Stage 2 (ITT) | Lanterne Rouge x JOIN Cycling

In this episode Patrick and Benji recap the 2nd stage of the 2025 Giro d’Italia.

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Welcome back to Lion Rouge Cycling Podcast. The recap of stage two of the Jirro Italia from Tana to Tyrana, a time trial brought to you by our show partner Join Cycling who just dropped a new feature. A word on that in a second. As I said, the city TT there’s a lot of out and backs basically along the the waterway in the middle and then they go up the hill at the back of Toronto Park which I joged around the lake this uh this afternoon. It’s quite nice. Had a siesta. I do love a TT day. 14 km long, flat, big city roads. I wouldn’t describe this as particularly technical other than one dodgy right hand corner where uh a few riders crashed or nearly crashed. Uh a moderate climb of about a kilometer at 6 and a half% a fast pedaling downhill before a flat another 5ks into the finish in uh Scanderberg. No, they started in Scandinberg Square and then they finished uh actually where the sprint was yesterday in front of the Congress building. We had Peterson obviously in the Malia Rosa after winning the stage yesterday. That’s how cycling works. You wear the leader jersey after winning the first stage. Uh Vanard second yesterday, therefore was in the Chiclamino jersey, the organizer skin suit and 4 seconds behind Pison and a few maybe 6 seconds ahead of all the other GC guys. Okay, let’s start off with a bit of a controversial take most likely. We’ve got a time trial obviously today. In that time trial, the first 150 whatever riders start every single minute. That’s how it works logistically. Then the last 15 riders in this time trial start every 3 minutes. Also, logistically, because that last hour of of broadcasting is the most important to see every single rider in there full-on action. Can I be honest? Logistically, it’s probably better, but I think that’s unfair. Uh, it is. It seemed to be the weather wasn’t supposed to affect this TT, but it seemed like the wind did affect the the back end of this TT. When I look at I don’t know, just on an eye test of who I expected to be where and like did I expect Yan Tratnik to beat [Music] uh Tibar or Max Pool? Not Not really. I mean, China can do a TT, but not I didn’t expect him to pee then. But for me, it’s not necessarily the weather. That’s fine. That happens every single time. Tom, we know that, but it’s more the fact that a rider that’s in 18GC can have two minute man in front of him. So, basically, in a time trial, I see what you mean. You start your time trial. If you start a minute behind someone and you’re better than that person ahead of you, there’s a potential that you pass that rider. If you pass that rider, you get the draft basically from that car. If you pass that car, then the draft of that rider. If you pass that rider, perhaps there’s a motorbike there as well, you get a bit of drafter as well. That’s maybe two, three seconds, maybe more, maybe less that you can gain just by passing overtaking a rider in the process. And if a rider in the last 15 starts, there’s no riders in the 3 minutes ahead of them. So it’s impossible for them to pass anyone in this time trial unless someone completely capitulates which you don’t expect in that top 15. I just realized that were UAE big braining it yesterday. Exactly. Big question. And that’s Yeah. Now I’m thinking about it. Why did Why did Rogich not contest the finish but then get in the mix and he came exactly 15th? So he had no Minutemen in front of him. UAE yesterday, 20th, 26th, 27th, 29th at the back of that group plus actually uh another one uh Micah, they had Minutemen in front of them. I Wow. Oh, then again, I on one end, yes, maybe a team should think in front of the next IT, okay, let’s try and make sure we just are a bit further in the group and therefore we don’t have that happening to us. But on the other hand, I understand that you want to try and finish in the group and that Rolex shouldn’t be thinking that much about today’s time trial at the end of yesterday’s. He probably should be thinking about trying to stay upright in the final. I think that’s a big priority in that sense. But are we maybe overanalyzing it? Because inherently a time trial with minute men is a bit unfair cuz some minute men will go for the time. If darlings are minute, yeah, you don’t exactly. You don’t know who’s in front of you. you’re, you know, if you have Lorenzo Fortunado, maybe you should actually, what you should do is, oh, I’ve now realized, yeah, you you finish at the back of the group and then you find Fortunado and some dimminionative climber and then you lei and then you basically finish on their wheel in the reduced spring. Yes. But if Darling passes you while you’re on the wheel, so you got to make sure chop him. Chop chop him. Yeah. If if some if a G if a TG rider comes near you like if McNelte is coming up you then you don’t want to finish behind McNelte. You got to sprint ahead of him. Oh no. How does it work? No, you got to finish behind the one rider but in front of McNelte. So you got to you got to be really close there. It’s going to be No, no, no. You want to finish in front of them because then in front of McNelte but behind the rider you want to be behind forato. No, behind McNelte because then he’s then he starts behind you. Yes, you’re right. Is Oh my god, it’s so difficult. So you want to finish in front of Fortunado. Yes. And behind Magnoli. You want to sprint and bike throw ahead of Fortunado if in the sort of in the first stage. Uh anyway, TT starts. We see Jayvine who crashed heavily yesterday. He sets the a good time at the intermediate. Uh 1010 about 47ks an hour to the intermediate. It’s fast to the finish. 57ks an hour. It’s 10 minutes to the T1, 6 minutes uh to home from the top of the hill and he’s going yeah going really well. He sets a time of 1610 which is quicker than Aeni. So uh an all round climber who’s great on his TT bike Vine is able to beat the big engine. Crashed yesterday. So I wasn’t necessarily expecting that to be even even after I wasn’t expecting that Vine time to be one of the best on the on the day cuz I was like okay crash yesterday can’t be that strong today right? So I was like Tarling goes on the road. Tarling gets beaten by Vine at the middle section of the race. Basically he was behind on the climb in the middle by 3 seconds but over the top into the descent. Fast descent by the way up to 75 80 kph that descent with some potholes towards the end of it. So bit of rough terrain I would say in this time trial but Tarling makes up that time and actually starts beating Vine by the finish line by roughly 3 seconds. And I was thinking, okay, tling beating a crash fine by 3 seconds. I think trollling loses his time. I literally said it when that happened. I was not impressed by the time cuz I was looking at it. I was like, “Oh, he’s only 6 seconds.” I mean, Afen is European champion, but I was like, “Oh, he’s” and then yeah, Vine, we saw also on TV how hard he crashed and then the tingling time just kept aging better and better and better and better. Like, we can talk about wind at the finish or not. Ragglitch was first to T1, 5 seconds quicker than Tarling on the slow section, but he loses 6 seconds to him to the finish and finishes 1 second behind Tingling. Josh Tarling wins this TT, youngest winner of a time trial according to Inos Twitter, I think in Jurro history. Uh he wins his first Grand Tour stage after some disappointments last year and he’s fulfilling the the promise of what we expected from him. So huge win for Taling, huge win for Inos. He was the uh Yeah. And so it was a mixture in the top 10. There’s some GC riders like we said, Rogich, there’s some I mean Jay Vine, Jay Vine should be a protective role in GC. U actually no, he lost time yesterday after the crash. Anyway, go on the breakway. Ain, we’ve got some big guys like Afini Vask and Don Holler. Mads Pettison did the TT or maybe not of his life, but an excellent time trial. He was 11th to T1. Quick to T1 to the finish. He was only a second behind uh Rogich to on the the final section, but he loses the jersey by about two seconds to Roglitch. Am I inventing this or do I remember Miss Bison having been a bingo bongo tour time trial merchant at some point? Yeah, I feel like he’s when when it really mattered for GC in a one week where he could actually win like in B like in B he’s he’s pulled out some good TTs when he’s actually cared like Vanderpool has that in him so he did a fantastic TT today Maz P said he didn’t even train on his TT bike so um he finishes in seventh I should do the full I’ll do the full top 10 for for completeness that’s yesterday’s stage tingling wins one second ahead of Rogich uh 3 seconds ahead of Vine 6 seconds ahead of Afeni. Vase on 6 seconds. Hola 8 seconds. Pettison 12 seconds. McNalty 13. Hater to 14. Auso 17. He’s the second GC. Yeah, he’s the second GC rider after Roglish. So he despite doing a pretty good TT lo 16 seconds to Roglish in a very short time trial. Uh then Del Toro a good TT is only one second behind Duso. Martinez. Actually, Danny Martinez does a good TT, but he lost a load of time yesterday. Same with Aaron and Derek G. I would say the surprise to me, Michael Store. Mhm. 28 seconds ahead of like it’s not the greatest TT, but it’s also not a bad one. Yeah. But Michael Store is a weird guy for me. Obviously, we’ve had the the Velto is amazing at Sunweb. He’s then had a bit of years of employment under the the tyranny of David Gubu at Gurama DeJ and now he’s been freed again at Twitter pro cycling where he has u he’s wonder of the Alps and in some of those stages he was doing really good engine-wise on the flat to the point that it shocked me to my core to realize how [ __ ] his TTS have been in the past for a rider that does seem to have an engine in time trials and then in this specific jural with this time trial Got to say this is kind of the tea I would the T I would expect for a store. Better than what was in the past, but this is what I would have hoped for in the first place. And based on the story of the Alps flat segments, I maybe was expecting even a little bit better, but I didn’t necessarily expect that today. But we got to talk about a bunch of other riders as well, you know, like VTK had a had a solid time as well. He was in the running for the stage at some point, then kind of fell through in the last portion of it. initially McNuggets as well. Similar scenario there. So the the two boys from the Velta TT last year having similar situations. We’ll talk about GC in a second. You mentioned Derek G. Is it me or is Tibar and Derek G finishing 18th and 20 still a disappointment? Yeah, I mean he’s a he’s a big all round TT rider compared to his peers. Is it surprising G can’t beat Del Toro and Ausso? Not not really. Um but again he’s not he’s not gaining a lot of time back on the dimminionive climbers who he lost a minute to yesterday. So he’s he’s on 1636. The Yates brothers he’s only taken 5 seconds 7 seconds on them who he shipped a minute to yesterday. And the TTS is where I thought he would take big time. We do have another TT coming up. I do like last year’s TT a bit more where there was a 50-minute TT. I feel like it’s a bit more balanced. But yeah, it’s unless he’s climbing better than them, Derek G is not going to be able to use the TTS to build a buffer on those guys because of the time he lost yesterday. Same with Aaron and probably same with Tibari, frankly. Um because yeah, it’s not like Terry dominated the the smaller climbers either. Uh that being said, we should move to the disappointments of the day and I think the big one is Wenard. He he started the TT. I mean, eye test looked looked fine in the first K. We saw the the Vevelon graphic 500 was at the start. We see the intermediate he is. Let me check. And if you have to wait, if you have to do a control F on the timet split, then that’s not a good sign. Before you tell us the time I test wise, he looked like he was pedaling squares. No, on the climb 100%. On the climb 100%. But yeah, I mean in the literally the first K. I can’t tell the difference between 50 and 52 kph. I test. You really can’t. Yeah, I’m out of touch. But Wvenard is 42nd to the top of the climb. 42nd which is behind with I mean I don’t want to disrespect anybody but with all due respect it’s behind Roman Bard who I don’t think used the extensions today. It’s behind uh Aleandro V. Like that’s really bad Benji lo and then you you obviously can’t win the stage and Chikamino was the M Rosa was out but yeah that’s that’s really at odds with his performance yesterday. I agree and actually because you’re talking about Barde I’m going to jump ship to a different topic for one second here before we continue on that disappointment streak because Roman Barde was the minute man of Rogich. He uh finished I think 52ish seconds behind Tarling. So at first my reaction to the stam trial was Rogich loses by 1 second does this mean that if Roglish has had had an actual minute man instead of a three-minute man in front of him would he have won this time trial over tarling if it was one minute man depends on the rider turns out it was Bardday and he wouldn’t have caused Bardday he would have got relatively close 8 seconds behind I don’t think it would have made the difference today between winning or losing but I just wanted to at the conclusion to my narrative that I started at the start of this podcast. But disappointment is it me or Okay, I went to the bus zone this morning to the uh start of the time trial. There was a recon then obviously the riders come back to the bus zone and then go on their actual time trial but I was uh hearing my ear was to the team buses not literally but like some people told some things to me and uh a rider had stated that Ponuzo was involved in the same crash as them and that was early on in the stage yesterday and that he actually hit the floor really hard and that might explain why he actually did a disappointing time travel that yes he’s he’s 10 for the time travel But I don’t expect him to lose 16 seconds to Rogich on this time trial. No, this is the guy who beat Philipp Gunner in a flat 10k TT last year and was good again this year. So yeah, I would expect him to if you gave me how much time will Wayuso beat Yan Tratnik by today? I would say yeah, more than a second. Yeah. Uh so but still he he puts time into the other GC guys. Uh, I don’t have the full GC like where they just pull out the GC rider ranking. The Gab Baldi, she just died. Gab Baldi’s falling over. What’s going on? Rogich is in the GC lead by a mere second ahead of Mans Pison. Vasc is in third on 5 seconds. McNelte, I mean UAE, we said they looked ropey yesterday. They got three riders in the top six on GC. McNeli, Del Toro on 12, 16 and 17 seconds. Maxpool Terry 24 25 seconds. store of 27 seconds. Helazari did a really good TT. Yeah, he’s on 31 seconds. I didn’t think he could TT very well and he doesn’t a very very good one. I’ll split in two by the way. Yeah, he is a he’s a TT rider. Um Peacock went for it. He’s clearly he is going for GC. Peacock is going for GC for as long as possible. That’s that’s how it is. Uh anything we got to talk about the battle of the Yateses, my friend. Salmon Yates’s beating Adam Yates on this time trial. I don’t know what that does in the family, but does that mean they’re now 4 seconds difference in GC? 3 seconds. Salmon Yates is beating Adam Yates by 3 seconds. We’ll see how that goes. But talking about seconds, oh no, I want to actually I want to get into my Roglish and you said the crash has reminded me. I want to discuss that actually from yesterday. So, I got Yeah, I got I got a hot topic. But before we get into that, as I said, join have dropped a new feature. Join cycling has launched groups. It’s a groups feature. We’ve launched one ourselves or set up one ourselves for the lantern rouge cycling podcast listeners. The link is in the description or in the pinned comment if you’re watching on YouTube. And once you’re in the group, you’ll get access to some pretty cool stats like the group’s average EFTP, maybe maybe higher than some of the some of the time trials today. Level, total training time, workouts completed, and a realtime leaderboard. It’s the perfect excuse to see how you stack up to other listeners, but not just other listeners, but me and Benji. You can see our silly faces at the top in the cover photo. And we’ll be updating our own stats during the jur. So whether you’re trying to match us or just survive a few rides a week, it’s a great way to to stay accountable and I really like that feature actually that you can Yeah. Now I can see the LRCP listeners in the group and then what everyone’s doing. It’ll keep me in particular. I’m selfishly when when join like okay we’re launching this for the Jira. I was like awesome that benefits me because now I have even more accountability to the listeners. Exactly. And now everybody that’s quacking of like Benji uh ride your bike, I’m running now. I’m running now. It’s going to be added to that as well. So, it’s going to be an interesting uh vibe of things to scroll through. So, looking forward to see what our listeners are performing as well because they’re always quacking about us not doing the words they expect us to do, but I want to see you all on the bike. The listeners go crazy on Twitter. People literally respond like spam all the time that I’m actually doing 1500 watts for 50 seconds as well. I saw it yesterday. Yes. They’re always spamming it everywhere. It’s ridiculous. But yeah, download the join cycling app. But as Benji said, I mean, I went for a 5k jog around the lake of Torana here as well. You’ll see that in my in on my join leaderboard tally as well. Download the joint cycling app, hit the link in the description, and join our LRCP listeners group. And while the pros are racing, there’s no better time when you’re watching cycling to get onto a training plan uh and get fit for the summer that’s coming. Okay, Benji. Oh no. Grimmlitch. Okay. Yesterday. Mhm. If he attacks, does he take time on that climb? Well, considering we rewatched the race yesterday evening and came to the same conclusion, I would say yes. And why do you say that? Like what we we by the way, yeah, we rewatched the whole climb yesterday. We were pausing it here. We were looking at exactly where everyone was and yeah, what did you see? Well, first of all, on the climb itself, quite a few riders blew up. We saw that with W Fernard early on at some point. Then he was able to hold on. Same happened to Del Torto when it comes to UAE. We were also looking at Rogich at UAE Emirates. What happened there? And let’s start with the Roglish story. Rogich’s fight for positioning is painful to see because on one end, we’ve always spoken about safety in the Pelaton and safety in terms of positioning. And the thing is riders want to either stay at the front or they want to stay at the back with a buffer. That’s the two strategies that tend to be used when it comes to positioning yourself in a final of a sprint stage or in a dangerous final like that. When it comes to Roglish, his problem is that he fails to stay at the front. So, he tends to head to the front, sprint to the front, get brought to the front by Ji Hinley, for example, yesterday a few times, and then we see him slipping back, getting squeezed in the process, then trying to move up himself again, getting squeezed in the process. And that that getting squeezed by moving up himself every three minutes that is super dangerous for Roglish to the point that we I know Lander crashed near the back of the group but in my opinion it might unironically potentially be safer for Roglish to not try to stay at the front and stay with a buffer around them near the back. Yeah, he had a team of four. So you got four guys. Keep them fresh. If there’s a gap they close it. But I I think Roglish has got to kill Auso now. Yeah. I think kill Ausso and UAE because yesterday they were on gaps. Ausso crashed. So it might just have been from the crash. But I think the specific moment talk about the specific moment. Well, when it was actually it was splitting at the top when Vanar blew up. Yeah. And the cameras were like just showing Vanard. And so they were tracking Van Art, but then you actually see a UAE rider fly through the frame and Del Toro was literally not pedaling. Yeah. Like completely parked. If Vanard was parked, he was extra parked. And then Ausso was on a tiny little gap at the top as well. Could have just been from the crash. But also the heat, I’m not sure, is his friend. I think Roglitch tomorrow. We have a stage from Valor to Vlor. Stage three. Roll in the leader jersey. 159ks. It’s actually really hilly at the start like up and down all day and then there’s a 5.3k 4.2% climb. It’s a fake news climb. It’s literally 2ks at 10% a descent and then 1k at 9%. It’s two hills and then they’ve said it’s a 5k climb. Uh then there’s a bonus sprint, another intermediate red bull sprint at the bottom of a little hill and then 10.5ks 7.5% the kafa y your garas climb. Albanian is amazing buddy. Yeah, I know it’s 10.5k 7 and a half% and the last the last 10ks of that is like 8%. The problem is it’s 30 40 38ks from the finish. It’s a flat sprint roundabout with and bend at 800 m to go. That’s a hard climb. I’ve got an anti-h take. You’ve got the hot take. You think Roglet should try to to to go after us as fast as possible. I don’t think he should care and should keep writing what he’s doing. I think he started this Chirala very well. He’s on 16 seconds or so that he took or was it 14 seconds 60 seconds ahead of Auzo right now after this time trial. We’re heading to Tagla in about 5 days roughly. Tacos is the perfect finish for him. Tomorrow little Trek will try and control and he’ll try and go for Pis. Give that jersey away to Pis if he takes the bonus seconds. I don’t care. Pison is not a GC fighter. He He’s not your rider to beat. So, he can take the jersey. Let little track control the Tago stage if they desire. If they don’t do it, well, then you have to control yourself if you want to go for the stage. And I think on that stage, there’s one mountain stage in the first two weeks with a mountain finish that fits Rogage perfectly. spent the team. God damn it. Like control it. That’s my opinion. I think tomorrow and the stage after they can give the jersey away again. I know what Rogish are going to do tomorrow. They’re not going to pace. Yeah. Because T will do it. And Roglish wants um he wants Manuel Terzi oni to go in the breakaway and to win by five minutes to take the jersey. I don’t know if that will give him the jersey or not, but he wants someone else to take a jersey. And there’s a big opportunity tomorrow with the stage one being so decisive. I mean, why can’t I mean Aaron won’t be allowed in the breakaway Benji, but like let me look down the GC list now. Like who could be in the breakaway that’s lost a shitload of I mean Jay Vine Jay Vine’s going to probably try to go on the break tomorrow. Why not? He’s on four minutes in GC. You don’t think Rollish would let him take the the the jersey by 30 seconds and then Vine’s the perfect guy to give the jersey to. Will he go in the breakaway or will he attack from the pelaton on that climb? Yeah, he’s done that before. He could do that but that’s more for the stage win. I mean Aretta same. He’s on four minutes. Michelle Reese Fested Badang Donovan Depto uh all Rick Plumbers even Remy Roshas Vor War VBAS Pobil B on seven and a half minutes. It’s all in little trek who will definitely try to control tomorrow. Yeah, because Pison has to. And it’s Pison doesn’t even have to make the finish to take No, that’s not true. That’s literally not true. Completely unfactual. He has to make the finish to keep the pink jersey. Otherwise, you lose time. Take the pink jersey. He doesn’t need to win the stage tomorrow to take the jersey back. He needs to finish in the group. He can take the bonus sprints before the hard climb. So, if he’s completely cooked and can’t win and he just loses the stage, I mean, to be honest, if he makes the finish, he probably wins anyway. But he he if they control and that’s the risk. Do they control so hard little trick that they take the bonus seconds before the climb even starts? I saw a comment on Twitter earlier and Luke just reminded me as well bringing up the question as well in uh in our private chat here while we’re doing our talking. Little track, could they take on the stage differently was the question. Could they send Peterson in the breakaway? I actually we’ve had this discussion a lot in Gran Tours where yes with Van Art for example Matchu as well. Yes, a lot with Jacob back in the day. And I think they shouldn’t in this regard cuz if you go in the breakaway, you would like to have a teammate with Bison because otherwise it’s a 1 v one battle and the likelihood of other climbers being better on that if to be in that breakaway as well then etc. Because Lil Tre is the one controlling in our theory. If little track doesn’t do it, who’s going to do it? Break control. That’s what I mean. If and that’s why it can be the play though to put Pison in the break. But he needs teammates cuz otherwise better climbers will be there. But if Tre aren’t going to control then all bets are off. It’s a break of 30 or Alison controls Verona. Verona Conrad these guys are perfect. Vase even. But this stage is also why I don’t necessarily like the onedimensional skills of Alpas the Kerning in this grand tour cuz imagine if they still had a Nicolola Koni to go in the breakaway as well as a second hedge bet next to Groves in the spring. I mean I don’t know if Vergito was on the long list but yeah I mean they he was he’s good as well. Vergalito is good. I don’t know if he was Luke maybe mentioned he had a saddle saw issue or something. Uh but he’s uh Valita would have been perfect of course. Quinton Hermans is not in the shape where I expect him to survive against a I think do you say Trek shouldn’t go on the break because you think Pison survives that climb? I I think he will survive. I think Peterson loses from the breakaway. That’s what I’m saying. Yes, possibly. But also I think and I also think he survives that climb because I’m telling Bora tomorrow Benji on that climb and on the shorter hills before they should put the team and [ __ ] drill it. But they won’t [ __ ] what’s the what’s the downside? What is the down if Rogish feels good [ __ ] drill it on that climb? If I if you see I saw in a gap first of all I want Del Toro. I want him I don’t want any problems with the secondary GC leaders UA. I want them out. Yeah. Then you’ve got the team are in good shape. You don’t know if your team will be in good shape in two weeks. Yeah, Pelazari is in good shape. Aliotti is in good shape. Martinez today was good. Not so good yesterday. I would give it some gas. And if you see any issues with Ausso and he’s Auso is not Paga. Yeah. In Catalunia on stage stage eight in Barcelona all of a sudden not not there. You can you can drop him tomorrow or maybe you drop him and if you drop him from a group of 20 with teammates, you can kill him. But if you go for that, then you limit the opportunity of Peterson maybe surviving that climb, which then means Rogich will be in the pink jersey after tomorrow as well. Oh, you can just you can just stop if you don’t drop a just completely stop. Yeah, then Little Trek will take over. I I don’t expect them to do it just in general. I just I just don’t see the downside. I I agree that the downside is not necessarily it doesn’t need to be a no balls no glory attack whatever was noish doesn’t need to I’m like and del Toro we saw weakness yesterday on 5% when chakone was pacing in the wheels so yeah Pelazari if he gives it real a real push on that climb and you see weakness then uh and if and if you don’t you stop and then whatever let let Jay Vine attack and win the stage now um bit of a big question ward for tomorrow. Based on the last two days, I would expect him to get in trouble on a climb like this for sure. But then if he’s a little bit behind, do you wait with Wilco Calderon? Coderman Coan’s winning this stage. Well, why shouldn’t Wil go on the break? I have no issues with that. I don’t know. It’s uh it depends. I don’t know how technical the descent is, but yeah, it’s far from the finish. Are you going to drop Kelman back? It’s more like then you don’t have someone around Simon Yates. Simon Yates has done everything that he’s supposed to the last two days. Should Vanard go in the break? Benji, why are we talking about like all these teams that are focused on maybe the big teams etc? Because when I start thinking about tomorrow, when I start thinking about stage one, then we’ve seen numerous riders like G and Armon having troublesome days or there other teams that we’re not discussing that are fighting for a top 10 position in GC like maybe Bahrain for example, your Kuzo pick, Terry, etc. those boys. I think they should give us some gas. Can they see value in destroying other top 10 favorites here? They will people might be like, why is Bahin pacing? But at the end of the day, if you can put a top 10 rider out of GC on a stage like this, I wouldn’t be complaining afterwards. Exactly. Like Aaron did this last year. He lost literally 1 minute 30 on a roper last year and finished six. He does a good TT today again. you if he’s not feeling good at the start of the Grand Tour. Same with Derek G. Don’t let him back in the race, you’ve got the climbers, it costs you nothing and you can really kill their GC. I mean, if even Michael Store, Benji, yeah, put Flor in stalk. I think some team will do it. I think some team will do it. I agree in the break by the way. I I think tomorrow is like a game of chicken. If you have to see what little Trek are doing. Yeah. If Tre are gonna and they will like we’ve done all this hairrain they’re going to do trek are going to control and going to have a reduced sprint for pedest so despite what so with that being said jumping in the break is suicide so just yeah and then T will try and control then we’ll see if another GC team wants to put some pace on the climb um I’d like to see Egan Bernal go for I mean not happening in my opinion this is not the stage for me not the stage for me No. No. Okay. Who you going with then? If UA Team Emirates showed more strength in stage one, then I would have set the the likes of Del Toro for a stage like this. But what do you Yeah, you know, but they’re also fourth, fifth, and sixth on GC. Yeah, they are. For a team that was ropey on stage one like Yeah. But if anyone does it from the team, it’s El Toro for me. Del Toro. Vine. Yeah. To win the stage. I’m fine. You’re right. I’m going I’m going with Vine because he’s the perfect combination of strong enough, aggressive enough, and far enough on GC enough. So, uh I’m going for Tom Bitcock. Oh, yes. Yeah. How dusty dusty long descent? Oh, he can’t do it from there. What do you you mean in a sprint or what? He’s going to win the stage. Not in the sprint. He’s going to attack on the climb descent. It’s far from 85 downhill. 85 downhill stat on PCM. Yeah, this reminds me a little bit of that Ramundi stage where it was going to be a reduced sprint and then all of a sudden one GC team pushed and it’s actually 12 climbers left. It might just be Vine with Pitcock and some others attacking. You know what I mean? But like talking about Pitcock, some self-promo, I decided to upload a video on my YouTube channel, the Benji N YouTube channel where I play through the entire Jod detail 2025 on Pro Cycling Manager 2024. 1 hour and 28 minutes. It’s a bit of a movie that I released and I’m doing it with Q46.5 and I’m trying to go for GC with with Pitters with Big [ __ ] Yes. So Benji’s Benji maybe could be the CEO of uh of Glenor in the future. Um he’s in Glasber. Don’t think my income’s in that range yet. Never say never. Um so you can check it out if you want. Go and check it out. And on Benji’s uh Benji’s channel. In fact, he had a director come up to him today saying he already watched the full the full episode last night. Literally at the Moar bus. Yeah. The one of the people that one of the stars was like, “I watched your video last night.” I was like, “What do you think of the podcast?” And he was like, “No, no, no. I watched the 1 hour and a half PCM video last night.” I was like, “Mate, I’m surprised you had time for that.” I’m trying to pull a real To be fair, he gave me a pizza as well, so I had lunch from Moar today. Dark Horse Floren Stalk from the Breakaway. He won a He won uh Trofeo Serat Traantuna. If you haven’t watched the YouTube stream of that in January that has a long climb in it, far from the finish and uh he won that in impressive fashion ahead of uh some children and proconty Spanish riders. M we got to talk about a different race. We got to talk about Leaz Baston U19. So, the junior’s least on the edge was ridden, I’m pretty sure, today or yesterday. And in the final, there was a two-up sprint at the finish line with one of the most disgusting things I’ve seen in the last kilometer. You’ve got two riders sprinting. On one side of the row, you’ve got Harry Hudson. On the other side, Leander Deans from Cannibal Victorious. Basically, the junior team of uh of Bahan Victorious. Leandre Dean seems like he’s winning. There’s a motorbike in front of them that’s slowing down moves right into the vehicle deviation of the of the finish. In doing so, completely blocking Leander Deant who is about to win LBLU19. He has to go around him and the other guy Harry Hudson wins. Like Harry Hudson still a fantastic performance, but in my opinion, Leander would have won that if it wasn’t for the motorbike. And to lose LBL19 because a motorbike is blocking a sprint, that is one of the stupidest things I’ve seen in this year. It was just such a drastic action like that guy should have no business even doing it in the middle of a race in that erratic fashion. I mean would be crazy but yeah maybe you saw the vehicle exit. So yeah really really not dangerous. I mean it’s it’s bad enough it it’s bad to lose the race. He nearly got taken out. They should have neutralized the results obviously. I don’t know how they just upheld the results of that. Also welder espa finished today. I’ve done daily highlight videos obviously on Lantern Rouge YouTube channel, but Demi Volering won GC completely convincingly. She was never under pressure. She won the two uphill finishes uh and she got the leader. She got the mountain train she never had at SD works this year. Now she’s on a different team. Vanderbre took over at 8ks to go and literally paced for 7 km with Volering in the wheel. Uh despite Yeah. Voling not looking like under pressure and then Royster just like outsprinted Vanderbre to then take uh to take second place on GC from her. So that was quite strange. Cedrine Kerbal definitely her best GC performance uh climbing wise she was really really good. Roser’s flying by the way like too. Yeah, we have to keep talking about like even not just today but also on Laguna a couple of days ago really really solid and got to say I can’t shut up about an strategy of just pacing at the front of the group and then getting attacked and then realizing that you probably shouldn’t have paced the entire climb. It’s like it starts to explain to me why the Moling was riding the way she did before this year. It practically makes no sense what Thunder Dragon is doing. You’re in second and so you pace with first and third who’s one second behind you just in your wheel the entire climb at a steady pace. That is that makes no sense. You’re benefit. You’re giving them the advantage of your draft the entire climb when you’re pacing. That is it’s a stupid tactic. Yeah. To win it means you have to be cuz there was no attack. She just went steady hard. But like to win it means you need to be Yeah. 0.3 0.25 25 watts per kilo stronger just about because you never even start with separation. Uh shout out to Monica Trinka Colinell great performance for Liverool Jaco as well as uh is she the new Kim Lurinar kind of kind of she started she did her first UCI race last year she was on BP Pink Bonani uh which is a continental women’s team and she was immediately performing for them and yeah she obviously has Watts for days and Jacob did a great job. signing her two years. And actually a bit of an update in the uh LBL podcast, women’s LBL podcast, we spoke about Kim Lour Pinar. I said, “Is it lour? Is it Pinar?” She actually reached out herself. Um and uh she said she prefers the the full thing Kim Lur Pinar. So we know that now and now everyone knows it as well. Uh yeah. So Lava Feminina, I think it was a pretty good race. Some of the hilly stages were good for the tour to France. I would say nothing’s changed. Music look good. Leoo despite actually no that’s not true. I think Musich and Leu didn’t look at their best but as a cohesive unit FTJ Suez did what I needed to see. Guatini was a beast protected all day and then the two Mitch and Leu were completely committed to Volering and uh I think for the tour they’re still looking like the heavy heavy favorites with Demi especially if yeah especially Vandervander is going to be her climbing domesty. I agree. And I also keep getting impressed by Ninka Vinka continuously being so good at the age of 20. She is, let me check by age. I think she’s 20. Yeah. Like 20 years old. A flesh 21st at LBL 800 like getting 10 phone alto now. Like her climbing is there. She’s got years to grow still. That’s super impressive. That’s beating the likes of Rihanna Marcus who’s never been a pure climber really. But it’s just a very impressive performance in general. So that was nice to see as well. Anyway, I’ll uh have a think about what else we need to talk about. Anything? That’s the race. There’s lots of racing on tomorrow on Sunday and we’ll see with the recap of the Euralia stage three. The trophy Martin Wayne on this tomorrow. Oh yeah. One to one. Looking forward to it. I think it’ll be a sprint because there is uh I think it’s like 500 meters elevation game. So, it’s a Sprinters uh Sprinters Deluxe. Uh yeah, Ben Cosra also won after coming back. So, that’s nice to see. It’s been a while since I’ve seen that name. Ben was injured. He’s back. Rumored to go to Inos, I think I heard this morning, but uh on the imagine Benson transfer Laurance and Vocal in the same team. That’s the news. Yeah, that reminds me because there’s also an article from Lorton in the in the Times this morning that the total energy deal merger or giving funds into in Oscar and a dear cycling team is close. So then uh a French Viva France team with those guys would make a lot of sense. Are we stepping into weekly show territory? Well, we’re not doing a weekly show Monday, are we? Okay. Traveling. Maybe we will. Maybe. Actually, we’re sitting here on Monday in in Tyran with not much to do. So maybe we will. Yeah, we’ll have a think about it. depends on whether we can schedule it in before the flights, etc. So, don’t don’t see it as a promise, but it’s a maybe for now and then we can discuss the follow-up of what happens to total energy after that. But that’s all for later. Hope you enjoyed the podcast and we’ll see you tomorrow. Chowo chiao.