IN DEPTH: MOST VALUABLE PLAYERS
With team sizes squeezed to eight riders and modern- day Tour routes throwing up countless potential hazards, a versatile all- rounder able to fill multiple roles often proves crucial to team leaders. Procycling speaks to the most valued team players in t
We speak to the peloton’s most versatile riders, tasked with protecting their team leaders
“CYCL ING IS SIMPLE , IT’S THE LAW OF THE STRONGEST”
When you look at all the races, out of those 80 days there are maybe 10 time trials and team time trials for
me to fully focus on. Then you have maybe 10 one-day classics, also full focus, but there are 60 other days where I really want to contribute.
In the Tour de France in 2017 on the stage to La Planche des Belles Filles, it was only me and Mickey [Schär] who controlled the breakaway with eight riders, guys like Boasson Hagen and Gilbert. Everybody saw it, and the next day we had everybody come to us and they were like, ‘You were like motorbikes.’ The teams see that and when they pick their roster for the Tour they are like, ‘We want to take a sprinter and we want to be competitive in the team time trial,’ then they know we have a guy like him…you’re worth four riders. When they know you can do the job of maybe two guys, you’re much more valuable. For me, the shrinking size of the teams was never a problem because, up to now, never for any race was there a question if I would be selected or not. I know it’s hard for some riders who might be on the limit, but for my value it’s good. It’s really good to be versatile.
When you have an echelon you always have the same guys, so you respect each other because you know their qualities. There’s no point battling against them because you’re in the same boat in a way. Luke [Rowe] tries to protect his leader, Oliver [Naesen] tries to protect Romain, and it’s good to be up there with these guys and earn the respect. How do you earn this respect? Cycling is a simple sport, it’s the law of the strongest. Not by having a big mouth or shouting but by showing what you can do. What Luke did in Paris-Nice didn’t go unnoticed – we were in Tirreno and everybody was talking about it.
The best feedback you can have is when you feel that the leader has 100 per cent confidence in you. If it just happens that he always naturally comes to look for you and stays with you, that’s the best feedback because then you know you are doing your job right. I feel like I have responsibility for my leader. If there was to be a crosswind situation in this year’s Tour de France and I’m not in the front with Thibaut [Pinot] I would blame myself because it’s my job to bring him to the right place. Maybe your reward is not the win but to be able to put your leader there which, without you, he might not be able to do by himself.
“WHEN THEY TRUST YOU, THEY JUST FOLLOW YOU”
A big part of my job, certainly in the last four Tour de Frances I’ve been part of in 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, we’ve always taken the yellow jersey fairly early, so it’s meant a lot of
time on the front. I think a big part of being able to do that is by being able to climb slightly better. You can go a lot further in the race. Essentially, the longer I can sit on the front and set the tempo, it means we have more guys towards the back end of the race and strength in numbers. Every extra kilometre I can pull for means one k less other guys have to take over from.
I think with one less guy in the teams at the Tour, it’s one less domestique as the team always takes the star rider. That has a knock-on effect: it increases the value of a rider who can cater to a lot of areas. If you can have one guy who can look after a rider towards the end in sprint finishes, ride on the front and climb half decent, it’s a good value to have.
The role is quite high pressure. In Paris-Nice for example this year, there were guaranteed crosswinds during the early stages and we had a team that was pretty much all climbers. It’s clear you’re going there with a role to do, and if you fail in that role, your GC guys, Kwiato and Bernal, are going to be completely isolated. It’s not the climbers’ jobs to be there, they were smashing it up the Col de Turini, that’s my job in the wind.
Great leaders, Kwiato, Bernal, G, Froomey, they kind of make you better than you are. They’ll follow your wheel. But when you’ve got their trust, that’s the big one. When they trust you, they just follow you and they say, wherever you go, I’ll follow. If I’m not in the right place at the right time then you lose that trust, but once you fairly consistently get it right and they see that, it gets easier.
In every team there’ll always be one or two for that kind of role, a flat, helper-ish type. You know who they are – Bernie Eisel, Michael Schär, Marcus Burghardt – these guys are the best in the world. You’re all trying to do the same job so it’s easier to just get along with each other and accept we’re not all going to be able to do it perfectly, because we all want to get into that corner first and only one of us can. When I joined Sky it was a bit of an older team. We had guys like Bernie Eisel and Mat Hayman who I was lucky enough to turn pro under. What they gave me was invaluable and I’ll forever be grateful for what they taught me.
“I THINK YOU HAVE TO BE QUITE SELFLESS”
It is a team sport, obviously, but in every team you have some individuals who go for the same results, and every race is the
same. You have to get the trust from your leaders, which is the main thing; if they don’t trust your back wheel because you make strange moves then it’s not the way to do it. The first is trust and then you have to understand the race, make the small moves and not spend too much energy when it’s not necessary. I don’t think that’s an experience thing, I think you have it or you don’t... You are one of those fighters who is in every finale. Every day I have to elbow Luke Rowe – it’s always the same guys. There are eight, 10 guys. We know each other, we laugh, but we give each other so much sh*t. Marcel Sieberg is a good friend of mine, but when the race finale is on, our elbows are always next to each other, while 10ks before we would be chatting. That’s the thing, either you have it or not. You see it with lots of neo-pros: they don’t really have it and then suddenly they get it. Nathan van Hooydonck he joined the team last year and on the first day I said, ‘Oh sh*t, he’s an asshole, he knows how to fight.’ He will have that his whole career.
“YOU ARE ALWAYS NEXT TO THE SAME GUYS”
My role has evolved a lot since I joined the team in 2017. I remember the phone call from Vincent Lavenu and he was like, ‘After the classics we are always the last team in the WorldTour ranking with zero points. We just want a classics leader who gets regularly between 10th and 20th, gets a couple of points.’ I thought, okay, I’m a second year pro, that’s something I can do. Expectations weren’t all that high. Then I got one podium in 2017 [third at E3 Harelbeke] and the year after they were like, we’ve got to do some more podiums.
The role I have in the team is the leader in the one-day races and then a helper for Romain in the stage races. This is a role that I really love; it suits me very well. Last year the Tour team sizes got smaller by one place, and for a rider like me that would be the best thing. Because if you are specialist in flat riding, or mountain climbing, or whatever, as the teams get smaller you get more polyvalent guys like me.
At the front, you are always next to the same guys. I remember the first days of Paris-Nice, I was only riding next to Luke Rowe. I also realised that if I wasn’t there, there was a high chance that Romain would not have been fourth or fifth on GC in the end. Like in the Tour de France, it’s super important for a guy like me to be there.
When you are new in the bunch and you try to position yourself before a key point, other riders or teams won’t let you in. They are like, ‘F*ck, this guy is going to leave a gap.’ When I take one of the front positions now, there is no one who comes to fight me, even if it is for a long mountain, a cobbled hill, or some wind. I feel like I am really respected and everybody is happy to see me on the front. I don’t think anyone worries about me leaving gaps, so I get a lot of space.
“I NEEDED TO MAKE MYSELF IRREPLACEABLE”
I never ever thought that I would be so versatile, that’s
been the strength. When I started with the team and got selected for the Tour the first time I thought that’s lucky, as I was a lead-out man. I knew I needed to make myself irreplaceable so that I could fit into any scenario. That’s where I’ve filled in the gap and where I’ve cemented my spot. I’ve always kept that side of me that I’m not too one-dimensional. My biggest motivating factor was to tick all the boxes. Before I signed here, I was always fighting for a team, always signing one year contracts and never getting settled. When I came to this team I started to see that if I did the lead-outs they valued it.
I started going the extra mile; maybe I can lead out and then help a bit on the hills. If I do my job and a bit more, this is a team that values what I do. There are not too many guys in the peloton who can do all these things. There are not many guys that can change their roles and on the day go, ‘Okay, I’m leading out, tomorrow we go to the climbs.’ I started seeing that was my strength, and being reliable.
A lot of teams are starting to see that you only need a few specialists and then you need the horses to back them up. If you’re a guy who can do everything and you’re reliable, which is probably the biggest point, then your value does go up. A lot of teams now are looking for guys who are solid; the teams are getting smaller, there’s less sponsors around, there’s no more room for guys just to make up the numbers. It’s improved for riders like me. Back in the day it used to be like, ‘Oh, he’s a domestique, he’s not one of the boys.’ It’s changed the way people perceive helpers compared to before.
“I CAN DO A JOB ALONE WHERE OTHER TEAMS MAYBE NEED TWO RIDERS”
The main role for me is to guide the young guys, because in the last 15 years I’ve seen almost everything
you can have in a race. This makes it easier for the young guys to ask me, what do we do now or when do we move and what’s important. Also it’s to give them some tips before or after the race, for preparation.
To get the green jersey is always a big goal with Peter Sagan and to have him in the race, not only in the Tour de France, makes it much more difficult because you always have to take the responsibility when he’s on the start line. It’s not often that he is not in shape and that we are saying no, we don’t ride. Most of the time we take the race in our hands. He has enough experience for the sprints, I can only help him by keeping him fresher for the last kilometres, then he has to decide how to do the sprint.
It was never really a big problem for me to stay up the front; I did it from the first years when I turned professional, so I more or less grew up in the first line of the peloton. I think that the team know that when I come to a race I have the eye to know when it’s important to move up and when to know that we can relax a little bit. They know that they can trust me, and that’s also important for the young guys, for the sprinters, for the GC guys, they stay behind you and if I don’t move, normally they don’t move. When I move, I think it’s important and in the right moment. When you ride with the GC riders, like Cadel or Richie Porte, they really stay behind you because they know the Tour is three weeks long and the more time they can spend in my slipstream, the more power they will have for the end of the race.
I can do a job alone where other teams maybe need two riders, and if you can provide this then this is much more important. Then they can take maybe one more lead-out rider or one more climber for the Tour.