Beyond The Finish Line with Christian Vande Velde and George Hincapie, Former Professional Racing Cyclists
Willy Walker: Good afternoon, everybody, and welcome to another Walker Webcast. It is with beyond joy to have my two great friends and American cycling icons, George Hincapie and Christian Vande Velde, with me today. I asked George and Christian to join me to talk broadly about cycling—what the two of them are up to today in the world of cycling in and out of commentating and then to talk about human performance, talk about lifetime fitness and how these two incredible men, incredible athletes, maintain the level of performance and fitness that they both do, as well as the lives that they live every single day. So, George and Christian, great to have you both.
Christian Vande Velde: Thanks for having us.
George Hincapie: Pleasure to be on.
Willy Walker: Happy, happy, happy new week to you both. G, you got some big news this morning. I saw it on your Instagram feed. So maybe we jump right to that, because that's big breaking news about the new team.
George Hincapie: I think I told you about it about a month ago, but it's a project I've been working on for the last six months, and it kind of came knocking on my door. I’ve been there, done that. The only way I would ever do it again is if I had a long-term commitment for my principal sponsor and co-founder of the team, and I got that done. Here we are trying to build America's team again. I mean, it's going to be a long road, but I'm super-excited about it. We're already talking over half the roster; about 10 guys are under LOI already. We're going to have a minimum of 50 percent Americans, but most likely 60 percent Americans, and just give them an opportunity to make it to the big stage.
Willy Walker: Fantastic. I want to dive in on that a little bit later, George, as we talk about what it takes to get a team up and going, and the financing behind it, and the riders and the economics of cycling today. But before I dive into that in just a little bit, I want you to start with what's keeping both of you busy these days, and inside of that, the tour, the move, Grand Fondos, Peloton, commentating, new media versus old media. Then, I want to move into fitness and how the two of you maintain fitness. The two of you interact with lots and lots of people at varying levels of fitness. To this audience, not everyone who's listening to this is going to be someone who either is a weekend warrior or someone who's going to go to one of your camps, but just talk about lifetime fitness and how the two of you stay in such great shape. Then, we'll finish talking a little bit more specifically about the tour and provide a preview of the tour, which both of you are going to cover. But George, let me start with you, if I can. Beyond the clothing brand, the events which I want you to talk about, the formation of modern adventure, the Move, coaching Enzo—talk about all of that as it relates to what George Hincapie is up to these days.
George Hincapie: Well, certainly the last several months have been focused a lot on just building the team, the infrastructure, and hiring a leadership team. That's taken up a lot of my time, but of course, I have the Move show right after this, talking about the Tour of Switzerland and being heavily involved in the clothing company as well. But everything centered around cycling, a sport that Christian and I love very much, that we've done in our whole lives. We know nothing else but the world of the bike. So we've continued working in that world, so to speak, in many different aspects, whether it's a team, clothing company, events, or coaching, like you said. I feel really blessed that I'm able to continue to be involved in the sport, albeit not suffering every day for six or seven hours on the bike. It's a different role, but I like it.
Willy Walker: Well, you're suffering, chasing your son Enzo up. I saw that you and Enzo did a trip in Europe where you did 60,000 vertical feet over, I don't know how many days. I don't care whether that's a week or a month; that's still a hell of a lot of climbing. Talk about having a son who's following in your footsteps and the success that Enzo has had, because I think a lot of people don't know that you have one of the very top junior riders in the United States as your son.
George Hincapie: Yeah, it's been fun. We try to make all our kids ride bikes or exercise every day. Enzo, at like 12 years old, really, really started getting interested in it. He's won several national championships since then. He's in Europe right now in Girona, Spain, currently racing. And his neighbors are Christian Vande Velde and Bobby Julik. He has this crazy mentorship team around him. So he's really taken advantage of that. He's in love with the bike. His passion is to become a professional cyclist.
Willy Walker: How old was he when he dropped you on a climb?
George Hincapie: 14. He just turned 17 two days ago, so now he'll just destroy me on a climb.
Willy Walker: I want to loop back on that a little bit. VDV, bring us up to date. You're about to head off to France to do commentating. You've gone back to Peloton after taking a four-year hiatus from being a guest instructor at Peloton. Let our listeners know what else you're up to.
Christian Vande Velde: Right now, it's feast or famine with me. Pretty much nothing's changed since I was a pro, really, where it's full gas during the summertime and then not as much during the wintertime. My summers are stupidly full. So yeah, I'll leave for France in one week's time, and I'll be back on the motorcycle again, which is the best job in the world and the worst all at the same time. I absolutely love it. It scratches the itch a little bit there, being inside Peloton. Peloton–it’s been really fun to be back in New York. I do one week at a time with a ton of content five times a year right now, and that's starting to grow. I'm really happy with the things that we've done there and some of the things you alluded to before when you started this podcast of getting people moving. It's really been fun to see people starting on a Peloton bike, getting a real bike, coming to Georgia's events, and coming to one of my camps. You're doing a race afterward. Just seeing the progression of people moving like that has been really fulfilling. The summer is truly here. It's hot everywhere, and it's going to be hot in the back of the motorcycle. So yeah, a lot of news is going on. It's always like this in the cycling world. A couple of weeks before the Tour de France with George, congratulations to you for the team. Everyone is excited to see that we can bring cycling back on board in the United States, and we have a ton of talent. We’ve got these young kids coming. It's really fun to see with Enzo. I think he might have been even younger when he dropped me, by the way.
Willy Walker: There's so much in that that I want to dive into. You mentioned the camps, Christian. Both you and George spend a lot of time cycling. George has his Fondos. You and I have done a ton of those, where you're seeing tens of thousands of people on a weekend. Both of you also do smaller groups, and George, you have domestic people who come and stay at your hotel and go to do smaller camps. Talk for a moment about where that business sits today. Is that a growth business, or are more people going and taking groups of people to go on small boutique cycling trips with the likes of the two of you, or is that a pretty steady state? There's always going to be a small cohort of people who really want to bike and interact with the likes of the two of you. It's always going to be there, but it's not something that has a lot of growth opportunity behind it.
George Hincapie: I would say the industry in general is definitely growing. People want to travel for experiences or health and wellness. I mean, that portion of the market is certainly growing. We're limited by space. We only have 13 rooms, so we sell out really quickly. Hopefully, one day we can expand that property. From what we're seeing in the industry, that sector is definitely growing. I know for myself, I can't go somewhere and just sit on a beach all day and do nothing. I need to figure out the good riding, good mountain biking, or good gyms, and then, of course, enjoy the other stuff that a vacation may provide. I think that's sort of the trend, the way the trend is going.
Christian Vande Velde: I'll second that, Willy. I think it's mostly the experience. You know what we saw with our camps. Riding's an excuse to get together. It's more what people remember is the chatter over a nice bottle of wine at dinner or talking trash after the ride at lunch. Those are the things that truly matter there. It says community and it’s experience, us doing this. We started 10 years ago or so, and George, maybe longer. Actually, I've been doing Little Nell for over 10 years in Aspen, so it's a long time. We get a lot of people to come back and do it year after year. So it is a little bit of a family, but it's always the experience, and it's really the community. So I don't think that's going away. I second what George says. I think maybe as far as racing goes in the United States, it’s kind of back to where we were when I first started in the late ‘90s. But as far as talent and cycling in general, it's fitness or experience. It's stronger than it ever has been.
Willy Walker: And VDV, what's it like to be on the back of that motorcycle covering the Tour de France? I mean, George gets to go to Aspen and hang out in a cushy studio and wake up at a reasonable time every day and have his commentary on what's going on over there while we get to watch you literally hanging on for dear life as you're flying down these different roads. I mean, that's got to be one of the most thrilling and then also sort of petrifying experiences that you've ever lived through.
Christian Vande Velde: Oh, exactly. It's exactly all that. Honestly, though, the worst part about it is just the heat out there and the fear when there's really nothing happening behind the Peloton. You're sweating; you pretty much have all the protective gear on. It took me just one day—my very first day, actually. I think it was in Bilbao two years ago. I showed up wearing jeans, and I’ll never forget this moment: one of George’s and my old friends, Phil Jaber, rolled up to me and said, “Oh, you’re pretty confident in your driver.” I was like, “What’s that supposed to mean?” And he goes, “Where are your pads?” That’s when I quickly understood what that was all about. So yeah, it's a great job. It's something that I always dreamed of: being inside the Peloton yet again. I didn't even understand how much fun I'd truly have been in there, smelling it, feeling it, getting a great understanding of the vibe of what's going on, the tension within the Peloton, even the back with the cars where I am. But at the same time, sometimes I’m thinking, 'What am I doing? Why am I risking my life out here?’ But again, I think I'm really lucky to be able to do this as a job, and for as long as they let us do so, because I think that this is one of the things that will truly be illegal in the years to come.
Willy Walker: You think they'll just do it via drones?
Christian Vande Velde: Drones—there's something to be said—there's so much talk with AI, but there's something to be said about having a human in there to really get that feeling of what it's truly like. I love being on the bike, mostly just because I can really steer my own narrative of what has actually happened in the race and what I feel like. Whereas at the desk and in the studio for the previous 10 years, we always pretty much had a set agenda, and we were with others. So I love being by myself and really seeing what's going on and really explaining to the viewers at home what that feels like to be in here right now. Whether it's hot, it's cold, the fans, how much tension there is within the Peloton—that's really fun to me.
Willy Walker: I guess as I think about it, Christian, I mean, it is the one perspective that actually gets you in the race. In other words, if you're up in a helicopter, you're only seeing it from the sky. If you're standing on the side of the racecourse, obviously it goes whipping by you and it's done. If you are behind in one of the chase cars, you are only seeing the back end of it and hearing the race. Being with the media and being able to move up and on the Peloton is sort of the reason I looked at it. During the NBA Finals, I was sitting there looking at the fact that they still have the commentators courtside, even though they seem to have commercialized every single seat courtside beyond where the players sit. But there are still a couple there where they're like, “We want those commentators actually down on courtside to see it and not sitting in some studio watching it.” I would guess being on the back of that motorcycle is really the only place you can really get a good sense of it.
Christian Vande Velde: Absolutely. There are so many times that I'll hear in the commentary, “Oh, they're just taking it easy on this descent.” I'll just chime in there immediately, like, “Are you insane? Do you realize how fast we're going?” I mean, I am gripped, Willy. I mean, I'm holding on for dear life. Many times, I just close my eyes because, I'd say, the biggest fear factor I think for many of us is the lack of control. You're at the whim of the drivers next to you in cars, first of all, who have roll cages on them, and then we on motorcycles are completely open to any kind of crash. My driver is the same driver every year: Nassim. He's fantastic. I love him to death. I mean, I literally hug him after every stage. Thank you so much for getting me home safe. But yes, it is the difference between having the wind in your face in the heat and the cold and whatever that may be versus being inside a car with the air conditioning on and not really appreciating what it really feels like right now. It's a difference. It's a small difference, but it is a massive difference at the end when you really take everything into account. I mean, you can always feel how fast you're going, you could always feel the tension within the Peloton, but there's something to be said about truly just being outside.
Willy Walker: George, I believe you still hold the record for the most tour starts of any professional rider, at 17. I think I'm right on that.
George Hincapie: There's a couple that have, I think, tied me, or even Jen's voyage started, I think, 18. So yeah, I'm not there anymore, but I've probably finished more than all of them.
Willy Walker: Well, the question still pertains, which is this: you have participated, have done 17, raced 17 Tour de France. As you know, you know that race better than almost anybody. What's the hardest part of it? When you think back, is it that it is so many days? Is it the recovery? Is it actually just turning yourself inside out on some incredible climb? Is it the fear factor that Christian was just talking about, some of the sense that race requires you to do? What's the hardest part of the Tour de France?
George Hincapie: All of the above. Everything you just mentioned. It all encompasses the hardest event that you can imagine participating in. The danger. I mean, every day you're risking your life to stay in the front, to move up 10 spots. I still remember quite vividly bombing down the telegraph, a 30-mile or 25-mile descent. And I'm descending down one of the guys that I trust most in the Peloton, Christian Vande Velde. And we're probably going 45 miles an hour. We come into the town of Telegraph, and I think Christian saw an obstacle and kind of just took a little bit of a move to the right. My wheel happened to be on his right. I overlapped his wheel and I went flipping over at 45 miles per hour, shattering my frame everywhere, loose skin on all my body. And there’s still 60 miles to go over the Col de Madeleine and Alpe d'Huez. So these things happen all the time. You're subject to serious injury every day in the Tour de France. But you can't think of it during the race because if you do, you're going to have major issues. You go to bed going, “What the h*ll did I just do, and how did I survive that?” It's just so many different facets of the Tour De France that require everything your body can give physically and mentally as well.
Willy Walker: Do you sleep well during the Tour? I always used to get ready for a race. The night before a race, I never slept well. Whether it is a marathon, a triathlon, or a bike race, I never sleep well. But obviously on the tour it's over a three-week period, so you better darn well be able to sleep. Can you sleep? Or is it just that you're so wiped out that it's almost sleep deprivation for most of the race?
George Hincapie: Yeah, you take over, Christian.
Christian Vande Velde: I would say that was one of the biggest surprises is how little you do sleep because you're always on and the difference between the Tour de France and the Giro d'Italia or the Vuelta, the other three big tours, is that there's so much more scope, there's so much just attention from media, fans at home, friends at home. So you're constantly trying to stay in touch with people, and do interviews later on. It's just more, and so you're just on. So by the time you could actually go to sleep, it was never before midnight, Willy, which was a massive surprise to me. Then you just sleep more or less until eight or nine o'clock in the morning, rinse and repeat, breakfast, on the bus, put your suitcase outside. But I think that's something that George and I really loved. And that's what we were really good at, especially the big three-week races. It was easier for us to absorb that punishment, and just because we truly enjoyed the process so much of what it was like to go day to day and never get too far ahead of yourself. But yeah, the sleep thing, yeah, that was one of the biggest surprises. Even working, it's hard to relax, and the more tired your body gets, the harder it is, ironically, to sleep and truly relax. Back in the dark ages, when we were racing the Tour de France, the air conditioning, or the lack thereof—those kinds of things, and just baking there, and getting a wet towel laid on your chest, and taking a cold shower in the middle of the night. Yeah, it's not as glamorous as you'd think.
George Hincapie: I could add to that, too. I get made fun of all the time by our mutual friends. I can nap anywhere. It doesn't matter. I'll just fall asleep, and you guys have all seen that. I think that was actually part of me. One of my gifts is that I'd get on the bus, boom, I'd nap at the hotel, and then I would usually sleep pretty well. It's not like the day before a one-day race where you're excited and full of nerves. You're full of anxiousness, anxiety. In the Tour de France, I truly feel like your body just goes into survival mode. It's like, I need to sleep. Otherwise, I will not survive tomorrow, or I will really struggle to survive. I think that's sort of carried on with me now. I get in the car now. I'm like, I'm taking a nap. I'll try to find a nap anywhere so I can just refresh the mind. But, also like Christian just mentioned, there were the techniques we would do, whether it was take a cold shower right before you went to bed or, you know, try to find a fan somewhere just to help cool it off. A lot of people think the Tour de France is one of the most glamorous sports in the world. You're staying in two-star hotels for the most part, and there's no air conditioning, and it's loud. So these days, they’ve done a really big job controlling the sleep environments for the teams. They have the money to provide cooling mattresses, and sometimes even bring their own air conditioning units. Some of the big-money teams have a whole truck that comes in before the riders check in—they’ll change the sheets, swap out the mattresses, add AC units or fans, and sanitize the room. Not all teams have that, but the top ones do. I mean, the sleep investment they put into all these teams now is just… every little bit, as you know, counts. So they're really focusing on sleep now as well, which we never did back in the day.
Willy Walker: As it relates to that, when you think about sleep, I think about performance and about everything that goes into being a Tour de France rider today versus 20 years ago when the two of you were competing. Beyond the things that George just talked about, obviously, today you have performance monitors. We have the ability to look at wattage consistently during races. The diets are different. The bikes are different. If you look at the performance of these athletes today, I actually dove in for a moment and asked ChatGPT to do a comparison of Lance's output and watts per kilogram versus Pogačar’s. As you both know very well, they actually kind of sit right on top of each other. Pogačar’s just slightly higher as it relates to watts per kilogram than where Lance was back in the day. But has the physiology of the riders changed dramatically over the last two decades?
Christian Vande Velde: I would say the biggest thing with anything in technology, and I love to hear what George has to say about this, but I would say that with nutrition, that has been the biggest shift. The engines are just that much bigger. There's always more gasoline in the tank. I was thinking this morning about what question you're going to ask. A rider of George’s size, Georgie's 6'3", 170-ish, 160-170, I mean, he was so skinny when he was racing. But a bigger rider would have been so much better because of the nutrition they have to do. You just need so much more. And the amount of calories they're consuming per hour in carbohydrates is more or less double from what we were eating at the time. And so that has been the biggest one, where no one bonks at him. No one falls apart because of a lack of nutrition these days. They're blowing their engines up. And then, as far as the numbers go from our era to the next era, it's unfair to compare any era, whether it be the ‘70s, ‘80s, or current, but it's the repeatability. It's what they're doing on the first climb, and that's just comparing that to the last climb. They're already flying up the first time, and the second climb, and the third climb, and then still doing that on the fourth climb. So it's the repeatability of what they've already done, the punishment, even to wean down the pack. I think it's also the depth of the Peloton as well, where there were just a handful of people who could do this. Now you turn around, going over a big climb of Cat Two or Cat One, and there are still a hundred guys in the Peloton. Everyone could do six. It's not a big deal. The sprinters are incredible athletes. Everyone thinks all those guys can't climb. Yeah. You go try to climb with one of those sprinters. Good luck with that. I think that has been the biggest one, and then of course, the disk brakes, the wider tires, the breathability of the suits, the aerodynamics of what everyone's in. If you're going in the breakaway, if you're not in a skin suit, you're not even in the race. The aero helmets—I mean, everything is looked after now, really. But the biggest turning point has really been right in COVID, actually. It was just that everyone had more time to reset, go and do their own altitude camps, train like they would be if they were the fulcrum of the team. So everyone trained at altitude while they had that big break, and they came out guns blazing, and it completely changed the sport. Then that's pretty much the same time as these amazing products and diet came out. So guys smashing down 150 grams of carbohydrates per hour while on the bike, while racing a Moto GP, more or less on these descents—it's mind-blowing. And I would say that my biggest takeaway that George alluded to a second ago is, when I see them and I'm there physically, I think, how did I ever do this? There's no way, no way I would ever do that again, or I can't believe that I did as many as I did. And so that's amazing. I'm still a massive fan, obviously. But George, I would love to hear what you think is the biggest change.
George Hincapie: Yeah, no, I agree. I think nutrition and the way riders track their training and their calorie intake and outtake have completely changed. I mean, back in our day, we'd starve ourselves and try to be as lean as possible, try to get home completely bombed, thinking, “Oh, that was a big day. I barely got home. I’ve got nothing left to train the bike.” Now, the amount of nutrition my son has here at the house that shows up every couple of weeks is insane. And the amount he takes on rides! He weighs his food, and he, by the way, is never hungry. He'll come to me and say, “Dad, I've got to eat 2,000, 2,500 more calories before the end of the day. I don't know how I'm going to do it.” They just track it so much more smartly than we ever did. They took the guessing game out of it. I know that a lot of the riders are looking at, for instance, what Chris Froome won for the Tour de France. I think it’s his best numbers, and he mentioned it to me one time. I think last year we went on a ride of seven watts per kilo for 12 minutes. And that was the best he ever did. And he said, “Man, I'm going to keep winning for a long time.” Well, Pogačar is doing this for 45 minutes now. The amount they can keep going and going and going, and the amount of fuel they have in their tanks, is just totally different than back in our day. They train their bodies to absorb more carbohydrates. That's why you're seeing these times getting faster and faster.
Willy Walker: You wear a continuous glucose monitor, George, don't you? I know you did for a while. Do you still wear it?
George Hincapie: I did for a while. No, not anymore.
Willy Walker: Now you don't. Okay. When you wore it, did it give you fantastic insights into this issue as it relates to fueling and coming into a ride ready to go and not allowing yourself to bonk?
George Hincapie: Oh yeah, totally. And also, what to eat and what not to eat before big rides. Just the way the glucose spike can affect you in so many different ways, and how different it is for other people. I mean, it's just really individualistic, and I learned a lot by wearing it.
Willy Walker: Dive in for a second because a bunch of our listeners won't understand the reference point you had to seven watts per kilo. Stage 20 of the Tour de Italia was an incredible stage, which you covered closely, and I would plug the Move episode that you and Johan did in looking back on that stage and calculating why Simon Yates ended up winning. But in it, you talk about Wout van Aert putting down, I think it was, 500 watts for a 10-minute segment. And then Simon, I think, jumped in and said that they calculated that Wout had put in 400 watts, an hour and seven minutes, 67 minutes at over 400 watts. A couple of things: scale what that means. I mean, how do you tell somebody who's never put a power meter on a bike how to proportion that? Do you have any way that you sort of say to people what that would be like to give someone a sense of how much power is going into the bike at that moment?
George Hincapie: I mean, I'd say if he's doing it for an hour and seven minutes, I think you said, or for over 400 watts, if you ride a bike a little bit, just try to sit on that wheel for like 60 seconds and see what it feels like. See if you can hold that for another hour and change. That's, I guess, pretty simply put, but that's the reality of how many watts that is and how hard that actually is to do.
Willy Walker: Yeah, it's funny because I think about it in the sense that you could tell people…most people know what it's like to run a six-minute mile or they know how hard it is to run a six-minute mile because they've run a mile they were in grade school, but most people haven't gotten on a bike to understand how difficult it is even to put 200 watts into a pedal, much less 300, 400, 500 watts. Most people can't even get 500 watts for any period of time into a pedal, but then to sustain that for that length of time. The length of these climbs is also over an hour at max. In that same podcast, George, you went back to your 2007, I think it was the Giro d'Italia, where you were told by Johan that you had Contador coming up on you and you needed to pull him forward. You said you went into the Hurt Locker for an hour. What were you putting out for that hour? And try and, I mean, what does that mean to be in the Hurt Locker for an hour? I mean, literally, are you at VO2 max for an hour?
George Hincapie: Oh, yeah. I mean, at least the threshold. Back then, I think I'm pretty sure I covered up my watts and just went as hard as I could to pace myself as much as I could, but going as hard as I could to where I would calculate that if he was a couple of minutes behind me that he'd most likely not catch me to the top. Still, there were no guarantees, a lot of stress, a lot of pressure to get to the top of the mountain before Contador got there, who was also a six or seven watts per kilo guy, just a freak of nature when it comes to climbing. And that was at the Tour de France, by the way, in 2007, but yeah, even a rider like myself with a guy who had been racing for, at the time, 15 years, can climb with the best in the world. When someone like that's behind you coming, it doesn't matter if it's three minutes. They're going to catch you; it was just a matter of when. I did everything I could to get to the top before he caught me.
Christian Vande Velde: We were actually in the breakaway that day together, funny enough. So we weren't going for the win, obviously. At least, George had someone to fight for behind. And, funny enough, I had dinner with Alberto last Saturday in New York, and he was showing me a screenshot. I mean, I don't know how he has this, but he just out of the blue, he's like, “This is my watts per kilogram on this stage when I was…”, and he remembers the day, the time, and they're insane. They truly were. It was actually more than I thought. To your point, Willy, it was very similar to what we're talking about with Tadej, but he even said himself, “It's really the repeatability. I could do this one time, maybe twice, but I couldn't.” This is the best climber by a long shot out of our generation. And so it's really being able to do it over and over and over, and the fact that you're talking about, “Wow, he's a big guy. He's one of the biggest guys.” He's 180 pounds, and he's doing that after he's already been the breakaway on stage 20, after 19 days of drubbing in the Giro, which is a horrible race. So some of the worst climbs you've ever seen, deep into, right on the edge of France, and going up into Sestriere. So yeah, if you see the face of Wout after he pulls off and pretty much comes to a standstill, knowing that he completely emptied the tank. But yeah, those are the good old days, right, George? I'm sure you miss that.
George Hincapie: Definitely not.
Willy Walker: George, talk about that for a second, though, as it relates to the day in and the day out of those types of climbs. Someone like Wout, you think that Wout is the MVP of this season so far, but he actually hasn't won that much. How important is the team versus the individual in cycling today versus when the two of you rode? Is the individual performance sort of maximum now, and people aren't that concerned about the teams, or do you have these riders who are just so strong as individuals that it really doesn't need the team concept that both you and Christian were such significant participants in?
George Hincapie: I think it's a question of how it's perceived. I mean, obviously, the fans will look at it and be like, “Wow. He got top four in all the biggest races in the spring.” I think his worst place was fourth in the goal, the races that he set out as goals. Then he wins a stage in the Giro d'Italia, and he is like the MVP teammate for Simon Yates as well. For him personally, and for his team, it doesn't get any better than that. Of course, he could have won some of those races, but I think he is more than fulfilled with this season so far. But obviously, some of the fans will look at it and go, “Well, he didn't win the Tour of Flanders, he didn't win Paris-Roubaix, and he should be winning that.” But I think on a personal level and on his team level, they are more than happy with the way his season's gone.
Christian Vande Velde: But apart from Wout, Willy, you're talking about team dynamics. There's no doubt about it: having a strong team around you, especially deep in the mountains, being able to help you if something does go wrong, let's say you get a flat tire crash or mechanical things like that, or you just don't have the legs on the deal like that. Having been surrounded by people like Wout, making sure that you have a trusted person by your side is massive. But at the same time, I think sometimes we go a little bit too far into how strong the team is going to win a big race. If you can't finish a job off by yourself, then it doesn't really matter how strong your team is; they can't physically push you up the climb. So it's a matter of who could finish that job on the top of those stages, but there's no doubt that it is hard to really understand sometimes because it is an individual sport. Yet, it's a team sport, and there's no way you could win some of these big races without a fantastic team by your side, whether that's just emotionally or it truly is making the difference within the race. It's still a team sport. It always will be a team sport, especially in the grand tours like the Tour de France. George and I saw all the sides of that, whether being a leader, being worked for, or doing a lot of the brunt of everything, just like you alluded to with Wout.
Willy Walker: George, you talked at the top about your new team. Let's just talk about some of the numbers behind cycling these days, because I think people could be pretty interested in both what it takes to form a team, what it takes to be one of the top teams, and then sort of how the money has changed as it relates to eyeballs, media rights, advertising rights, etc, etc. So from my quick research to put together a team that can play at the professional level, not one of known grand tour teams, but put together a professional team that will compete in these—race in these big races— it's five million to ten million dollars or euros a year to be able to form that kind of a team. To get a middle team that can compete well but isn't going for the podium, it's 20 to 30 million. If you want to have one of the top teams like the UAE team or some of the Jumbo-Visma team, that's 60 to 70 million dollars/euros a year to be able to pay the salaries, move the teams around, things of that nature. Is that rough sizing there, George, to get the table stakes to get in and play in this game?
George Hincapie: You're certainly accurate in the first two tiers. I would say the biggest tier, the Pro Tour tier, is probably max 50 million. Wouldn't you say, Christian? I'd say 60, 70 is probably more likely. So I'd say between 40 to 50 million for the UAE team or INEOS. But other than that, the average would be 20, about 25 to 30 million, like you said. That's pretty spot on. And you know, with a budget like that, you can still win races. You can still be very competitive as long as you have the right leadership, and the right ambiance and team. You can still be in there with the fight. It's getting very expensive, but it is also one of the best places and one of the best events. The Tour de France probably gets some of the most exposure on a global level, at least comparable to the biggest events in the entire world. So if you're a big company that has a global presence that wants to market your company globally, the Tour de France is a great vehicle for that.
Willy Walker: Just talking about the cost of the actual riders, I read that Pogačar right now is in a contract of about 6 million US dollars a year. George, I heard you mention a guy named Olav Kooij, whom I guess I should know, but I don't know who Olav Kooij is. And he's getting paid about 3 million euros a year to join the Decathlon team. That seemed like a big number for somebody that I mean, not that I'm some Passionate follower of professional cycling, but I think that I would know someone who is making three million a year riding professionally for decathlon and I was very surprised that Olav Kooij just signed up for three million bucks a year.
George Hincapie: Yeah. The money is, he's slowly stepping up. I think Pogačar is at 8 million for a seven-year contract. Chris Froome, 5 million, from what we hear. I mean, there is legit money out there. You know what? In my opinion, it's the hardest sport in the world. So you guys should be getting paid a lot. So yeah, a guy like Olav Kooij who's 23, but has won a lot of races, is fairly new to the pro world. I think he's got a lot of room to improve. I think that's a good, good buy for a company or a team like AG2R, Decathlon. They're clearly heavily invested in the sport. When Decathlon came in, I think, last year, they put a lot of investment into the team and you've seen it in the results. I mean, they're getting stronger and stronger. They're winning stages of grand tours. They're getting podiums and grand tours. That's what it takes these days to invest a lot of money in equipment and R&D and riders and staff.
Christian Vande Velde: Yeah, we've seen a lot of this, Willy, with some teams really stepping it up. Before AG2R, we didn't really think of it, but when Decathlon came, they made a bike out of thin air and there's a fantastic bike as well. Now, they're selling that at Decathlon, LETO, massive grocery store chains. Obviously, when they had that injection cast, that team completely changed overnight. And then of the UAE's and George, you mentioned 50, I don't even know if they have a budget at the top. If they need more money, they get more money. And so who knows what exactly their budget is, but yeah, it's a lot and I don't think anyone's overpaid. You know, you think of the sport. You see the dollars being thrown around, but it's definitely changed. Just like any sport, Willy, it's like stocks, right? Olav is a great example of that. What can he be in five years time? Do you want to lock him down? Do you want to think, “Oh man, I wish I would have bought Apple in 2001.” Well, that could be Olav going forward. So it's all what he can do in the future and with Enzo, these young riders, 17 years old, 18 years old signing contracts going to the future. It's completely changed. We were never speaking to any big teams when we were teenagers. No way. We're dreaming of that, of course, but now they're getting locked in early. To see the development of these riders and with technology, especially being able to see people's numbers, you would never have been able to understand how good George Hincapie was unless you went to Queens to go watch them race. And now you can just go on the internet and see exactly what people's numbers are, send them your training peaks files and voila, you get an audition. So it's been a massive change in the last couple years. Fun to watch, very fun.
Willy Walker: Talk about viewership for a second. If you've got a global brand and you want to be seen widely in Europe, I think last year about 150 million people watched the Tour in Europe. In France alone, 42 million viewers, with a peak on stage 16 of 8.7 million, watched it last year. So a lot of eyeballs in Europe, but the eyeballs in the U.S. have fallen dramatically since the two of you were household names and your friend Lance was drawing five, six, seven million viewers to a stage of the Tour de France. My understanding is that in the US, a typical stage is watched by about 400,000 people, which is about the same number of people who watch Squawk Box every morning on CNBC. The Netflix series came and went and didn't really capture the attention of the U.S. public. Barring Enzo Hincapie taking the world by storm and becoming the number one cyclist in the world, which obviously we would all love to see, is there anything else that can raise the viewership in the United States of pro cycling?
George Hincapie: Well, one, I hope my team helps raise the viewership and helps invigorate the U.S. Cycling scene. But a lot of people-
Willy Walker: Do you think it has to be the U. S. riders, George, or can it just be a U.S. Team?
George Hincapie: We set a sort of a goal of having 60% of the riders be American. So yeah, heavily American representation. A lot of people don't understand the market. The United States market is the biggest market globally for cycling recreationally. So it's still very important. The brands want to be able to market their brands in the United States because we spend more money on cycling than any other country in the world. So we have that going for us, but like you said, there's a lot less racing, there's a lot less viewership on the sport, but I think it's cyclical. I mean, we have an amazing crop of young American talent who are podium contenders in the Tour de France, World Cup winners. And I think, it's a matter of time before the recreational market here in the United States starts following these guys and hopefully, ups the following and increases the sports presence in general just because of how good these guys are. What'd you say, Christian?
Christian Vande Velde: Yeah, and one thing, Willy, sometimes the weekend numbers, when you're on the Big Bird, you'd be on NBC on the weekends. That's when you get the millions. When you were on NBCSN, that's when you got the standard 400,000 viewers. We're pretty much at the same as at the peak of 2009 when Lance did make his comeback. That was a big year. So it's more or less the same. And that's against all odds as well. So that's the core viewership without a bunch of American riders. But, like George just said, we have fantastic talent out there. I mean, Matteo Jorgerson, Sepp Kuss, Nielsen Paul, there's a ton of riders out there actually at the peak of the spear. But how’s that going to change it? You just need an American who's dominant in the sport. We're going against all odds. You think about what time the Tour de France starts on the West Coast, for example. You're talking at three o'clock in the morning. That's not early in the morning; that's late at night. So those kinds of things are always against everything else, but it's more or less very strong as far as viewership has not gone down. Honestly, in sports these days, if you're not going down, these days you're ahead. Unless you're the NFL, for that matter.
Willy Walker: Let's transition for a moment to just personal health and fitness, because you are my two fittest friends. I might put Strauss in that category. But the two of you maintain fantastic physical health. You both are humans. You have every tendency that most of us do to eat too much, drink too much, not hit the bike, not get to the gym, and what have you. By the way, there are plenty of former pro athletes whom the three of us know who've done just that. They just say, “You know what? That was my time. I'm done. I'm out and I'm just going to have fun.” The two of you have maintained a level of fitness that is exceptional. Talk about just a couple of the hacks or the way the two of you do that, because all of us face those tendencies where we just say, “I'm not going to do it today. I'm going to just go on vacation permanently.” The two of you stay in the game. Talk about the hacks that you both have.
George Hincapie: Oh, for me, it's all about mental wellness. I mean, if I'm not doing exercise five, six days a week, I do not feel good mentally, and I struggle. So for me, it's easy. It's not even a hack. It's just part of my life that I don't foresee ever going away.
Christian Vande Velde: Yeah, I would second that. When I did retire, Willy, I was a mess. I didn't do anything, honestly. I was doing all the things that I couldn't do while I was racing. I live in the burbs of Chicago, so I didn't really want to ride my bike, especially on the same training routes that I did since I was a kid. It was boring. But moving to Greenville, being around like-minded people like George and Bobby, it's been so great for me. I would say it's mostly on the mental side to get out there and get the demons out. If I don't move, I turn into the Tin Man. And being a little bit more in the gym these days, maybe not as much on the bike as I once was. I think everything changes and evolves as we get older. I think George and I both embrace that as yourself, Willy. I mean, you're far ahead of us on the gym side. You are. I mean jeez, Louise, enough with the picture. We don't want to see it anymore. Come on, man.
George Hincapie: Yeah, that would be my act is to try to keep up with you, really.
Christian Vande Velde: Exactly. Yeah. So we have mentors like yourself, Willy. We need to think about where we're going to be in 10 years, 20 years, things like that. Time waits for no one. Every day, you just want to kick time in the teeth and just keep on going. I want to be able to still sit on the back of the motorcycle during the tour. I want to be able to go for a ride with Enzo. I'm still going to get dropped; at least I could hang with him as long as he wants me to hang. I know it's all up to him how long I am with him, but I appreciate that. At the same time, I want to be able to wake up every day and know that if George says, “Hey, you want to do this ride tomorrow?”, then I'm ready to go. I don't need to say, “Oh, give me two weeks to train for that.” No, I'll be ready tomorrow.
Willy Walker: Whenever I talk to friends about riding with the two of you, I always talk about that extra gear that’s there just from having done what you all have done. Whether you've been on the trainer on a consistent basis or decided to go skiing for a couple weeks and not get back into the gym for a while, when you guys want to tap into that extra gear, you just kind of go there. Do either of you still actually train, train? In the sense of setting up a training regimen that says, “I need to get myself to zone X for X amount of time,” or is it a little bit more haphazard in the sense of putting in the time I need to maintain the fitness level that I want to?
Christian Vande Velde: Don't lie, George. Don't Lie.
George Hincapie: No, the only time I train is when I try to hang on my son's wheel who's doing his intervals, but I don't make it very long, but definitely no sort of overall bike plan to gain fitness for this or for that. It's just, I'd like to still ride my bike whenever I can. I'll look at my watch for fun, but I'm not tracking it by any means.
Christian Vande Velde: I mean, really, George is old as dirt, and he can still crush people. Don't get too big of a head, George, but I really think that if you were to drop George into any of these races that don't have massive climbing, he'd be fine. In fact, he'd probably be better than a lot of these so-called pros. So it's terrifying how much he's been, but of course, having Enzo as your son and wanting to be able to train with him and keep up with him, it's completely different than Bobby and myself. We see that, we're like, “Good luck. I'm glad I have girls. You can go with Enzo and do that horrible training session.” But yeah, George is definitely the strongest out of all of us. His screw is bigger than mine that's loose. So he needs that.
Willy Walker: As it relates to tracking your own personal health, do either of you wear a Whoop or an Oura ring?
George Hincapie: Yep, I wear an Oura.
Christian Vande Velde: Not anymore. I was getting way too into it, Willy, and it became like a little bit too much of an obsession, so I had to take that off.
Willy Walker: Became too much of an obsession because you felt that you were being too pedantic about what you were eating and how you were sleeping, or it was telling you stuff that you didn't want to know?
Christian Vande Velde: More the former, but I just get way too into it. I get obsessed, and I can't stop when I get into that kind of process again. I just go back to where I was as a professional athlete, and I'm like, “I don't need to be there right now.” So I know enough. I learned enough from the CGMs, what you're talking about with George, from the Whoop and the Oura ring. I know what hinders me. I know what helps me. It's all about that kind of hygiene that you go through with sleep. I know if I have a beer or whatever I'm drinking too late at night, obviously I'm going to have a bad sleep, or if I'm watching devices or looking at devices late at night. So I know those kinds of things. So it's me. Move on, I try not to, Willy.
Willy Walker: I have found the Whoop data recently to be just wildly insightful. The new version, I'm loving. There were a lot of things that told me that I used to just sort of ignore saying, “Oh, I work out a lot, I take good care, I think I eat pretty healthily.” I just would look at a bad recovery score and say, “Whatever, just go kill yourself the next day and just kind of rinse and repeat.” What I'm starting to see is that as you listen to the data a little bit, it really can tell you what you need to do and when you need to slow down and when you need to speed up. I think that being able to do synthetic VO2 max, and some of the other variables that they're starting to track through these monitors, is pretty neat. Also your age score, which, the Whoop has just come out with. I have to say, I'm still sort of bummed out that my age still isn't …. well, it's significantly younger than my actual age, but it isn't as young as I would like it to be. So I'm dead set on getting younger than both of you, and I haven't quite gotten there yet, so I'm working for that one. Yeah, that's a good goal.
George Hincapie: It’s good goals to have, for sure.
Willy Walker: Let's close out on the Tour and just some final thoughts as it relates to the Tour, and who's looking good? Obviously, Pogačar comes in having had a fantastic season. So as you think about the field, the set out of the race, and one of the other things I think is interesting is that this really has all the climbing backend-loaded into the race. So it's a pretty flat race for the first two weeks, and then it hits the mountains hard. What's your thought about what we're going to see, George? Is this race clearly Pogačar’s to lose, or could someone else come out of the gates and surprise him?
George Hincapie: I mean, clearly the way the year has gone, it's clearly Pogačar's race to lose. That said, I like the way Visma raced at De Giro. I like the way they take a long-term view on fitness with their riders. So in the back of my mind, I'm hoping that maybe, just maybe, they're planning on this, Anjon is reaching his absolute best in the last week, 10 days of the Tour de France when they actually hit the mountains. We saw him put some time into Pogačar on the time trial, which definitely helps spark the excitement of what can possibly happen. Of course, he got crushed once they got to the mountains. But like I said, I mean, these guys are really good planners and maybe they're secretly okay with that and hoping for the last 10 days of the Tour de France for Jonas to reach his absolute peak in terms of climbing because he's riding really good on the flats. We saw the first stage of Dauphiné, he was right there, created the breakaway in a relatively flat stage, put time into Pogačar in the time trial. I think they're taking those as positives and trying to build on that and see if we can actually have an exciting Tour de France.
Christian Vande Velde: Actually, yeah, I would second that, George. The only thing is if I'm going to be realistic, hope is not a tactic, right? You're hoping that you're going to get that much better in the third week, but it does make sense. This is an old-school Tour de France, again. We haven't seen this in quite a few years, where you have eight, nine days of flat-ish stages where you're not going to have a big difference. So in the last couple of years, we've had the Galibier on stage four, stage three. It's been really hard opening week, and that settles the entire Peloton down. Now we're going to have a completely different vibe with it. There's going to be so many more people who are going to be able to get into that yellow jersey. It's going to be hectic. It'll be chaotic and dangerous as it all gets out. So first of all, who makes it to stage 10 alive without getting hurt or injured, still in general classification. Then we'll see what happens in the big race at the end. But to George's point, I mean, I think Visma has a fantastic team. They're doing everything they can. But Tadej just always seems like he has a leg up on him right now. I think one of the biggest stats going forward in cycling in general is going to be how long have you been able to race and train without being hindered by some kind of big crash, sickness, what have you, and Tadej's been one of the only guys at the top of the sport who has had that runway of 12, 18, 24 months in a row without a big injury. For these guys continuously putting themselves back in the hospital, you're always going to be chasing your tail. So yeah, again, I like and I'm believing what George said, but it's what we saw; it almost has to change, Willy. You have to think like appreciation of what we're getting to see as well and we're seeing the best of all time with Tadej. No one's done this kind of stuff. It's like when my dad used to sit me down and we're watching the Chicago Bears and watching Walter Payton. Watch this guy; you may have never see a running back like this ever again. Michael Jordan, all those guys—I’m obviously very biased from Chicago, but those are the kind of things that we have to remind ourselves. He's just a one-off. So appreciate what you're seeing. Will we see the race team amounts? Absolutely. I don't think that Jonas is going to roll over for these guys at all. I think there are some other guys who will maybe step up. But they're going to have to step up a lot from what we just saw this last week in the Dauphiné. I don't even know how hard Tadej had to do it a couple of times to really put the hammer down on these guys.
Willy Walker: I know you guys will both have fun covering it. Thank you, thank you, thank you for taking an hour and sharing all your thoughts and ideas. Miss you both. I look forward to the next time the three of us are on bikes together. Christian, safe travels to France and have a great Tour. G, have fun in Aspen. I hope to see the two of you soon.
George Hincapie: Thank you, Willy. See you guys.
Willy Walker: Take care.
