The World Champs in Australia and Gravel Burn in South Africa had two things in common. Wild animals doing their best to steal the athlete's show, but most importantly and tellingly for the state of Gravel, we saw two very dominant displays of team performances. Which is exactly why for today's episode of Besenwagen Gravel, we've invited Joe Leverick to discuss all of those past and future developments of our spot. Off-Season already feels like a distant memory, so today we're diving straight into what the team and race dynamics in gravel might or will look like in 2027 and beyond. Join us for our last ride in 2026. Your Besenwagen Gravel is supported by Schwalbe Tires and your drivers are Simon Press and Paul Voss. Today, the other way around. Ja, weil es in Englisch war, und ich hatte bereits drei Tries. Und dann, eigentlich, wir haben bereits die Guest Part gemacht. Ja, wir haben gesagt, dass wir die Intro machen können. Which du in der zweiten Attentation. Which ist besser als meine drei Attentation.

Ja, so wir haben gesagt, dass wir in Englisch machen. Und wir haben, dass wir uns in Englisch machen können. Und wir haben, dass wir uns in Englisch machen können. Weil er hat die internationalen Followern. So, welcome to everyone who has maybe come from his sub stack or Instagram or from wherever. We feel like we have quite an interesting, I think almost one hour and 40 minutes of chat with him on all things Gravel teams, riders, media coverage, riders associations, the governing bodies and so on and so forth. So, I think it's worth staying here and listening in.

We just wanted to touch on two more things that are quite usual for the podcast we usually do in our German part. So for one, as we touched on in the intro, that is results from the two last, big events happening, because we felt like it's worth crediting those. Um for the one for the one part being that being gravel burn uh, in south africa uh because a fairly fellow country lady of ours uh nila lying, won the general classification here so massive kudos to her um she yeah she's part of the kennedy swiss atr team uh she's won the gc ahead of hayley preen and clara-marie koppenburg uh, made third or secured the third spot on the podium in the gc Und auf der Manns' Seite, Matt Beers won, ahead of Filippo, Colombo und Tristan Nortier. In Portugal, one of the first UCI qualifier races for the 2027 season took place in Alain Terro in Portugal, which also a fellow country leader of ours, Rosa Klösa, won, ahead of Sarah Lange und Emilie Morier. Und auf der Manns Seite, Philippe Franziskow 1, ahead von Olivier Gaufroy und Dan Grosemanns.

So, ja, das sind, ich glaube, die letzten results we'll report this year.

Und ja, bevor wir in die Interview Part gehen, wie sind Sie? Ja, gut. So, mein off-season has already ended. Und die Podcasts off-season will start after this episode. Aber no, ich bin gut.

Ich habe zwei Wochen off-the-bike, off-the-worlds. Und bin ich in Training, fühle mich shit. Aber das ist Teil davon, ich glaube. Aber ja, du hast ein großes Goals ahead. In the coming weekend, the Cycle Cross race near your hometown but then also you may be doing another, qualifier race to secure your World Championships participation for next year early on. How is that going? How is that plan going? It's down to last minute planning so we'll see how the weather in Greece evolves and then kind of make our travel plans depend on that But yeah, I'm really hyped for Cyclocross this weekend, which will happen just outside of Cologne, where I live. It's a sport I really, really love. And I think it's just a fun way to really exhaust yourself within, I don't know, an hour or something. Or usually an hour. And yeah, I think it's a great way to do something different. Und ich denke, es ist wie Zeitwirt. Joe will talk about that later. Es ist ein Rennen, mostly gegen yourself, wenn du competing in, at least competing on my level.

I love just optimizing lines, every single lap und think about, was kann ich in der kommenden LAP? So, ja, ich denke, es ist ein schönes Weg zu spenden der Winter, every now and then. Ja, sweet. Und, Ja, ich denke, nichts mehr passiert, wirklich. Ich meine, für mich, die nächsten Monate wird es nur Training und ich denke, für dich, ein Punkt in off-season. Oder sind Sie nicht in off-season? Nein. Ich war sick für eine Woche, so das war es off-season. Lying at home, coughing und zu essen, ja, nice. Das ist gut.

All right. dann ja und enjoy the nice talk or discussion with the show and yeah to all the German listeners here, we will be back right before Santa Val in February and until then, yeah as always leave a comment, like share, do everything you can to help us grow these little podcasts and, yeah if you want leave some unter diesem, ich denke, wirklich tollen Talk wir hatten. Und wenn du weitere Fragen hast, dann können wir es dort auch. Und wir können es forwardieren.

So, yeah, so now we have our little podcast, Joe Leverwig, from the UK, actually. I mistakenly said already he's from the US, but he's from the UK. And Joe is doing a lot of things, so it's hard to describe what he's actually, yeah, what he actually is at the moment. But so I think the best is he describes himself. Hey, Joe. Hey, thanks for having me.

Yeah, I am a ex-bike racer now, as of last week.

Probably best known for my writing about gravel Used to race to a decent level on the road Managed my own road team for a while And now I'm looking for What's next, as I said, I officially Stepped away from racing, so It's good to be here So you're on a job hunt? Yeah, basically, I'm unemployed Fun employed, some would say I've known for a while that It's been time to step away, I think Deep down, but Actually making the decision is another thing And now, having made that decision And it's like, oh, I have to figure out what to do next, which is kind of scary. And okay, so you said it's scary. Do you still enjoy the process of finding out? I mean, it just started, I guess, like a few months, you always said, like you're fourth about it, but like, it's, do you enjoy the process of finding out or is it really scary? I wouldn't necessarily say really scary. It's just the not knowing. The best I described it was, I know in two or three years time, I'll look back at this period with a smile, but at the minute I could go in any direction and I have no clue I know exactly what I want to do but getting into that field is quite hard to do, and there's the reality of I didn't have a world tour career so I'm not sitting on tens of thousands of pounds in savings so there's the reality of having to get a job at some point, knowing where I want to go but not having an obvious route to that point so at the minute it's just I went on vacation for a week Und.

Jetzt bin ich einfach nur ein paar Leute, um ein Land zu verstehen, um.

Alle Seiten der Sport zu verstehen. Das sind Teams, Agents, Races, Road, Gravel, Mountainbike. Das ist einfach. The better educated I can be about everything, I think the better place I'll be in when I eventually decide what job to go to. So, but what is the idea of doing? So like you said, you kind of know what you want to do. I mean, I could read in your last post on Instagram where you said like you would like to work in team management. Is that right? Yeah, I'm a teams guy. I think maybe we'll come on to this. I think agents and writer management is an interesting topic, but I think there's a lot of people doing quite a good job in that especially on the road, it's not quite fully made its way to gravel yet but it's definitely heading that way but then when it comes to team management, in every discipline of the sport actually there's a lot of places it can be improved, to put it politely, from how you deal with athletes to marketing of the teams I actually think each discipline can learn something from the other so a lot of things happen in road which we can learn from in gravel Aber ein ganz viel Rode teams können lernen ein bisschen von Gravel. Aber, wie man in Team Management ist ein Rubik's Cube, ich bin noch immer noch zu finden.

Vielleicht können wir schon schon wieder über das Thema, weil ich denke, es ist ein sehr interessanter take. Was kann Rode lernen von Gravel? Ich glaube, es ist wahrscheinlich schon wieder der Conversation, aber ich dachte, es war super interessant.

I think the biggest thing Road can learn is the sports marketing side and actually dealing with, obviously there's the mass participation side to Gravel, which I think Gravel's actually abandoning slightly, maybe a little bit of a hot take. But I think Gravel is trying to hyper-professionalise so fast, we're actually forgetting who's paying for the teams and why they're paying for the teams. But I think Road teams especially can learn from Gravel. People, I always use Alexi, Vermeulinks is a good friend, But Alexi's value is a lot more than racing a bike. He manages to, I hate the word, but influence people through what he does. And it's actually similar in triathlon. A lot of the top triathletes are very good at sports marketing. And in professional road racing, from my personal experience, if you have another million dollars, you spend another million dollars on salary. And that's not necessarily the best thing to do. But do you not think we will hit that ray in gravel as well? Obviously we're not talking about millions but we're talking about a few hundreds and I mean there are already at least two teams out there which spend a million or more per year to run a team and some of them really successful maybe others, wish they will be even more successful in one area but.

Is it not always like that as soon as the whole organization gets bigger it's harder to market it properly and to make it more about individuals than the team? Ich denke, Gravel ist, wie du gesagt, schon wieder geht, wenn nicht, schon wieder geht.

Ich denke, eine Frage, wir hatten, was die Inevitabilität der Gravel-Teams. Und ich denke, wir sind die Inevitabilität. Wenn du auf die Inevitabilität in 2026 schauen, die in 2027.

Kommen, sind wir in der Team-Era. Ich denke, es wird eine Zeit, eine Zeit.

Inflation is the wrong word, but I think a lot of brands are going to spend a lot of money and not be too happy with the return in five years. And in my latest piece, I use the example of the 2010s domestic scene in the UK or the US where it was really good for a few years because everybody got paid well. There's a lot of races, a lot of teams. And now look where we are seven or eight years later. There's not many races, not many teams and not many guys getting paid well. So I think Gravel just has to be very careful with how fast it scales. Und ich will, ich will, ich will, ich will, ich will, ich will, ich will, ich will, ich will, ich will, in eine sustainable manner und make sure that teams are, there's a lot more to teams than just having fast bike riders. I think that's what Cycling needs to figure out. Yeah, and also, at the moment, I see the problem that there are actually not enough fast bike riders to, as you said, to make everyone happy, like, one, the commercial side, obviously, like, how you advertise things, how you show the products, but also, Also, like, having a return of results, because through results you get attention and so on. And I think there's, at the moment, still a limited stock of real talent out there who actually can win bigger bike races. And I'm also curious to see what's happening the next years with, like, all these teams coming up we're talking shortly about, which direction we're hitting there, where all these athletes coming from in the end to really fuel these teams, you know? Ich denke, wir haben eine Situation.

Some riders will get massively overpaid because of limited, sorry, stock is the wrong word for it, but like not being enough talent out there to actually hire. But you have to feel the team somehow and some maybe not getting paid what they're actually worth. So with the private year era, which is obviously over. I mean, I was lucky enough to be in that era, But yeah, I'm also curious what you think, like how this will like move also with the privateers, you know, like how that will separate in the future. And if we can see top athletes being privateers and not being part of a team in the future. I think it's the new generation of athletes which are really struggling with the privateer side of things. And that's not a disservice to the athlete or the people themselves. It's more the first generation of Gravel Pros, which probably put you in the first or the second generation, depending which way we talk about it.

But even guys like Payson is a great example here. They came early, so they got the market straight away. So they got the followers, they got the podcasts, they got the attention. Whereas I don't think the next generation is necessarily having that in the same way, because there's just more people doing it, so it's not as unique. Und also Gravel ist jetzt schon auf der Pro-Level für fünf oder sechs Jahre alt. So der original Unique factor, die diese Leute haben größer, ist nicht wirklich auf play, also man muss sich eher auf die Reaktion des Results. Und mit dem, ich glaube.

Ich glaube, Privatairing ist immer noch etwas zu passieren, aber ich glaube, es wird auch noch mehr so sein. Und ich glaube, als Athlete, Es ist almost tempting zu gehen zu einem Team, weil es macht dich ein besserer Athlete. Gravel ist jetzt so schnell, dass es helfen, zu haben die extra support. Es ist helfen, zu nicht zu denken, welche Airbnb du in Kansas bist, wie du in den USA bist, wie du in Poland bist, so weiter und so weiter. Das sind die Dinge, die ich Teams machen, und dann addet in, finanziell, wenn es ein kleinerer Paycheck ist. Wenn die Team picken up all die Spenzen, dass es life a lot easier. Now, when you're making, I don't know, let's just say 50,000 euros for the sake of it, you know that's how much money you're making. It's not 50,000 minus, oh, maybe I go to Unbound, maybe I go to Seattle, maybe I do whatever. I think you just streamline the process. Maybe before we dive in too quickly, too deeply, how was your season? Because we haven't touched on that at all. Yeah, pretty awful. Thank you for asking.

No, I've actually, the last 18 months I've had this really strange health issue which means I'm puking at random times in races, it's really not healthy, not quite gotten to the bottom of that yet and I think inadvertently that was a big part of me deciding to step away knowing I wasn't performing at the level, I am capable of and I still am, but having this weird thing where you any point in a race you can just puke up it's not healthy obviously um but also, i went back to time trialing a little bit this year which is my first love um i'm british so obviously i love a time trial, and i kind of got this childlike joy from racing just for myself for no reason other than i wanted to race and for me a little bit gravel the last 18 months has been, racing for the contract or racing because sponsor says I have to go to whatever race and I do think.

Das hat mich ein wenig gefühlt. Es hat mich ein wenig gefühlt. In den ersten zwei Jahren, wenn ich in Gravel war, es war einfach mehr Spaß. Ich bin nicht nur ein paar Leute, die sich hier und sagen, oh, Gravel ist nicht mehr, das ist nicht mehr, das ist nicht mehr, das ist nicht mehr, das ist nicht mehr, das ist nicht mehr. Es ist healthy für den Sport, aber es ist einfach, dass es für Leute, die reason du start in es ist, ist nicht mehr wo es jetzt. Das ist komplett gut für mich. Um so yeah it's it's been a funny funny year um rode really fast on a time trial bike though which is made me may 16 year old joe happy but gravel not so great, but what is what brought you to the sport to gravel so you said it's not the reasons why you started the sport well i raced road for, for a long time like i did four years u23 on the road with like azure desert diva and Axel Merckx's team, and at the end of 22 I couldn't step up to the World Tour but I'd broken my knee the year before so I felt like I had more to give and I wanted to keep racing.

Equally I'd spent a lot of time racing in Europe and I didn't really want to just race, races I'd done on smaller teams like go to a small Conti team and just race almost saying dead end races is disrespectful because they're still really hard races but I just wanted to change, and it was the same time where my bike sponsor at the time well, the bike sponsor which became my bike sponsor, Ribble were looking to do multi-discipline so they wanted riders who were happy to dabble in every discipline, and I just thought that was perfect because I still love road I always have done, I am a roadie and I wanted to carry on racing road, but I didn't want to just race road so it was just this opportunity of, oh you can go race in the US try some gravel, try some road, try racing some crits, und es war dieses mixture das hat mich zu dem Sport das ist neu, es ist spannend, Es ist anders, als ich in Europa bin, habe ich in Europa gelebt, um, das war ein sehr viel Teil. Und dann, das war, 2023. Und ever since dann, Gravel hat sich das crazy Spiral, das hat sich verändert. Es hat sich verändert, hat es? Und ich bin nicht sagen, es verändert für den Beste oder Worte. Ich denke, das depends who du bist. talking to um but the original.

Excitement i think around the gravel scene duane for me in maybe last year um, which just happens to be the year it got super fest um, and then also in 2024 i ran a road team to quite a high level and i think that kind of changed how i looked at the sport and i realized i was just as interested in, team management and how events work as i was improving myself as an athlete, and I think once you stop searching for those one percent it's the time I almost started that when you finish racing and that wasn't helped with that I grapple getting multiple percents faster every year, so you still seem to have kind of a fascination for the sport despite like not being in or it seems like or it sounds like to me that there's a, maybe a tiny piece of that sport died in you or maybe you were unhappy with a tiny piece of the sport but found a fascination for a totally different part of the sport over those two years has that, was that has that to do with um kind of that that, privateer thing or is it something you, i don't know that um came up through another, um path so i think the again coming from the road Alles, was ich sehe, ist als Rode. Und das ist das, was es ist.

Für mich, mit Gravel, wenn ich auf dem Weg war, mein größtes Ding war, war die Tour de France. Ich habe immer gewonnen, aber ich habe immer gewonnen. Aber wenn ich eine Tour raste, dann werde ich in den Breakaway gewinnen. Dann werde ich gewinnen, dann werde ich gewinnen, dann werde ich gewinnen, dann werde ich gewinnen. Da ist immer etwas größer, und für mich, Gravel nicht unbedingt haben, die Progression, die wirklich, wirklich excited mich als ein Athlete und als ein Human hat. Ich denke, das hat sich an der Zeit, an der ich in der Team-Management-Event-Management habe, and there's so much potential for gravel but I saw or I see my potential in gravel is more helping that side of things than me as an athlete and, that's also completely fine I mean I'm still pretty young I'm 25 but I've also been racing bikes at the top level for, basically 10 years now so I think people just change but yeah there's also the financial side it got harder to make it work ähm.

Just life changes and that's i'm kind of happy about that but it's i'm not sad that i'm stopping racing um at all it's just it's just funny like, yeah just life i don't really know how to describe it yeah, but you just said like you so you went under 23 then you kind of went to like this multidisciplinary team so you've been part of a team doing gravel but then also So you're being a privateer for the last two years, I guess. Yeah.

Do you think that the sole idea of being a privateer is still working in the future? Or do you think that will slowly disappear? I think, as I said a few minutes ago, it will slowly disappear as the older athletes start to age out.

So you think if, for example, my generation stops at one point, then we won't see any real top-end privateers anymore because everyone will be somehow in the team. That's my prediction. Because also I think a lot of the brands will switch their spend from privateers to teams as well. So it's a mixture of the two. I think it's harder to make it as a privateer. And once your generation retires, it will change. And also brands are seeing everyone else doing teams and they will jump on the train of doing teams. And it'll be less dollars going around for privateers. There will always be some privateers, obviously But I personally don't think at the top level I hope I'm wrong Then, quick asterisks actually Sorry to interrupt You have these programs like Cam Jones is an example He's racing for the Scott team, he's racing for the Rafa team He's racing, like it's, He's a privateer, but he's Part of a collective, and that's kind of the In-betweeny, which I don't think Gravel has quite figured out yet, But my prediction is within three to five years Riders like Cam and Matt Wilson will be on teams as well. Both are really American-centric writers. So I think we should maybe let in discussion also divide these two scenes because it feels like the American good level circle is developing differently to the European spectrum.

But marketing-wise, when we have in the future just teams as we have on the road and more and more money is going into there, then you have less personalities you can sell as you do now. Now, companies taking out these personalities and really doing AdWords with them or they're representing the team, but then it will be Riders or a team representing the team, not a single person. Do we not think it's actually then, again, negative compared to that for what Gravel also stands? It's more about personalities, about stories and not just performance because I think when we're just talking about teams, this whole aspect will go away because I honestly don't see it as soon as an organisation has, let's say 10 writers, that they will have always someone who is telling stories with them because there will be so much about performance, so much will be regulated because they have to regulate it somehow, otherwise it doesn't work. So, yeah. I mean, I also don't know where it's going to, but it's also interesting to see where it goes to because it goes so quickly. Like, you know, like 2022 or 21, it was totally different, Aber wir können sagen, fünf oder sechs Jahre sind wir in ein völlig anderes Sport. Und auf der Straße, die manchmal 10 Jahre dauern und nichts, eigentlich verändert sich wirklich. Ich denke, du hast einen sehr interessanten Punkt.

Gravel is going to teams. We can debate it for the rest of this podcast, but the evidence is there. Specialized kind of put their money on the table, and now everyone is following them.

My personal opinion is if gravel just goes that way, of teams and racing and resorts, it's just the awkward child between road and mountain bike. And I think road and mountain bike will win. And that's the part where I say I'm scared it's going to be like a bubble which bursts. Because if we just chase after results, and how many gravel races are there in the world which actually have big enough attention to drive the investment in these teams? Like, we don't have the Tour de France, which is, I mean, we have Unbound, but it's big, but it's not big in terms of Tour or Roubaix or Flanders or whatever. So I think that's my worry, is teams chase results, results are great, but they don't necessarily get all the ROI as teams want. Also, remember, only one team wins. It's probably specialised at the minute because they have the most money. Then it's a case of.

Not what's the point, but it's not as big as road. It's not as unique as mountain bike. It just sits in the in-between. And that's completely fine. I just question how long can these, in some cases, multi-million dollar teams exist on being in between the two. And that's, I just don't know. Yeah. Yeah. So if you will be part of a team, like a managing position, what will it be like to first, like, three most important things you would like to talk about or would like to set up to make this whole system functioning? I think the most important thing to ask... Sorry, sorry.

To make a future-proof. Like to make your own organization future-proof. I think it depends who's backing it. So the most important question to ask whoever's funding it is, what's your target here? If it's specialized and their target is clearly win, then great. Just go sign the best riders. they have the money to do it, they have done it, but if I'm speaking to somebody else who, doesn't have Specialized money and they go, we want to win I'm like, that's great, but we can't go and sign Mazwo Schmidt off 20,000 euros a year, so we have to be realistic with our targets and I think once you answer that question of, okay, why do Specialized want to win? Because they believe winning sells more bikes and they put themselves at that place but if you'll say Rose, what's Rose's goal of a gravel team? Und ich denke, mit der Sponsorship des Rockets auf der Road, dass es über mehr als gewinnen ist. Gewinnen ist natürlich groß, und das Team einfach zu gewinnen. Aber ich würde sagen, dass sie eine der meisten Supporten Teams.

In the world, when it comes to fans. And that's, without doubt, had a much more important factor on Rose selling bikes than it has if they're disponsored. Kofidis, who finished Highlam in the World Tour, in the UCI rankings. So I think once you answer that question of why do we exist, and what is our eventual goal, also maybe accept that most teams do have a finish line. I think that's what a lot of teams don't accept, is they answer what they want to do in three years or five years.

How many teams can actually exist forever? And maybe it is just a five-year project. And that's also completely fine. Like, say we launch a team tomorrow, and we're like, within five years, we want to do A, B, and C. And then in five years, maybe we call it a day.

That's also okay. But I think knowing why you're a team is the most important thing, rather than just being like, well, we have a quarter of a million euros to spend. Let's go spend it because everyone else is spending it. I think that's the most dangerous thing in cycling.

Do you feel that most gravel teams are acting like that so that they actually don't have a finish line or they don't know what their own purpose is in those years they have? I think most teams don't know what their purpose is. I think at the minute it's kind of a sexy new thing and brands are going, we're selling a lot of gravel bikes so we need to have a gravel team, which is great. Investment in sport is amazing. I'm never going to doubt that. But I think they should just pause and take like a day or two to be like okay cool what is our goal with this team um, and that looks different for different brands different companies um if we're gonna have non-endemics in maybe it means one thing, if you're track it means another if you're whoever it also dictates which market you go play in um so if the ventum rumor is to be believed then they're they're going to be very heavy in the u.s market i guess because that's where most of their customers are, if you're rose you're probably quite heavy in the german european market um, and that plays a huge part too, and i think the most dangerous thing is when you try to do everything you try and, specialize can do this because they have the money but if you don't have the money you try to us you try to europe you try to adventure racing you try and do whatever and, i wrote about this recently i think canyon slightly fell into this with the launch of their team it's been a very successful launch and i think it's going to be a very good team Aber ich denke, sie müssen die Fokus ein bisschen mehr, erhöhen und nicht wirklich alles auf einmal machen.

Do you think, apart from budget, there's something holding.

New manufacturers back from forming a gravel team? Because if we're talking, like, what is their finish line or what is their ambition, with such an undertaking? I feel like there are still some very big brands out there that are not present in the spot right now at all. Can you make out, like, a factor that is holding them back from participating? Ich denke, Budget ist wahrscheinlich die größte. Budget hat eine Lack-Kollegende als auch, aber ich würde sagen, die drei uns sind ziemlich well-educated. Wir haben gesagt, dass wir auf diesem Podcast so far sind, dass wir uns wirklich wissen, wo es geht. Und das, ich würde sagen, ist die Problem, wenn ich ein Multi-Year-Team, ist, du einfach nicht wundern, wo es wird in den nächsten drei bis fünf Jahren sein. Wenn du ein paar Jahre kommst, wenn du ein paar Jahre kommst, das ist kind of scary. Away from that I'd say The The lack of a clear Structure, so you have Lifetime In the US, which is obviously I'd say the biggest from a media Perspective, but that's half a mountain bike Series, so therefore if we're talking Gravel, yeah but that's also But that's also just in the US Like in Europe, hardly Someone, like I Okay, I think we have that also Also.

I think the English-speaking Europeans, which is the UK, they see probably differently than, let's say, the German-speaking, or like, you know, Dachau, like Germany, Switzerland, Austria, maybe Belgium, and so on. I think they have a different perspective on that, and probably for them also, the biggest race is not Unbound, it is Trucker, because it's closer by and makes more media here. So it's really also interesting, like, you know, like which market you want to target and, like, what's actually more important for you. But I just think in general, if I talking...

Ich würde sagen, Unbound ist Nummer 1, Tracker ist Nummer 2. Worlds ist Nummer 3, vielleicht. Wir können das Ganze um, wenn die Kals kommen. Wenn du in Spain bist, würde ich sagen, Tracker ist Nummer 1, Unbound 2. Vielleicht hast du nicht die Rainbow-Jersee, weil du denkst die UCI ist stupid und was. Aber wir können die Kals oder die Rainbow-Jersee.

Gravel-Earth-Series ist interessant. Ich denke, sie hat sich wirklich gut in 2024. Und dann 2025, ich glaube... Oh, sorry, das sind in 25. Und dann 26 got worse, in my opinion. Es war nicht so gut, es war mit dem Rift, und zu versuchen, zu konsolidieren bestimmten Races. Gravel Earth Series, ich denke, hat den meisten Potenzial aus all of them. Aber es hat sich nicht so gut in 2026, und ich hoffe, in 2027, es hat sich das zu verändern. Und dann gibt es das whole UCI, thing as well, which there's too many races, was that 45 races on calendar this year with no rhyme or rhythm to which is biggest, which is smallest, like you can go to Namibia and win a UCI there and there's 50 people on the pro start line or you can go to Mali and there's, 500 or whatever and I'm not saying we should go down the UCI ranking system necessarily because on the road that is a shit show but I do think some sort of System would help the situation. So, do you think in general that the governing body, WCI or whoever, maybe even an independent body.

Putting out regulations out there? Also, when you talk about teams, in every country it has different working rights and so on. And most Germans are self-employed, so every country has different situations. But I think also in the future it will help to have more clarity there to how all this is looking like. Also, the whole insurance situation. In Germany, I can't even take a professional license, which would be actually nice, because then I have other possibilities regarding insurance and so on. So how do you think about that? I think it's difficult, because the UCI are always going to run the roost, because they have, the Olympic power, which even though Olympics aren't in gravel, it still holds a lot of power in the sport of cycling and tradition.

Und dann, ich denke, Lifetime und Classmark sind diejenigen, die es zu implementieren. So dann, ich denke, wer ist es? Es muss es, es muss man independent sein. Aber dann, was sagen wir, dass alle anderen werden, das independenten Leben? Are wir sagen, alle die Athleten müssen, die Riders Union, haben? Cool. Aber sind wir also, dass alle die Athleten müssen, die gleiche sind, die gleiche sind, die sie wollen, und die Riders Union müssen? Und ich denke, das ist die Frage, dass wir, von diesem Gespräch, wir haben verschiedene Opinions auf Europa und den USA und was die größte Race. Und die Europäerinnen wollen eine Sache, die US-Gyzen wollen eine andere. Vielleicht die Brits wollen eine andere.

Es ist schwer zu implementieren, dass es sich über die Trennungsgeräte funktioniert. Ich habe Raced Tracker und ich glaube, es ist ein Safer-Race. Ich denke, dass es einfach für ein Death zu passieren ist. Das ist horrible zu sagen. Aber es ist true. Es ist ein Tag, jemand will die in der Race, wenn sie nicht fixen. So, sind wir die Tracker nicht existieren, wenn es nicht mehr ist, dass es nicht mehr ist? Vielleicht ist das nicht ein Bad-Tag.

Und ich bin ziemlich, ich bin auf der Straße, wenn Leute sagen, oh, es ist so expensive, um zu halten, ich bin so, wenn es zu expensive ist, der race nicht passiert, wenn es sogar eine Chance, dass jemand kann die, weil etwas zu gefährlich ist, dann ist das gut. Aber zu der Governing Body, ich habe mich gefragt, wie würde ich es setzen? Ich weiß, ich weiß, dass wir, wahrscheinlich die einzige Sport in der Welt where there's so much money floating in and there's no governance at all. Like literally no, you can do whatever you want. You don't even need a license. Like nor the team needs a license, nor the rider. And you can call yourself professional. And there's like, yeah, just no one governing it really. And then of course in UCI, but even UCI, you don't feel like there's anything governed, you know? So it's crazy. And I'm also asking myself like, how long can that work out this way? Ich weiß, dass, ich alles in Gravel begann, besonders in Professional Gravel oder so-called Professional Gravel. Da sind alle neue Regeln, das ist awesome. Du kannst auf dem Treibus, du kannst du wasst, du kannst die Sox auf deine Knie, wenn du willst. Aber mit Rider Safety und all diesen Dingen, und auch für die Masse-Parisäuser-Pasen-Event. Es muss sich etwas in die Zukunft geben. Wir können nicht weitergehen. Ich.

Weiß nicht, wie lange das kann. Es ist ein Wild Westen, da. Ich habe auch keine Idee. Ich denke, an einem Punkt, es wird wieder die UCI. Die UCI sagt, es ist required zu haben eine Pro-license. Es ist eine Pro-license, die an UCI-Raisers. Das ist schon ein Problem, dass die meisten Raisers in Europa haben. Will have a pro license and therefore you write under certain rules and then teams will also sign up, as a UCI team so I think maybe this way it will happen but it's also not the way we actually want it because we don't want to work with UCI, but I also have another don't have a solution for that I think the realistic way it will go is that the UCI take more control in Europe, and again I think the Rainbow Jersey has a lot more power than many people in Gravel give it credit for um, it's an icon, it's huge and people clearly want to go to race for it, if we take out the case of it being a 25 hour flight away um, Worlds is really cool, like I generally think racing world championships is sick, you race for your country there's this thing which is bigger than honestly, sometimes you can argue the sport of gravel um, but then I think Lifetime aren't going to light been told what to do, so they'll just make their own rules, which they own der Races, fine. So maybe we have a set of rules for Europe and a set of rules for the US. Okay.

I don't know, but I do know regulation is needed of some sort. There's nothing wrong with a degree of regulation. And people who say gravel is great because there's no rules are kind of naive. Because, as you say, safety, insurance, all the boring things which you don't want to talk about, but make a difference when you're actually racing. Even road closures. Like, are we going to say it's the white line rule where you can't cross the white line and you get disqualified? Or are we saying tracking needs for road closures? I'm throwing the track under the bus here but we can say the same for 15 other races and then there's the independent races like the Rift what are they going to do.

But then also it's hard to compare races in like Iceland or the US where you have I mean like Kansas which you can do days without seeing anyone if you want, obviously that's in Europe almost not possible so that makes it also difficult, but let's move a bit away from that but we have talked in the beginning about rumors what's going on and what's going to happen, I mean you have heard things, I have heard things and maybe we can summarize a bit of the things, you kind of can share or you want to share but what do you think will happen next so how many new teams we most likely will see so I'm not talking about like, little teams von einem lokalen Club, denn dieses Jahr an Sanker, ich war an Sanker Wall, ich war an der RIDER-Presentation, ich weiß nicht, ob du da war, als auch? Ah, ja, ich war. And I came there and then I said, all right, now we're going to present the teams. And I thought literally they're going to present like maximum 10 teams. But then it was like, I don't know, there was more teams than individual riders, it felt like, because everyone suddenly did a team. So we're talking actually about financially well-off professional gravel teams, which we will call also professional gravel teams. We're almost talking like world tour gravel teams, but we're deciding who's world tour.

Ja, ich denke, als Sie get paid genug zu leben von es, ich denke, es ist okay zu callen die Professional Gravel Team, even though es nicht die Stemp, weil wir nicht so haben. Es ist eigentlich ein bisschen, ich habe ein paar Teams über Teams, und ich habe ein paar Leute in die Kommentare gesagt, oh, Sie sind nicht Includers, Sie sind nicht Includers. Ich habe gesagt, ich könnte hier für drei Jahre und noch nicht mehr everyone but um, yeah but by the way i read that and then it's like always but that's also so gravel because you wanted to make a point you didn't want to point out on every race and like describe every race you just wanted to make certain points on this example so welcome to the internet, yeah um so maybe a good place to start is, i where i think the top gravel teams are which i would say Specialized, Track, Canyon, Paz would be my top four, I think and then for you two, is there anyone else you'd put in the top four, top five? I mean, I have to say the Grip, but.

I don't know how much I see them as like a team team, you know, I mean obviously really strong individuals but then also Gravel Nation, but I think they're sometimes road as a team but they're not always on the same level so I think, Aber wir haben diese zwei auch noch da. Und dann, natürlich, in Deutschland, wir haben die Rösser Racing Circle. Da ist ein Team, und das Struktur wird auch verändern. Aber ich will nicht mehr in den Top 5 Names, die wir schon erwähnen. So, wenn wir, at least, sagen wir, auf die Top 4, Top 6, mit der Mönchung. Coming zu dem Markt, da seems zu sein ein bisschen ein smattering across Europe und US. Everything I was saying is rumours because it's just what I've been told so therefore I don't really care if I'm not allowed to say it because it's the bike industry rumours are out there already, It seems PON will do a team linked to Visma it seems.

Maybe you can just shortly explain what PON is PON is essentially the holding group behind Cervelo, Santa Cruz Lisa Bike, Kennedale. So, from very good sources, they'll bring a team to the market.

I imagine that's where Simon Pillow will go. Makes sense. Therefore, I imagine they will be quite well funded and quite well supported. In the US, Ventum are doing a team. Then there's the general rumors, the BMC team, a few sponsor switches, but, Ich denke, in general, mehr Teams sind. Sorry, they even said in their own press release that they cut down the XC program, so the mountain bike program, to focus more on women's cycling. They will have a team next year plus going into gravel more. So I was surprised by that move because I thought they're kind of happy with the setup with Tudor, which they have. But I guess just having two riders, it's not enough to be really present and win the big races in the future. Also, mit all diesen rumours, wir wissen, ob die Team going to be 100,000, 500,000, 700,000. Und ich denke Budget plays a huge part in how gut die Teams sind, weil es auf die Riderschleiniger ist, ob man ein Mädel und ein Mädel, ob man ein Mädel und ein Mädel, ob man ein Dezember ist. Und du musst ein mixture von all of das. Aber es gibt no zwei Wäste. Wir können über Rumors all day reden. Ich habe gehört, was mit Factoring Steli. Ich habe gehört, dass es mit, Escaping my brain now. Scott, yeah. Something with Scott, but not necessarily with the US.

Riders. It's confusing. Yeah, yeah. It's really confusing. From the BMC story, I know they already went around with a big wallet and offered pretty decent money to riders. So I think that's really legit. But you just said a team has to have a certain budget. I think you also said in your article and your post on Instagram that I think past racing wirklich, ja, punched, like, above their weight.

Every year. For now, for now three years. And, it's also, I have to say, it's also crazy to me how they're doing it. I know what they're offering riders just from, like, like the team itself, plus obviously the riders can bring their own sponsors and, like, buy companies and so on. But, yeah, it's, it's, it's amazing actually what they have achieved over the last couple of years. I think hats off to, I mean, I think Tobias, Tobias Konkstatt mainly runs Point. And there was somebody else who's just part of the company. But I think Tobias, the biggest credit to him is he's clearly raced to a very good level for many years. And I don't think I'm speaking out of place or wrong when I'm saying he is often just signing his friends who are very good bike racers as well. And if you look at Magnus Beck, Clarice, like that man was an incredible road racer. Maybe he didn't step up to the World Tour or whatever, but he was a very, very, very good road racer. And Paz took a risk on him, and that risk has paid off I don't know how many times, but obviously the rainbow was a cherry on top.

Mads is another example of Ward Schmidt before he went to Specialized. And even with their signings in the US, like Cecily Decker, they've just consistently been good. And I think... Ja. They may start to get priced out of the market, which would suck for them. But then hopefully they can bring on a bike sponsor, bring on maybe a co-sponsor. Because I don't want to see that team get worse because they're doing great.

Also, the market they're hiring in, usually Denmark, has so many good bike riders, it is actually quite funny. For a place which is so cold, so flat, they never struggle for bike racers, do they? Ja, das ist es true. An einem Punkt, man kann es nicht separieren, weil die Namen sound alle, als für die Germanen, oder eine Kombination von Namen zusammen. Aber ja, das ist es richtig. Und ich bin auch, ich meine, wenn die Mögen sind, dann, unfortunately, Magnus ist leaving die Team und zu der neuen Formation von Faktor und Castelli. Aber ich also verstehe, weil Faktor resigns Magnus als World Champion. Ich weiß nicht, ob ich all das Geld will. Und dann weiß ich, dass er das Geräse ist, dass es nur Pass und nicht Factor ist. Und ich hoffe auch von Magnus, dass er eine wirklich große Bonus über die nächsten Jahre für das Win. Weil er das deserves. Es wird interessant sein, wie das Team wird. Aber ich meine, Tobias Kong sagt, er wird in der Team sein, und er wird besser hierher. Hier und ist also winning races finishing for des yet unbound so I mean he himself is a world-class gravel rider especially in this long races and I think they will keep Carolina McGon I think Cicely will also stay I'm not sure yeah.

But I feel a pass I'm not stressed because I'm like they'll just they'll have some of the Danish guy or girl up their sleeve who we don't necessarily know yet but within six months will think is the next big thing in gravel and I have no reason to doubt them.

Ja, das stimmt. Und ich denke, wenn du BMC bist, das ist die Harder-Thing. Wenn du kommst in als, wenn du du der Head of Marketing im BMC bist, du bist auf die Top 10 in den UCI-Rankings, der Top 10 in Tracker, der Top 10 in Unbound, und du bist wahrscheinlich einfach nur ein bisschen das Person, das Person, das Person, das Person.

Whereas Tobias, weil er hat Erfahrung in Rennen, er kennt die Szene, er ist gut, er kann diese Diamonds in den Riff, which the big brands can't necessarily do because they're not as educated on the sport, and it goes one of two ways sometimes diamonds in the roof are just very small diamonds, sometimes it pays off and same, sometimes you pay big money to somebody like Madsworth Schmidt and it pays off and boy it paid off Specialized this year, sometimes you pay big money for a rider and it doesn't work, so the correct thing is probably somewhere in the middle but I think the most interesting thing will come, do these teams actually ride as teams and again Specialized did a great job of this this year, I was told they had shared bonus pots and things like that to incentivize them too but if you're signing three guys to BMC or three girls to BMC, how are we making sure they all work together and proper salaries do help here but I think having shared bonuses or something similar is very important in a team when we're coming to the performance side, Do you think these kind of younger, more or less institutionalized teams, when we talk about.

Teams other than specialized and the big factory racing teams, do you think they have an advantage in signing younger riders? Because they're not, maybe they offer a more loose environment and they can promise something to these younger talents that maybe the more established brands can't give them? Because I feel like for a rider at the start of their 20s, when they are a promising talent.

Going to Gravel might feel like a dead end at that stage of your career. Because there's not really a lot of development you can pursue when you're in such a team, other than, say, you enter a road team. Do you think there's something they can offer to these people? Ich denke, sie können die Einwohner, die Möglichkeit für die Einwohner. Und wieder, ich würde Paz in dieser Kategorie.

Ich denke, die Harder Sache wir noch sehen ist, dass wir nicht so viele Leute kommen zu Gravel haben, die nicht schon versucht zu machen, oder in XC zu machen. Und usually, ich würde sagen, es ist ein sweepinger Stereotype, du hast ein paar Jahre auf der Entwicklungskirche, in der Straße, ein paar Jahre racing XCs, oder du hast eine decent Wartelkirche und dann kommst du mit dem Gravel. Und wir haben wirklich gesehen ein 20-Jer-Old gehen durch Gravel und durch die Straße, ich denke. Please correct mich, wenn ich mich auf das. Ja, ich denke Rosa ist die einzige, die gerade noch nicht. Correct. Aber sie war auch noch nicht. Ja, sie kommen von den Sides. Ich denke, die Jungener Teams haben eine Advantage, wo es so viel Talent ist. Nichts necessarily Proven Talent auf Gravel, aber in Cycling, da ist so viel Talent. Wir haben nie immer mehr als Faster. Es ist wie die Riders, die Sie signen, convert über zu Gravel. Ich denke, das ist die größte Riske. Aber ich denke, wenn du 22 und Specialized oder Trackcom callingst, ich denke, du sagst nicht. Es ist ein mehr professionell Es ist mehr Geld Es ist ein opportunity Maybe es ist ein Ried für Keegan Ried für Mansa Und die nächsten Ich kann nicht sehen, As an Athlete Why you turn that down Aber es ist viel opportunity Für Jung teams To sign people.

Money ist ein interesting Ich denke These small teams Sometimes they have to Overpay And sometimes you get Guys really cheap und das ist Sport, ist es? Aber ich glaube... Another interesting question is, who would you sign? And I think that's where, I keep going back to the Paz example, but they clearly have a pool of talent they keep dipping into, usually Danish guys. But then it's like, if you're Rosa Racing Circle, I guess you go dip into the German guys. I know British guys. So I think, again, that comes back to the territory you're in or your managers and you just inevitably know your own backyard better than, I'm less likely to go sign a German guy if I'm running a team because I don't know Germany as well as you two, so yeah I mean that side is interesting because this year I was like not a wife but I heard a lot of like, what Roses tries to do like to sign riders for like the team for example and there you could realize it's true there are a lot of good riders out there but in the end they are not, there are actually not that many really good ones at the moment if you talk about like proper results and really like being world class and und die Fertig, die Sie sehen, die die Riders fragen, aber auch die Verwertung. Die meisten haben bereits Kontrakts. So, ja, es ist ein Träger-Fertig. Ich finde es sogar noch ein Stranger- und der Frauens-Side.

Dass es noch mehr auf der nächsten Talent finden, und es gibt es manchmal eher auf der Manns-Side finden, denn ich finde.

Ich denke, es ist eigentlich keine Unterschiede zwischen dem Male oder Female, wie es die Salary ist, wenn man performt. Es ist irgendwie egal. Ich würde sagen, Sophia ist vielleicht nicht... Oder vielleicht ist sie auch nicht mehr als Keegan, für die Sache. Aber in der Nähe. Aber auf der Straße, die Male Seite kann man mehr Geld earniger und mehr Geld als auf der Female Seite. Ich meine, Ihr eigener Frau ist in der Women's Road, so du wahrscheinlich wissen die Situation. Ich denke, dass es auf der Women's Seite ist, es ist wahrscheinlich eher zu bekommen, ein sehr guter Talent in der Sport in der Zukunft, denn Sie können sie wirklich guter Geld haben. Ich denke, es ist eine interessante Conversation.

What I'm going to say next is kind of based off a lot of evidence, which I'm not going to spend a lot of time going into, but quite obviously the women's talent pool is smaller. Women's cycling and drama is smaller. There's less junior teams, there's less youth teams. So while it's improving at a great rate, mostly thanks to Tour de France, Femme FX, Zwift, and a few other things, there are still less women at the bottom of the filter going into cycling. Um therefore there's a smaller density of top talent and i think there's at the minute we saw this with melissa roland's actually just a couple of weeks ago going to ef, i think women's road racing is so exciting at the minute um, the tour de france is going crazy like rubé is getting bigger every year there's so much opportunity and investment you want to go there and i think what we'll see is we'll see some people coming into gravel getting their chance in gravel.

Nellie Lang I think is an example here she started on the road came to gravel she's clearly doing well on gravel I wouldn't be surprised if somebody takes a risk on her on the road again in two more years because why not and I think Rose has kind of paved the way to do a bit of both, I also but I do think a lot of it just comes down to the raw numbers there are, let's say for every 10 men coming into the U23 ranks, there's maybe only three women or something, whatever the numbers are, I don't know but there are just more men racing bikes than women at a minute, and that means that the top talent in the women's field are at a much bigger premium because there's less of them. So when I think about when Maggie was negotiating a new contract you have to consider there's only a handful of riders who can do what she can do better in the World Tour so therefore she's at a der Premium. Um, whereas the riders at the bottom, it's like, there's a much bigger gap in the talent, in talent, I think. And Gravel were kind of.

Es ist interessant, weil ich mich gefragt, wie ich mich für die Team auswählen, möchte, um die Womensfeld zu beherrennen. Und ich habe eine wirkliche Zeit zu beherrennend, um mich zu beherrennend. Und das ist nicht weil es nicht gut female Gravel Races gibt, ich habe nicht zu sagen, aber ich habe das in der Sleitest, aber ich habe mich über die Current Markets, um die Womensfeld zu beherrennen, und die Womensfeld zu beherrennen, weil ich mit meinem US-Hat auf hier habe, die Top 5-ish auf der Lifetime Grand Prix for the women has looked quite similar, like obviously people are moving up and down and it's different but the top of women's racing in the US has looked quite similar the last five years or last three years maybe, whereas men's has looked very different you've still got Keegan at the top but like Matt Wilson has come in, Brayden Lang's come in, Cam Jones whereas I feel that's happened less in women's racing and would you say that's similar in Europe because I think since Rosa came in, Rosa's really the main one, I think Larissa and Nelly this year obviously Aber.

Ja, ich meine, du hast immer die Regulatory Roadies kommen zu den Races und dann meistens auch gewinnen. So, das ist die Sache, dass es jetzt nicht mehr auf der Manns-Side ist, wenn die Roadies kommen. Aber ja, ich meine, auf der Manns-Side ist auch mehr Names auf der Winner-Liste, und dann ist es auch auf der Manns-Side. Ja, es ist die gleiche, es ist quasi die gleiche. Wenn Rosa ist, sie gewinnen. Und dann, ja, Nele ist immer sicherlich auf dem podium und die gleiche mit Larissa. Und dann die Rest ist kind of changing a bit ab, aber du siehst immer immer die same girls. Und ich denke, wir denken einfach nur im Markt-Economik, nicht nur im Manns-Cycling, im Markt-Economik, sondern im Markt-Economik. Wenn es zwei oder drei Riders immer auf dem podium ist, wird es ein bisschen mehr. Weil es ist ein guarantee. And that makes it hard I think when you're hiring for women's programs especially because there's such a density of talent at the top that you can't necessarily afford them and maybe you are taking a risk on somebody young and they end up being like a Rosa but maybe they don't.

And I think teams have that problem, just knowing who to sign and say I sat there for a long time thinking of who to suggest for this team and my conclusion was we need to try and scout someone from XCL Road so, so yeah, it's a difficult one. Um, before we jumping like to the race series and like how gravel could look in the future, um, which team you think is doing a really good job in social media and communicating in general? Golly. Um, or is there any team where you will say that do it, to do it the way I will most likely do it. So where you feel like, okay, that's, that's top notch. I actually don't think anybody's investing enough in it yet. I think every team is doing one thing well, but none are doing it all well so like Paz Racing, when they did the Road to the Tracker documentary last year, pretty good, it was one project exactly, that's what I'm saying, one project.

Specialized this year have done a really good job on Instagram, especially in the last 3 or 4 months they had somebody new who's done good I can't remember his name but Specialized is such a weird example for me because, yeah okay, that's true they have done more on social media but it feels like they don't care about it, I actually had this conversation because they just win they're just winning anyway they're winning the biggest races okay they haven't won the world but until they're winning everything and, I don't know everyone else would make huge stories about YouTube whatever for them it's just some posts some slides Ja, ich habe das gesagt, ich habe das gesagt, und ich habe das gesagt, dass ich da, die Leute, die da waren, und ich habe das gesagt, das zu ihnen. Ich denke, Rosa Racing Circle ist ein wirklich guter Job, community-wise. Ich bin nicht überlebt, und ihr seid ihr wirklich besser als ich. Aber ein guter Job?

Nobody ist ein guter Job. Ich denke, dass du es all zusammen musst, also du musst, du musst, du musst, du musst, du musst, gut personalities. I was once told that hiring for a team is like hiring for a boy band or a girl band. You need some people there for the talent and some people there for the personality. That's a really funny perspective. But also, you need to do the YouTube consistently. The Rockets obviously have more money than anyone here, but it's a good case study. I think long form really helps, whereas most teams just go Instagram, Instagram, Instagram, which everybody is doing that, so it's quite hard to stand out. Ja, ich bin auch auf YouTube, ich bin nicht viel in einem Jahr machen, aber ich mache es. Und natürlich die Zahlen, die ich nicht verrückt sind, aber ich habe es für einen Germanen, für jemanden in Deutschland.

They helped me so much like to to establish just like a brand about myself at least for the german-speaking area and yeah i also agree that i think a lot of teams, not taking the opportunity to actually have because most teams they have a videographer with them at the races at least you see always someone running around, but just doing it for for youtube is thing i also think it's a missed opportunity in the end you know like to to to reach a broader not less ein broader audience, but to, hook more people, to really get them to you and follow you and waiting for the next shit because Instagram is just so... It's not lasting, you know? And we all know you just swipe through it. It doesn't matter how nice the content is, you just swipe through it. What really annoys me with Gravel is how much money is clearly spent on getting people to these races, photographers, videographers. And I would love to see a stat of what percentage of content just ends up in a Dropbox and never used. Es ist ein High Percentage, für sicher. Ich habe da auch schon gesagt. Wir spenden das Geld, wir spenden das Geld, und es never wirklich wird verwendet. Es ist etwas, was ich habe mit den Rockets gearbeitet, mit meinen eigenen Sachen, Sie haben es in 24, 48 Stunden post-race. Wenn Sie ein Tracker-Dokumentary, ich weiß nicht, 12 Wochen später, Sie haben so viel mit der Möglichkeit gehabt.

Ich würde es lieber gut und fast als gut und 3 Monate später. Und ich denke, das ist was ein paar Brands brauchen, aber auch ein paar Leute, die sind, die sind, wie mein Job ist, ist es zu gewinnen, Tracker oder Podium Tracker. Ich werde das auf den nächsten Rennen, um zu der nächsten Rennen. Das ist was ich in mein letzten Artikel, um zu machen, dass ein Brands Investment ist, was es. Getting the athlete on the podium is only half of the job. The other half is making sure people know that athlete was on the podium. And you can also tell stories with finishing 10th, it depends how you ended up there. Exactly. And sometimes that's more fascinating than a clear podium or something. Exactly. The opportunity is there. And I always say to anyone I'm talking to about this, just go and spend a day studying what the Rockets did from 2023 onwards. Yes they had a head start because they're good YouTubers but the fundamentals of what they're doing is not that difficult to copy.

Maybe one last thing on the Teams topic I race gravel myself and I know how big the impact of material is and the material you have access to as a rider, do you think it holds some brands back to properly get into the sport just because they are not, competitive enough or there's a gap they still need to close before actually being competitive? Yeah, for sure. I think we actually saw this with Simon Palau a little bit this year. The bike he was on couldn't necessarily take the wider tires that he wanted, and Simon's flattered a lot of races this year. But yeah, I mean, you've got to have good enough equipment because if not, people will turn you down. Like there's only so much everyone you can spend your way out of a lot of problems, and if brands have the money and the equipment isn't 100% then yeah they'll still say guys but, Ich glaube, dass ich das Auto zurückgekommen habe, besonders jetzt. Vielleicht vier Jahre, wenn du ein bisschen slower und weniger competitivest hast, du hast es aber nicht mehr. Aber jetzt ist es ganz klar, wie es geht und wie viel schneller wir gehen. Ich glaube, dass es mehr wichtig ist als vorher. Wenn du ein Auto bist, ist es gut, wenn du es gut bist.

Der Turnier-Ponten war, Trucker 24 Unbound 24 23 23 die erste Mutt-Section in der new Gravel-World we all remember, that was the Turnier-Ponten, where everyone realized we have to rethink everything we actually have done over the last years and I think that gap will be close, by next year for most brands, regarding tire clearance Also, in general, tires, they're going to be better now, but then we have the next step with like 32 inch. And yeah, again, like I said before, it's just, Es ist einfach wie Wildwest, es ist einfach so schnell und die neue Regulierung. Es gibt immer neue Sachen, neue Ideen und man versucht es, und man versucht es, und man bekommt einen Advantage, und dann plötzlich jemand auf den Trennen, und man muss auf die Trennen und es ist einfach so crazy, die Speed wir haben, wenn man in 2022.

Auf 40mm Tires an Unbound war, es war dann schon schon rough, there was a good tyre you even thought about 35 when it's muddy you know so it's like it's cranny and fingerball but these days, you say I need 50 minimum but I need also tyre clearance around 50 and I need deep section wheels and I need this and that aerogaine blah blah blah it's crazy and we're talking there about the time span of like three years and it has happened all so quickly, yeah the more money that comes the more we'll see the development I mean I think you can argue the same thing with, aerodynamics in the world who are probably 2018 2020 onwards if you look at tt positions pre-2018 versus post 2021 completely different and that was just because, knowledge grew so fast, um and we're going through that in gravel just uh on an annual basis it's actually, really funny to see how fast things are developing um i'd hate to be a product product manager at a jetzt. Es ist eine 2-3-jährige Prozess desiging ein Bikes. Und dann ist es, oh crap, wir müssen eine 32 jetzt machen.

Ja, das ist ja. Ja, jetzt geht es um über die Race Series.

Wie, oder wie, was du denkst, die Series wird auf der top, wenn wir eine Span von 5 Jahren Lifetime Grand Prix, Gravel Series oder Gravel Earth, wie wird die Dominant-Force sein? Wie wird die Dominant-Dominant sein? Das ist die Main-Main-Competition. Also, Lifetime Grand Prix, die Europäische Union kommen und wollen sie ein Teil. Of it because right now it's like i think about sometimes like to take part i mean as long as i'm racing i'm not 40 i would like to do it one year but at the same time.

It asks so much of me like to do this race because the timing is shit for most races and i don't even care about the mountain bike part i don't mind that but just like timing wise it's like as a european it's like it makes just no sense it's so expensive to do it besides the prizes in the us but it's just traveling back and forth, yeah and then i mean we have in you as we as i said oh my gravel earth series had like a really good momentum in 25 but in 26 there they ruined a lot of that momentum themselves and i hope they're coming back but what do you think who will be on top in five years so, maybe the uci be the the most important race series maybe they define it more to have like just 10 races or so they all have potential that's the funny thing lifetime always going to win the money game. And I think at the minute money is going to win, Kimo Seymour, the CEO of Lifetime Events or whatever his job is, said on stage at Big Sugar that there will be, direct quote, exponentially more prize money next year.

They're already giving $50,000 for the win. So there will be more prize money next year. And there's certain rumors that they're going to be signing Red Bull as a video partner or whatever. So if that comes into play, then that will get, Gravel-Earth-Series, Ich glaube, sie haben viel Arbeit zu tun. Sie haben sich in den Faden mit einem Schocken gemacht. Das ist sehr gut, das ist sehr gut. Ich denke, sie haben viel Glück, das ist was die Serie gebaut. Und ich denke, das ist hart zu kommen. So in meiner Meinung nach, es ist UCI oder Lifetime. Ich denke, Gravel-Earth-Werth-Werth-Werth-Werth-Werth-Werth-Werth-Werth-Werth-Werth-Werth-Werth-Werth-Werth-Werth-Werth-Werth-Werth-Werth-Werth-Werth-Werth-Werth-Werth-Werth-Werth-Werth-Werth-Werth-Werth-Werth-Werth-Werth-Werth-Werth-Werth-Werth-Werth-Werth-Werth-Werth-Werth-Werth-Werth-Werth-Werth-Werth-Werth-Werth-Werth-Werth-Werth-Werth-Wer Es ist hart zu beat. Money ist a lot of it. Aber die Serie ist nicht spectacular. Aber do you understand die business model behind Lifetime? Where ist all die money coming from?

Organisieren diese Reisers, giving out all diese even more price money next year. That ist crazy. Compared to Gravel Earth Series, I think they will have 8000 Euro's price money at every race now, but combined women and men. And then they will have, I think, a pot of 30,000 euros for the whole series. I don't know, something around that, 20,000 or 30,000 euros. That's peanuts compared to what Lifetime is doing. So Lifetime are a multi-billion dollar healthcare company. And I think a lot of this is essentially marketing for their company because they can and because they want to. It also drives, when you kind of add together the thousands of people at every event pretty good media coverage like with earned media they do their own media, their YouTube is good, fine, they generate so much so many marketing clicks and it's, A lot of their events are underpinned by mass participation and probably profitable. And I think the Lifetime Grand Prix pushes people into those events and pushes people to knowing who Lifetime are as a helpful company. And also I think it's kind of quite as simple as Lifetime is such a large company they're not earning a couple of million dollars.

Yeah, it's interesting. I don't see their long-term play though. I think long-term they really need to think about it. They have races which people don't care about. They have races which don't make sense as you say, in the context of the gravel season, in the context of wanting Europeans over here, Do they want Europeans over there? Funny you say that at the Big Sugar afterparty this year there were very strong rumours that Lifetime are looking at expanding to Europe and I think they might have even said that themselves in an interview, how true that is, who knows but they are saying they want Europeans there because weil sie immer noch, 2,500 Euro finisher bonus ist. Es ist ein schönes Gestür, aber du hast du zu Big Sugar und es kostet mehr als 2,500 Euro zu gehen und Little Sugar für zwei Wochen. Equally, sie sind gut in den USA. Niemand denkt aus Europa und Gravel in den USA. Sie haben diese Welt ihre Welt. Wer ist die Welt? Wer ist die Welt? Wer ist die Welt?

Um uh uci in the end i think as always unfortunately but i've i think lifetime has potential to win it if they are willing not necessary to expand it to europe but like to, to make it work for us european riders going over there either like changing how the calendar is sorted or funding like no they have to change it they definitely have to do it you said it also so they have to sort out their calendar. This calendar makes, in this grand scheme, no sense. Also, you can't pretend that the world championships are not important. They are fucking important. And you, as an organizer, would love it to have the world champion in your race if it's a gravel rider. And they would probably also love it that at Lettville, Keegan was riding in a world championship jersey. So I think that's important to sort that out, but also to make it more accessible for us Europeans coming over there. oder wie es paying a fee per race oder whatever, covering stuff. Ich denke, das ist das die Ideal-Found. Also, all diese Events, Traka das ist, sie sind aus Riders als Marketing Tool.

Without paying uns, really, für das. Ich meine, of course, ich agreed zu gehen, zu einer Präsentation bei Traka, zu einer Proto, zu einer Interviews. Aber ich bin kind of requesting, diese Tage, ich bin requesting, ihr zu tun, diese Tage, which I don't agree really with it, not getting paid for it because I have to pay entry fee, you know, it's not like getting things for free. So, yeah, I think Lifetime has a chance, but they have to sort out certain things, but I still believe in the end UCI will come out on top because at one point they will realize they have to make this serious...

Even more competitive, like cutting it down to like 10 races a year and saying there you get so and so many points. There's a real qualification. That's kind of a World Cup, which is better into this whole qualifying because I think the qualifying, they have to keep going. It's working. It makes money for the UCI. Shitload of money. They're raising the price every year to get the stamp or to get approval stamp to do these races. And you can see also like some races in Europe, the numbers are rising. Some struggle but a lot also going up so, I think there will be you touched on two really important things there firstly World Cup I don't understand why we don't they don't just take 10 of those races as you say and make them into the Gravel World Cup you still have the other 35 as qualifiers but just be quite clear this is the World Cup, it's the UCI they'll just charge like 20 grand more or whatever they can make even more money they're laughing, and secondly I don't think people realise how much money they're making from mass participation in these races, the UCI. As I said, everyone pays a fee. They're actually incentivized to add more races because if you have 45 organizers paying a fee, what if you have 60 or 70?

And that's the thing with the UCI is they love money. So I think trying to find a middle ground of having more events on one hand makes sense because it's more people, opportunities to get into the sport. But I think at the same time, um narrowing what the pro uci thing looks like, so whether that is we get to a point where there's 100 qualifiers for, age groupers or whatever but there's a 10 or 15 race world cup or something like that um, i am shocked they haven't put more time and thought into this but again it's what three years old four years old so they're still it's very young yeah it's very very young yeah, Also, I think that in the end, as OS and Cycling, Europe will win in this fight for the crown.

I know the US is big and also the US market is big, but I think in the end, the Europeans will come out on top again, and that's then the UCI. So I don't see Gravel-Earth Series. Even if they get the funding from the outside, I can't see them to step up that big time to really make it work, to make it to a proper series, which has a lot of meaning. I mean, right now I'm also amazed by all my new contracts I'm signed right now, how important Gravel Earth Series is in there, like regarding GC and so on, like for bonuses and so on. But for me, it has no relevance, you know? It's like, I would rather prefer that they say, okay, I don't need this bonus for Gravel Earth Series, but pay me more money to be able to go to Lifetime. Ja, oder Double for the Tracker oder whatever Ja, aber, I don't really see the point in the Gravel-Earth Series because it's not important I can't tell you who won this year this Series Probably Mads Wurzschmidt I guess on the man Ah ja, of course of course of course sorry of course but you know, it's not important but yeah exactly nobody cares.

And honestly it's the same with the Lifetime Grand Prix Unbound and Leadville are bigger than die Überall-Series. Which is, usually when you have a Series, like a World Cup Series, each race is similar, some obviously more important than the others, but the biggest prize is winning the overall. You see this in, obviously in F1, you see this in XC, a whole host of sports, but in Gravel, the biggest prize in the Gravel-Earth Series is winning Tracker. The biggest prize in Lifetime is winning Unbound and then Leadville. The prize winning is associated to winning the overall. But if you were to go to sponsors, would you rather be the Gravel Earth Series champion or the Tracker champion? Yeah, Tracker, obviously. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, it's 100% clear. Tracker and Unbound are therefore the most important. I'd rather be the Unbound champion than the Lifetime champion. That's kind of the problem.

I think Lifetime are six races, right? Da sind sie nächsten Jahr. Sie bringen die Rad back. Okay. Do you think there's a sweet spot, because you've just put in that number of 10 races for the UCI Gravel World Series, do you think there's a sweet spot where riders can follow a single race series and make their career or make their plan for the season all about one single race series? How many races would that be? Be? I imagine 6-10 depending on where they are based it depends on where they're based how long the races are, because if the US had a series of say Lifetime 10 races all pretty equally spaced you could just go right I'm going to go to the US for a year I'm not going to travel back and forth there's one every few weeks, Gravel Earth series.

You have to fly so many thousand miles to do it um i think location is quite an important thing when you talk about series and time from each race um so trying to make the series work logistically that you can go from a to b to c to d, um i imagine seven to ten is the is the perfect number but you can't do like if we're imagining the dream series right now, we're probably saying it includes something like santavai tracker the Rift, Unbound um, I don't know World Championships would be somewhere in there it's one race from everybody's series so if like UCI World Cup is 10 if Lifetime is 10, if Gravel Earth Series is 10 it's.

In an ideal world, I'd all just be on one, is what I'm trying to say. Because you're always going to go to La Traca, you're always going to go to Unbound.

But it's like this year, I think, Classmark put, what's the race in the Girona, which they moved? Der Rancho. Yes, they moved that, I think, the week after Unbound or two weeks after Unbound, which has made no sense. One week after Unbound, yeah. Yeah, which is just like, who's flying from Kansas to the Rancho? Unless you live in Toronto. Ja, all the guys living in Girona, obviously. Ja. Because for them it's a two-hour drive. But yeah, I know it's true. And earlier on we spoke, or you spoke about like a rider unions. And for myself, I have to say like about this whole idea of having a rider union, I already thought like two or three years ago. And it's like year by year, I think even more that we kind of need something like that. I don't know how it could look like or how it should look like but I feel the need of something to help us rather to protect our rights like starting with imagery starting with safety, and how to handle or how to speak to teams in the future how to handle their situation they have like a clear rule book for like everyone, and yeah.

How's your view on that? I think it's a good idea in theory but I think the only way of that happening is If the UCI win this battle between race organisers, then it makes sense. I think it's difficult when you're dealing with three different organisations, essentially, three different rider styles across multiple continents.

Also, who do you listen to as a rider? And that's where the body would have to be fully independent. But it's like, are you listening to, say, a Keegan and a Sophia? Are you listening to a Rosa? And everybody has a different idea of what they want. And I almost feel like, the best time to do this was yesterday. But equally, the ground needs to settle a tiny bit more before it makes sense. You almost need to let the craziness play out a little bit more. Und dann we sit back and go, right, this has happened. Where do we go from now? Whereas it's two years ago, think how important the Gravel Earth series was and now it's not as important. Es ist einfach, und ich denke, das ist eigentlich wo UCI wird gewonnen. Weil sie will regulieren, dann ist es ein Obvious, es ist ein Ort, wo wir eine Union haben. Und wenn wir ein Gravel Union haben, soll wir sogar einen Lifetime Involve? Weil das ist halbierig ein Mountainbike-Series. Just to play a Dollar's Advocate.

Das ist wahr. Aber ja, du bist right. Es hat sich schon mal passiert. Ich war auf der Ball, zwei Jahre alt. Ich hatte die richtige Zeit, weil dann die Gravel-Sein-A-Professional-Field war so klein. Und du fühlst dich zu allen direkt zu sprechen, und du hast einen Verständnis von einem anderen. Es hat sich jetzt verändert, dass du, jetzt auch viele Leute involviert sind, schon wieder in der Sport, zu wirklich builden von der Grund, und funktionierend. Also, ich denke, dass du gesagt hast, und dann wahrscheinlich dann wird es ein Riding Unit aber dann ist es der CPA das ist dann ein Gravel in der Organisation, aber ich denke dass wir an einem Punkt brauchen wir das um zu stand up für unsere Rides, Ich würde sagen, Lifetime haben das gemacht. Sie haben eine Male und eine Female Rider-Representative so wenn Sie als Athlete haben eine Sie messen, ich denke, es ist Lesbio und Melisa. Sie haben direkt line zu den Lifetime-Hire-Ups. Und positive changes haben. Es ist ein Seat-at-the-Table für Athleten.

Aber am Ende des Tages ist es nur suggestions. Und das ist nicht wirklich ein Union, es ist nur ein Representative. Es ist ein anderes Ding. So, ja, es ist... Not easy to do. I mean, I think Nicole Frey and Hannah van Looke, they stood up for the whole women's peloton of the European Championships in Hufalice this year because, I think one of the biggest issues is just the fair racing thing with all the small gravel World Series races that are going on. Not small, but happening in very small ecosystems or very small environments die nicht ermöglichen für die Röden für uns. Und sie dann in Kontakt haben, viel mehr aus der Frustration, nicht nur aus, okay, zu konsolidieren und wirklich zu bauen etwas, konkret für die Zukunft, aber auch aus einer sehr einer sehr akutenden Neid zu ändern etwas.

You touched on this at the start, it's always a case of something has to happen before those things actually shape. And I mean, I think there we've seen it, that they were so massively disadvantaged by the starting order that this just boiled up or it was that one droplet that, brought everything just to boil over. And yeah, I mean, it's always the worst case scenario for things to happen in order to change. But we've seen a tiny spark of that change happen at least in the European racing series sometime this year. So maybe there's a bit of momentum going on. I think athlete power is a lot higher in gravel than it is in road as well. And that's pretty fair to say.

But in general, it's like, how would a union be structured? So you probably have to pay your fees because the union has to work. There's money behind it. There's structure, there's logistics, there's a representative. So would every pro pay in, let's say, €50 and then whatever? I don't know. Yes, it could work, and there's no reason it shouldn't work. It's just I don't think professionals can expect something for nothing as well. So they'd have to buy in somehow, and I think that buy-in would look like a very small financial commitment of, let's say, I don't know, 100 people or whatever. You need the best people in it. The union's only as strong as its members. Ja, das ist so. Ja, so meine letzte Frage, die wir sehen, dass die Pro-Gravel ist relativ schnell. Wie sehen Sie es mit dem Zusammenhang mit der Masch-Participationen? Weil wir immer sagen, wir Pros brauchen das und das, wir wollen das und das. Aber ja, die Leute finanzieren es sind die Leute, wie Simon, die H-Group-Raisen.

Ich denke, es ist ein sehr small part, die Gravel wäre so viel besser wenn Pro Racing nicht mehr passiert. Die Mass Participation scene ist so healthy und wirklich enjoyable, als auch. Und ich denke, du bist du mit zwei verschiedenen Perspektiven, weil es ist viel slower. Es gibt immer noch Leute, aber die Spiele sind slower. Wenn wir über die General Mass Participation Bunchen sind. Ich denke, Organisers können nicht vergessen, that and do everything just for the pros and not for mass participation but at the end of the day I think more pros racing brings more people into the sport so it's like, they are they both help each other, and I think that's something which we have to remember and I also think a lot of time we think we talk about pro gravel people are like oh well it's just for mass participation it should never have gone this way it's like the cat's out of that bag it doesn't matter, but I think it's a healthy way of organizing bike races so it makes sense for the organiser to do, which road racing doesn't necessarily have. So financially there it's a big tick. I think the best way of aiding it would be essentially promoting pro racing even more amongst mass participation. Whether that means that I'm not talking about the top of the mass participation here just like the general, the average person.

Whether they can watch the end of the elite men's and the elite women's race, whether, there should be some further coexistence because the biggest fans are probably going to be the people who are racing as well and i don't think the marathon analogy works perfectly um but it works pretty close so, yes nice i think um yeah that would have been my um the last thing to touch on as well um, is there anything else before we kind of conclude this um that you feel like sharing uh or that we haven't touched on um in in this podcast. No, but right before you do that, As you're now looking for a job, how much money would you need to do a really good gravel team? Of course, 10 million, but realistically, how much money would you like to have and how many riders to do it the way you want to do it? What do you want the team to do? Do you want me to win Unbound?

Do you want to win Unbound or do you want to be like a social media team? I know that's why I'm asking Every team has to Every pro sports team Has to have the goal of winning the biggest race in the world Whether they can or not Eventually, legitimacy comes through winning.

I think you'd do Three men and three women Or four men and four women And have, three top of each And then maybe one development rider, Pro budget I think to be I mean, you could do it off half a million quite easily but I think to be truly, truly competitive at the level which I'd want to do a team you're looking around a million mark, maybe even more to be honest that's to do it, all the bells and whistles perfectly, media team I just know from when I in 2024 I ran a crit team across the US and the UK, and we spent money goes fast and we weren't spending that much money on salaries so I think our total Also, our total expenditure on salaries between nine guys was about £90,000. And with that, you could build a very good crit team. But if you're trying to sign six to eight riders in gravel who are capable, at least one of whom both genders is capable of winning, your salary bill gets quite large, quite fast. That's probably your biggest expenditure. And then you've got to hire somebody full-time on the media side. Team Manager, I could do alongside everything else. That'd be my job. But then you have some mechanics at races as well. So yeah, you're probably pretty quickly getting to a million.

And I imagine 50 to 60% of that is probably salaries, if not more. Yeah. And what do you think is the budget of Specialized? I reckon it's around, it's complicated. I don't know how many staff they have and how many staff they take from XC or who they already have. To replicate Specialized I think you're talking two at least yeah because I think with your 500,000 for salaries you're not even close to cover, maybe you can't even cover one rider there yeah I think you're talking around two million dollars is my guess, but also like because they're a factory team I bet there's some clever accountancy going on there so it's like the marketing budget covers something which isn't necessarily the team's budget oder, die Mechanik ist, dass sie schon schon auf der Staff sind, also das nicht in der Team Budget ist. Ich bet das, um zu machen, ist es für Accounts. Ich bet das ist clever. Ja, aber ja, ich nehme sie an, aber so, ein Million, 1.2 oder 1.3, ist das, was du sagen? Du musst eine Top-Modte Team mit guten Social Media oder mit guten Kommunikation, nicht Social Media, guten Kommunikation und Riders, die in den Big Races sind. Das ist das, ich glaube. Wie fühlt ihr auf das Nummer?

Yeah, I mean, I guess like that all the riders at Specialized are right now the best paid gravel riders out there, pure gravel riders. And I don't think that will change. I don't think that Magnus Baclaris will come close to that what Mats is getting. So, but if you talk about this area where Magnus Baclaris is now and you have like a few of them, I guess you're fine with like, I don't know, 700k or something in salaries probably. Because with the good guys you're getting quick to like 200,000 or even more. It gets expensive fast.

And I mean, as you said, I think even more complicated on the female side. So I think around like 700, 800, you're probably safe. But then this whole like communication area, which takes so much budget away. And I think most people don't realize that. Maybe that's also a reason why some not doing it properly. because they just have the budget to pay the guys or the girls for the days, but not for the post-production stuff, which for YouTube viewers can take time. And if you do a few, suddenly you have so-and-so more. So yeah, but I think, as I said, 1.2, 1.3, I think you could do a really decent team. And to be honest, that doesn't sound much if you are then able to win, let's say, the biggest races truck and unbound and come close maybe to world championships. Ich denke, du kriegst die Geld zurück. Aber es gibt also nicht viel Talent, der moment ist, die können diese Räsen gewinnen. Während wir jeden Jahr sehen, verschiedene Winnerinnen. On the man side, it's more fluent, but yeah, it's still the same pool. And it's a bit of a lottery as, do you sign Magnus, whose trajectory has been so good the last three years. Again, even if you take Magnus' Rainbow jersey out of the equation, extremely good signing.

But I don't know if you guys have this phrase, but you have to kiss a few frogs. Not every signing you make is going to be a Magnus. um, but yeah i think around the million pounds 1.2 million euros you do something which is top two in the sport only second to specialized um, and then there's just a little bit of look involved do you sign the right riders do they not get injured um who do you hire but just finally before we end i think on the content point, a lot of teams and i think i'd say more brands here make the mistake of hiring people on day rate and doing really expensive projects where if you actually, broke down the overall spend on media per year, you may as well just hire somebody full time, that's my perspective, maybe somebody a bit more junior but somebody who wants to get involved in the sport, you pay them maybe 30 to 50 thousand euros a year and you give them free reign and I think when I hear how much some projects cost.

Sometimes it would be that just having a full time employee Ja, der Falle ist, Simon ist working in like a PR agency oder Advertising agency, so, Ja, he knows how quick the money goes on day rates, I guess. Ja, ja. Ja, but I was about to say, I had this thing in mind. Do you think in this current environment, it's more challenging to build a team that has reach or build a team that is successful in the sport? Because at the end you said, at the beginning you said, like the win is probably worth nothing if you can't communicate it. So probably finding the right people to spread the word and to be actually able to tell those stories that the writers are living through, isn't as easy as I think some people think because it's not as straightforward as some people think as just holding a camera and pointing and shooting at people I think.

The win is still very important especially if you win earned media, it goes off the charts, that's fine, I think it's easier to make a team which does the storytelling side well, very well, is easier, because again, there's a salary problem. For me to win Unbound with a team, you probably need best part of a million bucks in salaries, give or take, for it to be guaranteed. But you can't tell a good media storytelling part without having guys or girls who are at least competitive. You need to be just competitive enough that you can be like, Telling the underdog story. But the underdog story is not finishing 35th at 27 minutes. You need to be in like touching point. And I think it's, and the perfect team is finding the happy medium because we can talk all day long about what we do with specialized budgets. I don't think that any of three of us know how to get a specialized budget. Apart from going to work specialized.

So my last two cents is I'm still amazed. wie die Kommunikation.

Gescheitete nach der WMF-Baklarz und der WMF-Baklarz, für wie groß das Wind war, für wie viel, eigentlich, was es gemacht, auf dem Pass- und Faktor-Side. Das könnte auch ein bisschen bedeuten, wenn Pass nicht so groß ist, dass es so großartig ist, und, ich weiß nicht, warum Faktor nicht mehr macht, aber ich war nur surprised, und ich bin noch immer surprised, dass Magnoz ist, natürlich nicht ein Person, der ist, wie, massively outgoing ist. Er ist nicht jemand, der ist all der Zeit auf Social Media. himself so but i'm still amazed by that i would have done more all of that world championship title by now i have to say it's like send him on the podcast round send him just keep sending him everywhere like, you've invested in him from day one and if all of our rumors are correct we're presuming you're losing him in the next few months, like he seems like a nice person a good guy you've invested in him now it's time for essentially just get your worth out of him Aber Cycling als Sport ist world-class at nicht doing that. Oh, well, you see it in the road all the time. Hey, this guy is moving teams, so we're not going to send him to the Tour or the Giro or whatever. But no, I agree. They did do a good job on Instagram, but as we've spoken about at length, just doing good on Instagram is not the answer to this sport. The day we fix that, I'll be a happy man.

Alright, so yeah, if there's anything you haven't touched on, I think now's the time to share that. No, I think we touched on a lot and say it's interesting sitting in my seat now, I mean like, who do I want to go and work for? And what do I want to do? Because I'd love to go work for the Lifetime Grand Prix. But my ideas, what I want to do and what we all want to do on this podcast are different to what Lifetime wants to do from a corporate perspective. Did you spoke with them on like maybe joining? Ja, sie sagt no. Aber okay, ich weiß nicht, ob Sie sagen, weil Sie Ihre Ideen sind zu crazy? Ich weiß nicht, wir haben nicht mehr darüber. Ich habe ein paar E-Mails und da waren wir nicht.

UCI könnte beinrichterisch. Das könnte ein wirklich interessantes Rolle, weil ich glaube, du hast eine große Influenz da. Aber ich weiß, meine größte Kraft wäre running ein Team und versuchen es von dort zu influenzieren. Aber ich denke, für Teams zu beherrschte, in der langfristigen, wir müssen die Verwendenung der Gäuferung. Und wie wir die, Verwendenung der Gäuferung und wie wir die Leute in die Gäuferung der Gäuferung, ist ein Ding ich habe nicht figured out, und am Ende der Ende der Ende der ich bin nicht mehr going to be the one around that table, so von meinem Perspektive. Aber ich denke, wenn der Süd's machen in den Rooms, die need to think about, die need to be guys who have listened to podcasts oder, nicht blowing our own trumpets, aber sie need ein guter Perspektive auf die Sprecher, wie Tobias hat eine gute Perspektive auf hiring Gravel Talent. Sie müssen in den Null, nicht machen decisions ohne Kontext.

So one last question do you think your age might be an issue right now I mean, when you talk you don't sound like someone who's mid-twenties you sound like someone who has experienced more over the years than just being 25, do you think that's an issue also yeah I think so I think when people read my stuff, great usually people enjoy it or if they disagree with it even better because that means we can have a conversation and I never write to piss people off I write to get the conversation going and the dialogue going but then I think, when I half get a seat at the table they're like oh he's just 25, I think that plays against me sometimes and I also think people see me as a writer whereas realistically my goal with my writing is to change the sport for the better so, I want my writing to help get me a seat at whatever table it is but I think sometimes that plays against me as well, but that's fine. Someday it will come good, just that's not the 1st of November or whatever the date is today. Yeah, but maybe it's also not bad if you stay a bit on that site where you are right now, because I think we also need good...

Ich weiß nicht, ob Sie sich ein Journalist ist, aber es gibt Menschen, die sich über die Sport interessieren, die sich anwenden Dinge anwenden, die sich anwenden Ideen anwenden, und die sich anwenden Punkte anwenden. Ich meine, das ist auch wichtig, weil ich das Podcasts mache, weil ich deine Sachen mache. Und natürlich, ich glaube nicht, mit allem, was du gesagt hast, aber ein paar Dinge machen mich denken, und andere Perspektiven, und so weiter. Ich denke, das ist wirklich wichtig, um die Sport vorzunehmen, auch an einem anderen Level, nicht nur auf Social Media, aber in generell, Wir like to keep talking about things, throwing ideas around and so on. So I think that's also a really important part. And at the moment, we don't have that many voices out there who actually do that because most of us racing and the others try to, somehow manage teams, but not many people are actually speaking about the sport in a proper way. Well, if I'm honest, it's one of those like, It plays against you, talking about it sometimes. I've been quite public with this. Yeah, I know. Gerard and I have got into multiple big arguments, and I know he actively dislikes me. Completely fine. I don't really care.

My perspective is if I'm pointing things out, which I have seen in my own eyes, then that's fair game, and my goal isn't to piss him off. My goal is to make his events better. But also I know people in your shoes oder other top gravel racers will reach out to me and be like oh have you thought about this can I tell you this can you write about this, and I think this goes back to what we're saying about the riders union there's no way to get the points out there I think people are often scared of speaking out because there was there was a brief situation when I wrote something that there was talks with, that I was told again don't know fact but oh because Joe's written this we want to ban him from these events and we want to ban his sponsors and it's just like bullshit.

But yeah, it's a difficult situation and I don't really know the exact answer. And I mean, often the things I write, I don't 100% agree with, but it's an opinion or a perspective which I've had or I want to consider. And I think that's the best way of looking at these things is understanding, what you both want from different perspectives, what I want from a media perspective, what Lifetime want from a financial perspective, and being able to see all sides of the argument and then try and reach middle ground. Und ein paar Dinge Lifetime will win, quote-unquote. Sometimes the athletes will win. But we need the conversation to take place, and if the conversation doesn't take place, nothing will happen.

I totally agree with that. We need a conversation, and we're not having enough conversations. It's good to have them. It's even better when I don't agree with myself, because then I'm really confused. But yeah, that's it. Thank you, guys. Thank you. Where can the people find you? On Instagram or on your website? Yeah, joe.leverick on Instagram and then my sub stack is self-named. And if any, like, genuinely, if Emi has things they want me to write about or investigate, I'm always open to new ideas. I'm not as knowledgeable in European gravel as I once was, but I think my experience in the US has actually aided me coming into Europe as well. um but yeah whether uh and if you need a team manager you know it's cool so, yeah okay joe uh thanks for your time and uh yes see you i guess latest in santa val somewhere around girona where you live i'll be there when you're back from the us back then thanks guys okay see you thank you so much.