The cycling
interviews and quotes
worth your time.

Good morning,

These are today's quotes and interviews worth your time.

Stood out to me today: "I genuinely thought it was a joke, the non-alcoholic champagne."

¡Vamos!

🎤 INTERESTING INTERVIEWS

"So little performance research is done on women, particularly regarding the needs of elite female athletes. So I took matters into my own hands"

Kristen Faulkner on taking women's performance research into her own hands

Kristen Faulkner spent the last two months coding her own AI-powered physiology system, sometimes sitting at the computer for 10 hours at a stretch. The catalyst: nine years of biometric data that no existing app could synthesize.

"For nine years, I collected biometric data that I struggled to synthesize. Heart rate. HRV. Sleep. Weight. Power. Temperature. Training load. Menstrual cycle phases. Bloodwork. DEXA scans. Every app gave me one piece of the story, but the answer was never in one app. It was in how it all interacted. So I built a system that pulls in the data sources I actually use as an athlete and runs them against 4,400 hours of my own training history. It does not just show me dashboards. It builds personal models of my physiology. Every model is trained on my body. Every finding is specific to my history. And every output is actionable, not just interesting."

The system had an immediate result: three gold medals at the Pan American Championships. But the post on her LinkedIn account, where she shared all this, was about something larger than the hardware. "So little performance research is done on women, particularly regarding the needs of elite female athletes. So I took matters into my own hands, and I started writing the research myself. I did not want to keep waiting for someone else to study the questions that matter to my body."

Her frame for this is long. "I worked in venture capital. I actively invest in AI companies. I race on the Women's WorldTour. I am training to defend Olympic gold on home soil in LA 2028. I've applied all of that knowledge to building this. I came into cycling late. I did not win because I had the deepest race history or the most experience. I won because I used my brain as much as I could. Before my first European race, I made flashcards of the riders, I studied every corner of every course, and I analyzed my data rigorously. I am doing the same thing now, with AI."

The closing line cuts through the technical detail: "AI is going to change women's performance research from the bottom up, and I want to be a part of it."

"I realised, shit, I'm actually quite good at cycling."

Lennart Jasch on his Tour of the Alps stage win and a very short career path

Two years ago, Lennart Jasch was a speed skater. A skating injury sent him toward cycling, and somewhere in that transition he had a realization: "Then I realized, shit, I'm actually quite good at cycling. At least based on the numbers."

Yesterday, the 25-year-old Tudor Pro Cycling Team rider won stage 4 of the Tour of the Alps solo, attacking with 25 kilometers to go and holding off the GC group to the line in Trento. There was extra weight to it: he had ridden the same stage the year before, bonked badly in terrible weather, and abandoned.

Asked afterward whether he knew it was the Queen stage, he was disarming. As he told Cycling Weekly: "I hadn't thought yet that it was the Queen stage. Now that you say it, it's true and yeah, I mean, I probably already said it a million times, but I still can't believe what happened today. I knew quite soon that I had really good legs today. And then I just tried to believe that I can make it. But yeah, it was so incredibly hard until the very, very end. So I never was really sure that I would really make it to the finish first. Just when I turned right on to the finishing straight, there was a moment I realised, f, I just won my first pro race."

Asked where he goes from here, he reached for a German proverb. "There is a German saying, I will translate it – I don't know if it makes sense: 'even if you're old as a cow, you can still learn', and I think that's true for everyone. No matter how old you are, you can always learn something. When I just look back at how much I already learned in those two years, it's incredible."

"He's been getting roughly half a million more expensive every week."

Stan Dewulf on the Paul Seixas phenomenon, from the inside

Stan Dewulf has been Paul Seixas's road captain since the start of the season. He was there in the Algarve for Seixas's first professional win. He was there in Huy as the 19-year-old became the youngest ever winner of La Flèche Wallonne. He has watched the hype at close range.

"You could feel it immediately when he joined the group. It was serious. Nothing like 'let's aim for top 5' or 'the podium would be nice,' like in previous classics. The team management was very clear: 'We're going to try to win the race.' There was a clear plan. Paul is still young, but there's no room for messing around. The fact that the plan works out perfectly at age 19 is absolutely insane."

The hype inside the team matches what's coming from outside. "I see him as a once-in-a-decade or once-in-twenty-years talent emerging. And especially in France. Everyone wants their piece of him, but I understand that up to a point."

On the transfer rumors and the Tour de France questions that follow Seixas everywhere: "If I'm being completely honest: I don't know whether he even knows what he wants and what choices he's going to make. He isn't thinking about it yet. None of us inside the team have any idea whatsoever. I think they're still working on a plan."

The valuation line is delivered matter-of-factly, as he told WielerFlits: "He's been getting roughly half a million more expensive every week. That's why it's good to wait and see how things develop and let him do his own thing."

What Dewulf keeps coming back to is the simplicity underneath the circus. "Paul is not someone who dominates the room or steals the show. But he has a clear plan about how he wants to race. He knows he's in a learning phase and that we can help him. He doesn't stand out at the dinner table with the wildest stories, but he also has less life experience. He is completely normal. And that's what makes him so appealing as a person. He has both feet on the ground and will make the right decisions."

🏆 THE SERGE BAGUET AWARD

Not awarded today

Wonder what The Serge Baguet Award is all about? Check it out here.

💬 QUICK QUOTES

"Remco voor altijd." — Mike Sinyard, Specialized founder and chairman, Het Nieuwsblad, announcing a lifelong partnership with Remco Evenepoel, reportedly the first deal of its kind in professional cycling.

"It's been a good duel, because it hasn't just been one person who has won every year. We've taken turns winning. Now he's won the last two years, so now it's my turn to win this year. I believe I will." — Jonas Vingegaard, TV2, on his chances of winning this year's Tour de France.

"Mauri is a strong rider who is happy to work for others. That type of rider is the backbone of a team. If you can surround your leader with two or three riders like Mauri, you have a strong team." — Tom Boonen, Sporza, making the case for signing Mauri Vansevenant after Soudal Quick-Step confirmed the domestique will leave the team following seven years with the squad.

"I remember when he arrived in December, in the first camp, I was in a room with him. It was really strange at the beginning because when we spoke, he was 10 years younger than me. So it's a lot, and I'm just 30. So it's a bit strange. it was hard at first to find things to talk about, to find common ground, shared interests. It was funny because one night, he called his girlfriend and he said, 'How was your English lesson today at school?' So for me, it was a little bit strange. But now he's grown up and he's more like us. He spent all his time this week playing one game on his iPhone. I don't know what it is, but he said, 'Yeah, I played this when I was young.' I said, 'Okay, when was that?' He said, 'Oh, two or three years ago when I was in school.'" — Aurélien Paret-Peintre, The Cycling Podcast, describing his first December training camp as Paul Seixas's roommate at Decathlon CMA CGM.

"He's only a second-year senior and he's wiping the floor with everyone, really." — James Knox, The Cycling Podcast, on Paul Seixas.

"Well look, we all know that Remco can obviously ride very well solo and very hard on the flat. But whether he can drop Pogačar, that is the question. And my immediate follow-up question is: is it even necessary to drop Pogačar, or does he dare to sprint against him? Pogačar, you know, he was constantly looking back for Remco in Flanders. He absolutely did not want him to come back, because I think he thought: he might find his second wind." — Laurens Ten Dam, Live Slow Ride Fast, previewing Liège-Bastogne-Liège.

"My relationship with the Ardennes just isn't there. I find it quite boring. The worst cobble classic to watch is better than the best Ardennes." — Luke Rowe, Watts Occurring, on his nonexistent relationship with the Ardennes Classics.

"I genuinely thought it was a joke, the non-alcoholic champagne. That's Paul — he doesn't drink anything. So I went looking for a plant to pour it into, but that didn't work out either. There was no plant to be found. I ended up completely cornered, and I couldn't slip away into the hotel to grab a real champagne. That was my struggle last night." — Stan Dewulf, De Reconstructie, after the team's La Flèche Wallonne victory celebration with Paul Seixas.

That's it for today. See you tomorrow 👋

Jay