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Making Up The Numbers podcast with Loic Bruni - World Cup battles and mental strength!
May 11, 2022
Joining George, Jack & Emilie on this episode of the podcast is the one & only #Superbruni! We chat about everything from his mental strength to his epic World Cup overall battles with Amaury in 2019 & Loris & Thibaut in 2021; his chances of becoming the GOAT to how he nearly joined the Syndicate. It’s an epic 90 mins that will set you up perfectly for the Fort William World Cup...
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0:01
[Music]
0:14
welcome to the making of the numbers
0:17
podcast
0:18
the making of the numbers podcast is
0:21
sponsored by hope technology jtech
0:24
suspension revolution bike park ride
0:27
southern spain
0:28
schwall on the world's finest
0:31
independent mountain bike magazine
0:34
single track
0:37
the original plan was for the next
0:38
episode of the pod to drop in there then
0:41
in early march jack messaged me to say
0:43
he'd been talking to five-time world
0:44
champion and two-time world cup champion
0:46
like bruni out in taruka and he was keen
0:49
to come on the show
0:50
but we just couldn't fit in before lords
0:53
so that means i've been sat on this
0:55
script for the best part of two months
0:56
excited to chat to the man who you could
0:59
argue and we probably will at some point
1:01
is dominating world cup downhill at the
1:03
moment so without further ado let's get
1:04
into it like bruni welcome to the making
1:07
of the numbers podcast how you doing
1:09
yo guys thanks for having me doing good
1:12
i'm happy to
1:13
finally be
1:14
able to make the the show with you guys
1:17
excellent and where in the world are you
1:18
right now
1:20
so right now i'm in andorra doing some
1:23
solid prep for fort william and
1:27
yeah i love this space
1:29
excellent you're a resident there now
1:30
aren't you
1:32
yeah man it's been actually been a
1:35
like poked me like hey taxing runs
1:37
whatever
1:39
yeah man like i will never hide it from
1:42
trying to make the most of it you know
1:44
so
1:46
truly fully assume that and loving it
1:48
right now people are nice and there's
1:50
some other good writers here so it's
1:52
good to
1:53
hang out with them like greg so sick
1:56
excellent so before each episode of the
1:58
pod
1:59
i posted in a few whatsapp groups asking
2:01
if anyone's got any questions for the
2:03
guest
2:04
you get some good questions you get some
2:06
random [ __ ] but the first question in
2:09
every group that i posted in this time
2:10
was identical and i was just curious to
2:13
see if it's the same thing you get asked
2:14
all the time so any ideas what the first
2:16
thing everyone wants to know about lloyd
2:18
bruni is
2:20
is that
2:21
maybe what my
2:23
bike he's hiding
2:27
what were you adjusting on your fault
2:28
like mid-run and the viking loser
2:31
yeah
2:32
that was that was super sick actually
2:34
i'm so happy we
2:37
made that happen with jack and he
2:38
probably
2:40
uh
2:41
got me to win the last round yeah um
2:44
we can't like i cannot talk about it
2:46
like i i wish and i would love to share
2:49
what we're doing because it's pretty
2:50
incredible and really amazing with
2:52
audience but yeah we'll come time we'll
2:54
come be patient
2:56
be patient so if that's all you came for
2:58
listeners there's your answer you've
3:00
just got to be patient we got it out of
3:02
the way quick
3:03
you can go about your day now
3:05
uh i just let's start by chatting about
3:08
your dad jean-pierre bruni i saw he took
3:10
another world title at masters worlds a
3:12
few weeks ago in argentina how many does
3:14
he have now
3:16
well the man has 10 now he's been on the
3:18
roll
3:20
he's good yeah actually
3:23
this time was a bit different because
3:24
he's getting older obviously yeah
3:28
last november he had a
3:30
surgery to replace his hip you know like
3:33
uh
3:34
protesis
3:35
then
3:37
he was taking a long time to to
3:40
to walk again to just do things and he
3:42
was a bit pissed off you know like
3:44
the classic
3:46
uh behavior you have you have when you
3:48
cannot do your thing and uh for
3:50
christmas i got him a training plan with
3:51
a good friend that's
3:53
a close friend nice and he's been
3:56
grinding training hard for
3:58
in order to be ready for argentina so he
4:01
went there with
4:02
big preparation full of
4:05
motivation got the win he loved it like
4:08
when i had him on the phone he was so
4:09
stuck so
4:10
it was cool to see and um
4:12
i'm proud he's still up there you know
4:15
yeah yeah is he the inspiration
4:17
is that you know did he get you into it
4:20
all into downhill
4:21
yeah yeah for sure in
4:23
my early days he was the main
4:24
inspiration
4:26
and then got
4:28
uh got followed by barrel then blankie
4:33
all those guys you know and um
4:35
and now even though he's
4:37
not as fast as he used to be is still
4:39
like a big inspiration because
4:41
i i would love to be like him and i
4:44
think he
4:46
is he's rad you know i'm i'm proud to
4:48
call him my dad
4:50
100 so in my first ever mountain bike
4:52
race and i think it was in 1989 which is
4:56
probably before any of you guys were
4:57
even born
4:59
is that right it was the only starter
5:00
you got emmy are you older than jack
5:03
yeah i was one uh i am yeah
5:07
well this mountain bike race it was
5:08
called the bulby bash and obviously back
5:10
then it was xc and i set off and i got a
5:13
flat
5:14
maybe halfway around so i had to run
5:16
with the bike and there was no tubeless
5:18
there was no plugs i don't even think we
5:19
had quick release wheels
5:21
anyway about 500 yards from the end my
5:23
dad caught me and as he rode past i i
5:27
thought he might stop and ride with me
5:28
or something but as he rode past he just
5:30
shouted when does 879 come before three
5:33
five two
5:34
in the finish results at the baltimore
5:36
bash and just kept going
5:38
i was just curious to know do you have
5:40
that same kind of relationship with your
5:42
dad when you you know think you're the
5:44
man does he remind you just how many
5:45
world titles we are behind you are
5:48
yeah for sure he's
5:50
he's super like we're pretty uh close
5:52
together and he's young in his head you
5:54
know so we always have these small uh
5:57
competitions between
5:59
uh the two of us
6:01
and it can be for anything you know and
6:03
even when we play pittank which is a
6:04
french sport we just
6:07
like joked so much about each other
6:09
being
6:10
pretty bad at it and just like all the
6:12
time moto you know he's been a really
6:14
good moto guy and when he sees video
6:15
videos of me
6:17
he's just taking the [ __ ] out of me like
6:20
like you know
6:21
but that's what i like you know i've
6:22
been educated this way and second degree
6:25
is kind of
6:26
my thing and i really like it so
6:29
um yeah it's so it's so sick and i feel
6:32
like
6:32
that's that's what
6:35
makes us like
6:37
sometimes
6:38
like push a little bit more like for
6:39
sure he wants to
6:41
when he was in argentina he wanted to
6:43
make me happy to surprise me and be fast
6:46
you know so he could be like yeah you
6:47
see what i'm doing man
6:50
i'm happy if i can help him you know
6:53
cool so what happened you mentioned his
6:55
hit before was that bothering me
6:56
brothering him him in prague loop
6:58
because he wasn't on the podium which is
7:00
rare he seeded second and finished fifth
7:03
if i remember seven seconds back
7:06
uh i don't think that was the the
7:07
problem i feel like my dad just
7:11
genetically gave me his uh
7:13
and consistency you know has been
7:17
pretty crazy and when you ride his bike
7:18
so he can
7:20
end up on the floor a lot of times and i
7:22
think that time he didn't ride well and
7:23
he went off track so he didn't made it
7:26
to the podium but uh his hip was
7:28
actually killing him the last few months
7:29
before the operation so
7:31
even though he's pretty young to do that
7:33
he was so so stoked to do it and now
7:35
he's uh he's back for more you know yeah
7:38
excellent
7:40
so lord you've grown up around dh you've
7:42
mentioned fabirel a minute ago
7:45
um who was the big hero for you in the
7:47
sport growing up
7:49
barrel for sure was a massive hero you
7:51
know it was
7:52
when i was starting to get into racing
7:54
and stuff he was winning leger 204
7:58
living your 205 he was the man to to
8:01
beat
8:02
and uh
8:03
i was just looking at him like like one
8:05
of my biggest idol
8:07
and then
8:09
just after that it was blanky because i
8:10
just loved his mindset and his writing
8:13
style so
8:14
he became more the guy i wanted to be
8:16
like and uh
8:19
and i feel like in the end i'm a bit of
8:20
big i'm a bit of a mix of both you know
8:23
so it's pretty funny
8:25
nice was it always on the cards for you
8:27
to be a dh racer or when you were
8:29
younger did you have other ambitions
8:32
yeah i feel like it was always
8:34
not meant to be but
8:36
i never really got
8:39
as much commitment in any other things i
8:41
was doing i did a lot of other sports
8:42
because my mom and dad wanted me to try
8:45
like
8:46
judo
8:47
uh
8:48
athleticism i don't know like running
8:50
all those stuff like i didn't really
8:53
like it and uh
8:55
i would just watch videos of downhill
8:57
and
8:58
didn't like to pedal so much or suffer
9:00
so i didn't like cross-country
9:02
and i would just yeah donald was the
9:04
only thing that made me
9:06
super
9:07
into something you know and
9:09
i was really passionate about moto 2
9:11
motocross but my dad
9:14
never wanted to buy me one so
9:16
i stuck to mountain bike
9:18
downhill
9:19
okay for sure
9:21
so we seem to remember you did an
9:22
internship 100
9:24
a little while ago
9:25
are you still interested in kind of
9:27
other life roles do you want to do
9:30
something else at some stage or is that
9:32
not something you even think about at
9:34
the moment well at the moment
9:37
i don't know it's hard to say because i
9:40
was pretty young i was still at school
9:42
doing studies and i it was mandatory to
9:44
do an internship you know so i was like
9:45
okay okay where can i go
9:49
then i asked around and then
9:50
uh
9:51
you know from 100 i was like yeah we'll
9:53
come over to san diego we'll take you
9:55
and then
9:56
we you can ride you can do your thing
9:58
and we can try to teach you some stuff
9:59
so
10:00
okay
10:02
and then i went to the season so it was
10:05
2016.
10:07
and then after the season i also went to
10:09
specialize for the other part of my
10:11
internship for school
10:13
and i just like that year i just had the
10:15
best year of my life even though i was i
10:16
had an injury in the summer
10:19
making me miss some
10:21
world cups
10:22
i was just traveling around meeting new
10:24
people writing a lot
10:26
and then i had one year left of school
10:29
and then after the internship at
10:30
specialized i was like [ __ ] it i'm never
10:32
going back to school this is the [ __ ] i
10:34
want to take that opportunity and
10:36
and make the most of it and i feel like
10:38
i'm still doing it so i don't want to
10:40
think so much
10:42
of what's coming after but when i was
10:44
younger i really wanted to prepare
10:46
the after career or the plan b if
10:49
something goes wrong
10:50
yeah so
10:51
i'm interested in business and
10:54
some little things for sure
10:56
but
10:57
i know how lucky we are to do what we do
11:00
right now and i want to to enjoy it more
11:03
for the moment
11:04
yeah i think it's really important for
11:06
certainly younger riders to hear what
11:08
you've said there and
11:10
the fact that you were
11:12
one of well if not the leading junior
11:14
rider
11:15
on the world circuit and you were still
11:18
considering what's the plan b get my
11:20
education
11:21
um i think it's really important for
11:23
those younger guys to to hear someone
11:25
like you say that because so many now
11:27
have the dream of when they're 15 years
11:28
old i want to be the you know the
11:31
the next pro rider and
11:33
everybody see that so that's cool
11:36
i feel like that's what also got me
11:40
improving through the years pretty quick
11:42
without being having so much pressure
11:43
because i had a lot of other things in
11:45
life
11:46
and i didn't
11:47
put all my hopes into
11:49
my mountain bike career
11:51
yeah and in the end i i would never even
11:54
though i didn't have as much time as i
11:55
would i wish
11:57
to write and to train and to travel i
11:59
just
12:00
wouldn't change it and i think it made
12:02
me who i am and i
12:04
i think it's so important that kids have
12:07
other things in life and it's it's scary
12:09
because the sport's getting younger and
12:11
a lot of kids start to go and do school
12:13
at home and don't have a normal kids
12:16
like childhood pretty much or teenager
12:20
and i don't know if it's good like maybe
12:22
it's cool but it's [ __ ] it's so nice to
12:24
do these years as a normal kid and
12:27
and it's so i don't know
12:29
important so
12:31
yeah for me
12:32
to stay like
12:34
yeah
12:35
yeah so um like going back to the racing
12:38
side um in 2009 you went first year
12:41
junior
12:43
and
12:44
um
12:45
they didn't have a junior category back
12:47
then but um you was pretty amazing and
12:49
you improved quickly and took like your
12:52
first top 15 with the 14th and windham
12:55
so that's pretty like pretty amazing so
12:57
how did that feel for you
12:59
yeah that was sick back in the day we
13:00
had
13:01
no junior category he was like okay if
13:04
swim or that you know and it was like
13:06
pretty
13:08
pretty cool and hard at the same time
13:10
and uh
13:11
when i got top 15 in windham i was just
13:14
over the moon because i was
13:16
not supposed to do the world cups
13:17
overseas at first and i was just
13:20
supposed to stay in europe and then my
13:22
results were okay so the team was okay
13:24
you want to come to canada and usa
13:27
and that was the best trip of my life i
13:28
had so much fun with the boys blinky
13:31
kamco like it was
13:32
like so much fun at the hotel doing like
13:36
videos it was so funny and i just
13:38
enjoyed everything and writing was just
13:42
easy you know i feel like the boys were
13:44
just showing me lines and we just had
13:46
super good energy and in finals i wrote
13:49
well and i was so surprised i was like
13:51
what the [ __ ] i'm 14 i remember sitting
13:55
next to cedric gracia on the hot seat
13:58
and it was so nice to be to be
14:00
next to these guys you know i was like
14:02
oh
14:03
enjoy this is this is like the best
14:05
holidays of your life so
14:09
i was saying saying it like this no it
14:11
was not like
14:12
i'm going to walk to race in the u.s
14:15
it's gonna be crazy i was just enjoying
14:16
everything
14:18
and yeah it was it was super it was not
14:21
a turn in my junior years but it was
14:24
super cool to see that
14:26
i could be in the top 20 and i was like
14:29
pretty young it was maybe my fourth
14:30
world cup so i was like damn this is
14:32
cool i would like to do a bit more and
14:35
maybe
14:36
be in the top ten next time you know and
14:38
i didn't like the last races i was not
14:41
as good
14:42
but uh it was still a pretty cool uh
14:45
first good result
14:47
yeah
14:48
and the year after in 2012 so you you
14:50
won your first world champ title as a
14:52
junior in leo gang
14:54
three seconds in front of retreat road
14:56
that's pretty impressive considering the
14:58
truck
14:59
so has like world champs always been
15:02
like that one race for you since the
15:04
beginning
15:06
not really like i feel like french
15:08
people really put a lot of importance on
15:11
this race and i i do
15:13
but i was just like
15:15
for me it was
15:17
a massive goal but
15:19
actually the the
15:21
warm-up before the race
15:23
my mechanic jack wasn't there for family
15:25
problems and stuff so i had another
15:27
mechanic
15:28
and i don't know what happened maybe
15:30
putting cleaning the bike or whatever i
15:32
put a lot of silicone on the brakes
15:35
and i had no brakes
15:38
like warming up like 10 minutes before
15:40
my start i was like [ __ ] my breaks are
15:42
terrible what's happening and
15:44
worries it's okay it's going to come
15:46
when it warms up and it never did you
15:47
know so i was like
15:49
people were spreading like super weird i
15:51
had to adapt and break so early but in
15:53
the end it was not bad because i don't
15:55
know adolf but
15:57
yeah i was
15:58
i already had my eyes on this on this
16:00
title because the year before i i was
16:03
uh i crashed in temporary you know i was
16:05
not riding well and i i feel like i had
16:07
a revenge to take
16:09
and uh and i rode well and i yeah richie
16:11
was pretty strong there and i beat him
16:15
and
16:16
yeah made it to my first world title so
16:18
it was pretty crazy
16:19
for me because i come from from far you
16:22
know i felt like it was a big
16:24
achievement and i was super happy
16:27
yeah and from there then you had like a
16:28
really steady ascent
16:30
um through the ranks you were like a lot
16:33
of podiums
16:34
but actually no waste wins
16:37
like 2015 you finished second four times
16:41
um
16:42
how hard was that to deal with mentally
16:46
yeah
16:47
it was terrible i was like what the [ __ ]
16:49
it's so hard i was able to like you say
16:52
to improve
16:54
and to be in the top five
16:57
but to go and find the way to make it to
17:00
the first step i was struggling i was
17:02
like it's impossible and even on the
17:04
days i was doing crazy runs and i was
17:07
super happy
17:08
there was always like
17:10
green
17:11
or like a red boy you know like and i
17:13
feel i feel like a little bit
17:16
yeah like there's so many good good guys
17:18
and i feel like
17:20
my bad i was not good enough but i i was
17:22
a bit unlucky with
17:24
the generation because it was the peak
17:26
of red boy
17:28
really good years of gwen you know like
17:30
those guys were in super hard to beat
17:33
and uh
17:34
and i don't think i had what it takes
17:36
what it took
17:37
so
17:38
yeah it was it was just not meant to be
17:40
and actually the
17:42
2015 season was was great for me i was
17:45
second overall it was my best season so
17:47
far
17:49
but people were just like
17:51
ah next race you're gonna get it next
17:53
race and i remember being so mad at
17:56
people saying this to me
17:58
i was like come on no it's not next race
18:00
and it never happened i was like okay
18:03
maybe i would never win but
18:05
that's okay i'm still young but so
18:08
i try to keep it cool you know but for
18:10
sure i was boiling inside
18:13
um do you think
18:14
that experience about that season is one
18:17
of the reason why
18:18
now you
18:20
mentally so strong and solid
18:24
i don't know because we i i feel like
18:25
when i see your race that you like
18:27
mentally you bit crazy like crazy strong
18:31
really okay yeah
18:33
yeah i don't know like i remember
18:36
being
18:37
in 14 especially 2014 so the season
18:40
before that consistent second place
18:43
season 15.
18:44
i remember being super up and down and
18:46
had so many races and i i almost won leo
18:49
gang remember i don't know if you
18:50
remember and i crashed in the last year
18:52
oh for sure i remember
18:56
i was just like
18:58
and then i realized i had to work with
19:00
someone because i could i was not able
19:02
to control my emotions and i was
19:04
always getting a little bit distracted
19:06
at some point and i would i was missing
19:08
something and then in 15
19:10
i found that guy that helped me
19:13
bring back some of the bases and try to
19:16
be in the zone more often and then i
19:19
i was way more consistent but at the
19:21
same time i was not able to do like
19:24
crazy runs let's say like really like
19:27
out of the
19:29
not out of the box but like something a
19:31
bit exceptional so i was just writing i
19:34
was consistent but not really good so i
19:37
was just
19:38
learning to know myself
19:41
and in
19:42
the thing that made me i think realized
19:45
that was the world champs after that
19:46
season just you know in vanod in andorra
19:49
where i pretty much gave up before the
19:51
week even started i was like okay i've
19:53
had my season i'm happy
19:56
i'm not gonna
19:57
try to win this race i have this is just
19:59
bonuses and
20:01
and the last day i
20:02
something clicked in my head and i was
20:04
like
20:06
you have to try harder to win you have
20:08
to
20:10
this is
20:11
like i could see i had many chances to
20:13
win and i never did it
20:15
like i have many chances to win i mean i
20:17
had
20:18
plenty of races already under my belt
20:20
but i was never able to win and i was
20:21
like
20:23
maybe you're not trying hard enough
20:25
until the end you know i was always fast
20:27
in practice
20:29
and not really able to stepping step it
20:31
up
20:32
through the days and then that day i
20:33
stepped it up big time
20:35
and gwyn which was really hard to beat
20:38
crashed and i won so i was like
20:40
okay
20:42
so i felt like i understood that to win
20:45
you had to
20:47
add some fire and to
20:49
to do things different on the last day
20:52
yeah
20:53
um
20:54
and yeah that's my uh
20:56
so
20:57
so that racing andorra you won worlds
21:00
before you won your first your first
21:02
welcome
21:03
that's pretty crazy and then 2016 you
21:06
took
21:06
that first world cup in cairns
21:09
and then had a crashing training
21:10
breaking your collarbone
21:12
bad smash multiple bricks collarbones
21:15
concussion
21:16
and he took you out for the majority of
21:18
this season is is that the worst injury
21:20
you've had
21:22
no it's not i don't feel like it was so
21:24
bad you know they just put a plate and i
21:26
was just
21:27
glorious was taking care of me that
21:28
summer i was trying to find me a
21:30
girlfriend so i really enjoyed
21:33
that i did find my girlfriend actually
21:37
but
21:38
no it was it was just
21:40
a cruel in my head that
21:43
i struggled so hard because even the
21:45
first race this this year was loads and
21:47
i crashed also in the last section of
21:49
the track i remember i was up at the
21:51
split and i was like why am i not good
21:53
enough you know and then
21:55
finally i don't know what happened in
21:56
cairns i made it and i won and then two
21:59
weeks after i go right with my friends
22:02
actually loris's dad was in front of me
22:04
and i just
22:05
like get windows i don't know what
22:07
happened exactly and
22:08
crash
22:10
and
22:10
miss the next three or four rounds and i
22:12
was like
22:13
no i finally touched what was possible
22:17
to do and i have to do
22:18
all over
22:20
and re-learned and stuff so i was pretty
22:22
devastated especially it was the first
22:24
year was specialized i wanted to prove
22:26
them that i could be good blah blah blah
22:28
so it was uh for sure it was a big
22:30
setback mentally but it was not my
22:32
biggest injury i would say
22:35
so
22:36
2017 elite world champion again in
22:38
cairns famously knocking me hannah into
22:41
second
22:42
did any part of you feel bad about
22:44
beating mick there
22:46
for sure man what do you think
22:49
this guy is a massive legend and he was
22:52
on his home race
22:53
pulled down the run he needed to
22:55
and there's a
22:57
french guy
22:59
annoying he comes out for 310 for a
23:02
second just busy i was like i actually
23:04
told him like dude
23:06
i'm so sorry like
23:08
i'm not even afraid he was and i could
23:11
see he was he had tears in his eyes
23:13
because he was happy but he was so close
23:15
you know from
23:16
the biggest thing he could have done and
23:18
then i was like
23:19
sorry dude like i'm so sorry but
23:23
that's what makes
23:25
makes it feel even better in my in my
23:28
position because mick was
23:31
super ready for it he delivered and he
23:34
made it super hard on us and i
23:37
i was a little bit better so i was super
23:39
super proud of coming back to
23:42
and winning again
23:43
yeah you know the world champs and i was
23:45
yeah over the moon and we went yeah
23:47
australia i just love to travel i think
23:50
cool so 2018 elite world champion again
23:53
in lenses hyde
23:55
on the last episode we talked a bit
23:57
about loris needing to to win a title
24:00
either the world cup overall or world
24:02
champs and when he does that it could
24:04
really open the floodgates
24:06
do you feel like that having those
24:08
titles in the bag relieves the pressure
24:11
a bit and there so frees you up like if
24:13
you're sat in the start get and you
24:15
don't perform at world champs
24:17
no ev you've still got five you know
24:19
it's not like yeah
24:22
i mean if you look at the history like
24:24
you guys have steve pete
24:26
yeah he had a black cat on his back for
24:28
so many years and it was getting worse
24:30
and worse and worse and i don't know how
24:32
he pulled that run in uh canberra
24:35
and made it happen but i think it's
24:37
super the more it goes the hardest it
24:40
gets
24:41
and you can probably ask gwen
24:44
how bad it is because he's been
24:46
dominating winning so many world cups
24:49
and every time we we we showed up at
24:52
world champs he was
24:54
he had problems or crashed so
24:57
for sure as in my position i feel
25:00
privileged because i've had it so if i
25:03
gain or win another one it's super sick
25:06
and i
25:07
i would love to make it happen again
25:09
but i've i had it before so it's it's
25:12
okay if i don't yeah
25:14
and for sure loris is
25:17
for me the best writer at the moment
25:19
like no doubt about it
25:21
is fast like his speed is insane
25:24
but
25:25
something needs to
25:27
happen to
25:29
to change his status into the man right
25:31
now is like the bullet and he can beat
25:35
everybody on any day
25:37
but something needs to happen and i feel
25:39
like it's super close
25:41
yeah and
25:43
i hope he finds it i hope and i don't
25:45
hope because if he finds it
25:51
so 2019 andorra probably the race we
25:54
talk about most on this podcast because
25:57
loris did one of those runs where the
25:59
time just looked unbeatable i remember
26:02
standing down the bottom and saying i
26:03
think it was matt simmons that well that
26:05
that's it that's the winner um
26:08
apparently you heard what he'd done over
26:10
the pa before you dropped in and then
26:13
your first split came up on the board
26:15
and you were three seconds up and
26:17
everybody just gasped i remember it
26:20
talk us through that run how did you
26:22
approach it and did hearing loris's time
26:25
at the top change your plan of attack
26:29
yeah it was it was funny because we were
26:31
with troy qualified second for a super
26:34
small margin and i was first and then we
26:36
were both at the top and we both heard
26:38
the time and we both didn't want to hear
26:40
the time
26:41
and we were like oh [ __ ] ass dude so
26:44
we're like okay well good luck and then
26:46
he dropped and i was like
26:48
damn lori's really like went fast
26:52
did something and then i started the run
26:53
like
26:55
insanely hyped and i was like what not
26:58
that peddling i had a massive moment
26:59
close to those bridges where i almost
27:01
almost spinned it over the bath
27:04
but i wrote like incredible you know i
27:06
was like i was scared of the the way the
27:09
speed you know it was it was pretty
27:12
scary
27:13
but
27:14
i blown
27:16
all my
27:18
physical um capacities because up there
27:21
it's altitude it's pretty flat you have
27:23
a lot of
27:24
uh it's a lot of things to do on the
27:25
bike a lot of work and i reached the
27:28
second part of the track
27:30
without anything left in the tank
27:33
and
27:34
and i feel like my strategy was okay
27:37
because in the end i won but in the end
27:39
i was just hanging on like trying to
27:41
make it to the bottom but i was
27:43
like honestly my eyes will cross and
27:45
stuff i was like
27:46
and my app was so painful
27:50
and i when i saw the race afterwards i
27:53
was like whoa that was so close because
27:55
those three seconds i had in the small
27:57
amount of time
27:59
were insanely
28:02
uh advantageous for me like i was i had
28:04
a comfortable lead and i lost everything
28:07
to the bottom so it was really like two
28:09
different approaches and i feel like
28:12
i was just trying
28:16
really hard
28:17
without thinking so much and
28:20
i got lucky that because it paid off but
28:23
it's super important to have a strategy
28:25
in your runs because the run like
28:27
andorra especially is super long it's
28:28
like four minutes and 10 seconds i think
28:31
you need
28:32
to know where you can push and where you
28:34
have to rest and the way you have to pay
28:35
over and i didn't do that i was just
28:38
like riding with my heart
28:39
and i'm happy
28:41
it worked but it was yeah it was super
28:43
close and
28:45
and i don't know how i pulled up three
28:46
seconds to be honest i was like whoa me
28:48
too i was happier yeah
28:50
but uh
28:52
well it's certainly good entertainment
28:54
that's for sure so 2019 world champion
28:57
again in montenegro then the season
28:59
finale and snowshoe
29:01
i mean drama i don't think it can ever
29:04
be beaten um
29:05
did you think you'd lost it when danny
29:07
was halfway down that track
29:09
yeah for sure
29:10
like danny
29:12
was so annoying before he went green and
29:14
i was like
29:15
[Applause]
29:16
i was like
29:18
okay
29:20
it's happening
29:21
danny is just gonna get second or third
29:23
and i'm gonna lose the overall
29:26
this is it you know and i so i went to
29:28
amore and i was like yo dude [ __ ] that
29:30
was such a cool season i'm pissed off
29:32
but congrats were around
29:34
and by the time i said that the last now
29:37
the second to last splits comes up and
29:39
then he's green
29:41
and i'm like what the [ __ ] okay i didn't
29:43
say anything i'm worried like i take
29:44
back what i say
29:47
and yeah danny i was just looking at him
29:50
like come on dude either crash either
29:52
just go
29:53
the hardest you can and i just
29:55
i couldn't i don't i i didn't know what
29:57
happened in my body i was mortified you
29:59
know
30:01
and then he crossed the line and i just
30:03
saw green and i was wow i was so
30:06
happy it was it's been super hard for me
30:08
to win a world cup title overall
30:12
and i could see it going slipping away
30:14
just so easily and i and it didn't so i
30:17
was so so relieved and
30:20
and so happy because amli made it really
30:22
hard on the last part of the season and
30:24
i
30:25
i thought i lost it you know so
30:28
drama was
30:30
epic that day of insane
30:33
it was
30:35
so i'm moving on a little bit further
30:36
you finished 2020 winning the final
30:38
world cup and loser
30:40
obviously only a five rare season with
30:42
the four world cups and world champs but
30:44
that win really did seem to mean a lot
30:46
to you um after the big gap with covid
30:48
were you just super keen to get get a
30:50
win behind you again
30:53
yeah like i don't know for you guys
30:55
i was covered but i don't know for me it
30:57
was kind of weird like i didn't i felt
30:59
like
31:00
it was a
31:01
second part of life almost you know
31:03
after
31:04
yeah and um
31:07
and i was not able to find myself again
31:09
i didn't care so much you know i was
31:10
like yeah we have
31:12
we don't have really a season it's gonna
31:13
be [ __ ] it's gonna be in [ __ ] winter
31:15
at the races it's gonna be muddy
31:17
like i was not really
31:19
like if i was living in australia to be
31:21
honest like conor firon or whatever i
31:22
would have been like okay i stay home
31:24
see you monday man
31:25
but
31:27
i
31:29
i started to
31:30
to train to prepare and i was okay luik
31:33
this is not really easy but you have to
31:36
you know sometimes training is easy when
31:38
you're really fired up and stuff and
31:40
that wasn't the case
31:41
and then i remember i broke a
31:44
rib in neo-gang and i broke my finger on
31:46
a small local races and i i was just
31:49
struggling and then i showed up to leo
31:52
gang world champs
31:55
and nothing really went my way like i
31:57
didn't ride so well and i had a
31:58
mechanical in my finals and it was
32:00
snowing at the top i was like what the
32:02
[ __ ] are we doing here man
32:07
and i it seemed like i was you know
32:09
losing before it even started and then
32:12
maribor
32:14
just a week after
32:16
same scenario like super rare super wet
32:19
mega hard to ride
32:21
and i crashed the first race like it was
32:23
not good that season
32:25
and then suddenly uh my mechanics and my
32:28
group around me were like luik
32:29
can you please do something about it
32:35
we're here to do better than that
32:39
okay we have three races left let's try
32:41
to
32:42
to make it happen
32:43
and
32:45
and then i got second for like nothing
32:47
to loris and malibu
32:49
and i was like [ __ ] that stinks
32:55
and in the end i just wanted to win
32:57
really bad again and greg actually won
32:59
the next one
33:01
so i was like
33:02
ah
33:02
like all those guys winning it makes me
33:05
mad and i just wanted to win the last
33:07
one so bad and then you know how the
33:09
qualifying run of the last round doesn't
33:11
have points
33:12
uh but no one cares so much and i cared
33:14
a lot so i just won the qualifying i was
33:17
like yeah that's
33:18
so happy and i remember greg being like
33:20
did you know you had no points in that
33:22
right
33:29
and i didn't let anything happen to me
33:32
because it was a little bit wet you know
33:33
it was a bit sketchy and
33:35
i just wrote everything
33:38
as hard as i could
33:39
and the pedal at the bottom i just
33:41
[ __ ]
33:42
lost my my my quads you know the burning
33:45
and stuff so
33:47
i really wanted it and it happened so it
33:49
was i was super super
33:51
proud that we turned a little bit
33:53
decision around
33:54
and for sure we wanted to win and that's
33:56
what we
33:57
work for and stuff and sometimes
34:00
i tend to
34:02
not give up but
34:05
when the conditions are not super
34:07
nice i tend to be like ah it's okay
34:11
we have a good time
34:12
and
34:14
in the end i just need my people to
34:15
remind me we can we can win and we we
34:19
should i love the fact that they had a
34:21
word with you and basically just told
34:23
you to get your [ __ ] together
34:26
yeah big time they could see like i was
34:28
not so into it you know
34:30
and i'm pretty bad at hiding my emotions
34:32
and my
34:33
my moods they're like
34:36
wake up
34:37
okay cool let's take a quick break there
34:39
we'll be back with more after these
34:41
messages all right um
34:43
in 2021 so last season um you started
34:46
the season with the 10th logan
34:49
and then
34:50
obviously we had that uh
34:52
weather
34:53
situation in legere when you finished
34:55
50th
34:56
so actually two races uh into a six race
34:59
series you're like
35:01
uh pretty far back in the overall um
35:04
and you also had a broken heel so it was
35:06
not the
35:07
best situation did you still think the
35:09
overall might be possible at that time
35:13
no for sure after legere i didn't
35:15
think at all about the overall anymore i
35:19
started to shift my focus to
35:21
world champs for sure
35:24
like did nothing went the way i wanted
35:26
it to go and the last two months of
35:28
preparation before lego gang were bad
35:31
broke my my heel i was riding a bit
35:34
yeah not so good and i did my
35:37
best performance and i was super happy
35:39
with my performance in leo gang and i
35:41
was tense you know and that's not the
35:43
way you win uh
35:44
an overall so
35:46
i
35:47
did a lot of work to be ready for leger
35:49
one qualifying so i was
35:51
super happy to be back to where i wanted
35:54
to
35:55
and then the rain came so i was like
35:56
really hard [ __ ] off
36:00
and
36:01
then i was like okay it's okay sometimes
36:02
that's not meant to be i'm gonna try to
36:04
be ready for world champs and uh
36:06
and i feel like i was
36:09
but it didn't go as planned too
36:11
and you all those are like that crash in
36:13
invalid so where you got like buck twice
36:16
at the
36:17
in the first forest i guess you're
36:19
pretty lucky to to be walking away from
36:22
that one
36:23
yeah for sure that one was was wild and
36:25
i i had literally nothing from it like
36:28
not even a little pain in my
36:31
nail you know
36:36
yeah
36:37
so coming into the final two rounds of
36:39
snowshoe can you remember where you were
36:41
in the overall
36:44
i think i think i was third but fast
36:48
dark
36:49
george has got some numbers for me
36:51
t-bob's first
36:53
752 points
36:55
loris was second 566
36:58
you were
36:59
298 points so basically you were 300
37:03
points back in third
37:05
on 454
37:07
second at the first race and then you
37:09
make a public declaration that you're
37:11
going to win seed in be last man down
37:14
the hill and you'll win the race i mean
37:17
you've got to have some big balls to do
37:19
that was a bit of a strategy behind that
37:22
did you genuinely believe that's what
37:23
was going to happen were there any mind
37:25
games going on there talk us through
37:27
that
37:28
because no
37:29
it's it's super hard to to to guess what
37:32
the future holds for us you know
37:34
especially when you at last races and
37:37
it's rocky and everything can happen but
37:39
i remember being super gutted to lose to
37:42
rhys wilson
37:43
for like 200th of a second i was like
37:46
come on who's testing me up there i know
37:47
like something
37:51
and then i was and then i could i could
37:53
feel like
37:54
tebow and loris were not liking the
37:57
track so much
37:58
and i remember being at the podium with
38:00
with loris
38:02
and there and tebow was i didn't see
38:03
people it was it was hidden from my
38:05
vision you know
38:07
and i was telling maurice why boy is
38:09
cracking so hard at the moment because
38:11
he crashed in qualifying and finals
38:14
and he was just behind and he could hear
38:16
he heard me and i was like oh
38:19
no sorry dude but it's true man what's
38:22
happening to you like
38:24
i was like
38:25
i'm so sorry
38:26
i said that like this but i you should
38:29
stay on your bike for you have to win
38:31
this thing
38:32
and loris was i don't know and i was
38:35
like okay
38:36
i didn't win for a small margin
38:39
i want to win the last one
38:41
and i want to put pressure on everybody
38:45
and
38:46
i put pressure on myself too because i
38:48
was like okay announcing that i wanted
38:49
to win qualifying
38:51
and
38:53
things i don't know
38:54
for once things went as planned you know
38:56
like i put up because no points again
39:00
but i didn't really give a [ __ ] i won
39:02
qualities
39:03
with a good margin so people were like
39:05
oh [ __ ] bruno is fast for
39:07
sibo actually
39:10
uh got injured in qualifying so he
39:12
crashed again
39:13
and
39:15
and fully like
39:17
uh went out of contention even though if
39:19
flores and i blew it he could still win
39:22
so he had such a big margin that it was
39:24
still possible
39:27
and i don't know i could feel like loris
39:29
was not
39:31
it was it was not that he wasn't hungry
39:33
but it was he was a little bit
39:36
uh we will see i don't know i don't want
39:37
to think about it and i was like dude i
39:39
want to think about it like let's go
39:41
let's try let's try you know like
39:44
what why not
39:45
give everything and go get tibos
39:49
and then
39:51
i don't know i didn't know what lawrence
39:52
did when i was in the start gate but i
39:54
just felt the energy from the crowd and
39:56
from the the situation the context
39:58
everything was making me like
40:01
having goosebumps and i was like oh this
40:03
is it this is something i'll
40:05
i can remember for the rest of my life
40:06
you know so i enjoyed the seconds before
40:09
the start i remember giving a sign to
40:10
the crowd and being like
40:13
for a few moments in my life being being
40:15
pretty confident and uh
40:18
and pushed from top to bottom did a
40:20
little mistake
40:21
in the last rocks but pretty much had a
40:24
clean and
40:25
and fast run
40:27
and when i crossed the line i didn't
40:29
know what loris did
40:30
and i wanted to win that was the only
40:32
thing i wanted to win that that race but
40:34
i didn't think so much about the overall
40:36
because loris was in such a better
40:38
position
40:40
and then i crossed the line
40:42
everybody is like yeah like okay i think
40:45
i won look at lauren
40:48
finn is running to me i'm like
40:51
what's happening again in there you want
40:52
the overall
40:54
wow i just collapsed like everything
40:57
just oof
40:58
insane feeling at one moment i will
41:01
never forget and that was also pretty
41:04
like
41:04
drama but sick
41:06
i think afterwards you said something
41:08
like i can only go to that place a
41:10
couple of times a season
41:12
yeah for sure do you do you watch
41:14
stranger things
41:16
do you know stranger things yeah i i
41:18
watched it right so i have this vision
41:22
of it being like stranger things you
41:24
know 11 when she does all those crazy
41:26
things and then she controls things and
41:29
then she has like the nosebleed or
41:30
whatever afterwards it drains her of
41:32
like all the strength does it feel like
41:34
that when you've been to that place
41:37
yeah but it's my butthole that's
41:38
bleeding it's not my nose
41:43
now for sure it does feel like it's
41:45
something
41:47
super hard to do and
41:49
and i i don't
41:51
have this feeling many times in the
41:53
season it's something it's a state that
41:55
you you can feel once or twice to be
41:57
honest in the season
41:59
so
42:00
mind games it's kind of clear that
42:02
you've got loris's number
42:05
how do you still remain friends
42:10
do you ever feel like a bit mean like
42:12
he's your best mate
42:14
yeah do you ever don't think i just know
42:17
him
42:18
because he's been beating me for super
42:20
small margins too and i'm
42:22
pretty uh fair player and i'm okay i'm
42:24
happy for you barbara so we're pretty
42:28
fair to each other and i feel like
42:31
through the years we learned how to
42:32
manage the the friendship even though
42:34
it's uh it's hard because
42:37
there's such a big rivalry you know like
42:40
that people around us build and also
42:43
our career i've built so
42:46
it's it's been hard like at the point
42:49
when he left to syndicate it was it was
42:52
bad like we were not so good friends
42:54
because i didn't know it would leave the
42:56
team it didn't he told everybody but me
42:58
and i was just like [ __ ]
43:00
why not then
43:02
yeah
43:02
and he didn't really want to be like
43:05
good friends or whatever so okay we need
43:07
some time and then in the end we had a
43:09
massive talk i remember over a cool
43:11
cocktail in this
43:12
and um
43:15
and yeah we just said okay why did you
43:17
say that
43:18
because we had a lot of pre-judgment in
43:20
our head about each other and
43:22
everything from there started to be way
43:24
more like before and even though
43:27
we still had this rivalry we knew how to
43:30
segment it into off the bike and on the
43:33
bike so
43:34
we respected a little bit each other's
43:36
space at the races more and then
43:39
also off the bike we were just talking
43:41
about other things doing moto like not
43:43
training so much together yeah and
43:46
and so far in really good spot and i
43:48
love this guy and i want him to succeed
43:50
and
43:51
and i don't want to play mind games to
43:53
him you know i don't want to play mind
43:55
games in general but because i think
43:57
it's it's sneaky
43:59
but
44:01
yeah it's uh i don't know why
44:03
he
44:05
is not winning a world champ like last
44:07
year you could have won
44:09
big time i don't know what happened in
44:10
the last section but
44:12
i don't know it's it's hard and i don't
44:14
want to speak for him you know like you
44:15
yeah yeah
44:19
um
44:20
obviously now the level of the gods what
44:23
the girls as well but like the level the
44:24
walk-ups is insane that there's a lot of
44:26
people that can win
44:28
probably more than ever um
44:30
so at that very top level what do you
44:33
think how much of it is like a head game
44:36
a mental game
44:40
well i think it's all in the head to be
44:41
honest like
44:43
they can be for men and girls like
44:45
they're all riding super well and i feel
44:46
like
44:47
there's probably more guys that can win
44:50
than girls at the moment even though in
44:52
girls the level has been so much better
44:54
than the
44:56
the last decade i don't know i feel like
44:58
right now this so the racing is so sick
45:01
yeah
45:03
but it's all in head like to be honest
45:05
like
45:06
and i know
45:07
uh emilia you're close to cami and i
45:09
feel like she's so good at this i don't
45:11
know if she gets it from other sports or
45:13
uh just her approach but
45:16
he's just confident and just you know
45:18
like doesn't really
45:21
talk so much about it but she just boom
45:24
and it makes it happen and i feel like
45:26
it's super impressive to see because
45:29
she's she's
45:31
she doesn't have much experience she's
45:32
like what uh fourth
45:34
fifth season not even yeah so it's it's
45:37
pretty impressive and in the men's
45:38
category it's the same like there is
45:42
10 to 20 guys that are super
45:45
high speed and they can all
45:47
pretend to win but there's only really
45:49
four or five
45:51
that can actually do it and i feel like
45:53
it's just because in the head they're
45:54
able to
45:56
to switch on something at a certain
45:58
point that allows them to battle for the
46:00
win
46:01
some other guys are still amazing and go
46:03
super fast but they are like one or two
46:05
seconds off and that's enough to not be
46:08
in the mix
46:09
yeah i feel like this would burn it a
46:11
little bit sometimes i'm like man
46:13
like you're writing so fast and then
46:16
in the race run like sometimes i see you
46:18
in practice or whatever and then i'm
46:19
like oh yeah he's running well but you
46:21
know like other people are running well
46:22
and suddenly in the last day like he
46:24
said
46:26
suddenly like i'm like wow like this is
46:28
crazy
46:29
and and yes i think you're right i think
46:32
you can
46:33
is it like let's switch the switch that
46:35
yeah and i feel like it's hard because
46:37
guys like bernard they have the talent
46:39
to win i think
46:41
but they they have
46:43
pretensions on other things and to do in
46:46
mountain bike and he wants to run the
46:47
team he wants to do youtube he wants to
46:49
do a lot of things
46:51
and these little things he does
46:53
and he's not the only one
46:55
take time and take focus away and that's
46:57
the little things that we
46:59
save and we can
47:02
do the difference on and i feel like
47:04
i'm not saying if bernard wasn't doing
47:06
all of that he would just train hard
47:08
he would win but i'm pretty sure it will
47:11
be it will happen you know
47:13
because i know
47:14
how it how hard it is to film how hard
47:16
it is to edit to go somewhere
47:19
to do all the stuff and then sometimes
47:22
email sponsors and i know bernard is
47:24
doing a lot of that and i think
47:26
[Music]
47:27
with the win we have this example too
47:30
it's not
47:31
the solution to win gwen
47:34
is the best of all of us and with
47:37
his carrier decisions i feel like he put
47:39
too much on his plate
47:41
and he's not focused enough to go fast
47:42
anymore you know so
47:44
it's hard to to judge and that's why you
47:46
need good surroundings you need to have
47:48
your head on your shoulders and to know
47:50
what you want
47:51
and
47:52
that's like amore look at amore he's
47:54
been cranking since the last three four
47:56
years because he changed something in
47:58
his life
47:59
and even though you have this fun side
48:01
of him on instagram and stuff he's
48:03
training like a [ __ ] yeah
48:07
is the strongest for example i think
48:09
yeah
48:10
yeah yeah so the next question is a bit
48:12
probably a bit related to that is there
48:14
anyone you fear
48:16
like if you came into a tighter run and
48:18
you're a neck and neck with someone like
48:21
like greg or like amore
48:25
yeah
48:26
it's hard to say one name but for sure
48:28
amore is that guy that
48:30
on his day is pretty impossible to beat
48:33
him so
48:35
amory is one of the the biggest
48:37
competitor i think i have
48:40
and now guys like finn you know they're
48:42
there they are
48:44
starting to understand they looked
48:46
enough and they they made the mistakes
48:48
and now they don't make the mistakes
48:50
loris like all those guys they are
48:52
insanely hard to beat too so
48:55
it will be a pretty big
48:57
free fight with all of us
49:01
yeah yeah
49:02
um so we have some
49:05
like a low comparison
49:07
for of you and greg so greg benar
49:10
called us the goat four
49:13
world champion title
49:15
three times walker champion and 23
49:17
worker wins
49:19
and you got a five
49:21
world champion title so one more and two
49:24
world cup champions and seven mock-up
49:25
wins
49:27
so when you look at the field now it
49:30
feels like you're the only rider who
49:31
could potentially like
49:34
surpass him because yeah it'll be hard
49:37
but i mean let's say you you win the
49:39
overall this season
49:40
and you take three wins um
49:43
and greg behaves like a 40 year old he
49:45
is and maybe doesn't win any races
49:47
anymore
49:50
so you you will be on the level on the
49:52
overall but uh behind on the race wins
49:55
obviously
49:56
um i mean it's pretty hard to compare
49:59
but what do you think how many races
50:01
when is like a world champs win worth
50:04
for example well
50:07
i don't know because the world champ
50:09
title i have that greg doesn't have is
50:11
juno so it's not even that crazy you
50:13
know
50:14
but uh oh yeah
50:16
if you win
50:19
if you win one world cup i think two
50:21
world cups equal are watching right
50:24
all right yeah because super it's also
50:26
super hard to win a world cup you know
50:27
it's not like if it's easy
50:29
and
50:30
it's just the watching has a little
50:32
extra thing so i feel like it would be
50:34
like twice as hot let's say
50:36
and
50:37
i don't really try to match greg or nico
50:40
and ricott's i don't feel like that's
50:43
what drives me right now but
50:45
i'm super fast when the walker wins i'm
50:47
like so far
50:50
i feel like yeah but
50:52
if you're race until youth for 40 it's
50:54
fine so you're 27 now
50:57
yeah do you think you will still be
50:59
racing at 40 no
51:03
i'm not going to disagree with you
51:05
because i already stopped so
51:08
yeah i don't know how greg does it to be
51:10
honest like i love i love it right now
51:12
but i can feel the weight of it
51:14
sometimes
51:15
and i know when i'll be 34 or something
51:18
else
51:19
i'll be over it like i know it's a deep
51:21
deep down feeling
51:23
and also maybe i want to do other things
51:25
you know and greg is just insane is
51:28
he's
51:29
in
51:30
incredible
51:31
but yeah i think i suck a little bit too
51:33
much
51:34
on winning races to catch greg
51:39
i've been taking so long to win my first
51:41
race and i win maybe one per year if
51:44
it's a good year you know i'm not like
51:46
cranking rounds after rounds like
51:48
glories or queen can maybe you're gonna
51:50
do rachel
51:53
maybe you're gonna win 16 in a row you
51:55
never know then you'll catch him
51:58
if he takes that to catch it
52:01
yeah
52:02
it could be done it takes 16.
52:05
[Laughter]
52:09
yeah so um
52:11
like we said you're a five-time world
52:12
champion and you just um smoked everyone
52:15
to win your second overall um
52:19
how do you
52:20
like we talked about greg being 40 and
52:22
like you're not getting younger as well
52:24
how do you find it
52:26
is it hard to motivate yourself like in
52:28
the off season or
52:30
what what you going about that
52:32
well first point none of us is getting
52:34
younger to be to be clear we are getting
52:37
what do you think what do you mean
52:39
like every day we all getting older you
52:41
know so
52:42
that's uh
52:44
that's something that makes me feel
52:45
better about getting older we all doing
52:47
it
52:48
um
52:49
but yeah i
52:50
can feel that the preparations and the
52:53
winters are different than they used to
52:55
be because
52:57
there's more things to deal with like
52:58
sponsors uh issues
53:01
uh
53:02
solicitations i don't know if you can
53:04
say that but requests from
53:06
things around
53:08
and i don't like all that to be honest i
53:10
don't like
53:11
to deal with sponsors and i like to deal
53:14
with my friends you know so in 100
53:17
folks
53:18
uh like given red bull i have some
53:20
people i'm really close to so that's
53:22
okay but other things i feel like it's
53:24
so
53:25
it's so energy taking and focus like
53:27
when i write sometimes last year when i
53:29
had my problems before the season
53:32
i knew it came from that because i had
53:34
some sponsors issues and i was like
53:36
couldn't take it off my head
53:37
and motivation for me
53:40
is different now i feel like
53:43
i'm not young like you say i'm not
53:45
trying to impress anybody anybody i'm
53:47
just trying to be the best version of
53:49
myself and i'm trying i'm just trying to
53:51
be better than the year before all the
53:53
time
53:55
and i'm just
53:56
my own
53:57
main rival to be honest
54:00
and uh
54:02
and yeah i want to develop things i want
54:03
to do things like this and
54:05
be a little bit more involved with
54:08
why i'm going fast you know i understand
54:09
a bit more of the reasons
54:12
and i'm training hard like to be honest
54:14
um sometimes i don't have the motivation
54:16
but i still inside of me i'm like
54:19
you have to do this
54:21
like then that's the motivation that
54:23
keeps me going is that all the other
54:25
boys they are
54:26
training so hard
54:28
and i want to be better than them
54:30
so i have to train
54:33
just as hard or more
54:35
and yeah
54:36
and i like them all like they're all my
54:38
mates but it knows me so much when they
54:40
beat me i don't know why
54:44
okay we need to take another quick break
54:46
there we'll be back with 2022 chat after
54:48
these messages
54:49
so 2022 then uh you kicked things off in
54:52
portugal at taruka at the portugal cup
54:55
uh you were a bit back
54:56
actually one of the only times in my
54:58
career where i'll sit in front of you on
54:59
a result sheet so cheers mate um
55:03
how hard were you trying because you
55:05
seem to be
55:07
a little concerned that you're off the
55:08
pace after the race
55:11
yeah no i tried i tried hard i was
55:15
i was going there to kick off the season
55:17
you know even though we didn't have the
55:19
normal setup and stuff i was
55:21
eager to do well
55:23
and
55:25
the more it goes the more i understand
55:26
that i'm not fit for these races because
55:29
i go there and i start to
55:31
to enjoy it have some fun and i love i
55:34
lose a little bit the the last the goal
55:37
the main goal is to win let's say or do
55:39
well and i'm more according to talking
55:42
to people because it's the first race of
55:44
the season catching up blah blah blah
55:46
blah blah and in the end i'm like oh
55:47
[ __ ] it's
55:49
qualifying okay i go and then i get
55:51
smoked so i'm like oh no
55:54
what's happening and then i try harder
55:56
and then this time i got even more smoke
55:59
so
56:00
i didn't really understand until
56:03
the week after where i tried to okay
56:05
analyze why and stuff and i could just
56:08
realize that i was
56:11
not
56:13
approaching the race as i usually do and
56:16
i just wanted to ride for fun pretty
56:18
much
56:19
and in the last moment i wanted to go
56:21
fast but i was not prepared for it i
56:22
didn't build anything for it and i was
56:24
just
56:25
like few seconds like too far
56:28
but enough to get beaten by a lot of
56:30
guys including you dude
56:32
so yeah
56:33
just
56:34
i was
56:35
about
56:36
200 seconds
56:39
for sure i was like yeah no
56:40
the season kicks off in one month and
56:42
i'm not ready so it was a good wake-up
56:45
call and the last little
56:47
weeks before the race the first race i
56:49
was like
56:50
more focused and more
56:52
pro than taroka
56:55
yeah and you're not the first person to
56:57
i've spoke about that too and i think
56:59
george reese has talked about that maybe
57:01
on this podcast that yeah there are
57:03
there are riders that uh
57:05
will cook riders and riders
57:09
national or regional level riders and
57:12
you see it a lot where the the
57:13
professional world cup riders go to a
57:15
national racing
57:16
you can just see they're just not
57:18
operating on the level that they
57:20
normally operate at for some of the
57:21
reasons you've just talked about i think
57:24
there's an important message there for a
57:26
lot of young riders coming through that
57:28
when they're at the regional races and
57:30
the national races that they're taking
57:31
seriously
57:33
just lacking around with your mates the
57:34
whole time in practice
57:36
isn't necessarily the way to go about it
57:39
if you want to you know perform well do
57:41
a bit of that but essentially if you're
57:43
not concentrating on your lines and
57:44
practicing going fast then as lois just
57:47
said you'll get to qualify and go [ __ ]
57:49
hang on how do i actually do a fast run
57:51
here so so yeah there's a message in
57:53
there somewhere
57:54
i don't know
57:55
as laurie ever even laurie greenland he
57:58
he's the other one who who hates him do
58:00
his i don't even have to say he had a
58:02
podium at nationals
58:04
he's just left thought william i'm sat
58:06
in the car park we've been here i've
58:07
been running a coaching camp here for
58:08
two days
58:09
and boy's been here um
58:12
and i don't think he's racing i'm not
58:14
sure but no
58:16
i mean i might be wrong with that
58:18
there's some people that are here and
58:19
left and some people haven't but yeah
58:21
laurie's another one who he was at riola
58:22
a couple of weeks ago he did practice
58:24
and then didn't race so
58:26
and you can see why
58:28
it's just
58:29
we're racing to such a
58:31
fine
58:32
level that if you don't if you yeah you
58:35
know you're gonna get smoked that's not
58:37
fun and it's not worth trying to get
58:39
stuff so
58:41
yeah yeah for sure and lift is good
58:43
especially for william it's so so
58:45
difficult
58:46
absolutely
58:47
okay so lords 2015 you were the second
58:51
2016 you qualified first oh it's a crash
58:54
and you were well into the green
58:57
2017 you seated second and then you were
58:59
one of the riders obviously you got
59:00
affected by the rain in your race run
59:03
how much did you want it this time
59:05
around
59:07
i i wanted it so bad i was like
59:11
racing the first round in france in
59:14
louisville i was never able to make it
59:15
happen i was like
59:17
okay lauric
59:18
this is another opportunity you've been
59:20
given try
59:22
to seize it
59:23
and
59:24
it was so hard remember like the
59:26
practice rules we had saw such a few
59:28
amount of runs because of the
59:30
lack of efficiency of the shuttle let's
59:32
say
59:33
so it was it was a tricky weekend to get
59:36
started let's say but
59:38
i felt super good in qualifying and won
59:41
the run so i was like okay the speed is
59:44
there you can do it so you still need a
59:49
lot of things to put together before the
59:51
final run to make it happen but it's a
59:52
good sign you know
59:54
and
59:55
i could just feel the crowd that i i
59:57
just i wanted you know it was there was
1:00:00
no other way i had almost do it
1:00:03
and i didn't do it
1:00:12
and
1:00:20
i'll try again cut me off if it doesn't
1:00:22
work
1:00:23
so you finished third behind on marie
1:00:25
and you team uh finn was second in an
1:00:29
epic race
1:00:31
you were not politicked up on the second
1:00:32
split then you've got books going over a
1:00:34
rock slab how close were you to having a
1:00:37
crash there
1:00:39
yeah actually i talked to gonzalo you
1:00:42
know the portuguese guy before my race
1:00:44
and he crashed there
1:00:46
and i don't know if that influenced me
1:00:48
or not but i went a little bit too much
1:00:50
to the right and almost did the same as
1:00:52
him like went over the bus
1:00:54
and i could feel like it was close
1:00:56
but i didn't get scared i don't know if
1:00:59
you know what i mean like i was yeah
1:01:01
still on my bike both feet clipped in
1:01:04
like it was just a little bump on the
1:01:06
road
1:01:07
but that was not the main problem i was
1:01:10
not writing the way i wanted and it was
1:01:13
one of the mistakes i did but i was just
1:01:16
battling a little bit
1:01:20
yeah okay i think you said afterwards
1:01:22
that your bike was set up way too fast
1:01:24
and you felt like you were just
1:01:26
hanging on how often do you change the
1:01:28
settings before a final run or is that
1:01:31
something that happens you guys do
1:01:34
um
1:01:36
actually we always change before the the
1:01:38
the finals because
1:01:41
the track evolves a lot and we only have
1:01:42
two runs before uh we go for the finals
1:01:46
and um
1:01:47
there's always little things you tried
1:01:49
the last two runs and then
1:01:51
you have attendance let's say like a
1:01:53
trend to follow in your head like okay
1:01:56
this is the way it's gonna
1:01:58
be so let's try to match that trend
1:02:01
and uh with my mechanic we know each
1:02:03
other really well and we always tweak it
1:02:06
the last little things to to be sure the
1:02:08
bike reacts well when we go race pace
1:02:11
and uh
1:02:13
yeah it's just that time
1:02:16
i didn't judge well enough the
1:02:19
the last little things we needed to do
1:02:20
before the race and we have new
1:02:23
new stuff on the bike like on the
1:02:24
suspensions and we didn't have enough
1:02:26
experience and
1:02:29
yeah i made a mistake and my mechanic
1:02:32
didn't
1:02:33
like he trusted me and then obviously it
1:02:35
was a little bit of a wrong one but
1:02:38
in the end i saved the the day was still
1:02:41
pretty good you know pretty slowly at
1:02:42
the third and stuff so it was not a
1:02:44
catastrophe
1:02:46
but i could feel like
1:02:47
straight up the first rocks i was not
1:02:49
riding
1:02:51
the way i had to to to go and get the
1:02:53
win so i was pretty pretty sad and i
1:02:54
think my time is super close to my
1:02:56
qualifying time which is
1:02:58
a sign that i didn't ride
1:03:00
yeah
1:03:01
so yeah it was pretty
1:03:03
pretty sad so i messaged benoit
1:03:05
afterwards because he had a pretty wild
1:03:07
ride as well and i think he did the same
1:03:10
adjustment because he said he felt that
1:03:12
the track was attacking him rather than
1:03:14
him attract attacking the track
1:03:17
yeah
1:03:18
just set the back up a bit too fast
1:03:20
i don't know i don't know what benoit
1:03:22
did on his commencement because uh he
1:03:25
would he was running pretty well but you
1:03:27
could see actually on his last
1:03:29
especially last part of the run and it
1:03:31
was
1:03:32
loose like super loose
1:03:34
so i don't know if if he had the same
1:03:36
mistake as me or not in the settings but
1:03:39
the track was gnarly and the track was
1:03:41
not faster the track was actually
1:03:43
getting slower and slower and slower i
1:03:45
feel
1:03:46
so for some reason normally it's not the
1:03:48
case but that time it was the case
1:03:50
and it was really hard to
1:03:53
anticipate
1:03:56
what the track will send to your to your
1:03:59
hands and feet pretty much and
1:04:02
that plus the bike being a little bit
1:04:04
for me it was just way too hard yeah i
1:04:06
was just not able to to use the track
1:04:09
and to carry the speed and to play with
1:04:10
the ground and i was a little bit of
1:04:12
passenger and at the bottom i was just
1:04:14
fighting so hard to hang on because my
1:04:16
arms were blowing up and i almost lost
1:04:19
my hand from the element bar in the
1:04:20
whoops you know so i was
1:04:22
wow i was just uh
1:04:24
the problem was i was not focused on
1:04:26
going fast i was focused on making it
1:04:27
down
1:04:29
and
1:04:30
yeah it's uh it's like i said you know
1:04:33
like those little things sometimes pay
1:04:35
off sometimes other guys are doing it
1:04:37
better than you yeah and i was
1:04:40
when i crossed tonight i could see a
1:04:41
murray joy uh explosion i was so
1:04:45
like the contrast was so bad and i was
1:04:47
just like feeling the loss the the
1:04:50
the failure you know so it was tough so
1:04:53
is emery the man to beat this season
1:04:57
uh yeah obviously he probed he proved us
1:05:00
already that he's been
1:05:02
training hard and he's back to his level
1:05:04
but uh
1:05:06
i know finn
1:05:08
and loris are also the main the men to
1:05:11
beat so
1:05:12
i was pretty impressed and proud of finn
1:05:15
because he held it together all weekend
1:05:17
long it was really fast and
1:05:19
and now it did a really good step but
1:05:22
now the hard part is to keep going so
1:05:25
we'll see how it
1:05:26
but i'm sure it will be fine and
1:05:29
yeah
1:05:30
the
1:05:31
the first competitor is always yourself
1:05:34
and for me it doesn't follow because i'm
1:05:37
i have a bad record there and i want to
1:05:40
turn it around
1:05:42
yeah so you talked about
1:05:44
finn who got a second and uh yeah he
1:05:47
already won the little race the
1:05:50
qualifying race in bryout and then did
1:05:52
well also there
1:05:53
um
1:05:54
so i guess
1:05:56
it might be the season where
1:05:58
he's gonna win his first
1:06:01
his first woke up what do you think
1:06:03
yeah for sure like it's been hard for
1:06:05
him because everybody expected him
1:06:07
straight away out of juniors
1:06:09
and
1:06:12
it was promised to a win
1:06:15
and it's been what four years and
1:06:18
knowing
1:06:19
so
1:06:21
i feel like it's like the world champ
1:06:23
story of some guys you know it's not
1:06:25
coming it's not coming and it's even
1:06:26
it's taking even longer than me
1:06:29
but
1:06:30
he starts to realize that
1:06:33
he has to stop listening to
1:06:35
the media
1:06:36
and what people think and more and focus
1:06:39
more on himself and i feel like
1:06:42
he's super super smart kid
1:06:44
and
1:06:45
he seems to have understood some stuff
1:06:47
this winter
1:06:49
and when he races he's just
1:06:51
way more efficient and less mistakes and
1:06:54
you know he's is really good so
1:06:56
i think he's going to win
1:06:58
for sure it's going to win i don't know
1:07:00
when but i think this year
1:07:02
it will be closer than ever and last
1:07:04
year in snowshoe he was also fourth one
1:07:07
one qualifying
1:07:08
and it was like he's good you know he
1:07:10
was coming close to it so i think we're
1:07:13
finally gonna see
1:07:15
a canadian canadian win again
1:07:17
yeah
1:07:18
so
1:07:19
how hard is it do you think to be
1:07:22
like booney's teammate
1:07:27
i don't know i don't know like to be
1:07:29
honest
1:07:31
i'm pretty annoying i can i know i'm
1:07:33
i'm selfish
1:07:35
and sometimes i
1:07:37
keep things secret because jaco and i we
1:07:39
work a lot together and we like to
1:07:43
to not give information like what's
1:07:45
under that black box you know it's like
1:07:47
the way we
1:07:48
it's kind of a mind game too like we're
1:07:50
just like yeah [ __ ] off
1:07:52
at the same time
1:07:53
i'm trying to
1:07:56
help some people around me and i feel
1:07:58
like
1:07:59
i need to like people to
1:08:00
[Music]
1:08:02
to want to help and then i like finn and
1:08:04
i've been
1:08:05
i've been i think helpful to him and
1:08:07
i've been when moments were not so good
1:08:10
i was trying to give him some some
1:08:11
options some solutions
1:08:14
but at the same time i don't want him to
1:08:15
beat me so he wanted to have the same
1:08:17
coach as me and i said no for example
1:08:19
like things like this
1:08:21
but
1:08:23
i think i'm i'm good in the way that you
1:08:25
can
1:08:27
like finn does like look at what i'm
1:08:29
doing and and learn from that
1:08:32
but i'm also pretty bad because i'm a
1:08:34
bit ruthless you know ruthless so
1:08:37
yeah yeah i'm doing my thing and i'm not
1:08:39
waiting for you to go for practice run
1:08:41
like if you're ready we go if you're not
1:08:43
i don't know [ __ ] yeah
1:08:46
and that's the way blankie was and
1:08:48
that's
1:08:49
the way i just learned how to be and
1:08:52
blankie was probably my favorite
1:08:54
teammate ever and i i hope finn likes me
1:08:57
as teammate
1:08:58
but i don't know laura didn't like me so
1:09:00
much because he left so
1:09:03
but do you think it makes it harder like
1:09:05
for the other riders on on the team to
1:09:07
have you
1:09:08
no i don't think so because
1:09:11
in the past i was always the one
1:09:13
standing for
1:09:15
for evolutions like being the annoying
1:09:18
guy to the brands who wanted different
1:09:20
things
1:09:21
different colors different and then that
1:09:23
would serve
1:09:24
the other guys too and
1:09:27
even though
1:09:30
maybe sometimes it was they didn't care
1:09:32
they didn't want an evolution or
1:09:33
something they had the choice because i
1:09:36
break the balls to specialize the
1:09:37
audience
1:09:39
and
1:09:40
and i feel like that's a good thing
1:09:42
but
1:09:44
i'm also like pretty solitary so i don't
1:09:47
hang out so much at the races you know
1:09:50
like when the race is over i'm just it's
1:09:52
rare that i go
1:09:54
at the party you know i just try to stay
1:09:56
with my team and just
1:09:58
go have dinner and some some maybe some
1:10:00
beers and ciao you know like so
1:10:02
sometimes i don't know i feel like i'm
1:10:04
not the most fun time to have
1:10:06
but
1:10:08
at least i am
1:10:09
who i am you know so i'm not trying to
1:10:11
be anyone
1:10:12
yeah and
1:10:13
i don't know i you you should ask these
1:10:15
guys
1:10:17
if we get finn on the pod i'll ask him
1:10:19
yeah for sure so a few months back on
1:10:22
the pod i asked are we in a period of
1:10:24
loit rooney domination i've mentioned it
1:10:26
already tonight and i included that in
1:10:29
my season preview that i wrote single
1:10:31
track and you commented can anyone
1:10:33
dominate these days
1:10:34
but you've won nearly 50 of the possible
1:10:37
titles since 2015.
1:10:40
why why doesn't it feel like you're
1:10:41
dominating do you think it's because
1:10:43
you're not winning by nine seconds for
1:10:45
example like aaron did
1:10:48
no i don't agree that i'm dominating
1:10:50
because
1:10:52
first i think
1:10:53
factually
1:10:56
i have titles but i'm
1:10:58
i just know when to get the titles like
1:11:02
i don't really know but it just happened
1:11:04
to be like this but if you take the
1:11:07
the seasons like amori
1:11:09
is able to go faster than me loris is
1:11:11
able to go faster than me
1:11:13
like a lot of guys have been beating me
1:11:15
and i feel like i haven't been
1:11:16
dominating anything because
1:11:18
even though i won some of the last races
1:11:22
some of the last titles i have nothing
1:11:24
more than the other guys and we are all
1:11:28
fighting
1:11:29
all the time super hard like and if i
1:11:31
have a little moment
1:11:33
of
1:11:36
exceptional
1:11:37
feeling i can win but this happens once
1:11:40
or twice a year like i said
1:11:42
and this if you can win once or twice a
1:11:44
year you're not dominating anything you
1:11:46
know yeah yeah so
1:11:48
and i feel like no one's dominating to
1:11:50
be honest and
1:11:51
and i'm happy about that because it's
1:11:54
super exciting and it makes us all of us
1:11:57
have a shot
1:11:58
a fair shot at winning every weekend
1:12:00
which is which is super cool and
1:12:04
and yeah if i was dominating i would be
1:12:06
way closer to
1:12:08
the 23 victories of
1:12:11
walker browns and stuff like this and i
1:12:12
feel like yeah it's like you you see the
1:12:15
numbers there
1:12:16
they are not there
1:12:18
so
1:12:18
so the really weird thing was when we
1:12:21
had dean on the show we were chatting
1:12:22
about like if all the french riders lay
1:12:25
down their best run just on the hill not
1:12:28
under
1:12:29
race pressure
1:12:31
we both picked amory first
1:12:34
laurie's second t-bar third u-4
1:12:38
okay and yeah
1:12:40
that was both of us thought that
1:12:42
but then
1:12:44
this is like bruni who's last the same
1:12:46
like bruni whose last round of the
1:12:48
season last year tells everyone he's
1:12:50
gonna you know win saving and then win
1:12:52
the risk do you think it's just that
1:12:54
pressure thing do you think that under
1:12:56
those conditions you perform better than
1:12:57
everybody else
1:12:59
yeah i think you're right to be honest
1:13:02
like if i had to
1:13:05
take like just randomly like out of
1:13:07
context
1:13:08
guys i would not be the fastest
1:13:10
yeah because i like to go fast but i
1:13:13
don't naturally do it you know yeah
1:13:16
and
1:13:16
for sure when the context is here and
1:13:18
the pressure is here i
1:13:21
push myself
1:13:22
yeah but i'm not someone that does it
1:13:24
naturally every day you know it's like
1:13:26
it's something i can not do every day
1:13:30
and
1:13:31
and i know the road speed of
1:13:33
a movie like we all have different
1:13:34
styles of course it's pretty obvious
1:13:36
when you yes right but the speed of
1:13:38
amore and loris
1:13:40
is higher and
1:13:42
when i ride with them sometimes for fun
1:13:44
even on a dro bike i'm like
1:13:46
why are you going so fast
1:13:51
and
1:13:52
yeah the races were able to hold each
1:13:54
other in seconds and even less but it's
1:13:57
just for me it's just
1:13:59
i'm someone pretty chill i like to be
1:14:01
flowing stuff but to go fast
1:14:04
it's not my first priority when i write
1:14:06
except
1:14:07
when i feel like it's the moment to do
1:14:10
it and you're fully right i agree with
1:14:12
you so
1:14:14
this the rest of this season
1:14:17
jack's been up in fort william all week
1:14:18
and he's still there now for the
1:14:20
national this weekend loris is there i
1:14:22
believe it's it's like a mini world cup
1:14:24
were you tempted
1:14:27
yeah yeah for sure when everybo you
1:14:29
start to hear who's going and how [ __ ]
1:14:30
maybe i should go
1:14:32
um but in the end i i'm i've always been
1:14:38
not liking the fact that
1:14:40
some people get pre-practice you know
1:14:43
it's
1:14:44
it's okay they can do it they're doing
1:14:46
it it's their job it's their rights good
1:14:49
they should do it i maybe should do it
1:14:51
too but i don't like
1:14:53
that idea so much and i've done it in
1:14:54
the past like sometimes
1:14:56
for example i've been to
1:14:57
[Music]
1:14:59
i don't know
1:15:01
i don't know
1:15:02
i've been to the bds before for example
1:15:04
yeah you have i know yeah and i i just
1:15:07
don't like the fact that we get more
1:15:08
runs and we get to
1:15:10
to ride less at the racing get a bit
1:15:12
more fresh the bikes already set up
1:15:16
and
1:15:18
i should go because i can you know it's
1:15:20
a possible thing but i just don't want
1:15:23
to support that so much you know i'm
1:15:26
i get it yeah if it was my imagine i'm
1:15:29
ruling the the uci world cup yeah all
1:15:32
the world cup tracks are closed all the
1:15:35
time except for it
1:15:37
and then no one gets to practice it not
1:15:39
even the locals and that's it it's like
1:15:42
formula one you know everybody's like
1:15:43
even in the industry people are yeah
1:15:46
we are the formula one of the mountain
1:15:47
biking blah blah blah okay then if you
1:15:49
are formula one you don't go protest
1:15:52
pre-ride and test like two weeks
1:15:54
uh
1:15:55
before everybody and stuff like this you
1:15:57
know yeah
1:15:58
so that's my opinion but
1:16:02
the other ones can go they go and
1:16:04
hopefully uh we the people like us who
1:16:07
didn't go can do well too you know yeah
1:16:11
but last year
1:16:13
like they had two races before the
1:16:15
walk-up yeah and i was so shocked i was
1:16:16
like guys don't go please
1:16:18
it's bad
1:16:20
like and why uci allows to race before
1:16:22
like race after if you want to do is or
1:16:24
whatever after it's better
1:16:26
no
1:16:27
and then the guy was so fast i remember
1:16:30
being on first when i was like oh [ __ ]
1:16:31
it's gonna be hard and i could see my
1:16:34
level getting better and better every
1:16:36
day yeah but i was running out of days
1:16:38
of racing and i was just not fast enough
1:16:40
and
1:16:41
and i told myself okay this is not
1:16:44
ethical in my opinion
1:16:46
so i will start to do it too because no
1:16:48
one gives a [ __ ]
1:16:49
if you read the papers that's what
1:16:51
matters
1:16:53
and then i don't do it so i'm such a
1:16:56
huge
1:16:57
[ __ ]
1:16:59
are you back jackie there
1:17:04
he's logged in but i don't think we can
1:17:06
hear him i'll carry on so the world cup
1:17:08
is just a couple of weeks away you've
1:17:10
been racing up here since well you've
1:17:12
been racing in fort williams since 2011.
1:17:14
oh yeah
1:17:18
do you want to do this one
1:17:21
yeah i come back in and then it also it
1:17:24
also mutes me and i didn't realize so
1:17:27
i've been listening away and i was ready
1:17:28
but you couldn't hear me all right
1:17:31
so like the world cup couple weeks away
1:17:32
you've been racing up at fort williams
1:17:34
since 2011 and you've only podiumed once
1:17:36
at the world cup fifth in 2018.
1:17:39
i know we haven't been there since 2019
1:17:41
but you've had much better results
1:17:43
elsewhere so
1:17:44
you've mentioned a little bit about
1:17:46
about that at fort william do you
1:17:48
actually enjoy coming here
1:17:50
thanks for the reminder that i expected
1:17:52
it yeah i thought that's so nicely
1:17:54
tonight
1:17:55
it's really like
1:17:57
you just have said you sucked it you
1:17:58
know as i was reading it i was like wow
1:18:05
and again
1:18:07
for the record george wrote that yeah
1:18:09
all right
1:18:10
i was trying to be as delicate as i
1:18:12
possibly could be
1:18:14
that's just the hot tree you're a big
1:18:15
guy you can take it
1:18:17
yeah i can take it no for sure i enjoyed
1:18:20
to go there but
1:18:22
not as much as other places to be honest
1:18:24
like
1:18:26
there's something about four william
1:18:27
that makes it super hard on the riders
1:18:29
and
1:18:31
and i've i haven't been able to figure
1:18:33
out the way to to go fast on the race
1:18:36
run
1:18:36
and i've had bad luck there you know
1:18:38
i've had crashes i've had mechanicals
1:18:41
i've never been super good so
1:18:43
i've this winter i've settled myself a
1:18:46
goal to to do well there and to
1:18:49
maybe i would not win but at least i
1:18:51
will do well you know
1:18:52
yeah and forward them is that we talked
1:18:55
about it with george for william is that
1:18:57
only place
1:18:59
where it's
1:19:00
different
1:19:01
so much different than every other
1:19:03
places so
1:19:05
it's it's just like
1:19:07
super hard to figure out there's always
1:19:09
the wind that comes into play there's
1:19:10
always physical side there's always like
1:19:13
so many things that can happen and
1:19:16
guys like binary they've been so good
1:19:18
there
1:19:20
and me obviously not so i will i
1:19:22
actually asked greg like why do you like
1:19:24
how are you so good for william
1:19:26
and he said and i think that's what
1:19:29
where it starts he said that
1:19:32
he loves to go there because it
1:19:34
he loves the writing it reminds him a
1:19:36
little bit of
1:19:38
the first races he did when he he came
1:19:40
over from south africa and he just have
1:19:42
this special relationship with the place
1:19:45
so i feel like i need to develop that a
1:19:46
little bit and uh and be stoked to go
1:19:49
there because in my junior years even
1:19:51
now when we go to monsantan when we take
1:19:53
the plane and we go on trips i love it
1:19:57
yeah and over them so far has been not
1:19:59
the case so i need to
1:20:01
where we got four years
1:20:06
funny
1:20:08
so which race are you most excited for
1:20:10
this season
1:20:11
i think we all know
1:20:13
monsantan and
1:20:16
yeah
1:20:18
obviously i mean
1:20:20
a first win on french soil and a sixth
1:20:22
world title that'd be pretty cool
1:20:24
yeah i feel like legit
1:20:26
is gonna be
1:20:28
historical you know it might not even be
1:20:30
a french guy who would win because
1:20:32
there's a lot of
1:20:33
contenders but
1:20:36
the event
1:20:37
the atmosphere i know it's gonna be like
1:20:40
you have to be there like if you like
1:20:42
mountain biking you have to be there
1:20:45
and i feel like
1:20:46
that's going to be something
1:20:48
uh
1:20:50
pretty incredible so i would like
1:20:52
to do well so i'm excited to go there
1:20:54
and see how it goes but monsantan is
1:20:56
just my favorite track
1:21:04
so
1:21:04
there's a lot of french riders who are
1:21:06
killing it at the moment and i i think a
1:21:08
lot of us feel like it's only a matter
1:21:09
of time before there's five of you
1:21:11
standing up there on the on the men's
1:21:13
podium um
1:21:15
any particular reason you think the
1:21:16
french are so good at downhill at the
1:21:18
moment
1:21:21
i think there's different reasons and
1:21:25
and the teams are kind of a big part of
1:21:28
it because
1:21:29
obviously commensal
1:21:31
has like
1:21:32
25 teams
1:21:36
like they have so many teams
1:21:38
and they
1:21:39
all that their team so they're not
1:21:41
french they're on their own but it's
1:21:42
french people you know yeah and they the
1:21:45
the ceo of this brand loves racing he
1:21:47
does everything he can to make his bike
1:21:49
win races and the teams that are built
1:21:52
with this brand
1:21:53
are doing a good job i think yeah
1:21:56
the team
1:21:58
we have american sponsor like we but we
1:22:00
are french and
1:22:02
i don't know in france there is this
1:22:06
this amount of teams of of structures
1:22:09
that
1:22:10
really love racing and i've been doing
1:22:13
it for a while and have been taking
1:22:15
young guys and helping them never
1:22:17
letting them or giving them up
1:22:20
and at some point like benoit coulombe
1:22:22
has been good the whole time but never
1:22:25
like he is right now and it just
1:22:26
exploded last year or the year before
1:22:29
but he's been on the same team the
1:22:31
french team for
1:22:32
a lot of years and same for me like it's
1:22:35
a french team same for amory loris was
1:22:38
with us and we just have this
1:22:41
management i think in this approach that
1:22:44
makes uh
1:22:45
makes us fast like we we worked for it
1:22:47
and i feel like
1:22:50
that plus the the the fact that we
1:22:53
we're all good friends and we all
1:22:55
push each other like positively
1:22:58
that's
1:22:59
maybe but i don't know like it's so hard
1:23:00
to point exactly why we are so fast
1:23:03
because for example
1:23:05
antoine vidal
1:23:07
is uh insanely fast and his enduro guy
1:23:10
he's not he didn't grow up with us he
1:23:13
didn't
1:23:14
you know have the same
1:23:15
path than us so i don't know he's so
1:23:18
fast but
1:23:20
yeah
1:23:23
we can't let you go without chatting a
1:23:24
little bit about the bike looking around
1:23:26
at others
1:23:28
proportionally the bike looks a little
1:23:30
smaller than what others ride i presume
1:23:33
you've tried a larger frame
1:23:36
um yeah yeah yeah i've tried but i've
1:23:38
never felt great on the big bike i like
1:23:41
to play with my bike and i like to
1:23:44
fully
1:23:45
control it you know yeah
1:23:47
and i feel like when it's a little bit
1:23:48
longer and i just don't move around so
1:23:51
easy and i
1:23:52
i don't enjoy it so much it's like 29er
1:23:55
you know i didn't enjoy it as much and
1:23:57
to me it's
1:23:59
i need to have that
1:24:01
fun and
1:24:02
and feeling
1:24:03
before i go fast yeah and
1:24:06
and having a smaller bike
1:24:09
makes me
1:24:11
more happy when i ride i don't know why
1:24:13
it's the best setup bike on the circuit
1:24:15
isn't it
1:24:16
how much testing do you do to get it
1:24:18
like that and how much of it is kind of
1:24:20
jack's magic
1:24:22
yeah it's a it's a combination of jackal
1:24:27
and
1:24:28
odin's
1:24:29
because
1:24:30
without them we would not be able to do
1:24:32
all the things we do and all the
1:24:34
evolutions and stuff so
1:24:35
it's super important to have someone
1:24:37
like that like a brand like that behind
1:24:39
you to
1:24:40
to support you like week after week and
1:24:42
deliver quickly
1:24:44
improvements
1:24:46
but we do a lot of testing pretty much
1:24:47
every time
1:24:49
like half over half the time i ride in
1:24:51
the winter or after
1:24:53
it's is testing you know echo is here
1:24:56
and we do telemetry and we look at
1:24:58
what's happening and we we try other
1:25:00
things and i feel like it's
1:25:03
it's also makes me
1:25:05
know like
1:25:07
how the bike reacts with bad stuff
1:25:11
when bad stuff happened on track like it
1:25:13
loads for example and i know the bike is
1:25:14
not set up for it
1:25:16
i've had that in testing too i've had
1:25:18
moments where the bike is not right
1:25:20
and it makes me
1:25:22
able to tackle everything you know it's
1:25:24
it's like if you if you would have on
1:25:26
purpose a [ __ ] bike
1:25:28
to make you ready in case it happened
1:25:32
yeah
1:25:32
um but mainly yeah jaco has been my my
1:25:36
mentor you know setting wise it's been
1:25:38
incredible and i owe him a lot in my
1:25:41
career
1:25:43
but in the same time i don't know as
1:25:44
much as i wish i do because i let him
1:25:47
all the keys to do the things and uh
1:25:50
and he's incredible and i feel like we
1:25:52
are
1:25:53
a really good duo
1:25:55
100
1:25:56
yeah so you you mentioned just mentioned
1:25:59
telemetry so you had telemetry on your
1:26:01
bike for a long time
1:26:03
probably as long as i can remember you
1:26:05
ride
1:26:06
um do you think it gives you a
1:26:08
significant advantage or is it like more
1:26:11
of a mental advantage over those riders
1:26:14
that uh don't have access to it or just
1:26:16
like don't want to ride it what do you
1:26:18
think
1:26:19
yeah i think it's it's an advantage
1:26:21
that's why we use it but
1:26:23
it's mainly an advantage that we've been
1:26:26
using it for a long time then jaco
1:26:28
is just so good at analyzing the
1:26:31
data he gets
1:26:32
and that's where it's funny sometimes
1:26:34
because a lot of people are doing it now
1:26:37
but i know
1:26:38
they ain't the end they are not
1:26:42
analyzing the way jaco does so it's not
1:26:44
as efficient and as easy for them
1:26:46
to reach the the point we are reaching
1:26:49
so
1:26:50
it's a big advantage but at the same
1:26:52
time now everybody is doing it like
1:26:55
give me one name of the good guys who
1:26:58
don't have it
1:27:00
there isn't any
1:27:01
they're all using it
1:27:02
like every even that training like i
1:27:04
never used it but i'm not that good
1:27:08
but would you have liked to use it
1:27:11
if i have someone good to work with yes
1:27:14
but
1:27:15
some of the guys in the team used it and
1:27:18
basically they ended up to the same
1:27:20
conclusion as
1:27:21
when they were writing by feeling you
1:27:23
know so
1:27:24
it gives you like that's what i was
1:27:26
asking about that mental advantage
1:27:27
because you can be sure
1:27:29
with data that you what you're doing is
1:27:31
right but
1:27:33
maybe
1:27:34
you know what i mean
1:27:35
if the guys in your team have a really
1:27:36
good amazing feeling
1:27:39
then that's a super
1:27:41
good
1:27:42
capacity to be honest like it's a good
1:27:43
skill because i don't have that time
1:27:47
and it's just also giving us the
1:27:49
opportunity to develop things way
1:27:52
quicker because
1:27:53
the feeling is never 100 accurate and
1:27:55
it's never
1:27:56
the same from one day to the other while
1:27:58
telemetry is always the same and it
1:28:00
always
1:28:01
now you show
1:28:03
that the screen to an engineer and it's
1:28:05
going to be like okay i understand why
1:28:07
you told that but if you only have
1:28:09
my speech after the run like what did
1:28:11
that what i did you know the game will
1:28:13
be like
1:28:14
uh and then it it's it's swimming a bit
1:28:18
uh
1:28:19
slower you know and
1:28:21
and i feel like it's part of the sport
1:28:23
now and
1:28:24
all the bikes to be honest they are
1:28:26
pretty impressive and
1:28:28
yeah i feel like i have the best bike to
1:28:31
be honest so i'm pretty pretty lucky
1:28:34
yeah so it looks like um orleans like
1:28:36
you mentioned
1:28:38
bring a lot to the party and how
1:28:40
important had the partnership been to
1:28:42
your success and uh
1:28:44
what is it really that gives them the
1:28:46
edge
1:28:49
to be honest it's jacob
1:28:53
okay
1:28:54
we've had
1:28:55
folks and rock shocks before and we were
1:28:58
having good races with them but
1:29:01
a lot of teams have the same things like
1:29:03
it it develops a bit slow because
1:29:06
everybody just wants different things
1:29:08
and
1:29:09
it's a little bit hard to make things
1:29:11
move forward and
1:29:13
with orleans the good thing is that we
1:29:15
are the only team they are listening to
1:29:18
and then
1:29:19
they have one feedback
1:29:21
and they do according to that and jaco
1:29:24
knows exactly what to tell them
1:29:27
to go straight to the point and i feel
1:29:29
like
1:29:29
audience has been really good at
1:29:31
trusting what we said yeah
1:29:33
and then we have exactly what we need
1:29:36
and that's where other other brands like
1:29:38
specialized they are so big and they
1:29:41
have so much stuff going on that they
1:29:43
don't necessarily listen as much or they
1:29:45
don't you know and don't prioritize the
1:29:47
thing and it takes so long
1:29:50
to do anything and then so lucky we have
1:29:52
orleans for that
1:29:54
and the guy at orleans tj
1:29:56
has been
1:29:57
coming to the testing he wants to see
1:29:59
the bike
1:30:01
you know he's super involved and i feel
1:30:02
like this combination makes us fin also
1:30:06
like the team
1:30:08
a big uh
1:30:10
like example kind of for other brands
1:30:15
um you have a really strong team also
1:30:17
trackside
1:30:19
um how important is their feedback like
1:30:22
online choice and like also the tracks
1:30:25
like timing
1:30:26
that we use to kick around when we see
1:30:28
it
1:30:32
why do you guys do that like
1:30:34
i didn't do it i didn't dare
1:30:37
greg doing it like
1:30:39
playing around a movie also playing
1:30:41
around with it
1:30:44
yeah i was like [ __ ] off like
1:30:48
they're rightly mad that we were having
1:30:51
their time but they're just mad they
1:30:53
didn't have the information you know so
1:30:56
uh for sure we have i have good people
1:30:58
on the side of the track it's hard to
1:31:01
use this information right though
1:31:04
because
1:31:05
the more information
1:31:07
the hardest it is to make choices and be
1:31:10
efficient and
1:31:12
move on to the other part and stuff so
1:31:14
we've been struggling actually actually
1:31:16
in the past with some of the
1:31:19
process we use and
1:31:22
it's so good to have them especially
1:31:25
if you need them
1:31:27
but
1:31:28
in the end
1:31:30
i like to do my own decisions and to
1:31:34
compare my own my own lines and my own
1:31:36
self on different things
1:31:38
and not look too much at other guys even
1:31:40
though it's good to see what they are
1:31:41
doing
1:31:42
and
1:31:43
for sure the staff in a team makes a big
1:31:46
difference and our team
1:31:48
understood that years ago and i feel
1:31:50
like everybody starts to
1:31:52
to put people on the side and to have
1:31:54
more force you
1:31:56
know i'm on the side now
1:32:00
all day every day moving the timing
1:32:03
poles
1:32:05
no
1:32:06
so final question loic there's this
1:32:08
rumor that at one stage early and you
1:32:11
earlier in your career you were offered
1:32:12
a spot on the syndicate and you wrote
1:32:14
them a letter saying thank you but you
1:32:16
didn't feel you were ready is that true
1:32:18
or is that urban myth
1:32:22
uh i remember the call with the bob
1:32:24
wascope actually but uh
1:32:26
no it's true i've been
1:32:27
[Music]
1:32:29
i almost made the move to syndicate but
1:32:31
i was in
1:32:31
[Music]
1:32:34
i don't remember what yeah like pretty
1:32:36
early maybe
1:32:38
15 or like early yeah yeah
1:32:42
and i i love the idea because at the
1:32:44
time there was priceline also like it
1:32:46
was such a sick uh
1:32:48
lineup yeah i was just massively honored
1:32:52
to be
1:32:54
uh like one of those possible guys
1:32:57
considered for it yeah yeah exactly
1:33:00
and then
1:33:01
rob was
1:33:03
giving me like these super cool
1:33:06
ideas and stuff and i
1:33:08
and i wanted to go like i was fully
1:33:10
convinced and i was sold you know okay i
1:33:12
want to go but then i hang up and i'm
1:33:14
like [ __ ] so sick i want to go and
1:33:17
then i
1:33:18
look at what i have and i'm like but i
1:33:20
don't need to live you know i don't know
1:33:21
you know yeah and i've had
1:33:24
reasons to leave my team
1:33:27
and i
1:33:29
so i didn't go i was like sorry it
1:33:31
sounds so sick and i would love
1:33:33
it would be such a sick privilege to do
1:33:35
that but
1:33:37
i don't feel like i need to to leave i
1:33:39
have everything i need i have people i
1:33:41
love i don't want to change story
1:33:44
and um
1:33:45
but i would have loved i would have
1:33:46
loved to try maybe it would have been
1:33:48
different i know it's funny to
1:33:51
to imagine that who knows who knows in
1:33:53
the future where you might end up
1:33:56
who knows
1:33:57
cool well great stuff and thanks for
1:33:59
making the time to come out come on the
1:34:00
show it's been an absolute pleasure
1:34:02
chatting to you and all the best for the
1:34:04
rest of the season i think it's gonna be
1:34:06
a strong one for you
1:34:08
hopefully yeah thank you cool thanks for
1:34:10
the sponsors of the show hope technology
1:34:12
jtech suspension revolution bike park
1:34:14
ride southern spain schwalbe and
1:34:16
singletrackworld.com
1:34:18
as always if you're enjoying a pod
1:34:19
enjoying the podcast please subscribe so
1:34:21
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1:34:23
got a sec please drop us a review
1:34:25
alternatively please give us a follow on
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1:34:28
racing or facebook.com making up the
1:34:30
numbers
1:34:31
we'll all be up in fort william for the
1:34:33
world cup i think emmy's going to be
1:34:35
there are you going to be there emma
1:34:36
emmy
1:34:37
yes definitely then we'll all be up in
1:34:39
in fort william for the world cup and
1:34:40
i'll be walking around with a mic
1:34:42
grabbing some interviews on thursday and
1:34:44
friday i think so we should have another
1:34:45
episode then maybe each day maybe
1:34:48
afterwards not 100 sure yet and there
1:34:50
might be some instagram lives as well a
1:34:52
bit like jack did out in leia going
1:34:54
inspired by jack's instagram lives out
1:34:56
in leo gang last year which raced
1:34:58
um and that might be on the single track
1:35:01
magazine um channel so give them a
1:35:03
follow uh if you get chances they got
1:35:05
hacks recently and lost about 50 000
1:35:07
followers right that's it for this
1:35:09
episode enjoy fort william everyone
1:35:11
we'll be back soon
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