 It's my 17th season as a pro. Wow. And who have you ridden for during that time? First I started in Fonac. It was a Swiss team. Then I went to longtime BMC. I was racing for Kedel Evans. How long for BMC? Eleven years. Wow. Yeah, eleven years. It was a nice time. The BMC racing team. We did a lot of races internationally. Kedel with Greg Van Avermaet, with Phil Schielbeer, George Henkepe, which was a big mentor for me. It was good times. And now I changed to Ashid Jezair, French team. Still racing for Greg. We actually stayed together over all the years. We were roommates for many, many over, yeah, over 10, 12 years. And there came all the new leaders for the GCE into the group, which is Ben O'Connor, was fourth in the Tour de France, the Australian. And yeah, nice to be racing for those big leaders. Absolutely. So what's your role within the team that you've... It was all the years, the same role. I'm a domestic rider, just riding for the GCE guys and also for the classic guys. I'm a bit diverse. I can get used to the classics, to make approaches for important cobbled sections or little climbs. But also I'm quite light for my size. So I could pass over big passes and big climbs pretty well. So I can do also like grand tours. So I did a couple Tour de France. Wow. And you say your size, how tall are you? 1.96m. Wow. Six foot five. Six foot five. Yeah. And how much do you weigh? 77kg. 77kg. Wow. So we were talking about training earlier and you were saying how much it's changed over the years. So when you first started to become more professional, what year are we talking? Yeah, it was 2006, starting being professional. Okay. Then the sport was very different. It was more you trained from home. You had a home trainer that gave you the training and we just did actually just long hours. It was all about volume. Yeah. It was really volume, volume. We did the longer the ride, the better it was considered. Okay. Means we did five hours, six hours, seven hours. The 200k day was always a good day. Right. And mostly if you arrived empty and tired and the more fatigue you could accumulate, the better the training was for us supposed to be. That was the mindset of the old pros. And you were telling me earlier about the nutrition intake as well. Was it so different then? What happened? Yeah, there was a big change. At the beginning we just went out mostly not small breakfast or even empty. We did low carb rides a lot, which is not done at all anymore nowadays. So we went out, let's say for a five hours ride, two and a half hours in. No food, no, yeah, maybe a bottle with a little bit of syrup inside. Then we stopped at the bakery, which just took a Coca-Cola or a coffee and a big croissant or something, some pastry and just spiked the sugar again, totally, to sprint out of the coffee again. We had lots of fun doing that. Yeah. You know, it was fun training. Yes. So there was no structure. You just went and did whatever. Yeah, we did whatever. We did like we grew up as juniors, you know, like we had no training, what you do, you go to a hill, you test yourself, you go full up the hill. Yes. That was fun. Yes. So if you have two, three guys and you start dropping him or start having tactical games against each other, it's a lot of fun. Right. You sprint to a sign of a village and this has totally changed. Wow. Now you do sprints, yes, but you do 10 sprints and the trainer puts on your even, on your Garmin, the section where you do the sprint and you do it just randomly on a straight road. So there is no goal, there is no village sign, there is no fun to it. It's just like robots putting one and then two minutes exact recovery next sprint, two minutes recovery next sprint. So before it was maybe five and a half minutes recovery or 30 seconds only. So it was more random. Yeah, okay. And did you have power meters when you first started to get into training? Yeah, no, into training not like when I really started no power meters, but it was about the time 2007, 6, 7, where the power meter SRM arrived. Yeah, okay. We had it and we also had training pigs already. So that's actually quite nice. I can look back all my history. Yes. Because I had a login since 2006 to training pigs. Wow. And I do this mostly because not of the values of the watts, you cannot really compare. It's more about the comments I wrote. So I go back to Paris-Roubaix 2007 and read my comments. It's super interesting to see now still my analysis of these races, to implement into the races nowadays. Yes. So what did you analyze when you saw it? I'm pretty precise there. I really say which cobblestone or which little corner, which little church you have to look at. It's the most tactical thing. Okay. It's not a training thing just to see where you make the best approach. And that's how I evolve or try to improve myself year by year. Yes. So going back to the training when you first started, was it this common for most cyclists? Yeah, there were some cyclists really who were heart rate based. Yeah. They did a lot on the heart rate. Yeah. There were some guys that did them on speed. The Belgiums, they always have to come home on a 33 average speed in training. Yeah. Which is fun. And the watt based training, I would say around 2010-11, really came more and more important. Yeah, okay. So when did you notice the shift starting to happen from random volume into more structure? Has it been just recently or was it a while ago? The first shift, I would say, was like five to eight years ago. Right. Where the new generation came up that we really structured on the watts. We were not training anymore together. Each rider had his personalized training plan. So every guy went alone because he come to it together the same. Even in the team? Yeah, the team training camp is together. There they'd really try to make groups of eight to 10 riders together. But at home, like my group of training buddies, oftentimes we called in the morning and they're like, it's too big of a hassle to go out together because you've got to do three times 20 minutes in 10 and I have to do a sprint day and you have a rest day. So it was a bit, there I started a drift apart as soon as we were riding individually. Then the second big drift was COVID. Like since COVID, I think training has changed totally. Really? Because the indoor racing came. A lot of, you know, digital Swiss five. We had this indoor Tourist Swiss. And the young generation, they just jumped onto the train of indoor cycling so much and pushed themselves really on the limit with these races. And also the trainers, they saw this has potential and they put a lot of training. Since then, definitely the bunch has changed. And a lot of my teammates, we analyzed that oftentimes on the dinner tables that we say. Since this infamous Tour of Dauphiné 2020 was one of the first races back which we were just flying. Like we came in and we raced full full. It was just from the start. There was no pit stop anymore. We go out and we choose to race. It was bang bang. Yeah, it was bang bang. Yeah. And that has changed a lot. And yeah, I think. So it's made people stronger. Yeah, we are stronger for a shorter time. You know, we are more every race. We're looking at it as a competition that counts. Before, we had a head building up races. I did a little bit Valencia, a little bit preparing races for the classic, you know, small stuff where no pressure, nothing. That doesn't happen anymore. Because before COVID, I had 98 race days a year. Now this year, I had 58 race days. That's a lot less. Yes. And that means a lot less race days. It's a lot less, a lot more pressure on that actual day. You're much more prepared. So everybody's more prepared to lift. The level is higher. Yes. Also the kilometers a year. My normal years was 37,000 kilometers a year. And this year, I did only 27,000. That means 10,000 less is almost 30% less, you know. That means every training is more structured and more precise. So I go out now. I go sometimes two and a half, three hours. 10 years ago, I would not put my bibs on for two and a half hours training. You know, it was not even, it was a little bit of rest day, right? Yes. And now these two and a half hours are full, full on. I go out after 10 minutes. I push my set button and I do repeated efforts. Like, last time I texted Greg before Canada and I told Greg, you don't believe me what happened. I'm now 36 years old and it's the first time I had to stop and jump off my bike because I was that much dead. I was, you know, the effort of the training was so hard that I did like six times two minutes with two minutes recovery. Yeah. But this after the sixth time of the two minutes full out, I don't know, six, seven hundred once or something, I just collapsed. And I said, fuck, this never happened before. Before we just, you know, we just rode. So when you train hard now, you train harder. Yeah. Yeah. It's polarized. That's the other part that has changed. Yes. Polarized. We go either all out or we go endurance easy. Braw. The easier than we know because the old style of pros, you go out and you put the, you know, put the 350 watts the whole day. You just ride and ride and drag and drag and the stronger you get. The bigger the engine gets, the idea. And now our trainers always have to put us back and say, guys, go easier. Don't go those 300 watts all day long. Go 150 to 250, you know, go easy. Just cruise for six hours and come home. And don't be totally empty on a hunger flat. You know how many times I'm living on a little hill? I always came home a hunger flat, like totally out of sugar. Sometimes I creeped up home. And now since two, three years, I eat like I have to eat in the proper strategy of food. You used to do the same before having a gel in the first hour. You never used to do that. No way. A gel in training. This was a shame. Really? If a Neopro took a gel in training, the whole group laughed. Really? Yeah, yeah. Wow. What about now? Now everybody orders the gels at home and we eat the gels the whole day. Right. Wow. Unbelievable. Changed a lot. Yes. And you were talking earlier about the juniors or the more elite pros seem to be getting younger. Why do you think that is? Because of the training? Yeah, they're younger and earlier ready to be pro. Because when I was pro, I was also early pro. I was 19 years old in a time where it was different. So I was getting pro and I knew nothing about the world of being pro. I didn't know about nutrition, about training, about anything. I was just getting, I got dropped in the cold water. Do you have a coach? I had a coach, yeah. It was my father. Oh, okay. You know. Right. It was not your coach. It was an old school. Old school. It was old school. Going riding and just going as hard as you can. Yeah. But now the young guys, they're so ready to be pro. Because they live, since in Europe it's like this, they go to sports schools. And when I was young, I had no sports school option. I was going to a normal proper school to 430 and then run home as fast as possible. Went on a bike one and a half hours all out. Came home, slept the next day school. And the young boys now, they go to the sport universities, the sports schools. So the afternoon is mostly free for training. Wow. So they have. And this is across Europe you were saying? I would really, yeah. All my French teammates, all did it. The Belgiums there, to be honest, not even in sports school. They're professionals with 15. They do nothing in school. Wow. It's really, it's shocking. In Swiss we also have a lot of good sports schools. Where the boys have good education and they do something well. But that means they have nutrition in the school. They have training science. They have training space for the proper training. They have core training. They have the whole package. So they are professional my point of view already with earlier with 15. So that means when they jump to the pros it's way easier. And how long has this been there for? Like the last three to five years it's been like? That's a bit longer. I think the sports course is around five, eight years. Yeah, okay. At least. And the training they're doing is more of the structured training. Less volume, more zone two, more high intensity interval training session. Exactly. Yes. Young guys they know a lot of how their body has to react on a certain high intensity training. Because that's actually what we need, you know. Cycling. Road cycling is often one to two hours hard at the start to have a breakaway. Then we go for two, three hours in a regular pace and then the end you go again super hard. So that means you need to train the spikes and you need to train the repeated effort. That's what I meant before. If you have super values, like once riding up a hill for 20 minutes or 10 minutes, that's quite easy. The issue is if you have to go after five or six hours or in minus on rainbow after 300k, you have to do the 10 minutes effort on the same level like you did at the start. Yes. And there you see the differences in talent and in training also. So do you prefer it this way or do you prefer it the old school way? I'm happy how it is. I'm happy I've seen both sides. Okay. Because I'm in a stage of my career where it's, you know, I'm a bit older. It's fine to test myself. I see it in a positive approach. See, I can test now my body where I actually can go to the absolute maximum. So it's nice. Now I have the better values than when I was 22. You do? Yeah. Right. So the training has worked. Exactly. Training worked and I cannot retire and say I have a regret. I didn't put everything out of my body. So I will retire and say, wow, I did the best of my absolute capacities with the leak or the lack of fun because the fun hasn't been missing. In the old days I had more fun. So I can say I have seen both sides. Yes. So I had my early years when I was 20 to 30 with lots of fun but less structure and also less performance. Now I have less fun but more structure. So I'm having, you know, I see it in this way. You're married with kids now so it's okay. Exactly. Yeah. But what about then to flip the coin the training is more effective but is it more of a burden for some cyclists that might mentally find it hard? Do you think more cyclists might get burnt out because of the structure or? That's fine. Yeah. That's what lots of people say now that the careers will not last. Have you seen it? I've seen lots of people come and go. Yeah. Right. I've seen in the sport, you know, some guys, they come to two-year contracts, they come in and come out. It's a rough, rough business. Yes. You either you come and perform or there are a thousand other boys waiting for your spot. Yes. But that's not so easy. Is that training related though or just the culture? No, that's the business. I think training related we will only see in a couple of years because this generation who came up with was that, you know, he's training that crazy and that focused is not, yeah, we need a couple more years to see this, the science behind. And I don't want to go like this because a lot of people say the younger pros, they will have shorter careers because I have now a 17-year career. They say this never happens anymore in the future. I don't think so. I think if a boy has a passion for sport and he loves his business, he can go on for a long time. If you find your happiness. Absolutely. So can we finish off, what's your favorite training session? You got two favorite training sessions, low intensity and high intensity? The low, just when he writes endurance go as long as fast as you want. Then I go on my favorite two climbs, which is in my home. It's a five hour loop with two one hour climbs, spectacular views. Yes. When I just go out, there's like a tourist and they just enjoy the views. Yes. And that's how I think I will ride for many, many more years. Yes, great. Well, thanks for your time and thanks for sharing. Thank you.