The former Sky/Ineos road captain, now a directeur sportif with Decathlon–AG2R La Mondiale, answers your questions
If you could become a GC rider for one attempt at winning the Tour, which rider from the current peloton would you choose to be your road captain, and why? Fergus
I can only comment on Decathlon–AG2R La Mondiale and my previous team, Ineos. Until you work with a road captain and hear them on the radio, you don’t know how good they are. On my current team it would be Stefan Bissegger, and from Ineos Ben Swift. What I value is their directness. They’re both quite blunt: ‘Let’s not mess about, if you’ve got something to say, say it.’ They’re brave with their calls, clear and precise with instructions, not afraid to put their necks on the line. One thing a lot of people don’t realise with cycling is that the radio quality is terrible. You’ve got to be short, sharp and direct. If there’s any sitting on the fence, you’re fucked.
Do you think cobbles have a place in modern Grand Tours? The addition of the Montmartre sector in the final stage of this year’s Tour de France has the potential to be decisive if the GC is tight. Sam Johnson
No. I’m a bit old-school, I don’t think it has a place. I’ve seen the likes of Chris Froome, Geraint Thomas, Egan Bernal and Brad Wiggins, how they prepare for a Grand Tour. They sacrifice everything, they live on top of a volcano, do everything right, to go to this Grand Tour and be in the best physical condition possible. I think there’s too much risk, there’s too much on the line. As an armchair fan, yeah, great excitement: cobbles and gravel. But for that individual the risk is too high – and for the race. If you lose one of those GC superstars it’s got a knock-on effect. Let’s say you have a cobbled stage on stage five, and you’ve got Pogi [Tadej Pocagar] and [Jonas] Vingegaard. You should have two weeks after that of rivalry between two great riders, two great teams. But one of them crashes on stage five. What you’ve gained on one day of excitement, you lose in the next two weeks.
