- We have got a very special edition of Ask GCN Anything
this week because we are joined by Mr. Grand Tours himself,
Adam Hansen of Lotto-Soudal.
Embarking on his 19th grand tour in a row
and he has completed them all, quite mind boggling.
We'll get straight into the questions
that we've received from viewers.
The first one from Neil Moss.
I'm really interested in this one.
"Have we reached peak bike,
either point at which, new tech materials and shapes
really make no difference anymore
or do you think that more performance machines
can be run out of the UCI's current rules?"
- For sure.
There's so many bikes.
Okay there are some bikes that are really aerodynamic
with integrated brakes, integrated cabling
and that but there's so many bikes that aren't.
And the, if you look at the Specialized,
I don't even know what the model is called,
that has integrated brakes and cables.
It's still around the 7.8kg mark,
so this can be improved quite a lot,
if it wants to get down to the 6.8 kilo's.
In terms of aerodynamics,
I think things can go a long way in that sense.
- Even within the UCI's current rules?
- Within ... well, yeah.
If you look at the most aerodynamic bikes at the moment
with integrated cabling and brakes.
There well into the over kilo of the UCI limit.
The one's that are on board with the UCI's limits,
yeah there, - Not so aero.
- (laugh) Not open parachutes.
- Okay, next up from patcrc99.
"What percentage of times, more or less,
"has the race gone the way the management thought it would?"
Race plan gone the way the management thought it would?
- Quite a lot.
If there's a percentage, it would probably be,
I hope they don't read this, but probably more than 50%,
it goes the wrong way.
Um, but that's also like, if you say your own team,
they'll put a team tactic and what we should do.
Okay, a lot of times it doesn't go wrong, but their thoughts
of what the other team should do okay, is more often.
- Yeah.
- Predictions over the outcome.
- Yeah, because you can have any plan, but you don't know
what the other teams are going to do before the start.
You can guess it.
- This is what I always say
the really interesting thing about cycling is.
It's not basketball, football or soccer,
whatever you want to call it.
Where it's one team versus the other team
and you can sort of predict what the other team does.
You know, there's 22 teams racing.
They've all got different agendas
and it can be someone's birthday
and they just want to have a sprint finish for them
and they got no chance.
So it's very hard to predict every single team,
so anything can happen and it's very unpredictable.
- Okay, next up also on Instagram from paddysniper.
"A lot of experienced pros say that with age comes some fear
"on the bike which stops them going for results.
Has this ever affected you going your two stage wins
at the grand tours?
- Good question.
It's actually crossed my mind a few times.
I think when you're young, you're more,
more wild to attack, to do it anytime.
When you get a bit older maybe, yeah maybe,
maybe you settle down a little.
It's probably half true, I think, yeah.
- Yeah, a personal question then.
I've been out of the peloton for a few years now.
But it does seem on TV like, everything's even closer
than it was six, seven years ago, in terms of the fact that
there's so many lead out trains,
so many very organised teams.
- Yeah, well especially in today's, yeah,
I do believe that the lows, the low riders.
The top guys getting better, but I think the big difference
is the lower rider is getting much better.
I think in today's peloton, everyone's a bit even.
That makes it a lot more difficult.
But with regards to the question, I think, yeah,
the older you get, you're more, I don't know,
you're more or too calculating, you know?
- Yeah. - Yeah, yeah.
Over think too many things.
Where young guys are just,
they just go out and attack whenever and sometimes it works.
- Oh, to be young again. - Oh yeah.
- Right, next up.
Ti Mur, "Mr. Hansen, very polite, is not bound by heritage
"or technical dogma, he uses long cranks, narrow bars"
and he always wondered what you thought
about oval chainrings?
- I love oval chainrings.
I would love to be on them and I probably shouldn't say this
but I'm not allowed to use them.
I've made debates and I've argued and I just can't use them
and I've even thought about,
"Are they worth changing teams to be able to use them?"
I'd love to try them, they make total sense.
I've actually, sorry, I have tried them for two weeks.
Because what I wanted to do is I wanted to try
them before actually going to the team and you know,
putting my case up.
I thought I'd try them, if I liked them,
I'll try my best to convince them.
Because it would be worse thing if you'd convince your team
to use them and then you use them for one week
and you don't like it and didn't want to go that way.
But I really do like them.
I do think they make sense and I felt really good
with them, but it's not that easy.
- Do you think that's why we don't see more pros
using them, it's just a sponsor thing with teams.
- I think mostly it's because of sponsors
and also it goes back to that heritage thing.
Especially in cycling people don't like change.
There's a lot of guys that don't like change,
but I'm open to try everything.
And I would definitely try it, which I did.
I think they're useful.
- It's interesting from a public point of view
because oval chainrings effectively have won five
out of the last six Tour de France,
so they can't be that bad.
- No, they cannot be that bad.
- Okay, next up, Blair Coull.
This is interesting.
He asks why shoes and apparently he's asked you this before.
Is it a deep seated fetish is what he wants to know,
but he says your answer it an interesting one to this.
- Why shoes?
Rotation mass in the most important thing in weight.
So if you want to look at it like a racing car
point of view.
If you say, okay you want to make the car
a better performer, it's not changing wheels.
It goes back to the crank, it goes back to the rods,
it goes to the pistons of the engine, the flywheel,
the driveshaft and then it's the wheels.
In cycling we only focus on the wheels
because you know, if you have lighter wheels
it feels so much better and if you have lighter shoes,
lighter pedals, lighter cranks, lighter chains,
this is far more important than lighter rims.
It's actually a big difference in saving power.
So yeah, shoes is a big thing.
- Yeah.
Okay next up David Stickmann.
"Is Australia's Croc Trophy one of the hardest races
"because of the terrain and environment over the nine days
"or is it just the harsh accommodation,"
or lack of overnight?
"And do the Europeans who race it go back and say WTF
"with those conditions?"
- Well back when I was doing it, it was 14 days long.
It was much longer, the stage has been much longer.
And it was Darwin to Cairns, which is much harder.
And it was a lot hot, a lot more hot.
Yes there's, you have to put up your tent by yourself,
you have to clean your bike by yourself
and that's very hard after,
I think we even had some 200 kilometre days
on the mountain bike which is extremely hard.
I loved it, I thought it was wonderful.
One year I went with three teammates
from an Austrian team and after the third day,
they were really WTF and they left their bikes there
and they took the next media.
Because the media had to send the tapes on a forward drive
to some remote airport to get it on TV.
And they couldn't take the bikes.
I said look you can come,
but we don't have room for your bikes and they're like,
"The bikes can stay, we just want to go home."
They were meant to have a week holiday
in Australia after that.
They just went straight back to Austria.
So it can be tough.
- I probably should have given a bit of background
on the Crocodile Trophy but it's yeah,
stage raced on mountain bikes, off road, of course,
where you're pretty self sufficient, aren't you?
Did you win it before?
Before you started your pro career?
- Two times. - Yeah, twice.
Yeah, sorry, should have researched that before hand,
but I knew Adam was very successful in that event.
Next up, Chris Blockley once again on the shoes.
"How hard is it to pick the shoes for each Grand Tour?
"Do you just grab the closest or newest set,
or do you have them made purposely before each tour?"
- A bit of both.
I always change the shoes.
Different lay up on the carbon, different light.
Trying to get them lighter, more comfortable.
It's really trial and error.
I like to bring new shoes to a new Grand Tour,
but sometimes it is just the pair that works, I just bring.
- Okay, next up from Peter Dash.
"Do you have any thoughts about trying
"some one day classics"
when the Grand Tour run comes to an end?
I mean, I've done some research here actually.
Adam's done 11 classics, versus 25 Grand Tours.
Are you, do you favour the stage races a little bit?
- Yeah, I do.
Recently I haven't done many classics at all.
The only classic I think I haven't done is Flanders.
And I would like to try it before I retire.
But I've done Roubaix.
Milan-SanRemo, heaps of times.
You know, the thing is with doing all the Grand Tours,
there's so many other beautiful races you miss.
You can't do everything and if I do all the races
on my race programme this year, I'll have 101 race days.
Which is more than 20% over an average rider
and to throw in all the one day classics,
which are extremely hard races, is just too much.
I can't be greedy.
- Yeah, they take quite a lot of,
It's a one day classic but they take a fair amount
of preparation time and I've done it
in recovery straight afterwards.
- Just to down talk my Grand Tours a little.
Yeah, we have easy days in Grand Tours.
- Yeah. - Sprint days, bike by girls.
You just soft pedal until the last 40 kilometres,
then you go full.
One day race, it's, yeah,
it takes five days to recover. - Stressful as well.
Next up then.
Your plans after cycling?
I'm not sure when you're planning on retiring,
but "what will you do with that extra time
"that you have when you don't have three Grand Tours
"a year to keep you occupied?"
That was on Instagram from jtsub.
- I'd like to leave my after cycling a bit private.
You'll never see me ever again.
- Oh really, oh no.
- I'm going to disappear. - Well at least we've got
you here now then.
Matthew Park asks, "How do you treat your saddle sore
"after each ride?"
I understand you were suffering a little bit
from that at the Tour de France.
"My recommendation is taking time off the bike,"
"you don't have that luxury.
"Do you just ignore the pain or keep riding?"
Have you got any tips?
- Well, I did take,
After every Grand Tour I take seven days off the bike.
So I did this also and just tender loving care
as much as you can.
- Good answer.
Two more questions, then I think we'll go with
before we finish this weeks, Ask GCN Anything.
Matty_andersennn wants to know, "Out of all of the
"Grand Tour Stages you have raced,
"which would you say was the toughest of them all?"
More research here on my part.
I think Adam has completed 475 Grand Tour Stages,
which is quite incredible, a year and a third of his life,
basically spent doing Grand Tour Stages.
Not including all the rest days and the preparation time
before each one, but what was the toughest one?
Can you single one out?
- I don't remember what year, I'm gonna guess 2013 or 2014,
in the belt run on that Endura Stage.
It was raining, I think 25 riders pulled out.
- [Interviewer] Yeah, I think it was 2013, yeah.
- Yeah, is was freezing, it was so bad, it was so bad.
It was really like when you're shaking so much
your handle bars are, - Yeah.
- Uh, that was the worst.
That was, if there wasn't a car next to me to jump into,
I think I would have stopped.
- Yeah.
- You had to get to the finish to for your life.
- Yeah, boy it must have been bad if you were able
to single out one from 475.
Okay, let's choose a last question.
I am going to go with.
"What's your favourite memory from all of those Grand Tours
"that you've raced," and I'm going to put a caveat in here,
that you can't choose one of the two
stage wins that you've had.
- Favourite memory.
Well, there's a few.
I think the most satisfying thing is when we do a lead out
with Andre and you just have the whole team out in front.
The whole, like every guy does a perfect job
and you just make it look so easy
when it's not and Andre finishes it off.
That's, we had quite a few in 2014-15
and this is probably the nicest feeling
when you do your job, you do your job
and you do it 100% and you swing off
and see the next guy go.
You see a train out in front
and everything just goes in line
and then you see Greg Henderson
puts his hands up in the air and when he does that
you know that Andre has won.
You know, and that's pretty nice and special.
- You must have been a part of the majority
of Andre's Grand Tour Stage wins since you've been
doing them all for the last few years.
- Yeah, my whole career I've been on the same team as Andre,
since 2007.
Yeah, I've done all the Grand Tours
and I've been part of all his,
- Yeah. - Grand Tours.
- Okay, I'm going to actually do another
question from my own point of view.
Will you watch a Grand Tour when you're not doing it?
Because it's been a few years since you've seen,
without being unkind, what's happening at the front,
on a mountain stage of a Grand Tour.
- I always get asked by my Mom,
"Did you see the finish today?"
I was like, "no I did not see the finish,
"I was not part of the first group."
Will I, well,
maybe in the background. - Maybe, maybe.
- Off what I'm doing.
- Well I hope you don't disappear completely
from this sport when you're finished.
It would be great to hear you commendation on some
of the Grand Tours when you have retired from cycling.
Thanks very much to Adam Hansen to,
For joining us for this Ask GCN.
We will bring things to a close now
because I'm sure he's got better things to do
then spend time with us with us at GCN.
If you haven't subscribed to the network already,
you can do so by clicking on the globe.
A couple more videos related to Adam.
Last year at tour, he went through his suitcase,
which is incredibly interesting,
included a satellite phone and a Rubik's cube,
amongst many other things.
That is just down here.
Actually I think in the same year
as the toughest stage that you did,
we followed you around the Vuelta Espana I think
for a rider's diary.
It's lost in GCN's archive,
but you can find it right now by clicking, just down there.