"I do know for sure that I will go to the three major tours and the classics" - Moto GP star Aleix Espargaro talks about new venture with Lidl-Trek
Cycling
At 35 years old, Aleix Espargaró, the former MotoGP star, has made a surprising career pivot, signing with Lidl-Trek. The Spaniard, who won three MotoGP races throughout his career, officially retired from motorbike racing earlier this year and is now embarking on a new adventure in professional cycling.
Speaking to In de Leiderstrui, Espargaró shared insights into his decision. “At the beginning of 2024, I revived the plan. I decided to stop riding the motorbike for good. I then started looking around. I have also been cycling a lot for years next to the motorbike and have made progress in my cycling condition. Eventually, it turned out that there were opportunities in cycling.”
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Espargaró revealed that his journey into cycling began to take shape midway through the year. “We had the first talks just before the Tour de France, together with Luca Guercilena (team manager). In the end, we ironed everything out and I'm super happy with that.”
While his age raises questions about starting a professional cycling career so late, Espargaró clarified the nature of his role. “I signed with Lidl-Trek, not with the development team,” he explained. “I will simply become part of the WorldTour team. It is super difficult to say which races I will go to. I do know for sure that I will go to the three major tours and the classics.”
However, Espargaró was quick to dismiss any speculation about him competing as a rider at thes events. “No, let that be clear. I want to be present in those races and be a figurehead for this great team.
“I want to see and show how the athletes from this specific team work and recover in big competitions. That is new to me and I want to do that.”
Espargaró also highlighted his love for competitive cycling, which he has nurtured for years alongside his MotoGP career. “I love racing, I have also done a lot of competitions in the last ten years. Especially on the gravel bike and the mountain bike. I will definitely continue to do that.”
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- Exactly who, Joey, is "they"? Flimsy, illogical conspiracy theories aside, it is in no one's interest (financial or otherwise) to "drive away small local events." Major cultural and macroeconomic factors are reducing ridership, but there is no "they" in this context.verve82520-12-2024
- And our virtual platforms allow us to "ride" famous place that we can't get to in person, which is a pretty fabulous aspect of this weird weird sport.RidesHills19-12-2024
- Which off-season are you referring to? The one after he won the Tour of California? The one after he won 3 stages and was on the podium of the Vuelta? The one after TJV screwed up, never put him away, and lost the Tour on the time trial? We've seen the guy hit the wall, lose energy, nearly fail, and lose races ("I'm dead") more than once. He's got a visible threshold and his fueling regimen is a clear weak spot. You'll need more detail to make this more than under defined insinuations .RidesHills19-12-2024
- Interesting analysis. And yet, I'm in the US, and at a recent wedding reception as a group of us older folks had to stand at a certain place to keep track of a thing, we got to talking, and every single one of us had a favorite rider, a favorite circuit of races, a moment when we fell in love with the sport, and a joy in the complexities of it all. None of us knew about the other's fandom until that moment. It's wonderful that these are my brothers-in-law, and we now know to talk about this when the spouses aren't listening. Point being: there are fans all over, and for US folks, the loss of GCN+ has been huge. As so often, it's the media bottleneck that matters more than anything else. Look at F1 in the US before Netflix, as an example.RidesHills19-12-2024
- On the one hand, what he says is trivial. Of course it's genetics. It always is, in any sport. That's just obvious. Look at Mondo Duplantis, whose sprinting speed is key to his pole vaulting, for example - he's just plain faster than other vaulters and good at the rest of the event as well. In cycling, even when you take the most genetically weird group of people and give them amazing training, some will be better than others, as well. Distributions are distributions and there are outliers and that's just that. Pogacar's body is built for this kind of thing, it seems, with him only recently having had to pick up skills that others have used all along. I'm still inclined to believe that these folks are using entirely legal means to arrive at their shockingly good performance, given how more senior riders kinda complain about (or at least comment on) the regimens and control over the nutrition and exercise and all that. And in every population, there are edge cases of truly exceptional behavior.RidesHills19-12-2024
- And it’s likely going to get worse. They are going all-out to drive away small local events which are where a lot of new riders come from. They want fee income and Olympic medals. That’s all.JoeyB19-12-2024
- Oh Lordspock12319-12-2024
- Interesting suggestion, fo you think testing Tadej’s (or Bolts’ or so many others’) parents would have given us a preview of his potential then or what criteria do you have to pick parents with?Mistermaumau19-12-2024
- Even amateur teams suffer this sort. But this is also largely due to the precarious sponsorship, in very few sports do you find kit with so many sponsors having to be integrated and changing so regularly.Mistermaumau19-12-2024
- I think it’s pretty obvious what was responsible for destroying interest that used to be there.Mistermaumau19-12-2024