Roglič has it all figured out

Johnny Long (0:02)

This is what CycloPress is all about for me. Oh yeah.

Dane Ferrara (0:04)

Oh yeah.

Caley Fretz (0:11)

Welcome back to Spin Cycle, everybody. I'm Caley Fretz. Today on the show, TotalEnergies has been saved. Picnic are relinquishing control, and the Saitama Criterium is almost here. The most exciting race of the year.

Welcome back, Donnie Long.

Johnny Long (0:30)

Oh, I get to go first. I haven't gone first in a long time. Hello. Happy Friday.

Caley Fretz (0:33)

Normally on every show. So, you know, I try to welcome the newbie.

Johnny Long (0:37)

No, I agree. I was just pleased.

Caley Fretz (0:40)

But you're clockwise today. Dane, welcome back.

Dane Ferrara (0:43)

Hello.

Caley Fretz (0:44)

Guys, let's get straight into some great news from Cycling's homeland, France, and the French team that has been in a fair amount of trouble, I would say. Trouble's maybe not the right way to put it, but it has just been sort of like teetering. It's been teetering for a while. Jean-Ré Bernardo's TotalEnergies squad has... There's just been rumors that it's going to disappear for a while now.

However, it has been saved by a new sponsor, Zeffy. Ux-e-fee? Zeffy?

Johnny Long (1:26)

Zeffy? Inner Ring says it's Zeffy. I'm pretty sure it's Zeffy.

Dane Ferrara (1:29)

I checked, yeah.

Caley Fretz (1:31)

But do we have to say it with a French accent? That's the question.

Dane Ferrara (1:33)

Probably.

Caley Fretz (1:34)

Okay.

Johnny Long (1:35)

On first mention. Yeah, yeah, then you can...

Zeffy?

Caley Fretz (1:40)

All right. So it's a French IT services company. It's signed a three year deal, an IT services company in the year of our success, 2026 is a AI company, right?

Johnny Long (1:53)

Well, no.

Caley Fretz (1:54)

No?

Johnny Long (1:55)

I did my research today, Caley Fretz, you'll be shocked to hear.

I believe it's a French company, but it sort of operates all over Western Europe. And it seems to do stuff like, if your company needs laptops and printers and stuff, or cloud management, it's mostly that sort of stuff. Say you've, you know, you'll set up a building site, you're on a building site and you're going to be there, it's a huge project and you need loads of infrastructure. It brings all that stuff in. I mean, there might be AI stuff in it as well. But the main thing they want to know is that if you need a bunch of like laptops, probably like big Dell ones or a big printer, then they're your guys.

Caley Fretz (2:34)

Like those Dell laptops, you can sort of like chuck off of a building and it will probably survive.

Johnny Long (2:38)

Exactly, that's the style of Dell laptop. Along with your Nokia phone, yes.

Caley Fretz (2:43)

In a holster.

Johnny Long (2:44)

But they're a proper, yeah, obviously in a holster. But they seem like a proper company as far as you can have a proper company in this day and age.

So yeah, I'd love to see it. It's a company where it's easy to know from their website when you log on what they do.

Dane Ferrara (2:59)

I mean, France is having quite a run here because Decathlon is a proper company and CMA, CTM are proper companies. They're getting all the proper companies.

Johnny Long (3:11)

Proper companies from a proper country.

Dane Ferrara (3:13)

Apparently a proper country, yeah.

Caley Fretz (3:15)

Interesting. Why do we think that is?

Actually, I had an email recently for another applicant for Chief French Correspondent.

Johnny Long (3:23)

Oh.

Caley Fretz (3:25)

So, Rafael's got competition all of a sudden. I feel like we should find out from somebody who has more cultural context.

Dane Ferrara (3:35)

I would guess. This is an informed guess. You're talking about, you introduced this as, what did you say, the homeland of cycling?

You pointed out that this is the heartland.

This is a place that even though they have had struggling teams and even though it has been, what, 41? How long has it been since they won a men's tour? Years. This is still a place where I think even real people, non-cycling people, actually care about cycling. And so, you'll find maybe some execs at an ex-efi who really are willing to put their money where their mouth is. And that might not be entirely true in other parts of the world. You might have to go find somebody who works in Crypto or something to get them to back into.

Johnny Long (4:28)

I think you're right, Dane. I think also the tour increasingly has become one of the few sort of monocultural, monocultural is that the right word? Events in France where it just takes over the whole nation. And it's sort of like the moment of the year is that, as we get fragmented via algorithms and all this other nonsense, everyone still likes a tour and increasingly, everyone's kind of, you know, kind of like a binder to it. So that would be my answer for why. So then the way you can, like it's a much better marketing vehicle for these big companies than to be like, let's go chuck, you know, thousands, millions of euros into online marketing or sponsoring media even. I mean, imagine doing that horrific business deal.