Those were some of the hardest days in cycling to control. And like you said, you don't see that on TV. People don't know what's going on.
They'll see the start and they'll see the finish, but they didn't see how hard it was in between. And those were truly some of the hardest days imaginable in cycling. Rubé, my blood pressure is up watching this race on TV.
How stressful is it to go into that like year after year after year? What you have like 17 attempts at it? When I was racing it, I would just go into full like sort of warrior mode.
I turned the stress into excitement and and you know and motivation and I knew that without full concentration in a race like Rubet there's no chance you can do anything and it wasn't going to be fun at any moment was it going to be fun at all. I'm not sure if you realize the impact you've had on the generations behind you like I wouldn't be doing what I do if it wasn't for you and Lance Jim Copy. Welcome to the Romance Cycling Podcast.
Thank you for having me. George, how are you? Good.
Good. Thank you. Just got back from our Grand Funo in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
It was a fun event. We had about 1500 people there and uh my 13-year-old son actually won the whole damn thing, which I'm still kind of blown away. About 80 miles, you know, racing against adults, very tough course.
And uh the kid won. I was kind of I'm still shocked about it. You're in some pretty good shape as well.
Were you telling him clear or was he showing you? Yeah, we actually made the breakaway on the second climb and then of of course I did more work than he did. But nobody seemed to mind.
He's 13 and you know it's funny towards the end I actually posted about it on my Instagram. He came up to me with 10 miles to go. He's like, "Dad, I'm cramping really bad.
" Like he's never cramped before. And I go and he's like, "What do I do?" I go, "You better suck it up and suffer because that's all you can do at this point.
" But you know what? If you don't know what cramp is or you haven't had it before, it's kind of scary. I had a client and I was talking to him last week and in my head this sounded like the craziest [ __ ] ever.
He's he he was training for the Morca 312 and I had him doing a big session like two weeks out his last big session and he cramped but he'd never experienced cramp and he said he was on the side of the road googling like the symptoms of a cardiac incident. That's funny. Yeah, same with my son.
He was just late. He crossed the finish line, did a really good sprint, came around a guy right at the end and and basically could not walk. He got off the bike and was laid out, legs stretched up, and it was just uh, you know, as a parent, you don't want to see your your kid go through pain like that, but at the same time, you know, it's it's it's a right of passage, so to speak.
So, I was kind of I was also kind of happy to see it. Would you encourage him to pursue a career in cycling if he chose it? I think I'm kind of a it's it's we're I'm beyond that point right now.
I'm kind of like uh I got to like put the reinss on him, you know? He's he's just all in for cycling right now. And um selfishly, it's kind of fun for me because I still like to ride my bike and and now it's not like I have to wait for him or anything.
He he rides right there with me all the time. And uh and it's it's kind of like a unique sort of format these days than when we grew up racing because I could actually race races with him. I can do funos with him.
I can do gravel events with him. And I mean, think about, you know, being able to me as a dad slashcoach talk to him how to like navigate his way through a pelaton in gravel races or in grand finals. Like that's something you could never ever repeat.
You know, you couldn't ever do that in any other sport where I'm actually able to see what he's doing. Uh so it's just a lot of fun for me and we're having fun with it now. I'm not going to put any pressure on him.
He's 13, you know, he wants to do all these intervals. He wants to get a watt meter. I say, "No, no, no.
We're just going to ride fun. We're going to go hard and you learn how to ride your bike." So, it's just a fun thing for us right now.
But it's amazing because some things can't be taught in the abstract as well. Like you can tell somebody like if it's a fourman breakaway. You can tell somebody like how to get back onto the wheel after doing your turn.
But like in the abstract sitting down at a coffee shop teaching somebody how to do that, it doesn't make much sense until your heart rate's 190. Exactly. And and as you know, okay, we're always talking about power to weight ratio.
We're always talking about, you know, how fast people can go up climbs. But the one of the most important things in cycling is how can you handle your bike inside the pelaton when people are crashing around you when you're finding little holes. And I just love being able to experience that with them because he does have some great awareness in the in the Pelaton.
And that's something that is almost impossible to teach. That's just an inherent skill and he he's he definitely has that. Well, we have an Irish rider over here.
I'm not sure if you remember racing against some Kieran Power. He raced for Navigators and stuff back in the day. Definitely.
But Kieran's back racing much like uh you because his son is racing. His son I think is national champion under 16 and Kieran's in the bunch racing with him. And I often how how cool is that to be able to race with your dad and have them say to you like go here, don't go there, you know, open your sprint here, don't open your sprint there.
Yeah, it's super fun. We do the Tuesday night uh we call them the Tuesday night world championships where you know all the best all the best riders and we've won he's won the last two weekends in a I'm like I'm laughing because we're we're probably about to be banned from the T Tuesday night worlds because I'm getting in the breakway with them and I'm towing them around. Um so it's kind of funny.
George, let me rewind right the way to the start growing up in Queens. I remember growing up in Dublin when I started cycling. I was just it wasn't cool because I missed the Shan Kelly Steven Roach era and so cycling had taken a dip after that.
There were some Irish riders and no disrespect to them but they weren't lighting up the world stage. you know, your Paul Kim images and Martin Earies. So, we hadn't got really this mainstream cycling appeal.
So, when I started cycling, I remember putting soccer shorts on over my cycling shorts heading out because I was so embarrassed. Then I get out into the countryside and I take them off and I put in my back jersey pocket. But it must have been strange growing up in New York trying to cycle.
Oh, absolutely. I mean, you know, it's been fun to uh witness the renaissance of cycling here in the US and I'm sure similar there in uh where you're at in Ireland. Um but it went from like you said, it was definitely not a cool thing.
There was not a a sport in school like I was pretty much the only cyclist in my high school. Although I got a lot of support from my friends because at that point I was racing internationally and I started getting a bit more attention. So for them they started thinking it was cool.
But it's not like you'd walk into a coffee shop or, you know, you know, a grocery store just to get a snack in your bike hit. Like you would never do that unless you Now, now you can go into a coffee shop and sit there and have a full meal and no one looks at you funny. Exactly.
It's and and where it depends on where you are, but it becomes a fashion statement as well. You see people like perfectly kitted up, you know, they're matching their bikes, everything's perfect, you know, it's it's become sort of a a style fashion thing as well. So, um, it's changed a lot, that's for sure.
George, when did you make the move out to Jirona? I moved out to Jirona. So, I lived in Ko, Italy my first three years of my career.
So, 94, 95, 96, and then 97 I moved out to Jirona. And what was Jirona like back then? Who was around Charlie Walius around?
Who was around? Nobody. I mean, Johnny Weltz brought us there and there was a couple local cyclists, but um, we were the first pros to go.
myself, Tyler Hamilton, Scott Mercier, Marty Gson, it was like four or five of us and uh yeah, we just had this little thing going. Now it's become like the cycling mecca. I feel like Jerona should be, you know, kicking us back a little uh tax money or something because I went out there first.
I was with uh I just signed for a French team and Mike Barry was coaching me and I needed a training block and Mike said out to Jirona but it was like 2010 so it was just pre you know there was iPhones I think around but I don't think I had one because I was so poor so I know maps but Michael literally drew me out like literally drew me maps and but one of the first routes he gave me was El's Angels drop down El's Angels into the valley over Santa Paella and he said this is the hin copy loop and I was like How did that come about? Because now this is actually like this is a big thing now. People say, "Oh, I'm doing the hing cappy loop.
" Yeah. You know, it's funny. I actually have no idea how that came about.
I of course I did that loop a bunch. But somehow they started calling it and I have nothing to do with it. They start in fact people that do it some of them don't even know who I am.
They just called they just call I think that's what I heard. They call it the incapabil loop and but I have no idea how that came to be. So I'd heard this story.
Obviously there's no truth to it but it's a good little folk story. I'll give it to you. I heard that your wife was or maybe girlfriend at the time was pregnant and she said to you, "Okay, George, you can go training, but you can't go any more than two hours from the house.
So, you ended up just doing loops of this Santa Fella Elang lap." No, that's not true, but it's a good story. It's a good story.
You You can have that one. Yeah. I feel like you should be charging royalties for that loop.
So, you and Lance have obviously been through tick and tin together, seven tours, and now a podcast which is just dominating the cycling space. if anyone hasn't checked it out. H the moo.
But can you remember your first time meeting him? Did the two of you gel and have this bromance straight off the bat? Yeah, we met at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs and uh he was he was probably 17, I was 15.
And yeah, we definitely jelled right away. He like he didn't gel with hardly anybody else, but for some reason him and I got along, you know, we uh we hung out a bunch and uh yeah, it's been kind of, as you know, long story since then. and was it the training errors you guys were doing that what was given you know it seems like SRM were coming on the scene as well around then and I've had Tyler Hamilton on the podcast as well and he was talking about just the different types of intervals like 4020s and stuff that you guys started doing and how hard you guys were training did you have an awareness at the time of how much obviously it's dialed to the nth degree now around diet and training techniques but I feel like that was a deflection point in cycling history when I look back at all the generations where you guys started looking for edges with diet, looking for edges with equipments, you know, was was that bike you were riding with Postal, was that one of the first carbon bikes, the OLV 110?
Yeah, I think so. It was one of the first carbon bikes, that's for sure. And we were always very focused on equipment choices, wheel choices, and you know, that obviously progressed and evolved throughout my career, and now it's like it's crazy.
Like you said the the training uh that they do now the way they measure uh their data everything everything is calculated to you know every minute detail where they exactly even to the point where they know exactly how much carbohydrates they spent in that particular day and how much they need to replace it. I mean everything's it's a lot more evolved uh and advanced than when we were racing. Did you buy into the power meter straight away?
Because you were sort of sitting in a place every proto comes along now. It's, you know, they're only born into this generation of power meters, but you were at a transition point where there was definitely guys in the Pelaton racing without it and then it came along. Was it something you adopted straight away?
Yeah, it's I mean I adopted it as soon as it was available to me. I adopted it for training and then of course we started using in racing later on. Um, but it was it was definitely a tool that uh once I got my hands on it, I uh you know, tried to make the most of it.
So 1999 comes along and you guys win the tour to France and you went from being, you know, the bad news bears, this honky shitty camper van that rock up to races and very much the underdogs to leading and winning the biggest bike race in the world. talk me through that feeling because it's the bit that and I' I've heard you and other writers speaking about it before and you as a road captain we see a highlights package and back then it was uh the Phil Ligot highlights package that we'd get on channel 4 over here but you don't see a lot of the work that gets done in the valleys like where you as road captain is deciding okay who's going in this break how much rope are we giving them that's a fascinating tactical battle how stressful was that in that first tour because you hadn't got this very the system we came to see is just so dialed through the years. This was very much in its formative stages here.
Oh man, I I got still have PTSD from that because we we were just getting the [ __ ] kicked out of us like non-stop and you know I I I still you know wake up with nightmares about racing through the Mos Central where you have these huge rollers you know you climb up one kilometer down two kilometers and as you know if you're at the front and you're pulling downhill these guys in the Pelaton aren't even pedaling. So as soon as they hit the bottom of this climb they're gone. So, it was like those are some of the hardest days in cycling to control.
And like you said, you don't see that on TV. Um, people don't know what's going on. They'll see the start and they'll see the finish, but they didn't see how hard it was in between.
And those were truly some of the hardest days imaginable in cycling was controlling those, you know, those breakaways from happening. And we were bunch of kids. We didn't even know what we were doing.
But we knew that we had to stay together and we knew that we couldn't let these big breakaways go. And and that was basically a very simple strategy was like stay together no matter what and we're going to be stronger together than one guy jumping away with these breakaways and let's just keep this breakways you know as close as possible and because I know I've been on teams where we've had yellow jersey and four stage on a four stage stage race and on the last day like the stress levels are just absolutely through the roof where you're like okay you can let him go you can let him go you can let him go [ __ ] don't let him go don't let him go don't let him go and it's like up everyone after him did this system get more refined as you went through the years or were did you slide into that uh road captain role? Yeah, I kind of I kind of slid into it just because of um being there so much with with Lance and being in that position where you start the stage and you kind of know you got to there's 200 guys in the bunch, but you got 10 or 15 maybe 20 guys where you know you probably can't let them get away or get much time.
So, it's just about always being ultra aware of who's going before they they're actually gone and get five 10 seconds up the road. And that happens that happened many times and then you have to you learn a lesson quickly because then you have to go full gas for 10 20 30k as hard as you can go to get these guys back and you know you burnt a lot of matches. So, you learn the lesson quickly like it's much better to just get these guys right away before it becomes a panic situation and you're burning all your matches trying to get them you know for an hour or two.
And in in those seven years where you guys were just so dominant on it, how much of a role did you have in writer selection? So you were clearly the voice on the road for, you know, controlling this dominance that you had over seven years. But how much of you saying to Johan, you know, these are the guys I need around me to do my job in those key stages around massive central and stuff.
Obviously Lance had his, you know, climbing lieutenants who, you know, he needed later on, but did you have a role in that selection for the guys you needed around you? Nope. Zero.
I knew that, uh, you know, Johan was a great um, you know, selector of of guys. Um, and it was always from from the beginning of the year, you never were guaranteed a spot, even though I probably was, but like they would never let me know that. Um, but we knew that we'd have three or four guys like myself that were going to be, you know, our job was to to keep Lance out of trouble, keep him safe, you know, the position guys, keep him up in the front, and then the workh horses once we needed to chase down some breakaways or control some time gaps from the breakaways, that was going to be us.
And, um, you know, that was more definitely a Johan and Lance thing. I feel like the the sport has changed so much that, yeah, of course, we trained really hard back in the day. Um, but these guys are never home.
I mean, they go from race to altitude camp to race. I think one of the top guys, I won't mention his name, but from the tour of Romani to the tour to France, he was going to be he's going to be home four or five days. That's it.
It's brutal. It's Yeah, it's brutal. You're either at an altitude camp or you're racing.
And I mean, that's hard. You know, I loved uh my role as a cyclist and I I never took it for granted being a professional cyclist. I always worked as hard as I could, but I feel like I had a little bit of balance where I can come home a bit more than uh normal guys.
And I was able to come back to the US and spend time at home, you know, before the tour to France. And I feel like that made my career um a bit more manageable. I don't know if I can handle it now where these guys are gone all the time.
But like that's testament to what did you 17 to Francis like you need the balance to last that long and that would be my worry. Like I was on guest on Cyclist magazine podcast last month and they were talking to me about Sagan and they were saying basically Sagan you know the flop has won the world's three times and I was like if you look at Sagan through a lens of purely pro cycling you go yeah he's gone off the pile but how much of that is deliberate how much of it's him saying you know what there's other things in my life and I don't want to be like you're saying five days at home in a four month period I I'm happy to pick up a big paycheck I'm happy with the level I'm at. I have some cool legacy already, but there's more to life, you know?
I don't know what he's into. Spirituality, personal relationships, other side hustles he has. Yeah.
No, that's a great that's a great point. I don't know him personally, but he definitely was part of, you know, my generation as I was ending my career where there was a lot more balance involved. You were able to come home a bit more than a lot more than now.
So yeah, perhaps we're seeing that where, you know, he may not want want nothing to do with all these altitude camps and really just not having a life, so to speak. Rubé, we can't talk to Mr. Hen Copy without talking about Rube.
It looks [ __ ] stressful on TV to watch. My blood pressure is up watching this race on TV. Like the speed you're hitting sections like Aronberg Forest and like the crash that Mitch Docker had a few years and stuff on it.
It's stressful to watch. How stressful is it to go into that like year after year after year? What you have like 17 attempts at it?
Yeah. Yeah. Every single time you're going in thinking at at a point you were thinking to yourself, top 10's not even a result here.
This podium or nothing, I'd say. Yeah. Yeah.
No, for sure. And yeah, I'm I'm in actually in the same uh same boat you are. When I watch it now, it stresses me out.
I get the sweaty palms. I'm like, this is crazy because I remember it so well. But when you're racing it, when I was racing it, I would just go into full like sort of warrior mode where I would couldn't I I made the stress I turned the stress into excitement and and you know and motivation and I knew that without full concentration in a race like Rubet there was no chance you're going to do anything and it wasn't going to be fun at any moment was it going to be fun at all but it was going to be you know if you if if you didn't plan out the sections properly and you didn't envision how you were going to position yourself in your head.
For instance, going into the Araronburgg, that's just the only thing that's the only the things that got me through was just being able to envision beforehand when I was going to move up, how I was going to save energy while moving up and still entering the Aaronburg first in the first five guys, which by the way, in all those 17 years, I pretty much always entered the Aaronburg first and at least top 10. And uh you know that's a kind of a a small victory in itself because it's it's one of the most stressful sectors in all of cycling to arrive in the front. And you know I just kind of I found I found uh a lot of uh not not joy I found a lot of motivation by being able to always be one of the favorites in that race and you know never took it for granted and there's you were so close so many times in Rubay and then Bu was a teammate of yours at Postal.
Was he the first season at Postal like can you what what's the difference? Obviously he's a fast finisher but there's a lot of fast finishers. What's the difference with someone in Rubay that goes from they can get a bunch of top 10s to someone as prolific maybe the greatest Rube rider ever.
Well, he was just a killer. I mean he when he as soon as he came on the scene he had no fear. He had a ton of power.
His first training camp I mean he would almost riding guys off of his wheels in sprints. um young kid and you know that particular rubet he just kind of got a free card to get in the breakaway and when you're in a breakaway in a rainy rube and not having to do that much work he kind of had a sort of a free ride and throw throw that sort of power on that he had the confidence he had um you know and he ended up getting I think third place that year but it was it was certainly a breakout ride for him but we knew from the day one that this guy this guy this kid was a killer and he was going to do a lot of things in in the sport of cycling cuz I can't remember the year you came to the line, but I think it was you were coming to the line with Fletcher and Boon and you were second if I remember. But like like how hard a group was that to sprint out of?
You must have been thinking coming in the road like oh this isn't going to go well. Yeah, I know. It's funny.
I got a little bit criticized afterwards that you know they're like why didn't you attack? You know you guys were away for the last 15k. It's like what are we going to do?
You're 250 kilometers into you know the hardest race on the calendar. You're going 40k an hour. What am I going to do to go 42k an hour for 600 meters for like a TV?
You're not you're not going anywhere. Like you had to go all in for the sprint and the chances were very low that I was going to beat Boon. It was just there.
But you still got to try it. George, I chat to a lot of lads on the podcast who are transitioning out of cycling into life after cycling. I've had Swain Tufts recently on the podcast.
Super guys. But when I chat to a lot of guys, it seems like they're need to take a little bit of time to see what the next step is post cycling. You know, you're have the benefit of being a few years down the retirement road now.
And it seems like you've just built this, you know, empire for one of a better word. Like the podcast is thriving, your hotel domestique, which I've never been to, but looks phenomenal. H looks at its own brilliance.
You have the Grand Fondo, you have the Hing Copy brand. Did you h did you have thought in this before you retired that okay this is what I'm going to start building or how did this you know movement come about? So it was just kind of you know I'm fortunate that my brother and I are partners and everything we do and he started the clothing brand uh while I was racing and back then my whole you know sort of role in that brand was just to just to to bring attention to the brand and what we're doing.
Um so I was lucky in the sense that as soon as I retired I jumped into you know working for the clothing brand. We we opened up this hotel which almost destroyed me a few years later. Uh we started doing financially or mentally or both?
Both. Both. Um but you know what it's all these things like like in psych when you crash and you get sick, you know, you can't give up, right?
You gota you got to heal up and get better. So, I feel like, you know, I I was fortunate in the sense that, yeah, the hotel was super tough on on on me emotionally and financially and didn't think I was going to make it, but finally made it through and now it's in the best place it's ever been. Um, so I got a lot of these sort of life business lessons that were thrown at me after I retired from cycling that one, I never got bored, never missed being in the pro propelon for a second just because I was so busy doing other stuff.
And I definitely uh am grateful that I was put in those positions and I have these things to focus on because you know I think if I didn't have them after only riding uh my bike for so long at that level and then not being able to have something to jump into and focus on it would have been very very tough uh uh mentally to uh to transition. So I was lucky in the sense that I had these things that I could focus on. Do you still set yourself targets?
And this is the one of the things I was chatting to some of the, you know, Sven, a bunch of other guys about. I feel like when you're a pro cyclist, everything's mapped out. Like we have training targets that we're trying to hit for, you know, what's per kilogram.
We've our weight targets. And then we have our whole calendars planned out where we know what our objectives are and they're graded. These are a objectives.
These are supporting objectives. And then the procycling rug is pulled from under. step away from the sport and you've gone from a life of very focused goal setting to a little bit of drifting through life and not setting these goals.
Do you still goal set? You know what? That's a great question and uh even though like you mentioned I have a lot of stuff going on and it's still I still haven't figured it out by any means.
I'm still learning and uh yeah, goal setting is one thing that I'm definitely not as good at as when I was a pro cyclist. Um, but it's a skill that I feel like we can all we can always work on and and try to become better at it. Um, but yeah, certainly I focus on the event.
Like for instance, we had our event in Chattanooga. Of course, my focus was all about that. You know, making sure that uh the event was as successful as possible.
We have one coming up next month in Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania. So, these are things that, you know, my goals are that be that they are successful uh well um thoughtout events that people are appreciate being part of. Um, so yeah, these things stimulate me, but they're not to set hard goals like I want to finish top three in Paris Bay.
I want to, you know, win a stage of the tour to France. These are things that I'm still learning as well 10 years down later down the road of retirement. Not to celebrate your stumbling points, but it is super motivating for myself and other listeners because, you know, we have this iceberg theory where you only ever see the tip of the iceberg.
You know, you see Rory Mroy driving the ball 350 down the center of the fairway. You don't see the days he was in the driving range shanking drives until his hands bled and going home crying and wondering what he's going to do with his life. I feel like that way as well when I look at the move, I look at the Hing Cappy brand, the hotel, and I'm like, "Shit, George has this so well figured out.
" And I'm trying to build my brand, which is, you know, many multiple smaller than you. And I'm kind of trying to find that trail that you've plotted through business. And it's motivating to know that as I'm stumbling, you've also stumbled on that path as well.
And I'm sure there's people looking at my podcast and going, "Holy [ __ ] he's so big." And they're on episode four thinking, "Oh, I need to quit." But it's great to know somebody else is having the same very human struggles.
Absolutely. I mean, it's, you know, it's constant and and I embrace it. I feel like I know that, you know, it's not things aren't going to always be perfect.
Um, I embrace the challenges even though sometimes they're really tough. Sometimes you think you're not going to get through. But, you know, what's what what what's the best thing to do when you really feel like you're down in the dumps and you're not going to get through?
Go for a bike ride. We always got the bike, right? where you can clear your mind, get out to do that.
I still love doing that. I still have my health. I still really, you know, uh, pay a lot of attention to my health.
Even probably more I'm probably much more balanced athlete now than when I was a professional cyclist. As you know, you can't do anything when you're a professional cyclist. Going for a 20-minute walk, you get sore.
So, I I love the fact that I'm able to still stay healthy, work out all the time. And, you know, that's a big uh outlet for me as well. George, I know I a big focus shift for me and just to finish up on this one, a big focus shift for me was I was trying to coach basically young kids to be, you know, the next George Hingapy to see if I could get a 17-year-old, put him on a team in France and progress.
And I had a moment where a buddy of mine asked me to coach him and I was like, "No way." He was like a 45year-old alcoholic and basically every bad habit you can have from smoking to drugs and I was like, "No, it's not happening." And then he eventually convinced me to coach him.
And I seen over the next six months, like the huge weight loss, huge power improvements, but it was the stuff you couldn't measure, like the relationship improvement with his wife, the his happiness levels, his energy levels, just how motivated and stuff he felt. And that's really my calling now is to spread the cycling message far and wide. But you have spread this cycling message further and wider than basically anyone I know out there.
And I'm not sure I'm sure I'm not sure if you realize the impact you've had on the generations behind you. Like I wouldn't be doing what I do if it wasn't for you and Lance. And I'm sure many of the listeners of the podcast wouldn't be tuning into this podcast if it wasn't for the path that you and Lance bet through those forests of Europe to bring cycling to mainstream consciousness.
So I suppose from me and the listeners, thanks for what you do. I appreciate it. That's uh really nice of you to say that.
And and uh like I said, I I love my position that I've had in the sport. Uh I still love riding my bike on a daily basis. And you know, those things that that story you just mentioned about that 45-year-old, I feel like those are some of the most impactful things we can do now is yeah, we can help, you know, the aspiring professional athlete, but when you see cycling change an average person's life, which we all know that it can, those are the most impactful stories for me.