For 13 years, Luke Rowe has been one of professional cycling’s most trusted and loyal domestiques, appearing in eight consecutive Tours de France and being in the victorious team on five occasions.
But the Welshman’s time in the peloton has drawn to an end, with Team Sky/Ineos Grenadiers’s long-time road captain retiring at the end of this season due to injury. The 34-year-old won’t be disappearing from cycling, though – he’s set to take up a role as a sports director at French team Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale.
At the recent Rouleur Live, we sat down with Rowe, one half of the Watts Occurring podcast with Geraint Thomas, to ask him eight questions he’s (probably) not been asked before.
Rouleur: Which rider in the peloton do you wish you got to know properly?
Luke Rowe: By a country mile, the coolest guy in the whole peloton is Rigoberto Urán. No one comes close – he’s cool without trying to be cool. He doesn’t speak great English, and I speak zero Spanish, but I’ve been on nights out with him where we’ve both been blind drunk, and we’ve had a way of communicating without actually communicating. But I would love to be able to speak with him better.
R: What’s one advancement in your career you didn’t like?
LR: Veloviewer. Everyone knows everything nowadays – you can click through an entire parcour and see everything if you spend enough time. But pre-Veloviewer, you didn’t know what was coming, and you had to be smarter. You’d know the wind was coming from the right, but you wouldn’t know if it was exposed or not, so you’d be looking at the hedgeline, for forests, for residential areas. You were rewarded as a road captain for doing a better job without Veloviewer, but now, even if you’re not switched on, you can click through Veloviewer and know everything. Pre-Veloviewer, in races in Holland, you’d be like, ‘Watch out for Visma, they’re the local guys, they know the roads and know where to make a move’, but now that doesn’t count for anything because everyone knows everything.
Luke Rowe during the 2023 Tour of Britain race (Image by SWpix.com)
R: Best Chris Froome win not at the Tour de France?
LR: Herald Sun Tour [in Australia, in 2016]. It’s not the biggest race in the world – in fact, it’s probably the smallest race we ever did as a team – but it was just an enjoyable, fun week, and it’s not always about the stature of the race, but the journey you’re on, and the…