Going through chapter one with Matej Mohoric: all about long distances

You need to be patient with Matej Mohoric. Not only because it has taken him eight years to unleash a potential that at least some people saw in him from the start, but also because with him just about everything takes place over the longest distances. Whether it’s a stage of the Tour de France or a conversation. When he spins on his bike, almost in slow motion, it is often impossible to tell how fast he is actually going, and the same is true when he talks. Since I embarked on this journey with him, I could only be a passenger, as successive snapshots from the life of the almost 27-year-old Slovenian flashed by, while the pieces of the puzzle finally found their own place. This is Matej Mohoric, who is exactly what you think he is. Only a lot more so.

A quiet village in the mountains, a little boy on a tractor, a 12-year-old racing downhill with his buddies, a slightly lost 19-year-old with a professional contract in his hand, a dedicated helper, an escape artist, a tough guy who turns the most extreme conditions to his advantage, a Tour de France stage winner who tries to silence his critics with a single gesture, a 26-year-old full of dignified reflections. Before we started talking, I not only relied on the generosity and openness for which he is widely known, but I literally asked him to give me his wheel and a helping hand. Even then, I did not expect to be taken to all these places, although perhaps I should have been, knowing his passion for long distances.

But let’s start at the beginning. Well, almost.

Florence, 2013

When, a year after his junior world championship title, he donned another rainbow jersey, this time in the U-23 category, it was somewhere backstage that Matej Mohoric became the subject of discussion for the first time. For me, a young journalist, it was the first major international cycling event and the first race after arriving in Florence, so I still remember all the details, sensations and colours. In Tuscany, which was surprisingly gloomy that week, it was expected that some French kid, Alaphilippe, would win, but a very skinny Slovenian, who was not even 19 at the time, caused a big surprise, impressing more with his tenacity and ability to read the race than with any dazzling flair. And with one more thing: quite an original descending technique.

In retrospect, this will prove to be one of the few surprises in his cycling career, as relying on good fortune is not Mohoric’s philosophy of life. He hasn’t got much for nothing, although I don’t think he’d want it that way.

Later, he signed his first professional contract at a very young age, surrounded by many doubts but also great expectations, and he… faded into the background and almost disappeared for many long years. He made mistakes. He worked them through. So if you happen to be watching the Tour de France this year and you see an enraged guy making a rather controversial gesture at the finish line, don’t jump to conclusions. And don’t think of him as the third Slovenian to suddenly appear out of nowhere, because he was actually the first of the three, only his journey, as always, has been much longer.

Small village near Kranj, 1994-2006

This is not a story full of drama, like that of Rigoberto Uran. Nor was it as simple as following the path laid down by previous generations, as in the case of those with the purest cycling pedigree. It’s a more intimate story about growing up in a quiet Slovenian village and learning early on the sense of fulfilment that comes from hard work.

I was born and raised in a small village on the outskirts of a relatively small city in Slovenia, Kranj, towards the mountains. My parents have a farm there, it’s small sized and the land they own is mostly forest, but when I was young, we had some cows and some other animals, so it was a nice environment for a child. I learned how to work, because my help was always needed when I was quite young. They raised me in a way that made me quite a confident person, because they gave me a lot of responsibility quite early. I had to learn how to drive a tractor, how to cut a tree and all those other things that most young children probably don’t do, so yes, I’ve never had a problem with working hard and I was taught that when you work hard and do your best, you can be happy with the results. Some people will always be more successful than you, but that’s because they might work even harder or be naturally more gifted. 

Small village near Kranj, ~2006

Cycling in this story came of its own accord when Matej was about 12 years old, and it turned out to have a taste of freedom. But if you’re trying to imagine this boy based on the man you now see on TV at the biggest road cycling events, you need to lower your expectations. Literally.

I don’t come from a cycling family. I started to practice cycling when I was about 12 years old, because my friends from the village where I grew up also started to practice it and I wanted to spend time together. We all started to attend training rides and the races with the local cycling club. I enjoyed the trainings more than the races at the start, because I was a little bit underdeveloped as a child – I was a lot shorter and I had less weight than my peers, so the other cyclists of my age. Then as I grew older I got more and more successful also in the racing part, so I started to enjoy that also. I mostly like the freedom of riding a bike, so that I could choose myself where to go and for how long. I was not dependent on my parents anymore, who had to drive me here and there before. So I loved that, I loved to spend my time in nature, so I continued.

Then, when I grew older I became more and more successful, I started to follow the sport of cycling, also professional cycling and I started to be inspired by those best riders at the time. I also had a dream to one day ride the Tour de France, maybe try to win a stage and now it’s true.

Tour Down Under, 2014

Today, the biggest cycling teams are recruiting 19- and 20-year-olds in multipacks, while some 22-year-olds have already taken victories in the general classification of the Tour de France. As soon as I start talking about this, Matej knows where I’m going and agrees that when he was a 19-year-old starting his first professional race clad in a properly Slovenian-green Cannondale kit, the cycling world wasn’t ready to support him. The days when a strictly scientific approach would replace the old-school one were yet to come.

Yes, I think it was definitely harder, but not because of the racing itself. The racing itself might be even harder now, but because of the way cycling was back then. There were still many people that came from the old cycling school, traditional ways of doing things and nutrition, so for example I don’t think I was given perfect advice on how to train and how to eat at the very start of my professional career. I believe that nowadays these young riders who come from the junior categories, they already have years of very good or almost perfect advice behind them, so it’s a little bit different for them. It’s a little bit easier for them to get the most of their bodies and be successful right away, whereas I had to learn by trial and error and I probably made some mistakes at the start. I trained too much and a little bit in the wrong way at the start. Of course, after a while, if you realise that you’ve made a mistake and you don’t repeat and you try to learn what works better for you, then eventually you get back to a good level again, but it takes some time.

So I got a partial answer to the question that has been bothering me for a long time: why have you kept us waiting so long? But while I was able to figure out that part of the story for myself, the other part took me completely by surprise. It turns out that we were wrong from the start, thinking that after winning the title in Florence and signing his first professional contract, the Slovenian would immediately become competitive at the highest level and shine on the routes of the biggest bike races. Well, it never worked out that way for Matej Mohoric. Long distances, again.

I mean, also in the junior categories, when I was changing the category each time it took me longer than everyone else to be competitive at the higher level. I don’t know if it’s down to my body or just a learning process, but I’ve been used to that and maybe also because of that in professional cycling it took me quite a while.

Well, I exaggerated a bit when I said he had completely disappeared. He was working in the background for others, as he still does sometimes these days with an almost painful devotion.

It was also partially down to the fact that I was always a dedicated helper. I was always willing to take on the responsibility of being the one that helps out the others. If they were going better, I would never ever try to ride for myself…

If I was given a task to help somebody, then I would do it 100% and didn’t care about my own results. I was not necessarily a lot weaker physically back then, but for sure I didn’t get many results because I’ve done something else in the race.

Clasica San Sebastian, 2021

I am watching the race on replay because, contrary to what some people think, cycling is not the whole of life. It is raining, of course, as it often does in the beautiful Pais Vasco, and a lone commentator from British Eurosport is having a lazy monologue to himself. Two riders are gaining a slight advantage on a descent, and the distinctive silhouette of one of them is easy to spot: „Mohoric, of course it’s Mohoric. Who else could it be on a wet descent?” – the Briton asks rhetorically.

It’s hard to argue with him. That’s why I start our conversation about the 26-year-old’s racecraft with his passion for fast descents, which seems to contrast with his slightly introverted and definitely reflective personality.

There were two guys from my village who were a lot faster than me and I tried to learn from them. We were just doing it for fun at the start. When you are 40 kilos and 12 years old, it doesn’t hurt that much if you crash, so I would come back home many times with a little bit of pain and with a little bit less of skin than when I started. My mother would just look at me then like that [making a gesture] and disapprove of this behaviour.

Then I learned to be a little bit more skillful and faster with my confidence, also more inside my limits and when I was about 16-17 years old, I realised that this can help me win bike races. I chose descents to make a difference to my competitors and I started to win some races. Then, as you get a reputation of being fast in descents, people have a little bit of a fear to follow your wheel, which makes it even easier sometimes.

Passo Godi, 2021

If you watched this year’s Giro d’Italia, Mohoric’s front flip in the middle of stage 9, with the finish line in (ironically) Campo Felice, was surely one of the images you’ll remember for a long time. There are situations in which even the most technically brilliant riders lose out to the simple laws of physics. But he always comes back from these defeats mentally unscathed and seemingly free of any fear, just carrying on. How is this possible?

Well, every accident has a story for itself. For example the one in Vuelta last year was completely, 100 percent my fault. I overcooked it in a corner and I slided out, whereas the one in Giro this year was more of a bad coincidence, because I was still remembering Vuelta quite well and I was really focused on not making any errors. I chose that corner to pass Gino, who was in the front of our group, making some fast lines. I tried to calm the situation down a bit, to pass him, and that very moment I lost my rear wheel. As I corrected that, I hit a curb inside the corner and that completely sent me into a front flip. It was not a nice thing, but I think it was just a coincidence of two or three bad things coming together, which resulted in a crash.

Florence, 2013 / Aigle, 2021

The conversation with Matej about his descending simply had to have another dimension. The position known as the supertuck was widely discussed this spring when the UCI decided to make it illegal. Although it had no name at the time, it ignited cycling enthusiasts’ imagination to a similar degree in Florence 8 years ago, as the Slovenian from Kranj managed to maintain his advantage on the descents and take a solo victory at least partially thanks to it.

Even then, he wasn’t the only rider to do it, but he was probably the first to be shown doing it on television, in one of the biggest cycling events. The supertuck became one of his trademarks, but if you thought it had anything to do with his studies on aerodynamics, then no. There was sheer laziness behind it.

I think it just came out of laziness, because I was always a little bit late to go for training rides when I was young. As I said, I lived in the mountains and to go to the place where we met, I had to do like 15 kilometers in the valley, always going more or less down. Because I was always running 2 or 3 minutes late and I didn’t want to be late at the point of the start, I was trying to save energy and this proved to be fast but not burn all the matches before I even got to the actual start of the ride. I later realised that it also helps in the races and I started to do it, but of course, I don’t think it’s the nicest looking thing on a bike, especially done by some guys that are maybe not that technically perfect on those side of things. so I think it was not a bad call to make it illegal by the UCI.

Bretania, 2021 / Le Creusot, 2021

Capricious weather, narrow and winding roads, unruly fans, chaotic sprints. The first days of the Tour de France, as usual, took their toll. A few days later, Mohoric won his first stage of the Grand Boucle, the longest of the race. He is a bit like a canine: has no tools to grab and finish his prey right away, but will chase it until the victim is completely exhausted.

The longest routes, extreme weather, dangerous descents. The Bahrain-Victorious rider not only thrives in such conditions, but also regularly uses them to gain an advantage over his rivals. So I couldn’t help but ask him about his views on cycling safety: is there such a thing as a dangerous course design? Or do riders make them so by the choices they make on the road?

That’s a hard question, but in my opinion there’s always gonna be new things that we need to improve. It definitely needs some work to do, safety issues in cycling, especially with the way rules are made, because to be fair, at the moment it’s quite a dangerous sport. Especially because there are some things that could be easily avoided. If we change the rules ever so slightly, everyone would still get what they want, but it would be much more safe, much more secure and maybe even nicer to watch for the fans and there wouldn’t be so many crashes for us riders. 

At this point he hesitated for a moment, admitting that it might be a little more complicated when it comes to descents. He also did not reject my suggestion that there will always be at least one guest in the peloton willing to take a bigger risk in such circumstances, or that he is that guy at times.

Yes, sometimes it’s me, of course. But I think everybody should know their own limits and there isn’t one rule that says you need to always follow a guy in front of you. You need to always judge your limit and take it cautiously and there is always the part after the descent where you can get your disadvantage back.

After that, he changed the subject just a little and proposed some new rules to be applied in the sprint finishes of the grand tours.

But I think that the bigger safety issues lie where it’s easier to solve them. So for example the most crazy thing in cycling at the moment, as I see it, are sprint finishes, especially in grand tours, because there is so much pressure on all the teams. Every team has at least a sprinter or one guy that is trying to do good in the GC and not lose any time. So at the moment the tension is super high and 22 teams to be all in the front at the same time where it’s the only safe place in the peloton is a little bit impossible. So inevitably crashes happen when the narrowings happen. Nowadays more and more and more traffic furniture is build into the traffic infrastructure all around the world, so inevitably this is gonna go on, and on, and on, and there will be more and more roundabouts, more and more splitters, more and more whatever, so I think there should be a rule change soon in the future that will enable a group that fights for the win being smaller. 

What you want from the spectators’ view, you want the sprinters to stay in the game and you just forget about the GC, so I think there should be one rule that says whoever wants to go for the stage, be it, but maybe 10 k from the line we draw the line, we take the times in case there are crosswinds or whatever and sprinters should be allowed to go for a stage win to battle it out. Because then, if it’s a small group, it’s a lot easier to navigate through all that traffic turniture, all those roundabouts, all the splitters, all whatever comes – the corners, the narrowings. If the group is big and there are many, many guys fighting for the front, then it’s a lot more complicated and a lot more dangerous of course. And also, to be honest, mostly the sprinters are a lot better at handling their bikes than some of the GC riders, so that would also exclude a big part of the equation why crashes happen. 

Somewhere in the middle of his monologue, which was originally twice as long, I regretted for a moment having brought it up. But it’s hard to deny that it makes a lot of sense. Matej for president?

Czeladź, 2021

When we spoke early on Saturday afternoon, Matej was second in the general classification of the Tour de Pologne, with a very strong lead-out for Phil Bauhaus, top-three finishes on the steep climbs in Przemyśl and Bukowina Tatrzańska, and a much more classic sprint in Bielsko-Biała already in his book. That is another thing that characterises him: enormous versatility. Is he thinking about choosing a more specific direction for his cycling career in the near future?

No, I think my versatility is kind of a good thing, a kind of specialty of mine, so I think I would keep that in the future. I think it’s good to have a rider in a team that can adapt to all the situations, who can climb well, and sprint well, and do a leadout for a real sprinter. So I think the team is more than happy to have me on and I’m also enjoying my role so I don’t plan to change any time near.

Le Creusot, 2021

As Matej approached the finish line of stage 7 of this year’s Tour de France, he had already covered almost 250 kilometres, the escape companions he had left behind were nowhere to be seen on the horizon and he could not hold back the tears. This dream, which he will tell me about much later, is becoming a reality. However, he has been in excellent form since his return to competition after the Giro crash, winning the points classification at the Tour of Slovenia and becoming Slovenian champion for the second time. There is no doubt that this is the best season of his career so far.

Yeah, of course I’m proud. I know how much work was put in to reach this level, I know how many years of mistakes and learning process has gone into this, so it always feels nice when you reach your goals and you maybe even overcome them a little bit. This gives you even more trust in yourself, in your work, in your effort and it gives you more motivation to continue like this in the future, at least to me. And yes, I don’t plan to stop doing what I’ve been doing for the last 8 years now, so I hope for more good things to come.

Libourne, 2021

In the end, the 108th edition of the Tour de France turned out to be a carousel of extreme emotions, not all of them positive. The evening raid by the French police on the Bahrain-Victorious team hotel in Pau, famous for this sort of thing, not only deprived the cyclists of dinner, sleep and a proper rest, but immediately triggered an avalanche of unfavourable comments on social media. Of course, most of the comments were about the „suspiciously good” results recently achieved by the TBV riders, including Mohoric, who allegedly „came out of nowhere”.

This is not the image of road cycling we want to send out into the world. And yet, for those who cared to notice, the situation cast a new light on the otherwise very friendly, well-behaved and eloquent Slovenian. The next morning, the 26-year-old Bahrain Victorious rider took on the role of team spokesman in front of the journalists present at the start, and sounded surprisingly defiant.

Clearly driven by anger, Mohoric attacked from the start of stage 18, but we had to wait until the next day to find out just how far that kind of anger could take him.

I was angry, but not with any of my competitors. I was angry with all the people making comments from the comfort of their own couches on social media, with accusations towards us about what happened two days ago. I was taught that before you accuse somebody of something, you need to think about proving it, and think about yourself. I don’t know how smart a person is, if they say something about someone that they don’t know if it’s true or not. I know myself, I know how much work and how much effort I put into all those years to reach this level and I was just determined to show everyone that I didn’t win a stage in the Tour by chance. That I belong at the level I’ve reached. 

His second stage win, even in the context of what happened in Pau, didn’t cause half as much commotion as the gesture he made at the finish line in Libourne. There were no tears or cute hearts this time. The rage that had brought him this far was still burning inside him, fuelled by the knowledge that all the hard work and sacrifice he had made to get to this point in his professional career was being called into question. It was a failed attempt to silence the critics that later blew up in his face. But as it turned out, it was also another very intimate story that had absolutely nothing to do with Lance Armstrong.

Of course, the gesture I made at the finish, I’m not proud of it now when the things settled down and I’m not hot blooded anymore, but I honestly didn’t know that Lance Armstrong did it when I was four years old. I was not following cycling back then.

Some people that are probably like 56 years old, it’s obvious to them that all the world knows about it, but I was honestly not following cycling back then and I never went back to check, because I don’t look up to those moments of cycling. We’ve been raised in a different manner and it was more a gesture to silence off all those few, because I still believe it’s a few people that are feeling that way, compared to all of the fans. I still think like 95 percent of people are enjoying the sport of cycling and that’s why they follow it, they maybe know because of themselves how much work and how much effort it takes to be at that level. I think that people who always hate and always push for the bad things are very few and very frustrated with their own lives and their own problems.

For sure in the future I will care less about those people and focus more on the good stuff.

So it was supposed to be a simple message saying: “Stop making groundless accusations and let the sport speak for itself”?

Yeah. I mean, my mother was making the zip up gesture all the time when I had too much to say.

All right, now I’m going to tell you something about Matej Mohoric that you probably don’t need to know, but I’ll do it anyway: after talking to him for half an hour, I have good reason to believe that he often has too much to say, and that he’s seen this gesture on a daily basis in the past. I swear to God, if he finishes my own questions for me the next time we meet, it is going to end badly for him.

🤐#TDF2021 pic.twitter.com/q32lptwhF1

— Pro Cycling Trumps (@procycletrumps) July 16, 2021

Tokyo, 2021

In the final days of this year’s Tour de France, the 26-year-old did not even try to hide the fact that the emotional merry-go-round he had been subjected to had finally exhausted him. However, the plan to give Jan Tratnik his place in the Slovenian national team for the road race at the Tokyo Olympics had been hatched much earlier and, as it turned out, it was a win-win situation for all concerned.

It was my decision, but not at the actual Tour. It was my decision even before, at the start of the season, because I knew I was gonna do the Giro and Tour and I knew that after two grand tours I would be pretty mentally and physically tired. I also knew that there were World Championships in September that suit me super well, so I didn’t want to sacrifice staying 10 more days away from home and being tired from the Tour, trying to prepare myself in a hurry for the Olympic race, risking the second part of the season with all these nice races that come after the Tour. I preferred to have a holiday after the Tour, stay away, then restart, do one or two good rides and come back to the races to prepare for the World Championships. 

That’s what I’m doing and I think I made the right choice, because there were some other guys from Slovenia, Jan Tratnik took my place in the team and he was really looking forward the whole year to go to the Olympics, it means a lot to him to be an Olympian. I was already in the Olympics in Rio, so it was not a big thing to me. He promised to come there ready and motivated to help Tadej and Primoz in the best possible way and after I saw what he did, I also feel very good for myself that I let the place go and that he got a chance to shine there. I think it’s good for both of us.

Flanders, 2021

It is not difficult to imagine Matej Mohoric in the rainbow jersey. We’ve seen him in those colours before, albeit a long time ago. You also have to admit that with his silhouette, personality, tactical acumen and undying passion for longest classics, he fits the stereotype of a cyclist destined to dominate the road race event. I’ll never tell him this, but while the old school of cycling may have set him back a year or two in his development as a rider, there’s actually something a little oldschool about him.

No one can promise it will happen this year or any other. But this kind of almost impossible conjunction of phenomenal shape, a perfectly crafted course and a wave of confidence that seems to be carrying him now only happens once or twice in most riders’ careers. Matej must know this too.

Yes, the route suits me perfectly. Some climbs are the same as in Brabantse Pijl that I rode this year and also several times back in the other years. It’s something in the middle between the Belgian cobbled classics and the Ardenne classics, so the cobbles are not as many, nor as rough as in the first part of the classics and the parcours are quite hilly, so it’s more similar to the Ardennes. Of course the World Championships are very long, always closer to 7 hours than not, and this also suits me well. Of course, I don’t put myself under pressure, but I would like to do well, I’m focused to do well, I figured out all the other details of having the team support there also.

When asked if a very strong Slovenian team would be willing to support his individual ambitions this time around, he had no doubts.

100 percent sure. I mean the team support like soigneurs and mechanics and everything. And of course also from my teammates, but that goes hand in hand, because at the actual race in Belgium it’s always nice to have as many riders as you can going into the final. If Tadej is there, if Primoz is there, if Luka is there, if Jan Tratnik is there, it makes it easier for each single individual of us to make a result, because we will protect each other’s backs. We are good friends with each other, we trust each other and it will just be harder for anyone else to flick us. There will always be one guy who will sacrifice himself for the other guy, so whatever the outcome, I’m sure we’re gonna put on a good show and we will see who’s the best this year.

Slovenia, 2021

After the influx of incredible talent from South America that characterised the last decade, Slovenia is now on a roll. So I couldn’t help but wonder how such a small country can dominate world cycling, even on a European scale, and what impact the successes of Tadej Pogacar, Primoz Roglic and himself have had on the popularity of the sport out there.

The popularity of the sport of course went up. There is a bigger base of cycling fans, of course it reaches out to people who never followed cycling before and I guess it’s a similar thing to what happened in Poland a couple of years ago.

For sure there are more children now starting to practice cycling, but we will see. I don’t know the exact situation, I’m not in touch how good the young riders are at the moment and I don’t know if there are other guys coming after Tadej, but I’m pretty sure there eventually will be good riders, because it’s still a very good country for cycling in general. You know, we have so many quiet roads, so many nice areas for cycling with all the climbs and whatever else you need, so I think it’s a naturally nice environment for a young cyclist to grow up and shine. Inevitably there will be more good riders coming, but I don’t know exactly when or who. 

Czeladź, 2021

Although the here and now has served as a reference point for much more interesting considerations so far in our conversation, I eventually had to ask Matej about the Tour de Pologne. A race that has suffered a series of unfortunate events in recent years, but for him it is one of the best-suited stage events on the calendar.

I mean, it’s not hard [to say something nice about the Tour de Pologne]! I’ve been here many times, I think now it’s my fifth Tour de Pologne and it’s always super nice, well-organized, with a big fanbase, so lots of people next to the road to cheer us on. The parcours of course suit me super well, maybe even more in the last years, because mountain stages were a little bit harder. 

I tried to do the GC in 2019, but then I made a huge mistake and did not eat enough in the first mountain stage and I dropped out of the GC. I was angry with myself the next day and I managed to win a stage, so that was nice. I came back this year to try to do the GC. I got through all the hilly stages fine and now we are here on the day of the time trial and we’ll see how it goes.

He’s already announced on his Twitter that he’s planning to go into beast mode for the time trial…

But I think I need it against Almeida! He almost won the Giro d’Italia last year, also because of his time-trialling skills, so yeah, we will see. It’s not gonna be an easy task, but I can’t affect how Almeida is gonna do, I’m just gonna try to ride the best time trial of my life and we’ll see what that brings. 

I missed the opportunity to ask him if he was really riding the time trial of his life, but the ninth place in Katowice was objectively one of the three best individual results against the clock that Mohoric has achieved in his professional career. Taking into account the level of the race, the nature of the course and the competition at the start, it could well be his best performance of this type. But there is much more to come.

It was a pleasure to hear his story. I hope I don’t have to wait another 8 years to write the next chapter.

Interviewer: Aleksandra Górska