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 memorable ones are often not what you do on the bike but what you do off the bike. We went from the Tour Down Under to a training camp to the Sun Tour, and it was spot on – really relaxed, a group that just gelled and had fun, and Froomey won in fine fashion. That’s a standout memory.
R: Best Sky/Ineos kit, and what makes a good cycling jersey?
LR: Rapha 2016. I mean, look at it [he Googles his choice]. You can’t overcomplicate it – simplicity is best. Bahrain’s is super-busy, and Red Bull’s too. Just keep it simple. I quite like it where you become a staple. We always had a blue line down the back, and that was our identity, what we were known for. AG2R had brown shorts – love them, like them, whatever you think, they became a staple. I think you can make tweaks, but you should keep your identity.
Luke Rowe during the 2016 Paris-Roubaix (Image by Getty Images)
R: What makes a good DS?
LR: Calmness under pressure. The peloton is a really nervous, hostile place, everyone has a place to be and is on edge, and if a DS is screaming, it’s only inflating those emotions. What you want to do is calm riders down, and that’s why I always said Nico Portal was the best DS I ever worked with and I believe, potentially, ever existed. He’d get the point across, but he had such a calming way of speaking and dealing with people. Even if it was all going wrong, he had a way of making you feel positive about yourself.
R: Most underrated teammate in your career?
LR: Ben Swift. He’s never got the accolades, but I’d rely on him and put him high on my list to take to any bike race and into the trenches. He’s solid, reliable, robust, good on the bike, and potentially even better off the bike. Maybe because he wasn’t part of that Team Sky Tour de France success [he helped Chris Froome win the 2017 Tour - ed], he hasn’t quite got the respect he deserved, but he is one of the best in the business.
R: What’s one way you’d change cycling?
LR: You go to the Tour de France, and they say: ‘You’re going to ride your bikes for three weeks, you’re going to fund the riders and everything else, we’ll film it and publicise it, we’re going make loads of money and we’re not going to pay you a single percentage of the money we sell the footage for’. A percentage of those image rights should go to the teams and riders – it’s a big way for the sport to take a step forward, and the only way to improve the sport.
Luke Rowe with his two children at the end of Milan-Sanremo 2023 (Image by James Startt)
R: Best and worst thing about being an older pro?
LR: The best thing is that nothing fazes you – you’ve been in that situation before, you’ve seen that, and you've had that experience. The worst thing in the last few years of my career with two kids at home is the fear of crashing. It’s only pre-race, and once I’m in the race, I’m switched on, but when you see people losing lives or getting badly injured, it does creep into your mind.
*Cover image by SWpix.com
