Cyclist
Adios Ineos: Luke Rowe profile
On a soaking wet training ride in Wales in 2012, a fresh-faced Luke Rowe looks directly at the camera: ‘Twenty guys on the bikes… except Jon Mould and Owain Doull, tucked up in bed. Won’t get you anywhere, boys. Four months’ time, I’ll be riding against the best guys in the world.’
The video clip, taken by Welsh Cycling TV, encapsulates Rowe, gently mocking his Welsh compatriots, an impish grin hiding a steely determination. The then-21-year-old Rowe proceeds to mention that he’d do anything to be a professional and to win races.
Over the next 13 years he will actually achieve very few of those wins he craves – just two, the more recent of which comes on Stage 2 of the 2017 Herald Sun Tour – but his career success is indisputable. In his day, Rowe was the heartbeat, the galvanising force, the road captain, of arguably the most successful cycling team of recent times.
‘The best domestique in the world’
‘Yeah, we’ve got a nice house, but I never did anything for the money,’ Rowe says when Cyclist compliments him on his home near Cardiff. ‘If I’d earned less, we’d have just stuck with the smaller house. Couldn’t give a shit. I raced because I’m passionate about this sport. Always have been and I’m sure always will be.’
At the start of his career, Rowe’s house would just about have fitted within the marble worktop of his new kitchen. He certainly didn’t have his own bar, as he does now, named ‘Lantern Rouge’ after his prized last place at the 2017 Tour de France, just 166 places behind winner and teammate Chris Froome.
Rowe signed for Team Sky in 2012. Over 13 seasons he’d empty himself protecting his leader, reeling in breakaways and cajoling and castigating teammates. He was the archetypal team player who sacrificed himself for the greater good, a decision he made on signing in the year that Sir Bradley Wiggins enjoyed his annus mirabilis of Tour triumph and Olympic gold.
‘I realised early on that I’d have more fun, more longevity and arguably earn more money by being a domestique,’ Rowe says from the comfort of his sofa. ‘I said to myself, if that’s what I’m going to be, I want to be the best domestique in the world. When it came to selecting that Tour team, after the general classification riders I wanted to be the next name on the team sheet. I wanted to make myself irreplaceable.’
That he did. Rowe was ever-present as Sky, then Ineos, won five straight Tour titles between 2015 and 2019 thanks to Froome (2015-2017), Geraint Thomas in 2018 (with whom Rowe now co-hosts the Watts Occurring podcast) and Egan Bernal in 2019.
‘There was an eight-year period between 2012 and 2020 where we dominated, certainly in the Grand Tours,’ he says. ‘We just got a stranglehold of the races and squeezed the life out of the opposition, which made us particularly unpopular in France. They really were the glory years.’
The bond unravels
In that period, the British team won 11 Grand Tours. But since then? Only Tao Geoghegan Hart’s surprise 2020 Giro triumph. In 2024, Ineos Grenadiers won just 14 times, their lowest ever, the highlight arguably coming early in the year with Tom Pidcock’s Amstel Gold victory. Spain’s Carlos Rodríguez was a commendable seventh at the Tour but was never in contention for the podium, let alone the win.
It’s somewhat telling that he finished behind two former Sky/Ineos riders, Mikel Landa (fifth) and Adam Yates (sixth), who are in the twilight of their careers.
As the season dragged on, Ineos, once known for their controlling methodology, seemingly unravelled. Director of racing Steve Cummings was omitted from the staff line-up for the Tour and would leave in November; a frustrated Dan Bigham left for a new head of engineering role at Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe, telling the Daily Telegraph the team ‘lacked clarity’; Bernal and Rodríguez’s personal coach Xabier Artetxe departed; and, of course, Pidcock left for Q36.5 in an atmosphere of simmering discontent.
‘They’re being thrown under the bus by a lot of people,’ says Rowe, ‘and much of it is simply for clickbait. I’ve got nothing bad to say about them [Ineos]. I loved my time there and have no regrets.’
Which is a thoroughly old-school, straight-bat Team Sky reply. But surely the waves reaching the media must have emanated from tsunamis within the camp?
‘To be honest, I haven’t been involved anywhere near as much with the team since the crash in March, though they have looked after me.’
That crash led to Rowe retiring a season earlier than planned, but we’ll come back to that. He accepts that the team has struggled since the departure of talismanic figures such as Sir Dave Brailsford, who although still involved in the Ineos Sport group, hasn’t focussed on cycling since becoming head of the group in 2021.
‘Losing Dave was massive, but that’s what everyone sees,’ says Rowe. ‘For me, there were three people who had a huge impact on the team and weren’t replaced: Tim Kerrison, Fran Millar and, God bless him, Nico Portal.’
Australian Kerrison was lauded for transforming the team’s training; Millar had various business roles before leaving in 2020 (she’s now CEO at Rapha); the charismatic DS Portal tragically died of a heart attack in 2020.
‘They were all so influential, so knowledgeable yet so humble, and were all gone within a two-year period. Great people came in but it left a hole. That said, while we had a poor year [in 2024], Ineos is still one of the best teams in the world. You can’t judge a team on one potentially anomalous season.
‘Let’s see where UAE and Visma are in a few years’ time. We know that it’s hard to reach the top but fucking harder to stay there, especially for as long as we were. Sport has a habit of coming full circle. Most world-class sports teams endure a bit of a dip. Look at Manchester United. It’s the same with cycling. It’s rare that a team dominates for as long as we did, certainly at the Tour. It tends to be relatively short cycles at the top. You sign the right guy at the right time, put the right people around him, he rides well for a while and then another guy comes along and passes him.
‘Look at the sprinters of recent times,’ he adds. ‘OK, you’ve had one constant – Cav – but along came Fernando Gaviria, who was the dog’s bollocks and then drifted. The same could be said about Caleb Ewan, Sam Bennett, Dylan Groenewegen and Fabio Jakobsen. They win, and then they don’t. This sport is really hard and it’s even harder when you’re the target.’
Power of belief
According to Rowe, Ineos’s troubles aren’t just about internal politics and the growth of rivals such as UAE and Visma. He believes there’s a problem that is affecting the peloton as a whole.
‘There’s little belief that Tadej Pogačar can be beaten,’ he says. ‘He’s cracked the lot of them. Belief’s such a powerful thing and, once you’ve lost it, it’s really hard to get back. Even at a successful team like Ineos, which still has big characters and champions like Geraint and [Filippo] Ganna, if you start lacking belief you lose your edge.
‘Belief is intangible but powerful. When you have a squad of 30 guys and your big dogs start winning, your sixth to tenth best riders look at them and think, “Well, I train with them; if they can win, I reckon I can too.” That then filters down to the 10th to 20th best riders.’
The problem is, Ineos doesn’t have the big dogs they once had. A quintet of off-season signings – Bob Jungels, Lucas Hamilton, Axel Laurance, Sam Watson and Victor Langellotti – will bolster support but lacks star quality.
‘I’m sure they’ll come good,’ says Rowe, ‘but ultimately that’s not my concern now.’
And it hasn’t been, in a racing sense at least, since 22nd March 2024. That was the date of the 66th running of Belgian race E3 Saxo Classic, won by Mathieu van der Poel. Around 10km in, Rowe flipped over his bars due to a crash in front.
‘It was quite innocuous. That said, though I wasn’t out cold I don’t remember it. I don’t even remember the signing-on presentation. I had symptoms of concussion, though you wouldn’t have thought it from my helmet. It wasn’t in a hundred pieces, just a small crack, so it was probably the whiplash. But I just couldn’t shake the headaches. I saw specialists and I was told to stop racing on medical grounds. I’ve had concussion before but never as severe as this.’
Concussion in sport is in the spotlight. A number of former rugby players, including Rob Burrow and Doddie Weir, have died with motor neurone disease (MND). Research in 2024 suggested rugby players who’ve suffered multiple concussions have biological differences that make them more prone to developing MND. In cycling, research published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine reveals that in any given crash, the risk of head injury is 10-15%. Further research found that concussion is a feature in 90% of those head injuries. Does it worry Rowe?
‘It really worries me, especially as I’m still suffering. A couple weeks ago I woke up with a headache and it lasted a week. It’s scary, really scary. It’s so out there now that repeated concussions could be linked to Parkinson’s, to dementia. You hear that and it’s chilling.
‘The most important thing is you retire with your health. Forget the money, forget the success. And you know, I almost got there. I was 18 months away from retiring. To retire on your own terms, there’s a lot of value in that. Still, no point crying over spilt milk. I had a crash, I hit my head and life goes on.’
The French connection
It certainly does, and for Rowe it’s going on with a new team. After sticking with one team for his whole racing career, he has chosen to move to French squad Decathlon-AG2R La Mondiale to begin the next stage of his career as a DS.
‘There was no reason behind leaving Ineos beyond wanting to flip the script, to mix things up,’ he says. ‘Change is good. I’ve been with the team since 2012 after all. I spoke to several teams and was impressed by Decathlon. They’re committed for the long haul.’
The arrival of Decathlon has brought money and staff changes, which have already shown benefits. The team won 30 times in 2024 compared to nine in 2023. That included two stage wins at the Giro d’Italia and very nearly a Grand Tour victory at the Vuelta a España, long-time leader Ben O’Connor finally being overhauled by Primož Roglič on Stage 19. O’Connor finished second overall.
‘Whether we can match 2024 remains to be seen as it’s still hard to compete with the top teams and their budgets,’ says Rowe. ‘We can’t battle 365 days a year so we need to be more specific, more sniper-like. We need to work as a team.’
Photo: Sean Hardy
Which is arguably why Decathlon recruited Rowe. He has 13 years’ experience in the heat of the battle, the majority as road captain.
‘Part of that job involved overseeing races and trying to predict the next move, to adapt under different circumstances. That’s also a big part of being a DS. The team are also looking to be more Anglo-Saxon, so I tick that box. They want to steer away from the stereotypical French team. “To become an English-speaking team based in France” is the phrase they keep using, but without losing their French heritage and traditions.’
That may sound paradoxical, but it is needed. This year is the 40th anniversary of Bernard Hinault’s fifth Tour victory – the last time a French rider won the world’s greatest cycling race.
‘To win the Tour is definitely one of the team’s major ambitions. We have a good young team and, in Paul Seixas, one of the most promising French riders since Romain Bardet and Thibaut Pinot burst onto the scene. He’s only 18 but has turned pro this year, leaping over the under-23 ranks. He won pretty much everything as a junior.’
That includes, in 2024, the world junior time-trial title, Giro della Lunigiana, Tour du Pays de Vaud and Liège-Bastogne-Liège for juniors.
‘Time will tell, but he’s exciting. Of course, how he handles the pressure will be key as he’s the first glimmer of hope in a long time. The eyes of France will be on him, so hopefully he’s a chilled-out guy and will handle things. The team will certainly support him and I’d like to think he has a chance [of challenging for the Tour] within the next five years.’
Whether Rowe will be there in 2030 is not certain. He’s on a two-year contract but sees the project as long term.
‘I’m taking it one step at a time,’ he says. ‘I’ll base myself here [outside Cardiff], which will mean a lot of time on the road. How that pans out, well, I’ll let you know in 12 months’ time.’
Rowe on…
Being hated by the French
‘Being on the team bus with a load of blokes when you’ve achieved something great is special. A nation [France] seemingly hated us each year for three weeks, but it brought us closer together. Dealing with adversity in the middle of a shitstorm is galvanising.’
The modern sport
‘I’m concerned for the younger generation that fun’s being squeezed out of the sport. There’s so much data, so much instruction, that they could easily become robots. For me growing up, part of the love came from the freedom. I’d be a 16-year-old kid in a chaingang and we’d sprint to the next signpost or whatever. We’d just ride, ride hard and have fun. Now 16-year-olds are training like professionals. That brings with it pressure that I hope doesn’t kill the enjoyment.’
Pro cycling contracts
‘In general, riders are enjoying longer contracts. Take Wout van Aert, who has a contract for life – whatever that means. That’s great for stability for the rider but can breed apathy. Some riders sign a five-year contract and take the piss. They put their feet up and rake in the money. Length of contract is a tricky balancing act for teams.’
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