"Just crack on with it, really." If you're looking for a Geraint Thomas catchphrase, that's about as close as you're going to get. The laid-back Welshman has taken more than his fair share of hard knocks in a bruising - albeit highly successful - career but has always maintained his level head, his mischievously dry brand of humour, and his sense of direction.
The motorbike that sent his Giro d'Italia hopes up in smoke in 2017? Just crack on with it. The stray bidon that took him out of the same race in peak form in 2020? Just crack on with it. The nightmarish 2021 campaign? Just crack on with it.
But the 2022 season is perhaps the one that has required the most 'cracking on' of all.
Thomas has already spoken about how contract negotiations last winter had been the "most difficult" of his career, and, reading between the lines, he has hinted that all has not been not sunshine and rainbows.
But as he sits down with Cyclingnews following some typically hearty off-season enjoyment, he spells it out more plainly, critiquing the team and its management in a manner that's striking for its rarity these days.
"It almost felt like they just saw a few figures on a sheet, you know, some stats, and just went off that, rather than me as a person who they've known for the last 20-odd years," he says.
Thomas is referring to the way his role changed within the team, as if in the blink of an eye. Tour de France winner in 2018 and runner-up in 2019, by the end of 2021 he was apparently no longer considered capable of being competitive as a Grand Tour rider.
Negotiations dragged on and his would-be role was whittled down to the point where Thomas was told he'd be a support rider in 2022 as well as a mentor to the team's new crop of young talents. It's not hard to figure that such a position comes with a rather lower salary than the one he signed for in the yellow jersey.
It was a surprise that it was such a sudden change of attitude
"It was definitely more of a helping role and setting an example for the younger guys, rather than just leading the team and going for my own races," he says." For the Tour it was [Adam] Yates and Dani [Martinez] who were talked about from the start, and obviously Egan [Bernal] prior to his accident. There was never any talk of me being a protected rider.
"It was a surprise that it was such a sudden change of attitude. The Tour last year went really badly, but that was the first time it has really – the first time I've really missed a target, as such. Even in the build-up to it, I'd had the best run-into a Tour I'd ever had. So that was a bit of a surprise, the change of attitude."
Thomas said he eventually "decided to accept that role" and, you guessed it, "just crack on with it, really".
Once the season started, he quickly fell back into the same old rhythms, steadily working his way back from a double whammy of shoulder surgery and COVID-19 over the winter.
"The problem with the off-season is there's a lot of time to overthink things but once I started racing I was enjoying it, I was in a good group, I could see myself progressing. Once I got on that roll, I stopped thinking about management."
However, he didn't completely stop thinking about it.
"I knew I had a lot more to give," he admits. "It sort of spurs you on in a certain way. In the back of my mind there was always that thing of trying to prove people wrong."
When Thomas made a similar suggestion in the summer, it might have been read as your average riposte to social media doubters. But this was really aimed at his bosses, was it not?
"Yeah. Not solely, but yeah. That was definitely part of it."
Point proven
After his slow start, Thomas had few results to speak of by the start of the summer, but the Tour de Suisse changed everything. His victory may have been paved in part by the avalanche of COVID-19 withdrawals but it was clear to see he was fighting fit - whippet-lean and with that determined glint in the eye.
He was added to the leadership equation for the Tour, and quickly rose to the tip of the trident as Martínez and Yates fell away in the first week. Although unable to live with Jonas Vingegaard and Tadej Pogacar, he established himself as the best of the rest and ground his way to the podium in Paris.
Point proven.
We've got the riders, it's just the lack of experience will probably be the weak point
"When you look at the team, there's a lot more focus on the future, but in the here and now..." Thomas starts, backing up that same point. "There's a lot of potential, and they can win a lot of races but when it comes to the real big ones it's a lot more of a challenge, for sure," he says.
"It'll be tricky. Just with the expectations of the bosses in Ineos as well, they want to be performing. We've got the riders to do it, it's just the lack of experience will probably be the weak point."
Thomas is not done making his case for the elder statesmen as he comments on the youth revolution sweeping the sport.
"Cycling in general just seems to have this obsession with younger riders and trying to find the next Remco [Evenepoel]. But he's just special. Him and Pogacar are unique. There's not one of them every year," he said.
"Then with our team, it'll be interesting, because if all those young guys progress well, you can't keep hold of all of them. If all their values are gonna start shooting up, you won't have the budget to keep them all."
With that, Thomas ever-so-subtly - and perhaps pointedly - makes his case for Grand Tour leadership in 2023. Having now occupied every step of the Tour de France podium, he has his sights set on the Giro d'Italia and while he remains non-committal about a GC bid, he questions whether anyone else is up to the job.
Former Giro winner Richard Carapaz is leaving the team, as is Yates, while 2019 Tour winner Bernal is still on the road to recovery.
"Even just with Grand Tour riders full stop it's pretty thin on the ground at the moment," Thomas says. "With Egan there is a big question mark after his accident. Obviously you can never foresee what happened to him. I guess there's Dani as well but other than that it's pretty thin on the ground.
"We've got some young guys coming through, Tao [Geoghegan Hart] has obviously won the Giro but has struggled a little, Pavel [Sivakov] is on the right trajectory but kind of not quite there.
"It's a tough one. It does open the door and give the chance for the Giro, but it'll be similar to the Tour this year - just get there in the best shape and go from there."
Business vs personal, and the future
Thomas has been forthright throughout our interview, his frankness somewhat surprising in an age where riders rarely deviate from platitudes towards team, teammates, and sponsors.
"I feel like I'm in a position to say it as I see it, really, and just be honest with it. I haven't exaggerated anything, I've just said how I've felt with situations at the time," he explains.
You realise sometimes there's a big difference between personal and business
"When you get older and you get more of that self confidence, you're able to speak your mind more easily. It's all stuff I've said to them anyway. They know exactly how I feel."
Perhaps this has something to do with the change in relationship between rider and team. Despite the 13-year bond, it has, necessarily, become rather more transactional.
"I guess you realise it is a business as well. It's not all best mates with your management," Thomas says.
"I still get on with them. I'm still able to have a working relationship. But you realise sometimes there's a big difference between personal and business."
Thomas flew from Japan back to his home in Monaco on Monday to enjoy the off-season for a few days longer before turning his attention to the 2023 campaign. Last month, he suggested it could be the final one of his career but is no closer to a decision on that front.
"If anything, I've thought even less about it," he says. "I went away with the family and have been busy with doing everything else apart from the bike. That will be more the next couple weeks, I'll sit down with the team at the December training camp, then by Christmas I'll have more of an idea in my head.
"I'd prefer to know sooner rather than later," he adds. "I don't know what cut-off I'd give myself but I'd want to know early on rather than decide in, say, July."
Thomas has spoken about the Giro, and he has also hinted at bidding farewell to the Classics, where he made a name for himself before his emergence as a Grand Tour contender. Those two springtime pursuits would seem incompatible in one season, and would surely take two years to tick off.
But then again, Thomas appears slightly jaded by some aspects of professional cycling, chief among them contract talks.
"It's probably 50-50 at the minute," he says.
Whatever he ends up deciding, you can be sure he'll just crack on with it.
