Luke Rowe wants to change how cycling is shown on TV and doesn’t like how Veloviewer came to be. He says, “Some of those image rights should go to the teams and riders.”

Luke Rowe has been a professional cyclist for twelve years. At the end of the 2024 season, he will no longer be racing. Instead, he will become a sports director at Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale Team for 2025.

But in his chat with Rouleur, the experienced Welshman has answered a number of interesting questions, which were met with the usual interesting answers from the road captain-turned-podcaster-turned-sports director. Someone asked Rowe what he would do to improve riding if he had the power to do so. They tell you, “You’re going to ride your bikes for three weeks, you’re going to pay for the riders and everything else, we’ll film it and promote it, we’ll make a lot of money, and we won’t pay you a dime of the money we sell the footage for.” He answers with some thought: “Some 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.”

In the second part of Rowe’s career, some of the more recent changes to racing haven’t gone over as well with the 34-year-old. The Veloviewer. “These days, everyone knows everything—if you spend enough time, you can click through a whole parcour and see everything,” he says. “But before Veloviewer, you had to be smarter because you didn’t know what was going to happen.” You’d know the wind was coming from the right, but you wouldn’t know if it was exposed or not. That’s why you’d be scanning the hedgeline, woods, and neighborhoods. You were given the job of road captain because you did a better job without Veloviewer. But now, you can click through Veloviewer and know everything, even if you’re not online.

“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’,” he says. “But now that doesn’t count for anything because everyone knows everything.”

As was already said, Rowe plans to stop racing after 2025 and become a sports director at Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale. So, Rouleur asks, “What makes a good DS?” “Peace when things get tough. There is a lot of tension and hostility in the peloton because everyone is busy and on edge. If a DS is yelling, it makes things worse. “You want to calm down riders, which is why I always said Nico Portal was the best DS I’ve ever worked with and maybe even the best DS ever,” Rowe replies. “He got his point across, but he was so calm when he talked to and interacted with people.” He could make you feel good about yourself even when things were going badly.