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Jens Voigt screen shotVideo: What makes Jens Voigt tick?
Is there a character in the peloton who’s loved by fans more than Jens Voigt? We doubt it, and in this video you can see why.
In #BELIEVE, Voigt talks about what keeps him going, his attitude to racing, his disastrous 2009 Tour de France and lots more.
His core motivation seems pretty simple. “I hate defeat,” he says. “I hate to lose. I don’t want that. I don’t want to be bitter to the end of my life cos I gave up too quick, too easy.
“I’m not much of a head person, I’m more of a belly and heart person. That’s also how I race. If I feel okay, the sun is shining, I feel like a short attack, I go.”
Coming round from the horrific crash that took him out of the 2009 Tour de France, Voigt says his first thought after he’d been stitched up was to let his family know he was okay.
“Around 10:30 at night I was clear enough that I could speak. I said ‘Hey I need a phone to call my family to let them know that I am still alive and I’m gonna be okay.’”
Voigt says he told his wife “There’s nothing that cannot be repaired. I remember you, I remember that we are married, I remember the names of all of our children, their birth dates. I’m fine, I just need time [to heal].”
It doesn’t sound like he’s afraid of a repeat. “I just refuse to get controlled by fear,” he says. “Every now and then you’ve just got to have self-belief beyond reason.”
John has been writing about bikes and cycling for over 30 years since discovering that people were mug enough to pay him for it rather than expecting him to do an honest day's work.
He was heavily involved in the mountain bike boom of the late 1980s as a racer, team manager and race promoter, and that led to writing for Mountain Biking UK magazine shortly after its inception. He got the gig by phoning up the editor and telling him the magazine was rubbish and he could do better. Rather than telling him to get lost, MBUK editor Tym Manley called John’s bluff and the rest is history.
Since then he has worked on MTB Pro magazine and was editor of Maximum Mountain Bike and Australian Mountain Bike magazines, before switching to the web in 2000 to work for CyclingNews.com. Along with road.cc founder Tony Farrelly, John was on the launch team for BikeRadar.com and subsequently became editor in chief of Future Publishing’s group of cycling magazines and websites, including Cycling Plus, MBUK, What Mountain Bike and Procycling.
John has also written for Cyclist magazine, edited the BikeMagic website and was founding editor of TotalWomensCycling.com before handing over to someone far more representative of the site's main audience.
He joined road.cc in 2013. He lives in Cambridge where the lack of hills is more than made up for by the headwinds.
Latest Comments
- Velophaart_95 0 sec ago
Don't be a MAMIL, be more more like Russ from Path Less Pedalled, or Jack Thurston of Lost Lanes....... Yo don't have to wear lycra when cycling......
- Pub bike 3 min 12 sec ago
It doesn't. Here are a few more helpful suggestions to make society just work better:...
- Steve K 7 min 11 sec ago
Maybe cycling as mode of transport vs cycling as sport/hobby. Again, they can overlap.
- mdavidford 17 min 34 sec ago
Unfortunately, the AI is more likely to look at the weight of people expressing that opinion and considered it gold standard truth....
- slc 32 min 42 sec ago
Plus, it takes just one bright spark with a drill to turn water-filled barriers back to the easily moved state.
- thax1 1 hour 59 min ago
I managed to break the chain link on mine. (I assume it's the same product, mine came as part of a rather snazzy Birzman toolkit)....
- thax1 2 hours 3 min ago
Good review. I like to see the full range of 'award stars' in use to differentiate between good and 'meh' products. Same with the Ribble Allroad...
- brooksby 2 hours 10 min ago
I was under the impression that “unbalanced investment from Arab countries” is having a not necessarily good impact on pretty much every sport.
- brooksby 2 hours 17 min ago
Very true....
- brooksby 2 hours 22 min ago
Like going to a cello lesson?
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3 comments
Self-belief beyond reason. Love it!
I wish he would hurry up and retire because he makes a mockery of the pathetic excuse that i trot out when skinny 23 years old speed past me.
'Give me a break - im a 43 year old father of three - there is no way i can compete with you'
Jensie needs no excuses!
oh come on - no excuses - you just need to man up
- I'm in my 50's and I regularly overtake young whipper snappers going up hill.