Luke Rowe laid out the reasoning behind his surprise switch to French WorldTour team Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale when he spoke at Rouleur Live on Friday, admitting that staying with the British squad would no longer allow him to perform at his best.
After announcing his retirement in May, the Welshman confirmed last month that he’d depart Ineos Grenadiers after 13 years and join Decathlon AG2R as a sports director.
Rowe had played a key role within Team Sky/Ineos Grenadiers as they delivered countless successes for more than a decade, with the 34-year-old part of several Grand Tour-winning squads.
However, now no longer under contract with the British WorldTour team, Rowe was honest and open about his decision to head for pastures new when talking on stage at the event with broadcaster Matt Stephens.
“It was a tough move, I honestly thought I’d never leave Ineos Grenadiers” he admitted, at the beginning of their chat.
Rowe went on to reveal the thought process behind the switch, stating: “I found I perform best on the bike when I’m uncomfortable. If you get too comfortable, you can go on a hamster wheel and go through the motions a bit, which I kind of fear for myself. If I stayed at Ineos, I would just become too comfortable.”
Having spent his entire professional career with the British outfit, the Welshman also pointed to the fact that being around the team for so long had impacted his personal development.
“You know everyone. You know the way everything works. You know all the riders, and a lot of them, not just colleagues and mates, that was also a tricky dynamic.”
Yet, aside from wanting a fresh start and a space to push himself, Rowe reiterated that there was not one, all-consuming reason for his departure.
“People say, ‘Well, why did you leave then?’ There's no real reason. And obviously, what's going on, whatever, blah, blah, blah, there's no real reason,” he explained while backing the team to bounce back from their current slump in form. “There's a good bunch of guys, a good bunch of people, and I believe they really want to do good stuff again.”
Keen to “rip up the script” and try something different, Rowe also admits that the role with Decathlon AG2R, as with any job, poses a risk in itself.
“The easy option [staying at Ineos] is that you know everything and it’s comfortable. Or there’s this curveball where you go 'phwoar.' Let’s go for it and see what happens, I might be unemployed after six months,” he added with a wry smile.
Joining Decathlon at a ‘tricky time’
The gamble that Rowe hints at could be seen as his new suitors' current purple patch, with the team scoring 30 wins in 2024 - their third most successful season ever, and best since 1999.
“I’ve actually joined the team at quite a tricky time really, because they've won maybe like 10-15 races [each year] and then this year they've won [around] 30. So to join the year after that is tough, because how do you follow up an amazing, great, successful year, you're almost setting something to fail,” he suggested to Stephens.
Rowe pointed to the French team’s long-term vision as the key deal-clincher.
He revealed that he had spoken with several WorldTour teams after deciding to hang up his wheels when his Classics campaign was cut short following a nasty crash at E3. However, no one compared to Decathlon when it came to their short- and long-term plans.
“It's amazing, after speaking to so many teams - and I’m not on about Ineos, it’s not focused on them - lots of teams just go through the motions year on year, like ‘Let's try and go to every race, to try and win. Let's get success.’
"There's no one, two, five, 10-year plan and how we're going to get there, but Decathlon AG2R were spot on.”
“I went into them and they had this presentation and showed me everything, and it's like, ‘this is where we are now’. And actually, it was really realistic with where they are now. They were saying, ‘see all these wins we've had this year. It looks great on paper. That's not where we are. We've batted above [our weight].
"We've got lucky. We've had some very opportunist wins.’ They're like, ‘We've won this, but that's not actually where we are,’ he recounted to the audience, before adding “I really bought into that.”
Rouleur Live ran from November 14-16, featuring dozens of cycling stars and over 80 brand exhibitors at the Truman Brewery in London. The event will return in 2025 for a tenth edition.
