He guided Tadej Pogacar to his first Tour de France victory. He helped Mark Cavendish become one of the most prolific stage winners of a generation. He arrived in Belgium at seventeen with $300 from his mother and a bike, and figured out the rest. Allan Peiper may not be a household name outside the sport, but inside it, he is one of the most quietly consequential figures of the last five decades.
Host Molly Hurford and inGamba creative director James Startt sit down with the Australian-born directeur sportif, now a strategic consultant to Red Bull Bora Hansgrohe, for a conversation that ranges from crashing on couches as part of French amateur team ACBB in the late 1970s to the parking lot at Planche des Belles Filles in 2020, where he crouched behind a car and cried after Pogacar crossed the line. In between: twelve years of cancer treatment, a chemotherapy recovery that ran straight into the most important Tour de France of his career, and a front-row seat to what it actually takes to build a grand tour winner.
In this episode:
- Leaving Australia at seventeen with $300, and racing the Track World Championships in the US on a borrowed bike—and still getting silver
- What he saw when a nineteen-year-old Pogacar losing his passport in Australia and stayed completely calm
- The 2020 Tour: hiding Pogacar from the race lead, the bike change zone at kilometer 32.6, the junior cassette on Planche des Belles Filles, and why Jumbo-Visma didn’t do their recon
- Twelve years managing prostate cancer alongside a career at the highest level of the sport
- What it took to get Remco Evenepoel to the Tour de France as a 2.0 version of himself
- Why VO2 max alone is not enough, and what he looks for instead in young talent
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