Rory Sutherland has made the jump from supporting Alberto Contador at Tinkoff-Saxo in 2014 to supporting Alejandro Valverde and Nairo Quintana at Movistar for 2015 this offseason.

“This opportunity popped up, the conversations started earlier in the year, as they do, and as things progressed and I think Eusebio (Unzué, Movistar team manager), the sports directors and some of the riders saw what my job was and I think what I do and what I bring to a team would fit in here a little better because it’s a different structure of riders. There is no full Classics team, but there are a lot of climbers, whereas I’m not a full climber, I consider myself to be in that middle area and can look after people in a different way and I think and I hope and they hope as well that the place I will have here is going to be one that will be incredibly fruitful to the organization,” he told PEZ Cycling News.

“It’s funny in one sense because there might not have been the opportunity for me to stay where I was. Like a lot of riders you get concerned about the future, I have two kids; we live in Europe and if I don’t have a job we would have to go back to the States where my wife’s from, change everything again. So when you go down that path of thinking about it and the World No. 1 team wants to hire you all of a sudden, your like; “OK this works out really well!” So it’s not really a bad change, when you live in Spain and it’s a team you’ve respected and there’s something really cool about it, for me, because it’s a very difficult niche to break into. This is a very, very Spanish orientated team; the turn over of riders in the last 35 years is not great. Riders don’t seem to leave to go to bigger teams, they seem to stop or if they don’t fulfill the ideas or the requirements of the team they are obviously let go, but they are not going to a bigger team from here. Alex (Dowsett) sort of paved the way, broken it open a little bit more to make the step of a full English speaker coming into a team like this and by the time he finishes this contract he’s on that will be five years with this team, he’s obviously enjoying it.”

Then, once contact was made, Sutherland said it was all up to his agent to sort things out with Movistar and by the World Championships in Ponferrada, Spain, it was virtually a done deal. Sutherland also admitted that living in Girona in Spain will undoubtedly help him fir in better with the team, especially when there are only three real “foreigners” on the team. Sutherland also says that within a few days of meeting the team, he noticed subtle differences between Tinkoff-Saxo and his new employers.

“You notice it in the first couple of days, it’s a hard thing to put your finger on, it’s not saying its better to do things this way or that way. At Tinkoff we were really happy and we had a good fun group, but it was different from this group. I think one of the main parts of that is that at Tinkoff-Saxo we had twelve or thirteen nationalities run together. Whereas here there are six or seven foreigners out of twenty-eight, the rest are Spanish or Colombian. Three are Italians, which leaves three of us, me, Alex and the German guy Jasha Sütterlin, so there are three real ‘extranjeros’ yeah real ones. So it’s different, but I’ve found in the first couple of days here that there are no egos. I’m not saying that at Tinkoff-Saxo there was this big ego of Alberto Contador, but there is a group that goes with him and it’s a different way and with Bjarne it’s a different way of management and here it just seems that you have this real family. You get that more when you hold a specific amount of rider together for a time. You can sit at the dinner table and Quintana is throwing food across and hitting people from a distance, you kind of forget he’s this 24 year old, he hasn’t had a childhood of having fun still and Valverde is the same. They want to joke around when it’s time to joke around, but you can see from history that when its time to be serious its serious. It’s a different way, both ways are fine for me, but its just how it works on the road I guess.”

Suthelrand says that despite being different people, he got on well with Bjarne Riis.

“I had a good relationship with Bjarne, but when you don’t race so much in that program, he’s running an organization of, including staff, of 80 people. I had a good relationship with him but our personalities are definitely very different.”

Rory Sutherland is also in a great place to judge how different racing is in Europe, Asia and America, having spent various seasons racing on all three continents.

“I’ve been around the block and different Continents. One of the benefits of that has been; growing up here (in Europe) at a younger age in the terms of 18 or 19 years old to 25, then to go away and returning you can see the changes, the teams have become more international. English is becoming more prominent and that comes from the huge investment from Orica and the Sky idea and international teams coming on. Professionalism is becoming bigger and bigger, but the interesting thing, which I was talking about with Matthew Hayman at the Worlds, is that in cycling, obviously in the last the last five to ten years things have changed, as we all know, in a good and positive manner. You can see these young guys getting opportunities and doing well at a younger age, which is fantastic, but the old guard, guy’s like Hayman know exactly what they are doing are dyeing off a bit, everyone is coming to the end of their career. I think the next five years will be interesting. If you take away these guys, like Lastras in this team, you take him away, take Matthew Hayman away and Niki Sorensen at Tinkoff-Saxo, your overall management of the riders on the road disappears. So cycling might change again.”

Sutherland isn’t sure if he will be able to start the Tour Down Under, his home WorldTour race in January, if he is going to peak for the Tour de France. His participation will all depend on what Movistar tells him to do.

“We have spoken about it, but it’s dependent on what the main goal is. I can go to Australia, but if my goal is in June or July they want me to take it easy in Australia. I said; firstly it’s not possible to take it easy there. That’s another big change in the last six or seven years, you can’t go to a race and take it easy. Every single race from the Tour Down Under to the Japan Cup is full gas. There is no 'lets ease into things' like there used to be. That’s the first part of it, the second part of it; if I go to Australia it’s my home race and I will want to perform. I’m not going to want to ride in the groupetto or the second group; I’m going to push myself too hard. So basically that’s a question for Eusebio and the management; lets just get the goal first and work back from it. My talents, I believe and they believe, and what our alignment of goals is not just in relevance to the calendar, but to help Alejandro and Nairo in whatever area. It’s the benefit of being able to climb pretty well for a big guy, is that I can get through Pais Basque and Catalonia, I don’t have any issues. And then you go to Holland and Belgium and do Harelbeke or Waregem with these guys to get ready for the Tour stages, I can do that. I speak the language there, I also grew up on those roads, I know the roads, it doesn’t mean I want to do them, but I can adapt to different things. My goal and my job is to support them in every race, If I finish 80th in every race I don’t give a crap, its not my job to win. If the opportunity arises, of course I will take it, however I’m old enough and smart enough to know where my talents lie and if I give 100% in that instead of 95% and thinking about another race or about myself then the team and myself will get more out of it. I’ll be happier too and I’ll feel I have given something to the team and made a difference to what we are trying to do.”

In fact, Sutherland, despite being Australian, says he hardly spends anytime in the country anymore because of his schedules.

“The Tour Down Under this year was the first time in seven years I think. I’ve got a wife and two kids, our son is in school and we don’t like to take him out of it. I love Australia and I miss the friends I had growing up, but at the same time it’s a long arse way to go and I don’t have a home there, I’d be staying at mum and dad’s house, which is a little different. I’m 32, I’ve had my own house for the best part of 13 years, you go from making your own decisions and then you cant.”

Talking of his July goals, the 32 year old would love to be on the startling of the Tour de France in Utrecht come the summer.

“Like every rider I want to, of course I would love to. It was one of the issues I had in 2014, I said to the team, you take the nine best riders for the race and everybody said that’s what would happen, but in the end that didn’t happen for personal or political reasons or whatever. I’m not happy with the way that works, I think in this team (Movistar) they take the best guys for a specific job and its not about who your mates are, its not about what’s good for a sponsor necessarily, but if you want to win a race you have to put a group together and do that. I was disappointed to not be in that team last year after riding all spring for that specific job and doing a good job for the guys who needed it, being in the Ardennes Classics with Kreuziger or Catalonia and Pais Basque and those races with Alberto. Of course that’s my goal, it’s going to be Alex’s goal, it’s going to be three quarters of the teams goal, but again I’m realistic enough to know that if I’m not good enough to do a job or if someone is better, I will be the first person to step back and say, take the guy who is good for it. I don’t need to do the Tour de France, a lot of people all they want to is just ride the Tour de France, say they finished it and done fuck all in it or it doesn’t fit in with who they are and their whole season is screwed.”