Jay Vine: If I don't win another race from now on, I'd still be happy

Speaking on the eve of his fourth season as a professional cyclist, Jay Vine is a rider with an eye on the future. In fact, he has already pencilled in his retirement date - 2030, should you want to know - but he is also a man with no pretences about him.

As such, he is quick to appraise and honest to a fault when reflecting on his first few years as a pro, as well as clear about his plans for the future.

There is a 10-year plan for Vine: "Once I have got that 2030 contract, then it's feet up and retiring," he says - only half in jest.

"The goal is 10 years and then back to Australia. But obviously, there's a long time between now and then," he adds when speaking to GCN at UAE Team Emirates' training camp in La Nucia, Spain.

There are specific goals between now and 2030 for the Australian, but time and time again he returns to what he deems a "modest goal" of getting to 10 years in the professional peloton. Unlike some of the other winners in the pro ranks, victories are not the be-all and end-all for Vine. Rather, he has his eyes set on a career well spent in preparation for the years to come as a family man, living back in his homeland.

"At the end of the day, if I don't win another race from now on, I'd be happy because I've got personal family goals in mind as well."

Never shy in answering a question with complete transparency, Vine offers an insight into his familial future when we ask what those personal goals may be.

"To have as many kids as my wife will let me!" he exclaims, with a smile. "At the end of the day, family is a big thing for me, I haven't got one yet. And at the end of the day when you're on your deathbed, that Tour Down Under plate that I’ve got isn't going to comfort me. It's going to be the future generation."

Read more: Homesickness, solo parenting and changed perspectives - the experience of fatherhood as a professional cyclist

As Vine mentions, 2023 yielded a home victory in the Tour Down Under for the man from Queensland. Other high points were few and far between in a year marked by illness, injury and misfortune, but as Vine remarks, he has achieved two of his career goals this season.

The first was, unsurprisingly, to win the Tour Down Under, which he achieved in his first stage race as a UAE Team Emirates rider back in January. The second was to wear the green and gold colours of Australia whilst racing in Europe, an honour that Vine was able to tick off having won the Australian National Championships time trial, also at the beginning of the year.

© Velo Collection (TDW) / Getty Images

Jay Vine and his wife Bre are all smiles at the Tour Down Under, though Vine knows that his family will far outweigh any personal accomplishments in 50 years' time

Elsewhere, highlights were hard to pinpoint in a season that Vine would rather forget at times. A knee injury sustained at the UAE Tour marred his preparation for the Giro d'Italia, which saw him come down with illness anyway, whilst crashes took him out of both the Tour de Suisse and Vuelta a España later in the season.

However, after last winter was spent in his homeland, 2023 has seen Vine and his wife Bre find their feet as settled citizens of Andorra, where many of the peloton's biggest talents like to reside. Some Australians struggle to make their peace with living halfway across the world in service to their career, but for Vine, the move has been nothing but positive.

"I don't have anything in Australia, so there's no real rush for me to go back every year," he says. "I don't expect, with family commitments later down the track, to be galavanting around Europe in my 40s. So I'm trying to live it up in Europe as much as possible. I'll do my Australian thing when I'm retired. But right now I just want to focus on Europe."

This no-nonsense approach to work mirrors that of Vine's father, who moved Jay's four younger siblings to Canberra during their childhood. At the time, his father was a pilot and Vine actually stayed behind in Queensland to finish his studies.

Nowadays, the 28-year-old finds himself settled not just because of the support of his wife, but also as a result of the faith that UAE Team Emirates have demonstrated in him.

"Probably the highlight [of 2023] is I've got four more years on this team, you know, so at the end of 2027, that puts me seven years into my 10-year goal," Vine notes. "That's one of the good things about this season, you know, then I’ve fully settled in Andorra and I’m building my career."

Vine grateful for job security in light of failed Jumbo-Quick Step merger

Vine's first two seasons as a professional came with Alpecin-Fenix (now Alpecin-Deceuninck), having memorably won the Zwift Academy in 2020, and after an impressive start to life in the peloton, the Australian earned a move to UAE Team Emirates for 2023 on an initial two-year contact.

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But rather surprisingly, only five months into this 24-month deal, Vine was offered, and signed, a brand-new deal which now runs until 2027. The Australian is under no illusion that he enjoys a luxury not afforded to most of the peloton: long-term, secure employment.

"I've got pretty damn good job security. At the end of the day, any of these teams can fall over tomorrow," he notes. "As we saw with [Soudal] Quick-Step, that team could have disappeared, [Mikel] Landa had just signed a contract and then two months later, they could be gone. So I've probably got the best job security that you can hope for in the sport."

© Velo Collection (TDW) / Getty Images

Jay Vine rode the Giro d'Italia and Vuelta a España for UAE Team Emirates in 2023, but could not show his true self in either

Vine is making reference to the well-documented merger saga that embroiled Jumbo-Visma and Soudal Quick-Step just a couple of months ago. In the end, Quick-Step's future remains as a team in their own right and Jumbo-Visma will become Visma-Lease a Bike for the foreseeable, but Vine does not hesitate in calling the situation "bizarre," to say the least.

"[It was] more of a ‘how is this even possible? How is this legal?’. In any other industry, there'd be inquiries and insurance companies would be getting called. That's the sport and that's why you have got to invest as much as possible as early as possible."

• Read more: Jumbo-Visma and Soudal Quick-Step merger reportedly cancelled

Clearly a man with his eye on the ball when it comes to cycling's often precarious financial model - Vine also mentions the B&B Hotels fiasco which briefly left Mark Cavendish without a contract last winter - the Australian admits that it was not a hard decision to commit his future to UAE Team Emirates when an early contract extension came calling back in May.

"The other issue is [when] trying to hold out for the best deal possible, sometimes you get left with nothing," he says. "So I got the opportunity to take a four-year deal. Maybe if I hold out longer and longer, maybe it's a better package, but I was always that person when I watched Deal or No Deal or Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, I was always like ‘Alright, that's enough, lock it in, take what you can get.’"

In hindsight, Vine probably penned his fresh terms at the perfect time, with the climber struggling for any spot of luck after his contract extension until his final race of the season, where he won stage 7 of the Tour of Türkiye.

© Sprint Cycling Agency

In taking the victory on stage 7, Jay Vine also sealed his win in the mountains classification in Turkey

Being part of the UAE Team Emirates not only brings its benefits in terms of their readiness to sign riders to long-term deals, but also in the professionalism that has delivered them the status of number one UCI WorldTeam.

The team operates at the very top of the sport and through the likes of Adam Yates, Tadej Pogačar and Vine himself, will be hoping to topple Visma-Lease a Bike in the Grand Tours through 2024.

• Read more: UAE Team Emirates and SD Worx top UCI world rankings

"There's definitely good money behind us and my job security is probably better than most because of the backing... But also, once you sort of know the routes that are going to be raced [in the Grand Tours], picking your riders and getting them prepared. We're very, I guess, progressive in that sense, in planning our seasons long-term," Vine says.

On that note, the Australian already has his targets for 2024 firmly earmarked: the Giro d'Italia and Vuelta a España.

'The Vuelta suits me best, I love racing in the heat,' says Vine

Both the Giro and Vuelta were on Vine's race programme for 2023, but as already noted, in neither race was he able to showcase his full abilities. Between the Tour Down Under and his late-season success in Turkey, Vine's 2023 was largely a write off in terms of being anything other than a willing teammate. As such, his goals for next year appear modest to begin with.

"I want to ride my bike without injuring myself, that's for starters, to do a full season," Vine says bluntly. "Hopefully I will be useful past the first week in a Grand Tour this year."

But there should be no doubt that with a solid winter of training under his belt, first in the south of Spain and then in his adopted home of Andorra through the New Year, Vine is capable of much more than simply making his way through the Grand Tours. In the Giro d'Italia, he will be one of Pogačar's most valuable climbing super domestiques, and in the Vuelta a España, the Australian should have the freedom to try his hand at a GC push.

• Read more: Vine eyes up the Vuelta a España, but first looks forward to supporting Pogačar at the Giro d'Italia

© Velo Collection (TDW) / Getty Images

Vine was able to wear the yellow and gold of Australia as national champion during time trials this season

In naming their provisional teams for the Grand Tours whilst still in the winter months, UAE Team Emirates are certainly following the trend set by Jumbo-Visma in recent years. Of course, injury and alike could alter these plans in the months preceding each race, but for the moment, such long-term planning offers riders the assurance needed to appropriately tailor their winter training.

"There's no need to be on good form really until April," admits Vine. "Some other teams, they tell their riders two weeks before the Grand Tour. They're on a long list, there might be 15 riders on a long list for an eight-man squad.

"That's pretty terrible in my book. It’s the way they do it, but I wouldn't like to be part of that process."

At the Vuelta, Vine may team up with fellow teammates João Almeida and Pavel Sivakov, each in a bid to find their spot on the final podium, but unlike the latter, the Australian feels the Spanish Grand Tour suits him the best of the three-week stage races.

This is mainly because of Vine's preference for racing in scorching hot conditions, a trait that has been earned through "lots and lots of sauna", rather than as a result of his Aussie upbringing, as one might expect. Indeed, Vine has spent his professional career determined not to make the same mistake as he did as an amateur.

© Velo Collection (TDW) / Getty Images

Vine is at his best when the sun is shining down on the peloton

"I went to the Philippines to do a [UCI] 2.2 race and paid my own way there," Vine says. "You don’t get paid as a continental rider in Australia, so I forked out a bunch of money to go to this race, and I was definitely not prepared because it was in wintertime Australia, summertime Philippines, and I suffered like a dog for four days.

"Ever since then, I realised ‘okay, just because you come from Australia doesn't mean you're going to be good in the heat.’ So it's been part of my training and work ethic ever since."

Vine dropped out of Le Tour de Filipinas back in 2019 on the final day, having learned a lesson that ultimately taught him a valuable lesson. A little over three years later, the sauna veteran won two stages of the Vuelta a España, outclimbing some of the best riders in the world in the process.

Next year, Vine will be back at the Vuelta and keen to make up for the misfortune of 2023. With the valuable support of his wife and the UAE Team Emirates organisation, who is to say that the Australian can't mount his first crack at a Grand Tour podium?