It’s late, it’s cold, and while most riders are putting their feet up after another arduous day in the saddle, Juanma is still going strong.

After a short conversation with fellow sports director Tejay van Garderen, he heads for a quick meeting with the mechanics, followed by an even faster dinner, before visiting each of his riders individually to see how they’re doing. It’ll be close to midnight before Juanma eventually calls it a day and gets some shut-eye. This is the life of a sports director.

Back in 2000, Juanma was a wide-eyed neo-pro. When he arrived in Italy to join his first pro team, he had no idea if he would last five minutes, let alone a full season. At that point, he realised the vital importance of having a strong and supportive sports director. Without these leaders and role models in his life, Juanma’s long and distinguished racing career may never have taken off.

“One of my first sports directors was Pietro Algeri. He was like a sporting father for me, and Maurizio Piovani was also a very important sports director in my early years. I had a great relationship with both of them. Back then, I was young, a foreign rider in Italy, and I knew nothing about cycling. I didn’t even know if I could make it as a pro rider,” Juanma explains as he sits down after a brief window in his evening schedule opens up.

“Pietro and Maurizio, they taught me everything, and still, to this day, I remember sentences and phrases that they instilled in me, like ‘mai mollare,’ which means ‘never give up.’ There are times when you’re hanging by a thread in the peloton, and there are times when I still hear their voices calling to me on the radio, ‘non mollare, Manuel’ because that’s what they called me in Italy,” he adds.

Those first few years were tough for young Juanma, but he travelled from race to race and used every opportunity to learn from those around him, especially his sports directors. He didn’t know it at the time, but he was building up a bank of knowledge and experience that would not only transform him into one of the most respected riders in the peloton but also lay the foundations of the successful sports director career he has embarked on with EF Education-EasyPost over the last few years. After 26 grand tours as a rider, and with stage wins in all three grand tours, Juanma certainly learned a thing or two about how to read a race and how to express himself to riders on the team.

“As a rider, I wanted to be guided and learn, and I take that approach when talking to our team's riders. I remember the tough moments and the good moments from my career, and I try to apply that knowledge and experience to understand what the riders are going through, both on and off the bike,” he says.

“I always start by asking the riders a series of questions. For example, how much do you want to learn? How much do you want to improve? Do you want to listen if you make a mistake? All these questions are essential because you think you have everything figured out when you come up from a successful career in the U23 ranks. Maybe you’re strong, but it’s always crucial for the rider to understand that there are always areas to improve. The best situation for a sports director is when you work with a rider who has talent but who really wants to learn how to do their job. That’s the perfect combination,” he says with a smile.

For some, the role of a sports director centers on driving a team car, talking on the radio, and offering advice about the race route, but that assessment couldn’t be further from the truth. The exciting in-car action displayed online or through TV commentary only offers a snapshot of what a sports director's position truly encompasses. What we see only scratches the surface of what Juanma and his colleagues go through, and all the hard work and preparation takes place well before the engine of a team car is turned on.

For Juanma, directing comes down to understanding each rider on the roster - their strengths, weaknesses, aspirations, and general character off and on the bike.

“I really believe you have to consider that a rider is a person and not just a number. Nowadays, everything is based on numbers and performance, but to get the best out of a person, you need to know them, which means learning more than just their athletic abilities. You need to spend time with them, empathize, and understand how they work. I’m not saying that you need to be best friends for life, but when you talk about performance, you also need to understand a person’s mentality. If you do that, you can get the best out of them and each other,” Juanma says.

Take Juanma’s relationship with Richard Carapaz, for example. The Ecuadorian rider will lead the line for EF Education-EasyPost at the Giro d’Italia this month, and the pair have forged a strong bond over the last two and a half seasons. Such a relationship wasn’t fostered over a race radio or in a team debriefing, but by Juanma taking the time to visit Richie in Ecuador to get to know him as a person.

“The relationship with Richard is great, but at times it’s intense because the sport is intense,” Juanma says.

“It has to be because he’s our leader and we want to help him get the best results possible. I’ve spent a lot of time getting to know him. A year and a half ago, at the end of his first year on the team, I flew to Ecuador and we spent several days together. I wanted to see the real Richard Carapaz. I got to see his environment and where he came from. You might not think that’s important during a bike race, but really, it’s vital. I got to see him with his parents in the fields, near where he was raised. From that experience, I learned that Richie will never be a robot. He isn’t like a rider from Europe and he has this flexibility that you need to help him with. He’s a very good rider, and we’re taking these steps to make him the best possible bike rider. I think everyone loves the way he races, he’s spectacular and unpredictable, and we love that, but we want to help him as a team,” Juanma adds.

Juanma also brings that level of care and attention into his directing when he finally steps into the team car.

“Being in the car is the most relaxed I’ll be. It’s the easiest part. I feel the race, just like I did when I was a rider, so I have a good sense of what will happen. All the preparation and the hard work, which takes place before the race, that’s the hard part, and on this team, we always do all our homework before the race,” he says.

“Reading a race is something you learn, whether in the car or on the road as a rider. When I was racing, I wasn’t the strongest. I was good but never one of the best. That meant whenever I went to a race like the Giro d’Italia and tried for the GC, I always had to invent something to be a top-five or win a stage. I had to develop those skills over many years and through many races. That experience has helped me as a director because I can look at races and find points where you can recover a bit extra, where you need to be aggressive and where you can make a difference,” he says.

All of that experience and dedication keep Juanma motivated as younger riders join the roster year after year. Although the sport has changed massively since Juanma’s first outings as a pro in 2000, he can still see traits of his young self in the athletes who continue progressing at EF Education-EasyPost.

“The younger generation we have on the team is amazing,” he says. "They are super intelligent, they want to listen, and they’ve really impressed me. Our jobs as sports directors are to guide them, shape them, and ensure they get the most out of their careers because the years will go quickly. We’re trying to help cyclists become complete bike riders. Being a sports director isn’t about watts and numbers, and it’s not just about talking on the radio. Watts and numbers are the end of the formula; they are the result. Being a sports director is about bringing together all the parts, all the elements from the rider to the teammates, and all the tactics and preparation. It’s about using your instincts and your best plans and creating something as a team. If we do that, then we make something special, and that’s what we try to do for every race.”

It’s getting even later, and Juanma still has plenty to do before he can call it a night. In the blink of an eye, he’ll be at the Giro d’Italia directing Richie and the rest of the EF Education-EasyPost team as it embarks on another grand tour. Whatever the results, one thing is for sure: with Juanma in the team car, we’ve got a great chance of success.