This episode is brought to you by Laka Bike Insurance , the specialist bike insurers This week, Robyn and Will are joined by Ned Boulting. Having started out covering football on Sky Sports, Ned joined the ITV Sports team in 2001 and soon became a reporter for their Tour de France coverage, albeit that hasn't stopped him popping up on Olympics coverage, and one of his favourite unsung sports, darts. Today, alongside co-host David Millar, Ned is the voice of the Tour for countless millions of vie...
Jun 26, 2025•1 hr 15 min
This episode is brought to you by the Insta360 GO 3S action camera This week, James and Will are joined by ex-pro Levi Leipheimer. Levi turned pro in 1997 and in 2000 hit the big time with US Postal, riding as a teammate of Lance Armstrong. Stints at Rabobank, Astana and Radioshack followed, during which time he won the Tour de Suisse, three Tours of California, the Dauphine and two stages of the Vuelta a España, finishing second in Spain in 2008. His last contract at QuickStep in 2012 was cut s...
Jun 12, 2025•1 hr 11 min
This episode is brought to you by the Insta360 GO 3S action camera This week, James and Will are joined by the superest of super domestiques, Welshman Luke Rowe. As road captain at Ineos Grenediers (nee Team Sky), Rowe helped win countless Grand Tours over more than a decade at the British team. However complications from a crash forced Rowe to retire last season, and here he talks about how that decision played out, and about reconstructing his life after pro-riding. In this episode, Luke also ...
May 29, 2025•1 hr 15 min
This episode is brought to you by the Insta360 X5 action camera This week, James is joined by none other than Bradley Wiggins and cricket legend Ian Botham, who on 15th and 16th September will be riding the Sir Bradley Wiggins Cycle Challenge for Beefy's Charity Foundation ( sign up to ride here , more details below). In this episode, Ian and Brad compare notes on 1980s cricket versus 2010s cycling (spoiler: there was more beer and misbehaviour in cricket), their experiences in the limelight, th...
May 16, 2025•1 hr 10 min
This episode is brought to you by the Insta360 X5 action camera This week, Will and Robyn are joined by Welsh track cycling star, Emma Finucane. At just 21 years old, Emma was the first British woman to take three medals in a single Games - including team sprint gold - since track and field athlete Mary Rand in 1964. In winning that gold at Paris 2024, her and teammates Sophie Capewell and Katy Marchant broke the world record not once but an astonishing three times, cementing Emma as the fastest...
May 01, 2025•1 hr
This week James and Will are Fran Millar, possibly the most influential woman in British cycling. Today Fran is CEO at Rapha, but her long CV includes managing Geraint Thomas and Mark Cavendish; a decade at Team Sky/Ineos, in which she became 'head of winning behaviours'; operations director for Eliud Kipchoge’s sub-2hr marathon record; and then CEO at clothing brand Belstaff. She is also David Millar’s sister, but really that’s just a footnote to a fascinating career. In this episode, Fran talk...
Apr 17, 2025•1 hr 24 min
On this week's episode James and Will are joined by author and journalist Chris Sidwells to discuss the history of pro cycling's Holy Week, the Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix. We talk about the origins of the races, the working class heroes that rode in the early editions, the legends of the 60s and 70s, and how today's riders compare. Chris is the nephew of British cycling legend Tom Simpson, who won the Tour of Flanders in 1961, so naturally we spoke about Simpson's career, life and tragic...
Apr 03, 2025•1 hr 20 min
In this week's episode, Robyn and James are joined by Connie Carpenter Phinney, who is 1984 became the first ever Olympic Women's Road Race gold medal winner. Connie charts her career from 14 year-old winter Olympic speed skater to champion road cyclist, a sporting career which saw her win multiple national titles and dominate races such as the Coors Classic. Married to fellow American cyclist Davis Phinney, mother to ex-pro Taylor Phinney and mother-in-law to reigning Tour de France Femmes cham...
Mar 20, 2025•1 hr 23 min
This week Will and James are joined by Dr Aron D'Souza, president of the Enhanced Games. Billed as 'the ultimate demonstration of what the human body can do', the Enhanced Games seeks in part to answer that age old pub question, 'What if athletes were allowed to dope, how much better would they be?' It's a divisive topic unlike any other in sport, but having secured funding - including from Donald Trump Jnr - D'Souza and his team are confident the first edition of the Enhanced Games will run wit...
Mar 06, 2025•1 hr 16 min
In this week's episode James is joined by Phil Burt, former head of physiotherapy at British Cycling and Team Sky and the man who literally wrote the book on bike fit . They discuss micro adjusters and macro absorbers, how riders' needs and wants are changing, and the affect of indoor cycling on the body. Phil also explains the theory behind shorter cranks, the advantages, and how Bradley Wiggins was already on 165mm cranks at the Rio Olympics in 2016. Interview starts at 10:38. ----------------...
Feb 20, 2025•1 hr 15 min
In this week’s episode, James and Will are joined by Spanish ultra-cyclist and runner, Juan Dual. As a teenager, Juan was diagnosed with familial adenomatous polyposis, a rare form of cancer that attacks the digestive system, and in the decades since he’s had his stomach, colon, large intestine, rectum and gallbladder removed. And yet Juan continues to compete in some of the most gruelling ultra-events on the planet, including El Kilometro Cero, 920km from Madrid to Cape Finisterre in under 100 ...
Feb 06, 2025•1 hr 15 min
In this week's episode, Robyn and Will are joined by ultra-cyclist Lael Wilcox, who set the world record for the fastest circumnavigation of the globe by bicycle in September 2024, cycling over 29,100km in 108 days, 12 hours and 12 minutes. Here Lael explains how to plan such a feat, the highs and lows of solitude on a bike, their fear, resilience and growth, and the unexpected emotional responses after achieving such a goal. Interview starts at 13.36 ------------------ This episode is brought t...
Jan 23, 2025•1 hr 15 min
This week James and Will are joined by Michael Crawley, doctor of anthropology, sub-2h 20min marathon runner and award-winning author. In this episode, we discuss Michael’s latest book, To the Limit , which explores the meaning of endurance – why we do it and what it means to us culturally – through the eyes of Mexican running tribes, fell runners and professional athletes. We talk about the Enhanced Games – one man’s bid to an all drugs allowed ‘olympic games’; the pros and lamentable cons of s...
Jan 09, 2025•1 hr 25 min
This week James and Will are joined by Andy Schleck, Tour de France winner, brother to Frank and victim in the infamous chaingate affair, in which Alberto Contador rode past a stricken Schleck – the yellow jersey wearer having suffered a dropped chain – to snatch the 2010 Tour de France top step. Two years later, Schleck was retroactively awarded the win after Contador was banned for doping, but how does that sit with the 39-year-old Luxembourgish today? In a wonderfully candid chat, Schleck exp...
Dec 26, 2024•1 hr 24 min
Pitchforks at the ready. On this week's episode Will is joined by Cyclist's own Ewan Wilson and writer Felix Lowe to review the 2024 pro cycling season and look forward to what may come next. Along the way we find out the lucky winners of some of Felix's annual alternative awards – which you can find in full in Cyclist magazine issue 159, out now – including 'The Manchester United Bin Fire Award'. No prizes for guessing the recipient of that one. They also discuss whether Tadej Pogačar can repea...
Dec 12, 2024•1 hr 34 min
This week Will is joined by two-time Olympic gold medallist and World Champion in three different disciplines Tom Pidcock. After a turbulent season that included highs at Amstel Gold Race and Paris 2024 as well as very public lows after falling out with Ineos Grenadiers management in October. Will sat down with Pidcock in November to talk about his rapid rise to power and his rapid descending skills as well as what's on his agenda for 2025: full road focus or more mountain bike side quests? Pidc...
Nov 28, 2024•48 min
This week Robyn and Will are joined by track superstar Joanna Rowsell. Joanna was picked up in 2004 by British Cycling's Talent Team, which visited her school looking for new talent, and just four years later she won her first World Championships in the team pursuit. Three more team pursuit world titles followed plus a fifth in the individual pursuit, but it was the Olympics that made her a household name. Riding alongside Laura Trott (latterly Kenny) and Dani King (latterly Rowe), Joanna won tw...
Nov 14, 2024•1 hr 17 min
This week James and Will are joined by Spartacus himself, Fabian Cancellara. Over a career spanning two decades, Cancellara established himself as arguably the greatest Classics rider and time-triallist of his generation, winning multiple Monuments, world, national and Olympic titles and Grand Tour stages. With a cool demeanour and effortless riding style, the Swiss cemented himself as the patron of the peloton, the guy everyone looked up to, listened to and wanted to impress. Today Cancellara o...
Oct 31, 2024•1 hr 18 min
This week Will and James are joined by Peter Sagan. When Sagan burst onto the scene in the early 2010s he was heralded as the greatest talent of his generation, and so he proved to be. 121 professional victories later he'd notched up three World Championships, seven Tour de France green jerseys, multiple Grand Tour stages and national titles plus a Tour of Flanders and a Paris-Roubaix cobble. Famed for his dry wit, flamboyant riding style and antics on and off the bike - from wheelies to running...
Oct 17, 2024•1 hr 11 min
This week James and Will are joined by Ned Boulting: commentator, pundit, author, stage performer, part-time comic and all-round superb raconteur. Ned talks about the 2011 season (the star of his new The Road Book 2011 almanac), from a knife-edge Tour de France with Cadel Evans snatching a last gasp victory, to a Vuelta a España that announced a rising star in the shape of Chris Froome. Conversation then turns to this year's Tour, from Cav's history-making win no.35 to the imperial form of Tadej...
Oct 03, 2024•1 hr 27 min
This week James and Will are joined by none other than Tadej Pogačar, currently the greatest rider on the planet having this year triumphed - and decimated all-comers - at both the Giro d'Italia and Tour de France, a feat last achieved by Marco Pantani in 1998. Next up the World Championships and a potential Triple Crown - can Pogačar join that elite club of Eddy Merckx and Stephen Roche? We sat down with Pogačar as he recce'd the World's course in Zurich and took on a charity bike ride for Plum...
Sep 19, 2024•1 hr 26 min
This week, James and Will are joined by Nico Roche. Nico was a pro-rider from 2004-2021 during which time he won numerous races including two Vuelta a España stages. His long career saw spells at Team Sky, Saxobank and BMC, though as we learn, it was with French teams AG2R, Crédit Agricole and Cofidis that Nico felt most at home. The Vuelta was Nico's favourite race, so we kick off by asking what makes that race so special, and does it get the respect it deserves? Today, Nico is still very much ...
Sep 05, 2024•1 hr 11 min
This week Will and James are joined by ex-pro turned DS, Chris Lawless. At just 28 years old, Chris is the youngest directeur sportif in pro-cycling, but he's got a whole lot of experience. Cutting his teeth at Team Wiggins and JLT Condor, Chris went on to ride for Team Sky/Ineos, during which time he won the Tour de Yorkshire. As a no-nonsense rider with a stoic mentality, a move into team management naturally followed post-retirement, with Chris taking us a DS position at British Pro-Conti tea...
Aug 22, 2024•1 hr 15 min
This week Will and James are joined by bike design visionary Dimitris Katsanis. Dimitris worked alongside Chris Boardman in the Secret Squirrel Club, creating the pioneering bikes and kit that helped Team GB dominate the 2012 London Games. Ever wondered where the term 'marginal gains' came from? Yep, Dimitris and his colleagues, whose work at the time was so secret not even his boss, one Dave Brailsford, was allowed to know. Across a career spanning three decades and counting, Dimitris has had a...
Aug 08, 2024•1 hr 36 min
This week Will and James are joined by Ribble Rebellion crit rider, Matt Bostock. Matt cut his teeth racing track and road, but now pedals his trade in the crit racing scene. A twice national crit champ and multiple Tour series winner, Matt now races all over the globe. In this episode Matt discusses growing up on the Isle of Man with Mark Cavendish's old mentor for help, throwing elbows in the States against crit superstars Legion (and winning), and why he'll never turn to gravel. Ever. Maybe. ...
Jul 25, 2024•1 hr 18 min
This week, Robyn and Will are joined by Mikkel Honoré, Danish pro at WorldTour team EF Education-Easypost. Mikkel talks us through the differences between a team like EF and one like his previous team, Quick-Step; how a small (and decidedly flat) nation like Denmark has produced so many great cyclists; and his thoughts on Pogacar, the Tour, the importance of the World Championships and his love of NBA basketball. Interview begins at 4.38 ------------------ Did you know Cyclist is also stunning m...
Jul 11, 2024•51 min
This week James and Will are joined by Carlton Kirby, Eurosport's voice of the Tour de France. In this episode, Carlton looks ahead to the Tour de France 2024, and talks us through the course, all the crucial stages, the likely turning points and the surprise heroes. We discuss the inside track on Cavendish's chances of beating the Merckx record; who will triumph between Pogačar and Vingegaard (but listen out for a surprise contender); if could it come down to the wire on the last day's time-tri...
Jun 27, 2024•1 hr 31 min
This week Will and James are joined by the founder and owner of Factor Bikes, Rob Gitelis. Rob is originally from Miami but moved to Taiwan more than twenty years ago to start building bikes. Originally he ran a factory which built bikes for brands such as Cervélo, Scott and Canyon, but in 2015 he decided to go it alone with the purchase of Factor Bikes. In this episode, Rob discusses how the bike industry really works, why things are so expensive, what progress lies in store, and what he believ...
Jun 13, 2024•1 hr 12 min
This week James and Will are joined by gravel pro, Danni Shrosbree. Danni became British gravel national champ in 2022, then in 2023 raced to a storming fourth place on her debut at Unbound Gravel, arguably the world’s hardest gravel race - 200 unsupported miles (320km) across the Kansas prairies. Danni tells us why this was one of the most chaotic races of her life, from shacking up with strangers (the hotels were full) to having her race all but ended by freak storms. And she didn’t even pack ...
May 30, 2024•1 hr 2 min
Will and James are joined by Ford RideLondon-Essex race director Kevin Nash ahead of this year's event, which takes place on May 26th 2024. Kevin discusses the challenges designing the route, from circumventing weddings to dealing with litter; explains how to deal with peloton physics and the human racing psyche; and divests the secrets of managing thousands of riders and staff, all from a secret control room in London. Interview begins at 7.50 Ford RideLondon-Essex takes place on 26th May, with...
May 16, 2024•1 hr 16 min
