Cyclist Magazine Podcast

This week, James and Will chat to George Hincapie, the super-est of domestiques, double 'ard Classics man and erstwhile lieutenant to Lance Armstrong.

George was born in Queens, New York City, on 29th June 1973, to cycling-mad Colombian dad, Ricardo. By twelve he was throwing elbows racing adults in Central Park, and by his teens he was showing the talent that would take him to the Olympics in 1992 and his first pro season, with...

This week James and Will are joined by Harry Tanfield. Born and raised in Yorkshire, Harry started racing aged 10, and having caught teams' attention with strong performances at races like Junior Paris-Roubaix, he turned professional aged 20 with JLT Condor. ProConti racing turned WordTour after a landmark season in 2018 that saw a silver at the Commonwealth Games time-trial, a British National track title and World Cup wins on the...

This week Will and James are joined by Castelli and Sportful’s global brand manager, Steve Smith. Steve grew up in Portland, USA, where he – like most of the city he says – worked for Nike for 10 years. But in 2000 he decided to make a bold move to Italy, to live the bella vita with a job at Sportful. Four years later parent company Manifattura Valcismon bought Castelli, and in the years since Steve and his team have been responsib...

This week, Robyn and James are joined by WorldTour pro Zoe Bäckstedt. Born in 2004 in Pontyclun, Wales to British track champion Megan Hughes and Paris-Roubaix winner Magnus Bäckstedt, there were only two ways Zoe’s life (and sister Elynor’s for that matter) could have gone – cycling or cycling. So she burst onto the scene as a teenager, winning multiple junior world titles in road, track and cyclocross, before turning pro with EF ...

This week's guest is Pieter Potters, R&D manager at Belgian Cycling Factory, the group that owns Eddy Merckx Cycles and Ridley Bikes. For nearly six years Pieter has been at the centre of designing cutting edge road and gravel bikes, including the recent Ridley Noah Fast 3.0, which features a new kind of geometry that many see poised to change the game - think steep seat tubes, short cranks and aggressive forward positioning of...

This week, James and Will are joined by Scottish ex-pro turned team manager, commentator and pundit, Brian Smith.

Brian cut his teeth in the 1980s at the school of cycling hardknocks, ACBB – Athletic Club de Boulogne-Billancourt – in Paris, whose alumni include Jacques Anquetil, Stephen Roche and Pippa York, before turning pro with the legendary British Banana team in 1991. Three successful seasons followed including his first B...

This week, James is joined by Lee Donaldson, filmmaker and passionate cycling fan, to discuss his upcoming documentary 525: The Unstoppable Eddy Merckx. Lee describes 525 as having ‘the greatest cast of racing champions ever seen in a cycling documentary', and it's hard to disagree. Contributors include Mark Cavendish, Bradley Wiggins, Lotte Kopecky, Bernard Hinault, Sean Kelly, Roger De Vlaeminck, fashion designer Paul Smith a...

This week James (and Will at the beginning) is joined by Hunter Allen, co-founder of Training Peaks, long-time elite level cycling coach to pros and US national teams, and the man who literally wrote the book on power meters back when torque measurement was just a twinkle in an SRM engineer's eye. That book was, prosaically enough, called Training + Racing With A Power Meter, and it put Hunter at the pioneering frontier of what wou...

In this week's episode, Will and James are joined by David Millar, a man who needs no introduction, but just in case: David's career in cycling spans decorated rider (he was the first Brit to wear all three Grand Tour jerseys) to fallen hero (he admitted to, and was suspended for two years for doping in 2004) to risen phoenix (he returned to the pro peloton as an outspoken 'clean' rider and raced successfully until 2014) to wri...

This week, James and Will are joined by Dr Hutch, the legendary British time-trial rider (second only to Beryl Burton in national wins) turned Cambridge-educated doctor turned journalist. Dr Hutch is a longstanding columnist in Cycling Weekly (other cycling magazines are available, see our link to Cyclist below y'know), commentator, pundit, voice of cycling authority and author of several books including the critically acclaimed Th...

This week James and Will are joined by Alistair Brownlee, legendary triathlete turned Ironman champion turned gravel racing extraordinaire turned sports scientist turned... If there was a personification of the polymath endurance athlete, Alistair is it, from being the only triathlete to hold two Olympic individual triathlon titles, to sacrificing his own race to carry his exhausted brother, Jonny, across the finish line, to starti...

This week, Robyn and Will are joined by Emma Pooley, Tour de France women's winner in 2009 (or the Grande Boucle Féminine as it was then), Olympic medallist, UCI world time-trial winner, multiple national road and time-trial champion and triathlon and duathlon champ, plus a first class honours student at Cambridge and University Challenge contestant to boot. Oh, and Emma also won the Brompton bike racing world championships and hel...

This week James is joined by Dr Xavier Disley, sports scientist, aerodynamicist, national masters track champion and founder of AeroCoach, a UK collective of coaches, scientists and engineers who are all obsessed with one thing: making cyclists go faster. To that end, Xavier has worked with WorldTour teams and winners of all three Grand Tours, track champions, Hour record breakers, component manufacturers and clothing makers, all w...

This week, Robyn (and Will for the intro) is joined by Uno-X’s expert hotel reviewer and star racer, Magnus Cort. Winner of stages at all three Grand Tours, Magnus is now experiencing a new lease of life in the Classics with recent podiums at both Eschborn-Frankfurt and the Bretagne Classic, plus 6th place at Milan-San Remo this season. In this episode, the Dane speaks about his transition from stage hunter to one-day specialist, h...

This week, James is joined by cycling coaching guru Joe Friel. Joe started coaching amateur and elite riders in the US in the 1980s, before becoming a household name in training in 1996 as author of The Cyclist's Training Bible, arguably the most successful cycling training guide of all time and still in print today in its fifth addition. In 1999 Joe founded TrainingPeaks with son Dirk and friend Gear Fisher, the training and a...

This week, Robyn (and James, but just for the intro) is joined by Kasia Niewiadoma Phinney, winner of the 2024 Tour de France Femmes and all-round star rider at Canyon–SRAM zondacrypto. That is, Kasia can win stage races, one day races, Classics, national titles, World titles... you name it, the Polish ace has a trophy and a jersey for it. Here, Kasia candidly talks about dealing with disappointment at this year's TDFF, where she f...

This week, James is joined by cycling journalist and author Chris Sidwells, to explore the life and times of Britain's most storied rider, Tom Simpson, on the eve of Simpson's historic World Championships win, 60 years ago, almost to the day.

As Simpson's nephew (his mother was Simpson's sister), Chris is uniquely placed to tell us the tale of the miner's son from County Durham who'd become the first Briton to wear the yellow je...

This week, James and Will are joined by three-time Olympic gold medallist Ed Clancy. At 16, Ed had been scouted by British Cycling’s Academy, where he came up with riders like Mark Cavendish and Geraint Thomas, and by 2008, aged 23, he’d won his first gold medal in the Olympic Team Pursuit. Two more golds followed in same event, at London 2012 and Rio 2016, as well as a bronze in the Omnium in 2012, making Ed one of the most succes...

This week James and Will (well, mostly James) are joined by author Paul Maunder, who discusses his book, Angel of the Mountains: The Strange Tale of Charly Gaul.

Born in Luxembourg in 1932, Charly Gaul turned professional aged 20, quickly establishing himself a prodigious yet mercurial talent, 'A murderous climber with a lower gear than the rest, turning his legs at a speed that would break your heart – tick tock, tick tock, tic...