This time I chat with Ben Day. Ben who was a professional cyclist himself, in the final years of his racing career he began to touch on the coaching side of things. Once he hung the bike up he went full time into training cyclists in a private capacity. And now in the last few […]

Coaching 101 with Ben Day and Luke Durbridge

Ever wondered what life is like as a professional cyclist?

Australian ex-professional cyclist Mitch Docker takes you inside the world of Professional Cycling. 
Bringing you the stories behind the individuals in the sport - from the pros in the peloton to staff behind the teams - to commentators & legends, plus training insights & debriefs on major races throughout the year. It’s all here!
Newly retired from the professional peloton, Mitch is exploring his new pelotons - all the pelotons that exist outside of the world tour - bringing you new stories from within the cycling community. 

His spin off series, Talking Luft - a bit like the DVD Extras - is where cycling style & culture takes centre stage. Talking cycling caps, bikes, kit, coffee stops, training loops and all the best things about riding a bike.
 
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We’re back this week with another Talking Luft Top Six. This week it’s the turn of special guest - and Monument winner, Matt Goss, who shares his Top Six Most Influential from Paris Roubaix! 
As those of you who caught the last edition will know, we’ve mixed things up with Talking Luft this year,  focusing on a single event each month, talking through the most influential, editions, teams, riders styles and stories from that race. 
It’s a lot of fun, and this week is a bit of a special edition for me. I get to discuss my most influential moments from my favourite race of all, Paris - Roubaix. Not only that, I get to do so with Gossy, a former teammate of mine - but perhaps more importantly, a former teammate of Roubaix greats like Fabian Cancellara and Stuart O’Grady at the mighty CSC team. 
Of course the dust is still settling on this year’s edition of Roubaix. Gossy and I couldn’t avoid spending a bit of time dissecting the race, and chatting about the changes that have happened even in the few years since we both left the peloton. 
There are so many influential moments at each Roubaix and it is itself such an influential race that one of the hardest parts of this show was actually narrowing things down to just six (…to be honest we did end up making it more of a top seven!), but being a couple of Aussies from the same generation there are some moments at Roubaix that neither of us could leave out. I’ll leave you to have a listen to what those moments were and why they were so influential to us. 
As always everyone should have a different top six - so let me know what you guys are thinking: does anyone else love Tafi throwing his cut off cap away? Which is your best Boonen moment? Is now a better Roubaix era than the 90’s!? 
Give it a listen, and enjoy! 
Mitch

Talking Luft Top 6's! Paris Roubaix Most Influential with Matt Goss

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In this week’s Life in the Peloton pod, I’m taking a dive into the topic of ketones.
Ketones arrived in the peloton just a few years ago, and to many people they are seen as a sort of wonder fuel, but to others they are still a grey area supplement.
To get stuck into the subject I was lucky enough to chat to Michael Brandt, the co-founder and CEO of H.V.M.N, the ketone partner for team Visma Lease A Bike.
Michael is a pretty handy athlete himself (with a 2:40 marathon time!), an all-round endurance sports nut and is one of the leading voices on the subject.
In a similar way to when electrolytes first became commonly used in sports drinks just a few decades ago, Michael believes that it is only a matter of time before ketones are seen and used in the same light.
As a pro rider I had previous experience using ketones at races and talking to Michael allowed me to finally be able to break down what the product really does and the science behind how and why they work.
Michael also helps tackle the questions around the perceived taboo around ketones and gives some interesting insight as to why he thinks this came about in the first place.
I also caught up with a good mate of mine George Bennett, who was fresh off the back of a very hard Volta Catalunya and was happy to chat about what ketone use is like for the guys inside the peloton.
Having been a professional for over a decade in some of the world’s biggest and best teams, George is perfectly placed to explain the way that the trends have changed in the bunch with ketone use in the past few years, and to recount his own experiences using the supplement.
It is an interesting subject, that needs more attention as we seek to understand what keeps the peloton improving and pushing the limits of performance.
Whether you know a little or a lot about ketones, it is definitely worth giving the pod a listen to see how they are being received and used in today’s professional peloton.
And if that is not enough, then as an added bonus, the team at HVMN have an offer for all Life in the Peloton listeners with a whopping 30% offer for orders when you use the code LIFEINTHEPELOTON with your order!
Cheers!
Mitch

Ketones - Fuelling the Peloton

It’s full gas racing season in Europe, so I’ve been really looking forward to catching up with Luke & Tom for what I knew would be a pretty action-packed Race Communiqué!
The boys have been on very different schedules; Luke has been with Jayco-Alula at Paris-Nice and then on to the cobbled classics, which he dialled in from this week. Meanwhile, Tom is on the Ardennes program with EF Education - Easypost (obviously avoiding having to drive his car over cobbles) in stage races in Spain and Italy.   
For my part, I’ve been loving spectating and seeing the races that used to make up such a big part of my season from the comfort of my armchair at home. It’s a different view from the outside, so it was great to catch up with these two and get the inside line on what is happening in the pelo at the moment.
As usual, I take us through the races from the past month and get some insight on how things went down on the road, and what we all think that means for the big races that are coming up.
Luke has some fascinating insight into race nutrition plans, and how riders are currently working to fuel in races whilst also keeping track of their race weight. I found this section fascinating, as it is eye-opening how much the sport has moved on in the short space of time since I retired.
In Tom’s segment, we go behind some of the more impressive tactical moves that he’s noted down this spring, and there is even time for a gripe about UCI fines!
It wouldn’t be the Race Communiqué without our famous quiz and this month it was Tom’s turn to be quiz master, pitting Luke and I against each other in a Classics death match quiz – with a cricketing twist!
This was a real blast to make and I’m sure you guys are gonna enjoy it too!
Cheers,
Mitch

The Race Communiqué - Episode 3

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It’s Classics season! It’s my favourite time of the cycling year and I am so stoked to be able to bring you an absolute legend of the Classics, a Flandrien legend, and a true king of the cobbles, Tom Boonen. 
When it comes to the Cobbled Classics, Tom’s palmarès are mind blowing: he is the joint record holder for wins at both Flanders (3) and Roubaix (4) as well as being the out and out record holder for the most wins in E3 (5). Just one of those wins would be enough for most riders, but he can also count three Ghent Wevelgem’s, a couple of Schelderprijs… and we may as well mention his world championship for good measure. 
This is an extra special pod for my personally, as Tom’s career wound up in 2017, meaning that I spent a good portion of my racing career at the classics getting my legs blown off by his attacks, and knowing that his was the wheel that everyone wanted to be on when the races got serious (I managed it once - have a listen to see how that went…).
I was lucky enough to sit down with Tom at his home in Mol and really get in to chatting about the races that we both love so much. Tom is a fantastic interviewee, and I got a real buzz from the excitement that he obviously felt recalling the ups and downs of his career and the details of some of his most incredible wins and defeats. 
As well as getting some great takes on the races that have become legendary in the last decade, I got to ask some of the other questions that I’d always wanted to know about; what was it really like being a superstar in such a cycling mad country? How did he handle the pressure of being a 24 year old world champion? I also got to ask about a comeback story that is remarkable in that it has always been overshadowed by Matt Hayman’s own incredible tale around the 2016 Paris Roubaix. 
Amazingly after such a successful career, Tom hasn’t sat back and just smoked cigars since 2017. He’s now a racing car driver and he talks as passionately about his new career as he does his old one.
Honestly, I would have stayed chatting about the microscopic details of the Arenberg forest sector  of Roubaix for hours if I could. There is so much in this pod, I really hope you guys enjoy listening to this as much as I did making it. 
Cheers!
Mitch

Tom Boonen - King of the Classics

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Ok guys, here we go, Classic season is almost here and to get things going we’ve torn up the old Talking Luft script, and come up with something new! 
So then, let me introduce Talking Luft’s Top Six… 
In this new format, we are going to focus on a single race with our guests and discuss the six most influential rides or editions that each of us can remember from that particular race. 
It doesn’t need to be the most famous or prestigious win that makes it, but instead some of those rides that made that race (or winner) stand out - either to the world or even just to our guest. 
I bet almost everyone has a different top six for every race out there. It could be the first edition that someone remembers, a year where a rider won against the odds or with real style, it could be a win that launched a rider’s career or changed the way race is raced. 
With the first Monument of the season just around the corner, I thought what better way to kick things off than to start with our Top Six Most Influential at Milan-San Remo. For this first edition, I was lucky enough to be joined by a very familiar voice for our Australian listeners, Dave McKenzie. 
Macca as we all know him, was a pro for nearly a decade in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s - and he knows a thing or two about racing in Italy, as he has a Giro stage win on the palmarés! These days he is best known as one of the most highly regarded cycling commentators in Australia. 
Macca was a great guest for this first-ever edition of the top six, he’s just that bit older than me so we cover a couple of generations and - like me, he also loved the challenge of nerding out on such a cool race. 
Even though I raced San Remo a couple of times myself, there was still a heap that I learned from hearing someone else view on which riders and how they had shaped a different person’s opinion of such an amazing race.
So if you want to find out what we started with, which editions and riders we agreed and disagreed on (and why it is a top six and not a top five) then give it a listen.
Cheers!
Mitch

Coaching 101 with Ben Day and Luke Durbridge

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