Clive Phillips is a former British Army Officer who served in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

In late 2019 Clive was diagnosed with Multifocal Motor Neuropathy an ultra-rare neurological condition affecting motor function in the peripheral nerves. After starting regular treatment that keeps the worst symptoms temporarily at bay Clive was determined to use his skills and passion for adventure to take advantage of raise awareness of MMN and funds for research in to the condition and founded the Making the Most of Now project.

In May 2025, Clive and a team of fellow British military veterans set off to ride 3200km around France, following in the wheel tracks of the first British team to enter the Tour de France in 1955. Chris Sidwells caught up with Clive during a rest day in Avignon to talk about the ride and MMN.

You can find out more about MMN and support Clive’s fundraising at https://makingthemostofnow.co.nz/

You can also follow MMN on social media at:

Instagram https://www.instagram.com/making_the_most_of_now?igsh=MWcwcGUybWljOXY3Yg==

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/makingthemostofnow

Twitter/X https://twitter.com/makemostnow

Get in touch with us

Drop us a line at [email protected]! We’d love to hear from you.

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Cycling Legends - The untold story, the unseen photos

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The 2025 road season careers toward the Lille Grand Depart like a Tom Pidcock film and the team are simply trying to hang on. Have we learned anything about the summer’s big guns from the Dauphine and Tours de Suisse? What have the UCI learned about seemingly arbitrary rule changes? (Don’t answer that.)

We also bid a wholly disrespectful au revoir to Romain Bardet and a sycophantic bon anniversaire to cycling’s newest octogenarian Eddy Merckx. Come on, who would you least like to meet in a dark alley?

Episode recommendations/shameless plugs

Simpson Nouvelles Supporters Club - https://www.nouvellescycling.co.uk/supporters-club

Rolling Stones - Goats Head Soup - https://open.spotify.com/album/6iVOz2hudE6dv5Yrcsw2c9?si=SIdqVJ8aSD-iRwnia89Dbw

Dire Straits - Brothers in Arms - https://open.spotify.com/album/6Pz06FAaeym0JSqVqIkN56?si=AVsrXB4iQxqexuUkP2Ps3w

Sir Bradley Wiggins’ Café Afficianado podcast - https://open.spotify.com/show/0fpeDR4pz81XsD81ssEBZF?si=qQSZy64mQ_mGr3X4W3t4uQ

Cover photo: It may have been before he became the Cannibal but a no-less hungry Eddy Merckx looks on incredulously as reigning Maglia Rosa, Gianni Motta tucks into a bowl of spaghetti during the 1967 edition of the Giro d’Italia. There would be no second victory for Motta, who finished 6th behind Felice Gimondi that year. Merckx would only have to wait another year before winning his first of 5 Giri. The rest, as we know, is history. (Credit: Keystone/Keystone-France/Getty Images)

Get in touch

Drop us a line at [email protected]! We’d love to hear from you.

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Cycling Legends - The untold story, the unseen photos

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In April this year, legendary British racer Barry Hoban passed away at the age of 85. The world of cycling lost a giant and the Cycling Legends family lost an uncle, a friend and an inspiration. 

During his career Barry won 8 stages of the Tour de France - a British record that stood from 1975 until the arrival or a certain Mark Cavendish 2 decades later. He also won 2 stages of the Vuelta a Espana and remains - in 2025 - the only British winner of the Gent Wevelgem.

In 2022 Chris Sidwells sat down with Barry to record a series of chats about his first experiences of riding iconic races like Paris-Roubaix, the Tour of Flanders and the Tour de France.

In this episode Barry talks to Chris about riding his first Ronde Van Vlaanderen - the Tour of Flanders - in 1966.

Enjoy the chat and vas y Barry!

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In April this year, legendary British racer Barry Hoban passed away at the age of 85. The world of cycling lost a giant and the Cycling Legends family lost an uncle, a friend and an inspiration. 

During his career Barry won 8 stages of the Tour de France - a British record that stood from 1975 until the arrival or a certain Mark Cavendish 2 decades later. He also won 2 stages of the Vuelta a Espana and remains - in 2025 - the only British winner of the Gent Wevelgem.

In 2022 Chris Sidwells sat down with Barry to record a series of chats about his first experiences of riding iconic races like Paris-Roubaix, the Tour of Flanders and the Tour de France.

In this episode Barry talks to Chris about riding his first professional road race world championships at Salanches in 1964.

Enjoy the chat and vas y Barry!

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Still trying to make sense of the Giro d’Italia, the team offer their hot takes on what went wrong and what went right on the roads from Tirana to Rome. Gary is unwittingly using the wrong microphone (again - sorry!) but just about manages to tout Marlen Reusser as the wildcard in the TdFF pack, Chris basks in the glow of deservedly excellent book reviews and David suggests a novel approach to dealing with concussion in grand tours that may not be as crazy as you think.

Photo: Cafe Raids were a common feature of the Tour de France until the 1960s. While the Moselle Region is more commonly associated with its Riesling white wines, this photo from the 1921 race shows Swiss riders Henri Colle and Charles Parelenjoying some cold, frothy grain-based ravitaillement on the steps of a bar in Dalstein. The stage itself was a sinewy 300km ride from Strasbourg to Metz. (Credit: unknown)

Recommendations

Lael Rides Around the World - https://youtu.be/foZSVhTyEfQ?si=7zOWYMWDoRFqkGWq

Colum McCann ‘Twist’ - https://amzn.eu/d/fI278CZ

BikeRaceInfo - https://bikeraceinfo.com/commentary/stanley-david/2025/2025-Giro.html

Ulverston Brewing Company - https://ulverstonbrewingcompany.co.uk/

Get in touch

Drop us a line at [email protected]! We’d love to hear from you.

Social media

Cycling Legends - The untold story, the unseen photos

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X/Twitter @cyclinglegends1

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“What would Barry do?” is our new mantra at Feed Zone Towers, although for starters he’d probably have remembered Lorena Wiebes’ name and who wrote ‘Jerusalem’. In between bouts of amnesia, we look back at an intriguing first week of the Giro d’Italia, pick out highlights from the Vuelta Feminina and Itzulia Women and fly off at tangents along the way. Buckle up!

Photo: Alfredo Binda stops at the Foligno check point during stage 8 of the 1928 Giro d’Italia, a trifling 323km affair from Rome to Pistoia. Binda had taken the race lead 4 stages earlier but the pink leader’s jersey was still another years away. Stage 8 would be his fifth of seven stage wins on his way to his third Giro title but it wouldn’t be until his 5th and final Giro victory in 1933 that the ‘Trumpeter of Cittiglio” would wear the famous Maglia Rosa. (History Collection/Alamy Stock)

Recommendations

Richard Oakes The Equation https://cyclinglegends.co.uk/products/the-equation?srsltid=AfmBOoq2TToq7PEldxz__7jIDatraGJBsBRjIuMBp05RCegb1hD5Apsb

Colin Hay: Waiting for my Real Life https://youtu.be/6bEJzzWM9hA?si=bY5TES12v52whO46

Men at Work - Overkill (from Cargo (1983) https://youtu.be/RY7S6EgSlCI?si=ZIEJOKK0tX47TW4o

Mudgear https://mudgear.com/

Sidwells on Tour! https://tickets.cyclinglegends.co.uk/

Get in touch

Drop us a line at [email protected]! We’d love to hear from you.

Social media

Cycling Legends - The untold story, the unseen photos

Instagram https://www.instagram.com/cyclinglegendsmedia?igsh=MW9ldTNhemF6aWVlcA==

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X/Twitter @cyclinglegends1

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In our latest interview show, Chris talks to a young entrepreneur called Hamish Graham. Hamish has taken over the reins of, not just a cycling holiday company, but the first ever cycling holiday company. The business that in the 1960s founded Majorca as a cycling holiday destination and spawned a tourist industry. That earned its creator, Yorkshireman Doug Petty the Majorcan equivalent of a knighthood.

The business is now called Sixty/8 (sixty8.cc), and Hamish has made it his own, offering packages in Majorca and Girona, and bespoke holidays in other iconic European destinations. In fact wherever you want to cycles, sixty8.cc can make it happen. Hamish is a very experienced racer, who although he got a place in a famous Belgian Kermesse team by at first being mistaken for someone else, made his mark in this tough Belgian school of racing, as well as elsewhere in Europe.

Now he's trying his hand at endurance cycling, having just recently made his debut in the Dales Divide, a 600-kilometre mostly off-road bike-packing race from the Lancashire coast, across the Dales and North Yorkshire National Parks to the Yorkshire coast, and back again. You can read more about that on bikepacking.com 

As a fitting touch Hamish took some of Doug Petty's ashes with him for inspiration. Petty was Hamish's step-dad.

It's a great story, give it a listen. 

Links

Hamish’s Intagram https://www.instagram.com/hamishjsg?igsh=MWsxOWpzbjRqMmpiag==

Sixty/8 https://sixty8.cc/

Get in touch

Drop us a line at [email protected]! We’d love to hear from you.

Social media

Cycling Legends - The untold story, the unseen photos

Instagram https://www.instagram.com/cyclinglegendsmedia?igsh=MW9ldTNhemF6aWVlcA==

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X/Twitter @cyclinglegends1

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How was your Spring then? Any better than Tadej’s? Worse than Lotte’s? Before cycling gets Grand Tour Fever we look back over the Classics of 2025 and ponder whether things really are as bad (or as good) as they seem for the Usual Suspects. Plus, we ask whether One Cycling actually is necessarily an evil and generally shoot the breeze about all things cycling. (Actually, more likely just all things.)

Photo: Vittorio Adorni, Jacques Anquetil and Felice Gimondi eating spaghetti during the 1966 Giro d'Italia (Keystone-France/Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images)

Recommendations/Links/Shameless Plugs

Alfabetti66 (Instagram) - https://www.instagram.com/alfabetti66?igsh=eHEzdzh3Y2ZqZnl

Seth Godin - ”The Dip’ - https://amzn.eu/d/2dQ6gIN

SunGod Performance Eyewear - https://www.sungod.co/en-gb/

West Sport Media/Simpson-Nouvelles - https://www.instagram.com/reel/DJHgRvnCKhl/?igsh=djFiNnpzdmIzNWF2

Simpson-Nouvelles Cycling https://nouvellescycling.co.uk/

Tales from the Team Car podcast - https://shows.acast.com/tales-from-the-team-car

Get in touch

Drop us a line at [email protected]! We’d love to hear from you.

Social media

Cycling Legends - The untold story, the unseen photos

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X/Twitter @cyclinglegends1

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In 1982, Steve Lovelace nearly died while chopping firewood with a friend in a remote field near his home in Wagoner, Oklahoma. Pinned to the ground and crushed by the weight of a tree slab, it took two hours for his friend and a local farmer to extricate him with a chainsaw. When he eventually arrived at hospital, doctors were unsure as to whether he’d live. A little over 3 years later, he became only the second disabled athlete to complete an Olympic-distance triathlon.

Today, after series of other health setbacks, Steve continues to compete as a para-triathlete and is indeed a true Cycling Legend.

Links

Steve’s website: thelastplacewinner.com 

YouTube: The Last Place Winner -a paratriathlon pioneer- Steve Lovelace

Get in touch

Drop us a line at [email protected]! We’d love to hear from you.

Social media

Cycling Legends - The untold story, the unseen photos

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X/Twitter @cyclinglegends1

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Cycling moves from Flanders via Roubaix to the Ardennes as the team pick over the bones of another breathless few weeks of racing. Plus: we look back at some of the tech from Paris-Roubaix; could it also be the end of the rear wheel as we know it (?); why so meagre pickings for the winners of bike races and we remember Barry Hoban, trailblazer, legend and friend, who passed away this week.

Photo: Team Garmin-Transitions feed zone during stage 4 of the 2010 Tour de France, from Cambrai to Reims. David Millar takes his musette from soigneur Alyssa Morahan. Millar's team mate Julian Dean would narrowly miss out on the win, closing rapidly in the final but finishing second to Lampre's Alessandro Petacchi. The win was Petacchi's second of only 2 stage victories that year which would help him to winning the overall points classification, despite HTC Columbia’s Mark Cavendish winning 5. (Credit: Garmin-Transitions via Flickr)

Recommendations/Links

Barry Hoban - Our Obituary https://cyclinglegends.co.uk/blogs/long-reads/barry-hoban-our-obituary

The Backpedal -Cillian Kelly https://substack.com/@cilliankelly?r=nsm6y&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=profile

Tom Simpson Cycling Festival, 7-14 September 2025 https://cyclinglegends.co.uk/pages/tom-simpson-cycling-festival

Fasten Switch wheel system https://youtu.be/2fNxa_dNIU4?si=rLXV6KXwY83UGPNp

Simpson-Nouvelles Cycling https://nouvellescycling.co.uk/

Tales from the Team Car podcast - https://shows.acast.com/tales-from-the-team-car

Get in touch

Drop us a line at [email protected]! We’d love to hear from you.

Social media

Cycling Legends - The untold story, the unseen photos

Instagram https://www.instagram.com/cyclinglegendsmedia?igsh=MW9ldTNhemF6aWVlcA==

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/CyclingLegendsMedia?

X/Twitter @cyclinglegends1

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