Barcelona put on an absolute show — 36 degrees, brutal wind, and a street circuit that turned into a proper GC selection race. Alex was trackside for the carnage, Max is calling it from Melbourne, and this one's got everything.

In this episode:

• Brandon McNulty's ridiculous shift on the front — basically a one-man UAE train for 25km
• A break that was never getting there, and why Q36.5 still sent a man up the road
• The final climb: who cracked, who attacked, and a corner that had Max white-knuckling his chair
• Remco's positioning headache and how close the sprint for it actually was
• GC carnage: Ineos in chaos, an unlikely name now their top rider, Tiberi a bit lost
• Del Toro's team car chaos — the mechanical that had him waving down his own car like a fan
• Stage 3 preview: bushfire smoke near Girona, 4,000m of climbing towards Andorra, and why the break might actually stick this time
• Last night's Pillar Performance winner and how to get into today's Giant sunnies comp

Vingegaard draws first blood. Visma smash the Barcelona TTT to snatch yellow off Pogačar on day one - but it's Ineos who'll be gutted, with Vauquelin's puncture undoing a near-perfect ride and leaving Ganna to drag them home solo. Alex and Max break down the TTT chaos: Movistar's Uijtdebroeks losing over a minute, two crashes inside the neutral zone, and why the new individual-time format just changed team tactics forever.

Plus — Stage 2 preview. Three trips up the brutal Montjuïc climb (9.3% average, kicking to 13%) sets up a puncher's paradise from Tarragona to Barcelona. Could we get a Van der Poel–Pogačar rematch of last year's sprint finish? Plappy gives his read on who thrives when the road tilts up three times in the closing kays.

Daily comp is live — check our Instagram for how to enter and what's up for grabs.

Three YouTubers and a PowerPoint presentation. That's how Unibet Rose Rockets started in 2023 — and this year they lined up at the Giro d'Italia.

Bas Tietema sits down with Max and Alex to unpack how a content-first team cracked professional cycling: signing Dylan Groenewegen, chasing UCI ranking points to guarantee a Tour de France start, why most WorldTour teams still don't understand content, and the uncomfortable truth about whether cycling teams can ever actually make money.

Plus: a rapid-fire round covering dream signings, favourite races, and the one UCI rule Bas would scrap.

New episodes every Monday and Wednesday, with daily coverage through the Tour de France.

The last Social Club before we go daily for the Tour. Matthew Keenan joins Max and Alex for the full Tour de France 2026 preview — Pogačar, Vingegaard, Remco, Del Toro, Ben O'Connor and Luke Plapp, team-by-team, with GC tips and every jersey battle.

From UAE's B-team being better than everyone's A-team to Caja Rural's 39-year comeback. The Paul Seixas v Del Toro white jersey scrap, green, polka dots, and who's actually winning the stages. Plus the national champs wash-up, the Matt Hauser and Jimmy Whelan interviews, and a Top 5 current Aussie riders that left Bling off. Sorry, Bling.

Jimmy Whelan's back for a third time on the show — except he's not a bike rider anymore.

Last time he was on EF. Now he's a full-time pro runner, banging out 200km a week off the back of treadmill sessions in Barcelona, chasing LA 2028.

We chat professional cycling, the bunch challenges, learning from the sport, 2nd place to Plappy at Nationals, the Queen stage win at the Volta a Portugal and the Dauphiné crash that finally killed the fire.

Then the second act: the viral 20x400 session, the Salomon deal to 2028, 'brand Jimmy' and why running barely tests anyone for doping.

Plus the marathon debut he's deciding on right now — and whether that means taking on Kipchoge at the MCG.

Recorded up in Andorra, where he used to train on the bike.

Twelve days from the Tour and the big one lands live on the pod. Luke Plapp gets the call pre-episode to confirm he's officially in the Tour de France team. We get into his week off the bike, the Girona TTT camp, and how the build's shaping up.

Then the usual Monday wrap:

• Wout van Aert ruled OUT of the Tour — the elbow infection and the hole it leaves in Visma
• Pogačar's monster return at the Tour de Suisse (Max does the maths on 7.2 w/kg for 25 minutes)
• Van der Poel's surprise time trial, his €500 "shirt off" fine, and a rough week for the UCI on safety
• The sprinters light up the Baloise Belgium Tour — Girmay's upset opener, with Merlier, Magnier, Kooij and Philipsen all grabbing a stage
• Red Bull bossing it in Slovenia, Pidcock taking the Andorra climbers' race, Quinn Simmons' one-man show at US nationals, and a big rap for the Giro Next Gen
• The LA28 Olympic course finally revealed — and who it suits
• Still no reply from LeBron, Max

Then Max's Top 5 cycling formats, presented by Pillar Performance — and yes, he's got gravel at number two. Take it up with him.

Coming up this week: Jimmy Whelan on the pod this arvo, and Bass from the Unibet Rockets later in the week. Missed Matt Hauser last week?

World triathlon champion Matt Hauser sits down with us in Andorra mid-altitude camp — three weeks of climbing, dodging PlayStation hours and chasing the 1-percenters that turned a 'part-time athlete' into the bloke who ended Australia's 20-year world title drought in Wollongong.

We chat, why triathletes are 'too dumb to be cyclists' and just drill it on the front, what 15 hours a week up Pas de la Casa actually does to your engine, racing crits on the Gold Coast, the brutal first five minutes out of T1, and why working harder on the bike makes the run easier.

Plus the mental side - owning the work, the keywords he leans on when he's staring down the barrel above threshold, and the very real question of going head-to-head with Alex Yee and Hayden Wilde off the bike at LA 2028 and Brisbane 2032.

Plappy's back in the Social Club fresh off the Dauphiné, and not in the best conditioning, battling gastro and a flu two weeks out from the Tour. Alex, Maxi and Plappy break down a strange eight days of racing: the team time trial's return, breakaways staying away everywhere you look, Luke Tuckwell's stunning ride into the yellow jersey (and Paul's post-race disrespect), Del Toro cruising to the win, and whether the Dauphiné was actually any good to watch this year.

Plus: the inside word on Green Edge's Tour long list and TTT prep, Max slides into LeBron James' DMs, the Luke Lamperti crit appreciation society, wraps on the Copenhagen Sprint, GP Cycling and Circuit Franco-Belge, and Max's Top 5 — riders who still haven't won a World Tour race (you'll be surprised who's number one).

American sprinter Luke Lamperti joins us on Stanley St Social for a ride through one of cycling's most intriguing young careers. We go back to the beginning — growing up in Sonoma County, California, swapping motocross dirt bikes for road cycling at age 11, and the junior racing days that put him on the map (including that top-10 at Paris-Roubaix Juniors).

Luke takes us through his Trinity Racing apprenticeship alongside future stars like Ben Healy, his big move to the Belgian Wolfpack at Soudal Quick-Step, a Giro d'Italia debut, and the leap of faith that took him to the American outfit at EF Education-EasyPost for 2026 — a switch that's already paid off with a stunning Stage 1 win at Paris-Nice.

We chat sprinting, the cobbled classics he loves, what it's like racing for an American team as an American rider, and where his monument dreams might take him.

Fresh off an eight-point King's Birthday win over Collingwood at a packed MCG, Max Gawn and Ed Langdon join Alex.

We map out our daily TDF coverage plan, break down the big four (and why there's no head-to-head showdown before Paris this year), and dig into a chaotic stage at the Dauphiné where Plappy snuck into the move and finished seventh. Plus: the latest batch of UCI rule changes that have Max fired up again, Arnaud De Lie's thousand-watt heroics at Wallonie, the Lidl-Trek shake-up, transfer whispers, and Max's Top Five one-week stage races.