The Bike Show Podcast

By Jack Thurston

Society & Culture Arts Games & Hobbies Professional Sports & Recreation Design Other Games Outdoor Places & Travel

What's The Bike Show Podcast about?

Podcast devoted to the art, science, politics and transcendental pleasure of cycling, in London and beyond. Presented by Jack Thurston the show has been running since 2004, initially as a radio show on Resonance FM. It covers the intersections of cycling, culture, society and creativity from a variety of perspectives. From Tour de France to roller-racing, from Brompton commuters to bicycle messengers, from Kraftwerk to hip hop, from urban design to countryside trips. Literature, history, travel, art, music and sport.

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The Bike Show Podcast episodes:

10.11.2021
No Cops, No Cars, No Concrete: Gary Fisher’s Life on Two Wheels
Jack talks with founding father of the mountain bike Gary Fisher about his life in cycling, the subject of his new book “Being Gary Fisher”, published by Blue Train Publishing. After talking with Gary, Jack chats with Guy Andrews and...
03.30.2021
Are Modern Bikes Rubbish?
Bike technology is changing at a dizzying pace. There’s a bike for everything, from road racing and time trialling to gravel grinding and bikepacking to heavyweight touring and every shade of mountain biking. And that’s not to mention electric assist...
07.17.2020
Planning Your Next Bike Adventure
As we emerge from coronavirus lockdown, is there a better summer holiday, a better way to get a change of scene, than heading out on your bike to explore the country where you live? This episode of the podcast is...
04.26.2020
Rough Stuff in the North York Moors
A ride report from the time before coronavirus. Jack heads into the wild uplands of the North York Moors on an audax event organised by Dean Clementson and hosted by Mike Metcalfe. “Don’t Keep to the Road” promises gravel tracks,...
03.28.2020
From Usk to Wye with Dr Ian Walker
Jack goes for a ride with Dr Ian Walker, an environmental psychologist from the University of Bath and long-distance bike racer. Ian found global fame about fifteen years ago with an experiment he did to measure how close he was...
05.13.2019
A life in cycling with Isla Rowntree
As a bike racer Isla Rowntree took on almost every discipline in cycling, rode professionally for the Raleigh MTB team and won the British national championships in cyclocross on multiple occasions. But it is as a bike designer and entrepreneur...
02.04.2019
So you want to go cycling in… WW1 battlefields?
Tom Isitt has spent the past few years cycling around the battlefields of the first world war. He talks about his experiences on the Western Front and the mountainous border between Italy, Austria and Slovenia and tells the story of...
10.25.2018
This Is Not A Tour
Jack takes on his longest ever ride, as part of a weekend of audax events in memory and celebration of the late, great Mike Hall. Mike was the leading light in the current revival of self-supported long distance bike racing,...
07.05.2018
Cycletouring the Tour de France
This year’s Tour de France starts on the island of Noirmoutier, on the Atlantic coast of western France. Jack rides the route of Stage one, in a touring style, taking in the rich landscape of sand dunes, beaches, tidal lagoons...
07.02.2018
Preston by Bike with Gavin Renshaw
Jack goes to Preston, Lancashire to ride with artist Gavin Renshaw. They ride out on some of the City of Preston’s bicycle infrastructure before heading for the wild uplands of the Forest of Bowland. Along the way they talk about...
04.23.2018
When Podcasts Collide
Find out what happens when The Bike Show collides with its hipper and funnier younger sister the Wheelsuckers podcast, presented by Alex Davis from Look Mum No Hands! and Jenni Gwiazdowski from London Bike Kitchen. And hear frame-builder and cycle...
04.23.2018
When Podcasts Collide
Find out what happens when The Bike Show collides with its hipper and funnier younger sister the Wheelsuckers podcast, presented by Alex Davis from Look Mum No Hands! and Jenni Gwiazdowski from London Bike Kitchen. And hear frame-builder and cycle...
03.15.2018
Higher, Faster, Rougher, Wilder with Max Leonard
The return of The Bike Show sees Jack chewing the fat with Max Leonard, author of Higher Calling: Road Cycling’s Obsession with the Mountains. They talk a lot about climbing, about the evolution of cycling towards exploring and traveling to...
04.27.2017
Can Cycling Save the World? with The Guardian’s Peter Walker
Peter Walker is a political reporter at the Guardian newspaper. He set up the Guardian's bike blog and his new book puts the case for a healthier, safer and more people-friendly nation. In short, a Bike Nation. In conversation with...
04.27.2017
Can Cycling Save the World? with The Guardian’s Peter Walker
Peter Walker is a political reporter at the Guardian newspaper. He set up the Guardian's bike blog and his new book puts the case for a healthier, safer and more people-friendly nation. In short, a Bike Nation. In conversation with...
04.06.2017
200 Years of Cycling
This year marks 200 years since Karl Drais invented a two wheeled 'running machine'. Since then all sorts of people have ridden all sorts of bicycles for all sorts of reasons. Looking back at two centuries of cycling and cyclists...
04.06.2017
200 Years of Cycling
This year marks 200 years since Karl Drais invented a two wheeled 'running machine'. Since then all sorts of people have ridden all sorts of bicycles for all sorts of reasons. Looking back at two centuries of cycling and cyclists...
03.24.2017
The Indian Pacific Wheel Race: Overlanders of the 21st Century
The Indian Pacific Wheel Race is a gruelling 5,500 km coast-to-coast bicycle race across Australia. The race features the two leading long distance bike racers in the world as well as dozens of other cyclists determined to push themselves to...
03.24.2017
The Indian Pacific Wheel Race: Overlanders of the 21st Century
The Indian Pacific Wheel Race is a gruelling 5,500 km coast-to-coast bicycle race across Australia. The race features the two leading long distance bike racers in the world as well as dozens of other cyclists determined to push themselves to...
02.16.2017
Under Monmouthshire Skies: Riding with Mike Parker
Mike Parker is the author of the best-selling Map Addict, an affectionate history of Ordnance Survey maps and the people who can’t get enough of their beautiful maps. He’s an accomplished guidebook writer, a former stand up comedian and has...
12.15.2016
Decoding the Landscape with Mary-Ann Ochota
Every weekend many tens if not hundreds of thousands of people ride their bikes in the British countryside. But are we taking the time to really understand and appreciate the things we see and places we ride through? Or is...
11.20.2016
Bikelash!
fter the big victories for London cycle campaigners and the construction of two new fully segregated bike lanes in the centre of the city, the bikelash has begun. Lead by newspapers like the Daily Mail as well as a...
10.12.2016
Transcontinental Race Wrap-Up
Wrapping up The Bike Show's coverage of this year's Transcontinental Race, Jack Thurston talks to race organiser Mike Hall and women's race winner Emily Chappell. Mike also tells the story of his record-breaking ride in the Tour Divide race earlier...
08.02.2016
Transcontinental Race Update Special
Three days and three nights since setting out from Belgium, riders in the Transcontinental Race are deep in the Swiss Alps, en route for the finish in Turkey. The Transcontinental is one of the world's most extraordinary and compelling bicycle...
07.29.2016
Pushing the Limits
The Transcontinental Race is a test of body, mind and spirit. The format is simple. It’s a single stage race that begins on one side of the European continent (in Belgium) and ends on the other (in Turkey). Riders must...
07.22.2016
All Aboard! Cycle-touring with kids on the Devon Coast to Coast
The Devon Coast to Coast is a 99 mile long route across England's third largest county, from the Bristol Channel in the north to the English Channel in the south. It is 70 per cent traffic free and passes through...
06.29.2016
Chris Boardman: A Life in Cycling
Chris Boardman has done it all. Born into a cycling family he became a domestic time trial demon and won an Olympic Gold Medal in 1992. He set world records for the Hour on the track and raced on the...
06.29.2016
Chris Boardman: A Life in Cycling
Chris Boardman has done it all. Born into a cycling family he became a domestic time trial demon and won an Olympic Gold Medal in 1992. He set world records for the Hour on the track and raced on the...
04.18.2016
What Goes Around
Jack Thurston heads to mid-Wales to meet Emily Chappell, former London bike messenger turned author turned ultra endurance racer. Plus the social enterprise that's finding a new use for the Royal Mail's unwanted fleet of postal bikes, as Elephant Bikes....
02.05.2016
From Peace Race to Tour de France
In a recording of a live event held as part of the CycleScreen bicycle film festival at the Watershed Cinema in Bristol, Jack Thurston talks with author Herbie Sykes about his highly acclaimed book The Race Against the Stasi. It’s...
01.04.2016
Adventures in Bikepacking
Is bikepacking the most exciting new thing in cycling since the invention of the mountain bike or a much needed rebranding of the venerable pastime of cycle touring? Or is just another cynical ruse to get us to buy more...
12.14.2015
Ain’t Nuthin’ but a G Thang: Geraint Thomas’s World of Cycling
In a live event Jack Thurston talks to double Olympic gold medallist and top Team Sky rider Geraint Thomas about his life in cycling as told in his new book The World of Cycling According to G. Continue reading...
11.25.2015
Cycle Revolution at London’s Design Museum
Tim Dawson has the lowdown on a major new exhibition of bicycles at London's Design Museum, including cargo bikes, city bikes and the bikes used by Merckx, Moser and Wiggins to break the Hour Record. He speaks with the shows...
10.07.2015
Bike Test: Crossover Fun with the Pinnacle Arkose 2
In the first ever rolling bike test on The Bike Show, Jack Thurston takes the Pinnacle Arkose 2 for a spin around the hills above Abergavenny and Blaenavon. The Pinnacle Arkose 2 is an 'adventure road' bike featuring a 1x10...
08.17.2015
Really Useful Bikes at the Bespoked Handmade Bicycle Show
Bespoked, the UK's Handmade Bicycle Show is Britain's biggest annual showcase for custom bike builders. It's full to the rafters of beautiful bikes but Jack Thurston went in search of the most useful bikes at the show, from an off-road...
07.21.2015
Tour de France: Rest Day Review with Simon Warren
It’s the end of the second week of this year’s Tour de France, just time for us – and the riders – to catch our breaths before the final week and the showdown in the Alps. Joining Jack Thurston for...
07.13.2015
Tour de France: Rest Day Review with Edward Pickering
After eight varied and exciting days of bike racing, the riders in the Tour de France take a well-earned rest day. Cycling journalist and author Edward Pickering has been following the race and is on hand to review the first...
06.29.2015
Tour de France preview with Guy Andrews
With just a few days until the start of the 2015 Tour de France, cycling author, journalist and photographer Guy Andrews joins Jack Thurston to look forward to one of the most eagerly anticipated grand tours in decades. With four...
04.03.2015
Put Me Back On The Trike
Three months and 17,000 miles into his attempt to break the longest-standing record in cycling, Steve Abraham suffered a road crash with a moped, leaving him with two broken bones in his ankle. We hear more from Steve as well...
03.02.2015
Bike Boom? What Bike Boom?
Bike sales are up, cycling is all over newspapers and magazines. We in Britain are in the middle of a bonafide bike boom. So says veteran cycling journalist Carlton Reid, who's writing a book about the bike boom, that's called,...
02.23.2015
How to Ride Your Bike Faster
With the recent reawakening of interest in the Hour Record, host Jack Thurston is joined by Michael Hutchinson, a professional bike racer who has dominated the UK time trialling scene for more than a decade, setting national records for distances...
02.16.2015
Cycling and Modernity in 1930s London
Historians often regard the defining events of the 1930s as the Great Depression and the march towards the second world war. Yet the decade also saw something of a consumer boom, at least among well-to-do inhabiting the suburbs of London...
02.11.2015
A Year on Two Wheels
It's the toughest and longest standing record in cycling. Only a handful of people have attempted to break the record Tommy Godwin set in 1939 for the greatest distance ridden on a bike in one year. But this year two...
02.07.2015
The Politics of Adventure
Jack Thurston’s guest this week is self-confessed angry young man, Julian Sayarer, who, five years ago, set a new record for cycling around the world. Having taken a strong dislike to Mark Beaumont, the previous record-holder, whose record attempt was...
01.26.2015
The Near Miss Project
Statistics tell us that for the same distance travelled you're more likely to come to physical harm on a bike than on most other modes of transport. But even so, crashes are quite rare. Much more common yet much less...
12.16.2014
Christmas Books Special
Jack Thurston is joined by a galaxy of stars from the world of cycling literature to pick over the cream of this year's crop of bike books. Nominating their cycling book of the year are Feargal McKay, Ned Boulting, Herbie...
12.02.2014
Come the E-Bike Revolution?
Electric bikes are a rapidly growing area of the bicycle industry, offering the promise of effortless two-wheeled travel. Professor Mark Miodownik of University College London tests a Smart E-bike (pictured, above) as part of an in-depth look at e-bike technologies,...
09.16.2014
Severn Serenade
Jack rides with singer-songwriter and cycle-tourist Jet McDonald, setting out from Bristol on a summer evening, riding along the banks of the River Avon, through the industrial landscape of Avonmouth to the banks of the River Severn and beyond. ...
07.12.2014
Rapha at 10 and L’Eroica comes to Britain
The Bike Show and the cycle clothing company Rapha share a birthday, and while The Bike Show keeps on keeping on, Rapha has grown into a global brand and is toasting its success on the Champs-Élysées as suppliers of clothing...
07.08.2014
Rolling with Klaus
Klaus Bondam, Director of the Danish Cyclists Federation and former deputy mayor in charge of cycling in Copenhagen rides with 'Buffalo' Bill Chidley to the Hackney Cycling Conference. En route they try to find out how London's roads compare with...

What's The Bike Show Podcast about?

Download our free app to listen on your phone

The Bike Show Podcast episodes:

No Cops, No Cars, No Concrete: Gary Fisher’s Life on Two Wheels

Are Modern Bikes Rubbish?

Planning Your Next Bike Adventure

Rough Stuff in the North York Moors

From Usk to Wye with Dr Ian Walker

A life in cycling with Isla Rowntree

So you want to go cycling in… WW1 battlefields?

This Is Not A Tour

Cycletouring the Tour de France

Preston by Bike with Gavin Renshaw

When Podcasts Collide

When Podcasts Collide

Higher, Faster, Rougher, Wilder with Max Leonard

Can Cycling Save the World? with The Guardian’s Peter Walker

Can Cycling Save the World? with The Guardian’s Peter Walker

200 Years of Cycling

200 Years of Cycling

The Indian Pacific Wheel Race: Overlanders of the 21st Century

The Indian Pacific Wheel Race: Overlanders of the 21st Century

Under Monmouthshire Skies: Riding with Mike Parker

Decoding the Landscape with Mary-Ann Ochota

Bikelash!

Transcontinental Race Wrap-Up

Transcontinental Race Update Special

Pushing the Limits

All Aboard! Cycle-touring with kids on the Devon Coast to Coast

Chris Boardman: A Life in Cycling

Chris Boardman: A Life in Cycling

What Goes Around

From Peace Race to Tour de France

Adventures in Bikepacking

Ain’t Nuthin’ but a G Thang: Geraint Thomas’s World of Cycling

Cycle Revolution at London’s Design Museum

Bike Test: Crossover Fun with the Pinnacle Arkose 2

Really Useful Bikes at the Bespoked Handmade Bicycle Show

Tour de France: Rest Day Review with Simon Warren

Tour de France: Rest Day Review with Edward Pickering

Tour de France preview with Guy Andrews

Put Me Back On The Trike

Bike Boom? What Bike Boom?

How to Ride Your Bike Faster

Cycling and Modernity in 1930s London

A Year on Two Wheels

The Politics of Adventure

The Near Miss Project

Christmas Books Special

Come the E-Bike Revolution?

Severn Serenade

Rapha at 10 and L’Eroica comes to Britain

Rolling with Klaus