Velo Podcast

Our reporting on the intersection of race and cycling continues this week with a conversation with Dr. Marlon Moncrieffe, a professor at Brighton University in the UK.

A former elite track sprinter, Dr. Moncrieffe studies the history of minority ethnic groups in 20th century Britain. His 2018 book, 'Made in Britain: Uncovering the life-histories of Black-British Champions in Cycling' explores the stories of Black British riders who were excluded from the country's success at the Olympic games and abroad.

Dr. Moncrieffe explains how the success of British Cycling at the 2012 Olympics broadcast an extremely white vision of cycling to the country. Since there were no Black riders chosen for the team, cycling was therefore cast as a white-only sport, despite the fact that numerous minority riders compete at the elite level.

Dr. Moncrieffe explains how elite sport, media coverage, and brand messaging are all connected in the inclusion and exclusion of minorities in sport.

This week’s episode is sponsored by Whoop, the performance tool that is changing the way people track their fitness and optimize their training. Whoop tracks your heart rate and gives you a strain scores that lets you know how strenuous your training was on your body, with additional information around your sleep and recovery to tell you how well your body rebounds from training. Right now, listeners can get 15 percent off a Whoop device by going to www.whoop.com and using the code ‘VELONEWS’ at checkout.

Editorial director Ben Delaney and senior editor Betsy Welch needed a challenge — much like the rest of us craving races that have been halted during these strange times. Everesting? That seems a bit too intense for mere mortals, so Ben and Betsy settled on Project 14er instead, attempting to conquer 14,000 feet of elevation in a single ride.

But with Lachlan Morton's troubles with official elevation data resulting in his record being expunged, the question of elevation data reliability comes squarely into focus. Can you trust your GPS elevation data? Why did Morton have data problems? Find out on this episode of the VeloNews tech podcast.

Which is harder: racing for the win in the grand tours, or working as a firefighter? Listen to former top pro Tyler Farrar, who has done both.

This week on Put Your Socks On, coach Bobby Julich is joined by special guest host Christian Vande Velde as Angus Morton is out in the field.

Christian and Bobby talk with Tyler about his early career - from racing as a junior and pro domestically to going to Cofidis and then Slipstream - how he dealt with the loss of his close friend and training partner Wouter Weylandt, his recovery from COVID-19 and much more.

Our reporting on American cycling's lack of diversity continues this week, as we speak with five board members of the Major Taylor Iron Riders club. The club members are: Patrick Merosier, Natasha Merle, Chris Hasfal, Darrell Tucker, and club president Dereka Hendon-Barnes.

MTIR is based in New York City and it is comprised largely of African American, Latino, and Caribbean American riders. The club is one of the most visible ones in the tri-state region, due to its large membership and its flashy kits.

The five members of the club discuss the racism and bias they have felt in the cycling world, and how the exclusionary and clique-ish nature of the racing scene is a turnoff to minorities. The club members also discuss the different challenges in cycling they face due to the color of their skin. Why is MTIR so successful at bringing minority cyclists to our sport? It's a feeling of inclusion and community and comfort, say the club members.

This week’s episode is sponsored by Whoop, the performance tool that is changing the way people track their fitness and optimize their training. Whoop tracks your heart rate and gives you a strain scores that lets you know how strenuous your training was on your body, with additional information around your sleep and recovery to tell you how well your body rebounds from training. Right now, listeners can get 15 percent off a Whoop device by going to www.whoop.com and using the code ‘VELONEWS’ at checkout.

On this week's episode of the VeloNews Tech Podcast, tech editor Dan Cavallari talks with Velocio Apparel's CEO Brad Sheehan to get to the bottom of why packaging is such a big problem in the bike industry.

The bicycle industry often touts itself as an eco-friendly alternative to automobiles, and it certainly is that. But in terms of packaging, sourcing materials, and landing products in a consumer's hands, the industry has a long way to go to make itself truly eco-friendly.

Road bikes, cyclocross bikes, mountain bikes, and motorbikes — Neff loves riding them all. On this episode, the multi-time world champ talks about the special Swiss cycling programs that helped propel her to the top.

Bobby and Gus speak with Neff about her early days of competition (she won the first race she entered at age six), overcoming injuries, and her new series Jolanda Land on YouTube.

After getting stuck in the U.S. for 2.5 months because of travel restrictions, Neff is back in Switzerland now for a national training camp, where eight of the nine riders have world junior titles to their names. How does Switzerland create such successful riders? Part of it, Neff believes, is the unique race formats for young kids that prioritize handling skills and not just pedaling.

Like many Olympic-bound athletes, the coronavirus pandemic has changed Neff's life and timing, but after the Swiss star suffered a terrible crash in December, the extra preparation time is probably a blessing.

Neff, a veteran of the Rio Olympic where she placed eighth in the road race and sixth in the cross-country mountain bike race, talks with Bobby, an Olympic medalist himself, about lessons she wants to take into the Tokyo Olympics. Forefront among them, is advocating to have trusted female staff with her.

"I need to have the people around me in those days before the Olympics and during the Olympics that I've been working with for years," she says. "In Rio, we did not have one single female person on staff. I get along great with men, that's no problem. But at the competition, you need a certain balance and especially for me, my physio that I've been working with for years, she is a girl. She was not selected to go to the Olympics. So I've been working on that very much."

At the coming Olympics, Neff will be unable to race both road and mountain because the two competitions are on the same day.

Outside of the Olympics, Neff recently launched a YouTube channel.

"I want to show people cycling is social. It's fun. It's great. It keeps you fit. I don't want to show like, 'ah, it's so hard to train and everyone who's at that level has to put in work and has to train hard,'" she says. "For me, what got me into mountain biking and what I want to inspire other people to get into mountain biking is the fun, the social aspect."

On this week's episode of The VeloNews Podcast we discuss the role that racial bias and racism play in our sport with Rahsaan Bahati and Allen Lim.

Bahati and Lim are both veterans of the U.S. cycling scene, and they are both riders who came to the sport from minority communities. Bahati is black and grew up in Compton; Lim is a Chinese-American immigrant who grew up in Los Angeles.

Both men charted their own paths through U.S. cycling and achieved heights in the sport. And both men had to navigate racial discrimination and U.S. cycling's fraternity-like social scene to get there.

Lim and Bahati share their own experiences in American cycling. They also discuss the ways in which cycling can make itself more open to minorities from different backgrounds.

This week’s episode is sponsored by Whoop, the performance tool that is changing the way people track their fitness and optimize their training. Whoop tracks your heart rate and gives you a strain scores that lets you know how strenuous your training was on your body, with additional information around your sleep and recovery to tell you how well your body rebounds from training. Right now, listeners can get 15 percent off a Whoop device by going to www.whoop.com and using the code ‘VELONEWS’ at checkout.

Both Fizik and Specialized released 3D-printed saddles in 2020. The neat-o looks of both perches are enough to grab your attention, but why are brands looking to 3D printing to create saddles anyway? What does 3D printing offer that regular old foam can't accomplish?

Tech editor Dan Cavallari talks with Garrett Getter from Specialized to find out what's unique about the big red S's Mirror technology, which brings a 3D-printed cushion to its already popular Power saddle.

Basketball Hall of Famer, Olympic gold medalist, and all-around legendary player Reggie Miller is now a huge cyclist. He joins Bobby Julich and Gus Morton to talk about the impact of sports on culture, and the impact of culture on sports, in both broad terms and in this specific moment in time.

On the Put Your Socks On podcast, Miller encourages us all, especially white people, to "put our ears on" and listen.

Miller talks about the positive role sports can play in society, and how the coronavirus has put that on hold in many ways.

"I think sports in general and especially the NBA has always had a huge platform in terms of healing. But I think a lot of people are frustrated right now because covid and the coronavirus has stopped everything. So there's no outlet for people," Miller says. "Sports used to be the great equalizer in healing form. You know, after 9/11 it was baseball. You remember George Bush going to Yankee Stadium and throwing out the first ball, you know, 'We won't be defeated.'"

Miller, Julich, and Morton talk about the similarities between Michael Jordan and Lance Armstrong, and about how Miller first got into cycling. They talk about Miller's first bikes (a Giant, then a custom Moots, then a Santa Cruz), and Miller's charitable work.

Miller also talks about the importance of having uncomfortable conversations.

"When you see a murder on TV of George Floyd, and this has been going on forever, and people are frustrated, they're tired, they're hurt," he says. "And you keep telling people to turn the other cheek and do have peaceful protests, and change never comes about. They are tired. So what? You know, we saw Colin Kaepernick taking a knee a peaceful protest to what has been going on, and he gets blackballed from the NFL format. And I see all these images now of police and other people kneeling. It's funny how things have come full circle because the murder of George Floyd and this officer kneeling on him forcibly for over eight minutes, lynching this man on national TV for the world to see and you got Colin Kaepernick has been telling you guys this has been going on forever."

"Sports and its brightest stars can help heal the pain hopefully, but it starts from within. People need to start listening and when I say people, white people need to start listening to the pain of black and brown people in this country and in the world because it's been going on way too long," Miller says. "A young man goes out for a jog — for a jog! — and gets murdered for that, you know, we got to stop. Sometimes you've got to take an aggressive approach to create change, they want change, and it starts with people getting out there and getting to the polls and voting. You don't like a prosecutor? You don't like a president? You don't like an attorney general? You don't like a judge, vote them out. Go vote, people, get them out."

Miller says people people don't want to have these conversations because they don't want to believe that racism in 2020 exist. "This goes back 400 years. I mean, I don't want to go in a history lesson here because this is a basketball and cycling show. But as long as people are willing to have a conversation and admit that racism is alive and well in America in what can we do black and brown people and white people, how can we help one another, get past this, if they're willing to have that conversation, that's the only way the healing is going to start," Miller says. "But if you're going to sit in your nice house, and turn the channel and think if we're not going to go anywhere, is nothing, no change will ever evolve from that. So if you're willing to listen, and open up and say, 'You know what, you're right.' God gave us two ears, and one mouth. Listen, put your listening ears on."

And with that, give this episode of Put Your Socks on a listen.

On this week's episode of The VeloNews Podcast our examination of the Everesting phenomenon continues. We speak with Andy van Bergen, the Australian cyclist who founded the Everesting challenge back in 2014 and who now oversees the website that chronicles Everesting attempts across the globe.

Van Bergen has seen the number of Everesting attempts skyrocket in recent weeks, and also a number of to pro riders have attempted to break the record. We discuss why the latest attempt by German rider Emanuel Buchmann was deemed not a record, and why the rules governing Everesting are so stringent.

Before hearing from van Bergen, we link up with Andrew Hood and James Startt to discuss cycling's march toward the Tour de France. Pro teams are now creating specific plans for Tour de France prep, including grouping riders and staff together as they prepare for the race.

Also, there is a simmering debate over whether or not media should be allowed at this year's Tour due to fears over spreading coronavirus. We discuss the pros and cons of media involvement at the race.

All that and more on this week's episode of The VeloNews Podcast.