Velo Podcast

The classics season officially kicked off with four races packed into two days: the men's and women's Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, Kuurne-Brussel-Kuurne, and Omloop van het Hageland. VeloNews' Sadhbh was in Gent, Belgium, for the weekend, covering the races and talking to the riders.

Jumbo-Visma's Wout van Aert rode away with the big prize of the weekend, and Fabio Jakobsen saved face for Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl on Sunday. Has the balance of power at the classics shifted?

O'Shea also recounts the most recent battle in the ongoing clash of titans in women's racing between Annemiek van Vleuten and Demi Vollering.

Tune in for five hot takes from Opening Weekend - what the big stories were, and what they mean for the next few months of racing.

Andrew Hood is just back from Ruta del Sol, and he checks in with five key takeaways about some of the riders and trends for the 2022 season he picked up on while following the race around southern Spain. At Ruta, Andy also caught up with Pat McCarty, who is directing the American team Human Powered Health (formerly Rally Cycling).

Hear Andy's take on his conversations with 19-year-old American Magnus Sheffield, who won a stage riding in his first year for Ineos Grenadiers.

Andy's other Ruta revelations involve volcanos, specialized handlebar set-ups, and changes of plans with the impending 'opening weekend' of the classics in Belgium.

Tune in to hear them all — plus his interview with American Pat McCarty, who raced for teams from U.S. Postal to Rock Racing before moving into team management.

Having twice coached at the Olympics, Rob Stanley is a performance scientist and men's endurance track cycling coach at USA Cycling. Previously he was performance scientist at the Japanese Cycling Federation. And he is currently wrapping up his PhD at Leeds Beckett University — in bike racing.

Stanley joins host Ben Delaney to talk about the merging of his academic work and his coaching of athletes like Gavin Hoover, who just won the inaugural UCI Track Champions League.

Stanley's PhD title is a mouthful: Exploration of determinates of performance in the Elite Men’s Track Cycling Omnium. The Omnium is a four-event, points-based competition at the Olympics as well as in track cycling competitions around the world. And the new Track Champions League used a condensed format of it for its fan-friendly nighttime series that was held in Mallorca, Lithuania, and London,

Stanley talks about breaking down races into more manageable chunks for riders, and making the summations of data from past racing accessible to them to help guide choices in the heat of racing.

He says he wishes he could see inside rider's minds during racing, because the feedback afterwards is always the same: "That was hard!"

Before speaking with Stanley we catch up with James Startt in Paris, who is just back from covering the Tour de la Provence, where he managed to photograph the winners' bikes from all four stages — before they won the stages.

Veteran cycling journalist Daniel Benson is the new editor in chief of VeloNews. Daniel comes to VeloNews after 14 years at Cyclingnews, where he was editor in chief for the past seven years.

On this podcast, Daniel and host Ben Delaney talk about the 2022 road reason, rider salaries, the best races to watch, and why early season races matter.

Daniel's sports journalism career of more than two decades includes experience reporting from a dozen Tours de France, several world championships, the Tour Down Under, multiple spring classics, and the London 2012 Olympic Games. While at Cyclingnews, Benson ran the global editorial team and helped establish the brand as a leading website for professional road race coverage. Now he's in the driver's seat at VeloNews. Hear what he has to say about the intersection of his job and pro cycling.

Was Marianne Vos right to play cat and mouse with her compatriot Lucinda Brand in pursuit of her record eighth world title? What did Tom Pidcock think about the course and his competition?

The cyclocross world championships came to the United States for only the second time in history, and fans and racers traveled from around the world to attend.

Host Ben Delaney and VeloNews web editor Greg Kaplan covered the weekend's racing in Fayetteville, Arkansas. On this episode, Ben and Greg discuss the highlights and scuttlebutts of the racing, and bring you the thoughts of the top racers, the fans, and the locals in their own words.

Philippe Gilbert has had one heck of a career. His wins include worlds, Paris-Roubaix, the Tour of Flanders, Amstel Gold, Il Lombardia, Liège-Bastogne-Liège, Strade Bianche, and on and on. He's won stages in all three grand tours. And now, in 2022, he will race for this one last season before retiring.

Can he win the one monument — Milan-Sanremo — that has eluded him? He would love to, of course, but his job there this year will almost certainly be to help his teammate Caleb Ewan.

Andrew Hood interviews Gilbert.

America's national champions Clara Honsinger and Eric Brunner are both headed to the world cyclocross championships in Fayetteville at the end of January, but they have chosen very different routes to get there.

After they won their respective national titles in mid December, Honsinger returned to Europe for more racing at the elite level in Superprestige and World Cup competitions. Brunner, despite being on a hot streak of winning four races in a row, opted to head home to Boulder, Colorado to reset and focus on training.

Both riders join the VeloNews podcast to talk about their seasons, the weight of expectations, and their excitement for the worlds in Arkansas.

The world cyclocross championships are coming to Fayetteville, Arkansas Jan. 29-30. Who are the podium contenders and why? Why aren't Wout or Mathieu coming? How will the course determine the race? And where should fans go to watch, eat, and enjoy the scene?

To answer all these questions and more, Ben Delaney is joined by six-time national cyclocross champion Tim Johnson, whose broadcasting career recently included calling the World Cup in Fayetteville on the course that will be used for worlds.

Before Tim and Ben get into the racing, chef Biju Thomas weighs in on how Team USA will be fueling in Arkansas. Specifically, Biju and his Feed Zone cookbook collaborator Dr Allen Lim of Scratch Labs will be cooking for all 38 Team USA athletes plus support staff in Arkansas.

VeloNews and Peloton have been teammates under the Outside umbrella since January of 2021. Now, in January of 2022, VeloNews magazine is merging into Peloton magazine. Further, authors and photographers from our sister brand CyclingTips are also now contributing their talents to the new Peloton magazine.

To talk about the history and future of VeloNews and Peloton, host Ben Delaney is joined by Peloton founder Brad Roe.

Also joining the show are two journalists who worked for VeloNews for many years: CyclingTips editor in chief Caley Fretz and Peloton senior editor John Wilcockson. John has decades of history covering the sport — including four years when he followed the Tour de France on his bicycle with a typewriter!

VeloNews members will now get the best of VeloNews, CyclingTips, and Peloton in one beautiful Peloton magazine six times per year at a minimum of 132 pages. And VeloNews.com (and CyclingTips.com) will continue on as normal.

In with the new, and out with the old!

In 2021, that meant in with more electronic groups, and out with shifting cables.

On the top end, new 12-speed semi-wireless Shimano Dura-Ace and Ultegra groups were big news, and the more affordable Rival eTap AXS group in SRAM's third-tier slot was also worthy of praise.

What else made the list of the biggest gear stories of 2021? Tune in and check it out.