Velo Podcast

What a year it has been! From the first-ever Paris-Roubaix Femmes (finally!) to the ban of the supertuck (on April Fool's Day, no less) to Wout van Aert hitting a Tour de France triple (mountain stage, time trial, Champs Élysées final sprint), this season was a wild ride.

Listen in as the full VeloNews European contingent of Andrew Hood, Sadhbh O'Shea, and Jim Cotton join Ben Delaney to count down the 21 biggest cycling stories of 2021.

If you could go anywhere in the world to ride right now, where would it be? For Olympic gold medalist Annemiek van Vleuten, that answer is sunny Colombia. And while Ineos Grenadiers are in Mallorca and Deceuninck-Quick-Step heads to Calpe, other riders head to some unusual retreats. Sadhbh O'Shea and Ben Delaney discuss who is going where, and why.

American Tokyo Olympian Gavin Hoover just won the men's endurance competition at the inaugural UCI Track Champions League, which had him and the other track stars traveling from Mallorca to Lithuania to London to race in front of sold-out crowds. We catch up with him in Portugal to talk about this new format of super-condensed, fan-friendly racing.

Pete Stetina left the world of pro racing to go gravel in 2020, opting for the freedom of a solitary project over the support and constraints of a WorldTour team. Then Covid hit and Stetina, like people the world over, had to adjust. Thus, this season was his first full year of racing gravel. On this podcast, he reflects on the highlights and lowlights of traveling the United States by van, engaging with the cycling world on social media, and how having one mid-race beer proved more popular than winning a big race.

Stetina won 15 gravel races in 2021, with 10 one-day or overall wins and 5 stage victories. His season ran from Shasta Gravel on March 6 to Big Sugar on October 23. The 25,000 road miles took a toll on his van and his energy. But after some time off, he's raring to go again.

Before we talk to Stetina, we check in with Jim Cotton in England, who gets us up to speed with World Cup cyclocross racing.

The weekly VeloNews Podcast brings you inside bike racing, allowing you to hear from athletes, coaches, bike companies, and VeloNews' own team of journalists from around the world. Be sure to subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, Google, or wherever you get your podcasts.

This year, American Ashton Lambie set a world record by breaking the four-minute barrier in the individual pursuit in Mexico. Later, at the world championships in France, he toppled world time trial champion Filippo Ganna of Ineos Grenadiers, among others, to take the world title in the individual pursuit. And unlike Ganna, who trains with the full support of one of the world's richest WorldTour teams, Lambie trained on his own — often in a big shed in Montana.

Listen in as he reflects on his exceptional season. And click here to read his columns on his training, his techniques, and his trials and tribulations.

Also on this show, we check in with Chef Biju Thomas, who gives us his pro tips on last-minute turkey and stuffing preparation. Thomas has a new VeloKitchen series on Instagram and VeloNews.com, where pro riders offer him a challenge and cooks up something tasty in response — and gives VeloNews subscribers the recipe. Click here to see all of Chef Biju Thomas' work.

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Christopher Blevins has been racing bikes since he was 5 years old. Getting his start in BMX, he won 8 national championships in that discipline before he was 16. At age 12, he started racing road and mountain bikes, and winning national titles in those disciplines, too.

In the past couple years during, during all the racing and training in the run-up to the Tokyo Olympics, Blevins earned his degree from California Polytechnic State Institute in San Luis Obispo. And this year, in addition to going to the Olympics, Blevins took gold, silver, and bronze medals home from the mountain bike world championships in the short track, the team relay, and the e-bike race, respectively.

Before we chat with Blevins about his new production company and upcoming video projects, we check in with Jim Cotton, who gives us his reflection on the 2021 road season, with five memorable moments from an unusual year of racing.

Four-time Tour de France winner Chris Froome joined his Israel Start-Up Nation teammates for a weeklong camp in Israel to bond, visit historical sites, and connect with Israeli cycling fans.

VeloNews European Senior Editor Andrew Hood spent the week with the team, and on this podcast he talks with Froome about his experience with technology for performance, recovery, and personal investment.

Isreali-Canadian billionaire and philanthropist Sylvain Adams is the team owner of Israel Start-Up Nation, and he orchestrated the riders' visits to places like the Wailing Wall, the Holocaust Museum, the Dead Sea, and a hospital that is using hyperbaric oxygen chambers.

"We have had a few physical sessions like running and riding, which is good for bonding. And we are getting to know the country, which is bringing us together," Froome said.

"Being part of Team Sky previously, a big goal for team was to inspire the British public, and have an impact on grassroots cycling," Froome said. "Sylvan has got a very similar vision for ISN for us to have a similar impact on the Israeli public, and the next up and coming generation of Israeli cycling."

On one ride, the team met up with a bunch of fans on the road, and the size of the crowd was startling, Froome said.

"That day we got out to meet all the fans, that was just mental," he said. "I didn't expect so many bike enthusiasts here in Israel, but there are just masses of them."

Froome also talks about his experience using a hyperbaric chamber for recovery from his big crash. He said he was spending as much as four hours a day in a chamber at home, which simulated being 10-15m below sea level.

"It was a big part of my rehab, so it was fascinating to see it [in an Israeli hospital] for therapeutic use and sports performance," he said.

Lastly, Froome talks with Hood about his investments in Hammerhead, Super Sapiens, and Factor.

"I love my equipment, I love my tech," he said.

Molly Cameron is a veteran bike racer who has also run a women's team, put on bike races, and owned and operated a bike shop.

Cameron has been out as a transgender woman for two decades, and has raced at a high level in both the men's and women's fields.

The UCI cyclocross pro recently won the Wafer edition of Belgian Waffle Ride Kansas — beating VeloNews Podcast host Ben Delaney and Scott Moninger — and enjoyed the 6.5-mile cyclocross course that was inserted into the end of that race.

On this episode, Cameron and Delaney talk about some of her recent race experiences, her interactions with other racers and officials at events, and her work with the RIDE group she founded as an LGBTQIA+ advocate.

Delaney also checks in with Dan Hughes, four-time winner of Unbound Gravel and owner of Sunflower Outdoor & Bike, which hosted BWR Kansas and Deceuninck-Quick-Step's Remco Evenepoel and Mattia Cattaneo over the Halloween weekend. Hughes has advised Specialized on the development of its cyclocross and gravel bikes over the years.

Brendan Quirk's rise — from Competitive Cyclist and Rapha to working with the Waltons and USA Cycling — tracks with the rise in importance of his home state for cycling.

Arkansas has become a hotbed for American cycling for a few reasons, and Brendan Quirk is one of them.

Newly elected as USA Cycling’s chairman of the board, Quirk talks on the VeloNews Podcast about his career’s trajectory, and exactly how and why his home state of Arkansas is booming for cycling.

Quirk co-founded Competitive Cyclist in Little Rock, Arkansas, and grew it from a two-man bike shop into a major online player. After selling Competitive Cyclist to Backcountry.com, he became president of Rapha North America, helping grow that brand in the U.S., and then took the helm at Allied Cycle Works, which builds carbon bikes in Bentonville, Arkansas.

Arkansas, meanwhile, has become a major player in cycling, with millions of dollars invested in trails and cycling infrastructure, and brands like Rapha North America and Allied calling the state home. In a span of 12 months, the Natural State has hosted or will host major road, gravel, mountain bike, and cyclocross races — including the upcoming ’cross world championships where Walmart has signed on as title sponsor.

Which leads to another major connection point between Quirk, Arkansas, and cycling importance — the Walton family.

Tom and Steuart Walton, grandsons of Walmart founder Sam Walton, have made an impact in cycling via their investment in brands like Rapha and Allied, and through the Runway Group that they founded more than 10 years ago to develop Northwest Arkansas with a focus on healthy outdoor recreation. Quirk worked for the Runway Group for a few years as cycling program director.

Now, Quirk chairs the board of USA Cycling, steering the direction of the governing body of American bike racing.

In this podcast, Quirk talks about the importance of bike racing as a focal point, but also how he sees it as vital to make cycling accessible to as many people as possible.

But first, we check in with Sadhbh O’Shea about a French police-led study into drug use among Tour de France riders, and then we speak with Betsy Welch, who is just back from racing in and reporting on Big Sugar Gravel in Arkansas.

Virtual bike racing is a thing. A big thing. Consider this: Every Tuesday more than 10,000 racers on 1,800 teams race each other in leagues through a series called ZRL, which is now in its fourth season. And then of course Zwift has scores of races every day of the week that are open to anybody on the virtual cycling platform.

To explain this phenomenon, and to offer advice on preparing for and competing in Zwift races, Ben Delaney talks with Eric Schlange, the founder of ZwiftInsider.com, a site that provides detailed advice on all things Zwift related.

Schlange has done more than 630 races on Zwift, and further, it's his job to know what's going on inside the game. He shares his thoughts here.

Well before he co-authored three Feed Zone cookbooks with Dr. Allen Lim, Biju Thomas was cooking for cyclists all around the world. He's been the chef for everyone from Lance Armstrong to Peter Sagan, and he's cooked in fancy hotels and in parking lots.

Thomas is now the resident chef at Outside, the parent company for VeloNews and VeloPress, the publisher of the Feed Zone cookbooks.

In this episode, Thomas talks with Ben Delaney about how he got his start in cycling and cooking, and he gives advice on what everyday riders should and shouldn't do when it comes to their food.