Velo Podcast

Mark Cavendish has won 30 stages of the Tour de France. This places his second in the all-time record behind Eddy Merckx — or first in the all-time record if you are only counting mass-start stages and not time trials as well.

Cavendish is not racing the Tour de France this year, and the veteran sprinter reflects with Bobby and Gus about the special dynamics of the Tour — "I owe the Tour de France everything in my life" — the struggles he's faced both on and off the bike, and the special people he considers friends like Bernie Eisel and George Hincapie.

Cavendish talks about how track racing prepared him to sprint at the Tour, in terms of leg speed and tactics.

Cavendish says his top end power is relatively low for a Tour sprinter, but he can sustain it for a long time. "It's rare I'll get over 1,400 watts, you know, but I can average over 1,200 for 15 seconds, whereas guys like [Andre] Greipel would go 2,000 and then quickly drop down to 1,000 or 900," he says.

Cavendish talks about the special dynamics of sprinting at the Tour de France compared to other races, where most teams are balancing interests in the general classification along with other goals.

And Cavendish defends the complexity and excitement of bunch sprints against the armchair commentators who say flat stages are boring.

"Anybody who says a bunch sprint is boring is not intelligent enough to understand what's going on in a bunch sprint," he says. "For me, bunch sprinting is the only part of cycling left that uses pure tactics. You know, even a mountain stage is literally a time trial where everyone starts together. It's a physical thing. You can do it or you can't, it's as simple as that. You know what power you can pull out and you do that, and whoever can hold the highest threshold wins. And sprinting is a lot more dynamic."

Tune in for a special Tour de France edition of Put Your Socks On with Mark Cavendish.

The Tour de France heated up on Tuesday with the summit finish to Orcières-Merlette, and Primož Roglič and Team Jumbo-Visma drew first blood in the battle with Ineos Grenadiers.

On today's episode of The VeloNews Podcast, Fred Dreier and Jens Voigt break down all of the action from stages 3 and 4, and offer their insight into what Jumbo-Visma's early dominance means for the Tour. Is the Dutch team wasting too much energy this early? Is Ineos Grenadiers waiting for the right moment to strike? What do we think of Egan Bernal's inability to follow Roglič?

Then, Jens explains why he thinks Peter Sagan will go winless at this year's Tour de France, even if he succeeds in taking a record eighth green jersey. Jens think Sagan will get a major challenge for the green jersey from one specific rider.

We have our first audio diary of the race from American Neilson Powless, who is making his Tour de France debut on Team EF Pro Cycling. Neilson takes us inside his first Tour de France stage, and explains how important the Tour was during his first years as a competitive cyclist.

Then, Andy Hood and James Startt provide another dispatch from the race, this time from the city of Gap. James and Andy take us inside the restrictions on the road at the Tour de France, and what fans at the race think about the safety measures for COVID-19. All that and more on today's episode of The VeloNews Podcast!

Live bike racing is back, and FloBikes is your home for live and on-demand coverage of the biggest events of the year including the Giro d’Italia, Tour of Flanders, Amstel Gold Race, Tirreno Adriatico, and much, much more. Go behind the scenes with exclusive interviews, in-depth documentaries, and a host of other cycling-focused content. Additionally, Canadian viewers get access to the Tour de France, Vuelta a Espana, and the World Championships. Subscribe today by going to flobikes.com/velonews.

Tech editor Dan Cavallari has been testing a lot of bibs lately, and every time he found a pair he liked, the chamois came from the same company: Elastic Interface.

On today's episode, Cavallari catches up with Irene Lucarelli from Elastic Interface and Tim Jackson from Pow Word Communications to talk about what makes a good chamois you can forget all about on your ride.

The Tour de France has begun, and so has our special podcast series taking you inside the race. For the next nine episodes we will feature expert analysis with co-host Jens Voigt, as well as audio diaries from riders in the race, and on-the-ground reporting from the event.

Jens Voigt joins the episode today to offer his analysis on the first two stages of the Tour. Julian Alaphilippe's stunning win on stage 2 again made him a fan favorite, but Jens argues why Alaphilippe's antics are a sign that he's not a true GC contender this year.

Jens also offers his opinions on Team Ineos Grenadiers' decision to leave its veteran rider Geraint Thomas home from the Tour. Thomas has been a part of every one of the team's Tour de France wins. Is leaving him home a blunder?

Plus, Jens breaks down all of the crashes and drama from the stage 1 opener in Nice. What is the role of the peloton's 'patron'? Jens takes us inside this very special person of the peloton.

Then, we get our first dispatch from Andrew Hood and James Startt, who are both on the ground in Nice for the race. Andrew and James discuss the race's COVID-19 safety protocols, and how they are making life different from everyone at the event, from fans to riders to journalists. What's it like to be a reporter at this year's race? It's totally different.

All that and more on the first episode of our 2020 Tour de France coverage!

Today's episode is sponsored by a new training supplement called MitoQ. MitoQ is a unique form of the antioxidant CoQ10 that is designed to get inside our cell's mitochondria to help create energy and neutralize free radicals. For more information go to www.mitoq.com/powerupcycling.

Bobby Julich calls him Sir Rod. Bahrain-McLaren racers call him boss. You probably know Rod Ellingworth from his early coaching connection to Mark Cavendish. However you know him, the general manager of the WorldTour squad Bahrain-McLaren comes on the show today to talk about preparing for the Tour de France.

Getting an international team ready for the Tour is organized chaos in the best of times, with people, vehicles, and materials scattered around various countries in the weeks and days leading up to the Grand Depart. And this year of course is special, with coronavirus precautions adding layer upon layer of complexity.

"We had all the challenges, we didn't just have the COVID challenge," Ellingworth said. "Our partners were in trouble from a financial point of view, and that was potentially the biggest challenge that we had."

Bahrain-McLaren recently announced that McLaren will not be returning as a sponsor next year.

Selecting which eight riders make the Tour de France team is critical point for any team. Ellingworth explains how his background with the British Olympic program helps inform his selection criteria. Providing transparency and clarity into the selection process is key, he says.

"The sports directors give us the demands of the event, which then tells you how many climbers do you take, how many flat riders do you take, and so forth. So you've got the outline," he said. "And then you say to each of those groups, this is what's expected of you. This is the level that we're expecting. This is the level of teamwork we're expecting. So it's all clearly written out in black and white for the whole team to see from very early."

Check out see Bahrain-McLaren's Tour de France team here: https://www.velonews.com/tour-de-france/tdf-teams-2020/bahrain-mclaren/

There will be no Chris Froome or Geraint Thomas at the Tour de France this year. The bombshell news was dropped by Team Ineos this past week, and on today's episode of The VeloNews Podcast we discuss every angle of the decision.

What does this mean for Froome's legacy and his attempt to win a fifth Tour? Why did Thomas look so bad at the Critérium du Dauphiné? And what does this milestone mean for Team Ineos and its era of dominance at the Tour de France?

Plus, the Tour de France revealed a new rule for COVID-19 safety, stating that teams will be booted from the race if they have two or more riders or staffers who test positive for the virus or show symptoms. We analyze this rule, and what impact it could have on the race.

Then, our countdown to the Tour de France concludes this week as we analyze our top-five contenders for the yellow jersey. Froome's omission threw off our top-10 list, and we discuss which second-tier contenders deserve a spot on the list of top favorites.

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

Live bike racing is back, and FloBikes is your home for live and on-demand coverage of the biggest events of the year including the Giro d’Italia, Tour of Flanders, Amstel Gold Race, Tirreno Adriatico, and much, much more. Go behind the scenes with exclusive interviews, in-depth documentaries, and a host of other cycling-focused content. Additionally, Canadian viewers get access to the Tour de France, Vuelta a Espana, and the World Championships. Subscribe today by going to flobikes.com/velonews.

In a normal year, Ben Delaney and Dan Cavallari are wandering random hotel parking lots in search of the newest and coolest Tour de France tech, often getting chastised by team mechanics and otherwise making nuisances of themselves somewhere in France.

2020 is no normal year. This year, both Ben and Dan will be watching the Tour from home, squinting at computer and TV screens to spot the new stuff.

In this episode of the VeloNews Tech Podcast, Ben and Dan talk a bit about their processes for spotting new tech when they're on the ground at the Tour de France (hint: always look for electrical tape!) and what they will be looking for on their screens at home this year.

Sylvan Adams is an enthusiastic masters racer — with one heck of a philanthropist twist. He fell in love with the sport late, and quickly found his way to national and world masters championship titles. But then.... the successful Canadian businessman and philanthropist went all in on supporting the sport of cycling in general and the Israeli cycling scene in particular, bringing the Giro d'Italia to Israel and launching Israel Start-Up Nation into the World Tour.

Tune in for a special episode of Put Your Socks On, as Bobby, Gus, and Sylvan talk about how Sylvan got into cycling, and where he wants to see it go.

The Critérium du Dauphiné is done and dusted, and we have our final glimpse of the Tour de France contenders before the big race. On this week's episode of The VeloNews Podcast we analyze all of the storylines from the Dauphiné and also Il Lombardia, and discuss how these stories impact our impressions of the upcoming Tour.

Chris Froome is not fit, Geraint Thomas looked bad, and numerous other contenders are suffering injuries and crashes. What does this mean for the race?

Then, we analyze the big contenders who will be battling for the Tour de France overall. In our annual VeloNews Tour de France guide we ranked the top-10 contenders. This week we analyze our riders ranked No. 10 through No. 6 on the list, and discuss each rider's strengths and weaknesses.

Live bike racing is back, and FloBikes is your home for live and on-demand coverage of the biggest events of the year including the Giro d’Italia, Tour of Flanders, Amstel Gold Race, Tirreno Adriatico, and much, much more. Go behind the scenes with exclusive interviews, in-depth documentaries, and a host of other cycling-focused content. Additionally, Canadian viewers get access to the Tour de France, Vuelta a Espana, Criterium du Dauphine and the World Championships. Subscribe today by going to flobikes.com/velonews.

As the bicycle becomes more complex, so too does the process for making it look, well, super pretty.

Micah Moran from Trek Bicycles knows a thing or two about what goes into all those nifty paint jobs; he has been deeply involved with Trek's in-house custom paint shop, Project One, as well as the Icon paint schemes that grace some of the most eye-catching designs on the road.

Micah joins tech editor Dan Cavallari to give us a sense of what's new in bicycle paint, where we've been in the past, and what we can look forward to in years to come.