Velo Podcast

It's the 15th stage of the Tour de France. Everyone's tired. But today's racing was absolute full-on from kilometer zero to the final mountaintop meters.

Bobby and Gus dig into the details with a focus on Positive Mental Attitude, joined by special guest Mike Lepp, a sports physiologist with 35 years of experience working with athletes and teams, including NASCAR with Joe Gibbs Racing. 

As Gus says, "it's was a cracker of a stage, and it's a cracker of a show" today on Put Your Socks On. We're talking ants in the pants. Tacks on the road. And steam coming out of Thibaut Pinot's ears. Connect your ears to PYSO, episode 15.

Team PYSO is on a high coming off a scorching episode 13, and the Tour de France gets even higher as we head into the mountains. Cue the Floyd's of Leadville ad. Well whether it's MVPs , CBDs or DNFs, today we talk GC riders vs Helpers. Race tactics. Team captains. Domestiques and more. Gus breaks down QuickStep's short leash on the peloton and How's your short term memory? It's time to Put Your Socks On!

For the time trial, teams and riders use technology to gain every advantage possible. We talk rider position vs aerodynamics. Metabolic efficiency vs wind tunnel data. And what music riders use to get pumped up before the big stages. Can you guess what Coach Bobby rocked? Today's special guest is Jesse Frank, human performance engineer at Specialized Bicycles. With a bachelor’s in mechanical engineering and a master’s in integrative physiology/sports biomechanics, Jesse knows a thing or two about making people go fast.

Metrics such as calories, kiloJoules, Watt Prime (W’), and FRC are attempts to quantify how much energy we have to available to use. Many top pros just have a feel for it. But ultimately, we all have a “jar of energy” we can use in a race. Some of us have bigger jars, some smaller. But the winner of the race isn’t necessarily the rider with the biggest jar. It’s the rider who still has a little energy left in the jar at the end of the race, and who knows just the right moment to use it.

In this episode, we discuss how to use your jar most effectively to make sure every time you pour a little of that precious energy out, it makes an impact.

We’ll apply this to a discussion of bike racing, including:

- Why the best rider always wins the race, even if the or she isn’t the strongest rider

- We’ll define energy and discuss the pros and cons of trying to measure it

- However you measure it, you have a limited supply. So, we’ll dive into all the ways you can unnecessarily waste energy including: Responding to every move; riding in the washing machine; poor positioning; and riding on the front for no reason

- After we talk about all the ways you can waste energy, we’ll flip it around and talk about ways to save energy including: finding the sweet spot in the field and seeking to be bored; learning to observe the field so you know when “it's about to get real” and when it’s not; and learning to think like a sprinter and why it’s okay to sit on

- Finally, we’ll talk about when it’s okay to spend energy, for example, when you’re riding for a teammate, at those make-or-break moments in the race, and when you smell blood in the water.

Our primary guest today is the always informative Colby Pearce, a racer, coach, bike fitter, thinker, tinkerer, and one of the most thoughtful and inquisitive bike racers we know.

Along with Colby we talked with Sepp Kuss, winner of the 2018 Tour of Utah, riding for the Jumbo-Visma WorldTour team.

Finally, we'll touch base with another Canadian and world gran fondo champion Bruce Bird, who talks with us about how to read the field.

SPECIAL GUEST DOWNHILL LEGEND AND SPORTS TRAINER - OSCAR SAIZ (oscarsaiz.com)

After things go up, Oscar Saiz gets down to the business of descending. Technique, Courage and how driving video games can be a safe and valuable teaching tool for riders learning to read the road.

The boys in the Peleton as well as the PYSO boys played fair today. Bobby and Gus discuss managing breakaways. How emotions play a part in racing and mental Freshness. Ups and Downs. Terminal Velocity.White Knuckles. Hot Topic was the Rohan Dennis Investigation - Bobby's previous pick for tomorrow's ITT. Things are starting to HEAT UP in the TDF!

Life on the road can be good, bad and ugly - and Bobby and Gus dig into it all on this episode. We talk seedy hotel rooms and even seedier Tour roommates. There’s cold pasta, mosquitoes, ants under the sheets and some too-close-for-comfort body contact.

The legendary Jens Voigt pops in, and he is bummed out about George Bennett losing so much time on stage 10.


And special guest Dr. Brianna Stubbs explains Ketones and their use in the peloton.

It’s time to Put Your Socks On.

Andy Hood and Fred Dreier link up for the Tour de France's first rest day to discuss, among other topics, why they are not attending this year's race. (Hint: they both have good reasons). What's it like for a Tour de France journalist to be at home for the Tour de France? You surprisingly get to watch more of the action than ever!

Then, the guys discuss the storylines that are shaping this year's Tour, thus far: Julian Alaphilippe's ascendance; Jumbo-Visma's quiet dominance; the absence of long and boring sprint stages; and Ineos's early domination.

Finally, we check in with American Joey Rosskopf, who is making is debut at the Tour de France.

This week's episode of The VeloNews Podcast is sponsored by Garmin and its line of Edge cycling computers. The Edge 530 and touch screen 830 are lightweight and extremely durable computers that go beyond data collection with training tools designed to help you reach your peak performance.

For more information go to Garmin's website: https://buy.garmin.com/en-US/US/cIntoSports-cCycling-p1.html

Nibali pushes back on Twitter. Cycling is brutal. Work Ethic is number one. Apologies, empathy and sympathy. Bobby does a VERY convincing Al Pacino as Scarface impression. Sprinters - are they born or can they be trained? British Cycling coaching institution Rod Ellingworth weighs in all things fast-twitch, including some very special insights into the legend that is Mark Cavendish as well as why track racing matters.

“Rod is my Yoda.” - Bobby Julich

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STAGE 9 BASTILLE DAY

St Etienne - Brioude 170.5km

The cast talks nutrition on today’s stage: team chefs, soggy baguettes, and heaps of Nutella. Special shout out to ROAD ID employee of the month, Becky. You go, Becky. Turns out, Gus knows more about Zombies than anyone expected. And, we have our sprinter predictions for Stage 10 from Saint-Flour to Albi on the fastest growing sports podcast in the world, PYSO! Bonus: Coach Bobby J promises to take the whole crew to Sizzler after the Tour! We’ve put our socks on. Have you?

Things get loose during Stage 8 of the TdF with team PYSO. Gus agrees with the UCI. Bobby is still not sure what Gus means by “Snacks on Stage." We have special guest Therese Sundstrom, pro soigneur, live from Girona, Spain. We talk rider care as well as self care today on the fastest growing sports podcast PUT YOUR SOCKS ON. Oh, and quick tip: don't mess with Bobby's chamois cream…