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20 years ago, former England footballer, Crystal Palace captain, and cancer survivor Geoff Thomas first made his mark on the cycling world by completing all 21 stages and 3,593km of the 2005 Tour de France, a day before the Lance Armstrong-led peloton.

Since then, Thomas’s Tour 21 has developed into a huge deal, and every year groups of amateurs follow in his wheel tracks and ride the Tour route one week before the pros, raising millions of pounds for Cure Leukaemia. And this summer, Geoff marked two decades since his first French summer by riding his seventh Tour 21. 

In a wide-ranging chat, Geoff discusses his own cancer story, the origins of his Tour rides, the highs and lows of 20 years of riding a bike around France, his experiences with a certain Texan, his relationship with cycling beyond the Tour, and why cycling in a group isn’t that far removed from being part of a football changing room.

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It may have been sorely lacking in recent years, but the 2026 edition of the Tour de France Hommes will be all about suspense. Or, as the race’s press release put it, it’s going to be a ‘crescendo’. Whether it’s one that could build to a great Alpine GC frenzy, or, if Tadej decides to clash the symbols sooner than anticipated, fade into a disappointing diminuendo, remains to be seen.
On this week’s episode, we offer our immediate reactions to the Tour Hommes route revealed this week, which features a Barcelona start, an early Pyrenean excursion, a backloaded double visit to Alpe d’Huez, and the return of the Montmarte finale in Paris.
We also provide some hot takes on what looks set to be a very exciting Tour de France Femmes in 2026, including its long-awaited trip to Mont Ventoux and a potentially explosive final stage in Nice.
Elsewhere, inspired by Remco Evenepoel’s redemptive downhill performance at Il Lombardia this month, Emily puts her sports psychology Masters to good use and offers some handy advice on how you too can overcome a heavy crash and regain your confidence on the bike.

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Following Israel-Premier Tech’s decision to change both its name and nationality for 2026, in the wake of a season dominated by protests and controversy surrounding the team’s participation in races amid the conflict in Gaza, former UCI president Brian Cookson joins us on the podcast to discuss one of cycling’s biggest talking points in recent years: sportswashing.

In a wide-ranging discussion, Cookson, who ran the UCI between 2013 and 2017 after 16 years at the helm of British Cycling, chats about the spectre of sportswashing in cycling, affecting both sponsorship and race locations, why nation states shouldn’t have their name on team jerseys, and how cycling’s stakeholders should deal with protests on the road.

Elsewhere in the podcast, we also discuss the state of professional cycling in 2025, how the sport has moved on from the doping era Cookson saw first-hand as UCI president, and where things are currently going right (and wrong) for cycling in the UK.

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Buckle up for a truly epic episode of the road.cc podcast! We're delighted to be joined by legendary cyclist Pippa York and arguably cycling's most well-known journalist, David Walsh, for episode 115. 

After York agreed to spend three weeks on the road with Walsh following the Tour de France back in 2020, the pair struck up an unlikely friendship, which culminated in a book about their adventures during that Tour, plus the 2021 and 2022 editions, published earlier this year. 

Nothing is off the table in this episode, as we discuss the book, York’s struggles before, during, and after her career, the trans debate in sports, whether cycling has changed over the last 30 years, and a whole lot more. 

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This week, we're exploring one of the big cycling tech stories of 2025: the rise of Chinese bike brands. And why they could, through better tech, research and design, and affordable prices, very quickly threaten the traditional western brands and transform the global cycling industry. 

To assess China’s new high-end bike brand dynasty, and dig deeper into the circumstances, tech, and methods underpinning it, we spoke to Yoeleo, one of those Chinese companies aiming to disrupt the global cycling market and reinvent the country’s position and reputation within the industry.

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On the evening of Tuesday 23 May 2019, Ben Hetherington’s life changed forever. 

Ben, then 23-years-old and one of the most exciting young prospects in British cycling, was racing a local 10-mile time trial when he was struck by a motorist who turned right across the carriageway’s eastbound lanes after failing to give way. Ben suffered serious, life-threatening injuries in the crash, including a traumatic brain injury, and spent several weeks in an induced coma and three months in hospital. He eventually returned to para-cycling and continues to pick up top results. 

However, after the motorist was cleared in the criminal courts, Ben pursued civil proceedings against the driver – who then claimed the cycling club who organised the time trial (and Ben) were actually the ones at fault. Earlier this year, the driver’s case was dismissed in what has been described as an “important decision” for grassroots cycling clubs.

Ryan sat down with two lawyers who worked on the case, Laura Murphy and Martin Porter, to discuss what that judgement means for time trialling in Britain, for cycling clubs staging any kind of event on open roads, and for the volunteers who help make it all possible – and also why cyclists should expect better from the police investigating crashes.

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This episode of the podcast is in association with Schwalbe...

How do you go about building a Tour de France team effectively from scratch? That’s the question I asked when I popped around to the rest day hotel of Julian Alaphilippe’s Tudor Pro Cycling squad, who are making their debuts at this year’s Tour.

The Swiss team are relative newbies to the sport, only launching under the Tudor name in 2022, two years after classics legend and national hero Fabian Cancellara took over the Swiss Academy Racing project. The squad then stepped up to the second-tier ProTeam level the following year, and has enjoyed something of a meteoric rise to the top of the sport, making their Giro debut last year, before being invited to the 2025 Tour.

On this week’s episode, I chat to Tudor CEO Raphael Meyer about the team’s growth and how you get ready for a race as big as the Tour de France.

I clambered up into the team truck, to have a nosey at the squad’s bikes and wheels, and to chat to their head mechanic Diego Costa about what it takes to put together a Tour de France bike.

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Tadej Pogačar, already four stage wins to the good this year and chasing his fourth Tour de France title at the age of just 26, is busy cementing his status as one of cycling’s greatest ever riders, with yet another dominant, cannibal-esque performance at the sport’s biggest race.

But is Pogačar’s relentless dominance hurting the race? And is he just too good? That’s the big debate featured on the latest episode of the road.cc Podcast, where Ryan is in the Pyrenees following the Slovenian’s exploits this week.

Ryan also chats with one of the big stars of the first two weeks of the Tour, Ben Healy, whose swashbuckling, attacking displays were rewarded with a stage win and two days in the yellow jersey. 

After relinquishing yellow on Hautacam, Healy reflected on his spell leading the Tour and why he’s looking forward to getting back to doing what he does best: attacking.

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It’s July, it’s hot, the men’s and women’s pelotons are both deep into grand tour season – and the road.cc Podcast is hitting the road and embracing all the stage racing madness, as part of a new mini-series we’re calling… errr, ‘road.cc on the road’. 

And kicking off this tentatively titled podcast series, I headed to northern Italy and the self-proclaimed cheese capital of Europe, Bergamo, for the start of the Giro d’Italia Women, one of the biggest, most prestigious week-long races on the calendar.

During my weekend in Bergamo, in-between eating as much casoncelli as I could physically manage, eavesdropping on interminable cat selfie shoots, and dodging thunderstorms and VIP mascots (you’ll have to tune in to find out what that’s about), I caught up with four riders on extreme ends of the Giro experience spectrum: four-time Giro winner Anna van der Breggen, and debutants (and future stage winner and pink jersey) Anna Henderson, Pfeiffer Georgi, and Irish champion Mia Griffin.

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Coppi versus Bartali. Anquetil versus Poulidor. LeMond versus Hinault. Armstrong versus Ullrich. Contador versus Schleck. Does Tadej Pogačar’s epic rivalry with Jonas Vingegaard at the Tour de France beat them all?

That’s the question we try our best to answer during this week’s Tour de France-focused episode of the road.cc Podcast, as we rub our hands in glee at the prospect of Pogi v Jonas entering its fifth consecutive instalment, with the scores currently even at two-all.

As the Grand Départ in Lille approaches, Emily, Ryan, and Dan discuss the duo’s sustained rivalry and its place in cycling history and why, despite this year’s Tour appearing more delicately poised than ever, Pogačar is, in most people’s eyes, the hot favourite for yellow in Paris.

In part 2, legendary Olympic champion-turned-Active Travel Commissioner, Chris Boardman, is taking some time out from the Tour to offer us some much-needed respite from incessant bike racing chat.

In the full version of our interview featured earlier this month on road.cc, Ryan and Chris talk e-bikes, safety concerns, “sloppy journalism”, and the need to tackle anti-cycling narratives in the press and some political circles by highlighting the positive outcomes of riding a bike.

00:00 - 00:54: Introduction 
00:55 - 37:52: Is Tadej Pogačar vs Jonas Vingegaard the greatest Tour de France rivalry in history?
37:53 - 39:38: Hammerhead advert plus exclusive offer
39:39 - 51:27: Chris Boardman interview
51:28 - 53:17: outro

The road.cc Podcast is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Amazon Music, and if you have an Alexa you can just tell it to play the road.cc Podcast.

At the time of broadcast, our listeners can also get a free Hammerhead Heart Rate Monitor with the purchase of a Hammerhead Karoo 2. Visit hammerhead.io right now and use promo code ROADCC at checkout to get yours.

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For most of the pro cycling world, June is all about altitude camps, warm-up races, and fine-tuning that all-important preparation ahead of the big one: the Tour de France. But here at road.cc, it really means only one thing: our annual tech-spotting pilgrimage to the Critérium du Dauphiné! (Or whatever it’s going to be called next year…)

And while all eyes were on Tadej Pogačar, road.cc’s editor Jack and news editor Dan were busy skulking around rural French car parks in search of the next big thing in bike tech, from the new Cervélo S5 aero bike to that mad, track-inspired, super wide fork-sporting Factor. 

After discussing their findings and why bike brands still love “playing the game” when it comes to ‘secret’ new tech, attentions turned to the UCI’s latest regulatory bombshell, after the governing body’s string of new tech rules, covering everything from helmet designs and rim height to handlebar and fork width, provoked a backlash from riders and bike fitters.

And in part two, the Cycle to Work Alliance’s chair Steve Edgell joins us to chat about the success of Cycle to Work in enabling people to, well, cycle to work, recent claims it lack inclusivity and is “sucking the lifeblood” out of bike shops, and what modernising the scheme actually means in practice.

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On this week’s episode, we’re joined by Julian Chamberlayne, a partner at Stewart’s, the UK law firm who last month secured a £4.5m settlement case against Planet X’s insurers, after cyclist Dr Daniel Gordon was left paralysed in a crash caused by his gravel bike's carbon fork shearing in two on a grass slope.

We discuss what went wrong to lead to such a horrendous crash, the case itself, and its potential implications for the cycling industry, where gravel bikes are frequently marketed as ‘go anywhere’ machines, when the reality can often be very different. 

And in part one, Ryan and Dan chat about THAT staggering ending to the Giro d’Italia, the tactical drama that unfolded on the Colle delle Finestre, and whether Simon Yates’ pink jersey triumph places him firmly in the upper echelon of British cycling greats.

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This week, Ryan chats with the co-founder of the latest big idea hoping to shake up the conservative world of cycling: Formula Fixed, a new US-based indoor racing series featuring bikes with no brakes on tight, twisting, go-kart style circuits in a ticketed arena setting.

With this new brand of cycling set to launch this year, Formula Fixed founder James Grady chats about his background in cycling, his plans for his new racing league, how it will actually work, and why big swings, not marginal gains, are required to give cycling a metaphorical boot up the backside.

We also talk about turning cycling from a participant-based sport into a fan-based one, the issues afflicting US racing at the moment, why Formula Fixed can boost the road scene, not usurp it – and why he doesn’t care what people in France think.

And most importantly: Does our sport really need a rebrand and can Formula Fixed, ahem, ‘fix’ cycling?

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This week, former WorldTour pros Harry Tanfield and Sophie Wright kindly interrupted their packing for Sea Otter to hop on the podcast and discuss how they’ve adapted to life as rookie gravel racers with Britain’s newest professional cycling team, the Ribble Outliers – including getting used to wider tyres and lower pressures (and why they’re a big plus when it comes to riding on Britain’s battered roads).

The duo also chatted about the pressures facing British cycling at the moment for riders, organisers, and fans, Harry’s ill-fated bid to set up his own road team last year, and why the Tour de France’s visit could be a kick-starter for the local scene… If we can watch it on TV, of course. 

Oh, and why the UK’s active travel approach is lightyears behind our European counterparts (yes, there was a lot covered).

And in part one, Jack and Ryan are joined by road.cc founder Tony Farrelly and regular contributor Jo Burt to pay tribute to the brilliant John Stevenson, our friend and former colleague at road.cc, and an absolute titan in the world of cycling journalism for four decades, who died earlier this month.

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To mark Security and Storage Week on road.cc, this week’s episode focuses on one of the most useful and controversial – if you’re a grumpy SUV driver, anyway – urban cycling innovations of the past 15 years: the cycle hangar.

Invented by Cyclehoop founder Anthony Lau, and spawning a host of imitators, Bikehangars provide secure shelter for six bikes in half the space normally occupied by a car parking space, giving cyclists outdoor, weather-protected cycle storage near their homes. And they’ve proved exceptionally popular too, currently numbering 3,000 across the UK.

Lau joins for a wide-ranging chat discussing the origins and growth of Cyclehoop, the persistent and increasing problem of bike theft in the UK, the lack of safe, secure storage facilities for cyclists, and the criticism his company’s faced from motorists for taking spots once reserved for cars. 

Oh, and why SUV-shaped bike hangars could be the future…

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With the cycling industry gripped by yet another period of uncertainty, this week’s episode of the road.cc Podcast focuses on the story that’s dominated the front pages all month – Donald Trump’s chaos-creating global tariffs. 

And why, at least according to one industry insider, they aren’t going to, as feared by many, “sink the ship”, and could even present an opportunity for bike brands in the UK to capitalise on a re-ordered global market.

As brands rush to increase their prices and campaign groups lobby their local politicians during Trump’s 90-day pause on his so-called reciprocal tariffs, we’re joined by Dominic Loh, the director of business at the parent company that runs mountain bike brands Funn and Granite Design, with over a decade’s worth of experience in the Asian and UK cycling market.

Fresh from Sea Otter, where the US president’s trade policies were the talk of the town, Dominic discusses the reaction to the tariffs within the industry, why forecasts of doom and gloom are overstated, and the potential for prices rises for customers at their local bike shop.

He also chats about the continued resilience of the cycling industry, why brands need to stay nimble, and why the tariffs could lead brands to adopt a more global approach, perhaps even presenting opportunities for UK-based companies in the new post-Brexit landscape.

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We’re deep into classics season, with Paris-Roubaix looming on the horizon, so this week’s episode of the road.cc Podcast pays homage to cycling’s biggest one-day events.

In part two, double Olympic champion Kristen Faulkner joins us from her altitude training camp in Sierra Nevada, as she prepares for the upcoming Ardennes classics following a turbulent start to the season marred by the concussion she suffered in a training crash in December.

The EF Education-Oatly leader chats about that mad week in Paris last summer, which saw her become the first American women to win gold medals in two different disciplines at the same Olympics, her plans for 2025, her outsider’s status within the peloton, and why, despite women’s cycling progressing rapidly in recent years, the sport has to acknowledge “how far there is to go”. 

And first up, Emily casts her eye over the cobbled classics season so far, and Ryan recaps an eventful, often chaotic day on the Oude Kwaremont at last weekend’s Tour of Flanders, reflecting on why the Ronde means so much not just to Belgium, but to cycling in general.

Oh, and we announce the winner of our coveted Episode 100 Jeremy Vine competition…

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It’s the road.cc Podcast’s 100th episode! And to celebrate our century, we’re joined this week by a staple of our news and live blog coverage: broadcaster, cyclist, road safety advocate, and self-confessed road.cc fanatic Jeremy Vine.

During a brilliantly entertaining chat, Jeremy talks us through his conversion to cycling in his 40s, his later radicalisation when it came to road safety, and his decision to buy a helmet camera and post his rides to work in London on the lovely online debating forum that was Twitter. 

We also discuss his stance on social media toxicity, especially concerning cycling, the BBC’s impartiality rules, the “gaslighting” of cyclists for wanting safer infrastructure, a few of his, ahem, unusual ideas to make things better for cyclists in London, and his general relationship with all things cycling and bikes.

Oh, and there were also a few Trump impressions thrown in for good measure.

And in part two, Ryan, Jack, and Emily look back over the past 100 episodes, four years, and 6,000 or so minutes of the podcast – and there’s a chance for you to win some excellent road.cc swag…

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What is the worst, least hospitable city for cycling in the UK? While we’re sure you all have your own ‘favourite’ contenders for that particular accolade, in this week’s podcast episode – our 99th, if you haven’t noticed already – Ryan decides to settle the debate once and for all, by jumping on his bike (and pushing and walking it) along the questionably protected and poorly connected bike lanes of Belfast.

Despite the implementation of the Belfast Cycling Network Delivery Plan in 2021, Northern Ireland’s capital still boasts a paltry two miles of protected cycling infrastructure, missing out large swathes of the city, locking it in the pre-active travel dark ages and attracting strong criticism from local campaigners.

During the episode, Ryan joins one of those campaigners, the Belfast Cycle Campaign’s Meg Hoyt for an eye-opening bike tour of the city, featuring some head scratching bike lane designs, plenty of ‘get off and push’ moments, traffic-free paths filled with broken glass, badly parked cars, a prolonged stretch of lovely scenic riding, and maybe… just maybe, a glimmer of hope for the future. 

And in part two, Jack and Ryan sit down to chat with Jonathon Harker, the editor of Cycling Industry News, as we mark five years since the world shut down and the face of the bike industry was changed irrevocably. 

Jonathon assesses the state of the bike industry in 2025, discusses the impact of culture war stories surrounding e-bikes and infrastructure on the industry, and why cycling’s new motto, after a year or so of ‘Survive until 2025’, should perhaps be modified to the equally poetic ‘Thrive beyond 2025’. 

Let’s hope that one catches on…

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One of the cycling transfer stories of the winter – and possibly the decade – was Tom Pidcock’s decision to break his contract with the Ineos Grenadiers three years early to join Swiss second-tier ProTeam Q36.5 Pro Cycling.

And, despite the messy, protracted saga that preceded the transfer, it’s fair to say the move has worked out pretty well so far. Pidcock’s debut for Q36.5 saw him win two stages and the overall in convincing fashion at the AlUla Tour, while the team’s also been firing on all cylinders early doors, already equalling their total number of 2024 wins by mid-February.

So, with a Pidcock-led Q36.5 making waves at the start of 2025, we’re joined on this week’s episode by the squad’s former Irish champion Rory Townsend, who’s starting his second season with the Swiss team after working his way up through the British domestic scene over the past decade. 

Townsend discusses the Pidcock transfer saga, as well as the double Olympic champion’s immediate impact on the in-form team, and whether signing one of cycling’s biggest stars has raised expectations and changed the squad’s identity.
We also examine the 29-year-old’s own unique, circuitous path to the pro ranks, via an Epstein Barr diagnosis, rejections, a university degree, an emotional national champs win, and a mattress on the floor of a dingy Belgian B&B.

Elsewhere, Rory chats about his plans and ambitions for the season, which include a crack at the classics and aiming for that so far elusive Tour of Britain stage success, his brutal day in the break at the Glasgow world championships, those Box Hill Strava KOM conquests – and why you need to properly dilute your pickle juice before downing it during a race…

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Since it was announced early last week, Warner Bros. Discovery’s controversial decision to ditch Eurosport in the UK and Ireland, after over three decades of quirky, wonderful broadcasting, and move all of its cycling coverage to the all-encompassing, £31-a-month TNT Sports (hiking the price up by 443 per cent in the process), has been the subject of intense debate among cycling fans, riders, and stakeholders.

In part one of this week’s road.cc Podcast, Ryan, Dan, and Emily dissect the earth-shattering news, the backlash from across the cycling world, and what it all means for the future of cycling coverage (and the sport itself) in the UK and Ireland.

And in part two, road.cc’s tech editor Mat Brett sits down for a chat with one of those high-profile cycling figures set to be directly affected by this new, monopolised cycling media landscape, especially after July’s last (for the foreseeable future, anyway) free-to-air Tour de France on ITV4 – four-time Tour stage winner-turned-ITV commentator David Millar.

The former Garmin rider chats about his new role as brand director at premium bike manufacturer Factor, his “geeky” love of bikes, and the “death by a thousand cuts” demise of his clothing brand CHPT3 last year. 

Millar also assesses the recent safety debates in pro cycling, from yellow cards and gear restrictions to airbags, and concludes that the key to making the “inherently dangerous” world of bike racing safer could be “empowering” the peloton to self-police and respect each other.

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On this week’s episode we’re delving into the past, present, and future of American cycling, with none other than former Tour de France podium finisher and current gran fondo organiser, Levi Leipheimer.

A former teammate of Lance Armstrong’s at US Postal, Astana, and RadioShack, Leipheimer was one of the leading American pros during an era when the United States was planted firmly at the summit of the sport. The stage racer and TT specialist finished third, behind teammate Alberto Contador, at one of the closest ever editions of the Tour de France in 2007, came second at the Vuelta, and won the Tour de Suisse and Dauphiné Libéré, as well as three consecutive editions of the Tour of California.

However, Leipheimer’s career came to an abrupt halt in 2012, after he confessed to doping for much of his career as part of the United States Anti-Doping Agency’s case against Armstrong, which ultimately led to the Texan’s lifetime ban.

Since then, Leipheimer has spent his time helping young riders in California, as well as organising Levi’s Gran Fondo, a mass participation event in Sonoma County which he started in 2009, raising over $3.2 million for at-risk youth, and announced this month that he plans to grow the event into the “richest” professional one-day race in the world. 

During a reflective, candid conversation, Leipheimer discusses the current state of America’s domestic road racing landscape, how he hopes to breathe new life into it, the impact of his generation’s widespread doping on the reputation of cycling in the States and the current racing malaise, his perspective on his own career, and how cycling in general deals with its past.

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It’s time for the first road.cc Podcast episode of 2025, and we decided to kick off the new year by mixing things up and delving into unexplored territory for the podcast – by analysing the ongoing struggles facing the cycling industry and assessing where the BBC went wrong in their latest controversial active travel take. Oh wait… Well, start as you mean to go on, I suppose.

And to just underline how little ground we’re planning on breaking this year, in part one Ryan and Jack are joined once again by Rory Hitchens, a long-time bike industry stalwart, for what’s fast becoming an annual segment on the podcast: assessing the state of the cycling industry as we enter the new year.

For most of last year, the bike industry’s motto seemed to be ‘Survive until 2025’ – and it’s clear that there is plenty of surviving still going on.

However, despite continuing negative headlines, Hitchens is optimistic that the storms which have battered the cycling industry since the Covid pandemic are starting, finally, to abate, as the industry reshapes itself into something “leaner, meaner, and more creative”.

And speaking of creative thinking, in part two e-biketips editor Alex Bowden joins us to pick apart THAT recent BBC Panorama documentary on e-bikes – widely criticised for appearing to conflate legal e-bikes with illegally modified machines, and the dangerous riding and criminality associated with them – and ask: Where did Adrian Chiles go wrong?

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It’s the most wonderful time of the year… that’s right, it’s our annual podcast episode looking back over the biggest and most bizarre bike-related stories of 2024! Plus some less cheery but nonetheless important town centre cycling ban chat for good measure.

In part one, Ryan, Jack, and Emily, paper party helmets firmly attached, discuss the stories and narratives that jumped out at them during 2024: the UK general election and its impact on cycling so far, the ongoing storms battering the bike industry, the latest wave of aero tech, Tadej Pogačar’s overwhelming dominance and much more. 

In part 2, we turn our attentions towards another cycling story that just wouldn’t go away over the last 12 months – town centre cycling bans.

Ryan is joined by one of those activists who successfully stood up to the wardens and caused a rethink in their local council over how they approach so-called ‘anti-social cycling’. 

As well as discussing his group’s campaign against the crude and often incorrect implementation of the city’s cycling ban, Will Bramhill from the Colchester Cycling Campaign told the podcast that cycling PSPOs will always prove controversial until the UK fully addresses its decades-long failure in transport policy, which constantly shunts cyclists away from safe spaces and on to dangerous roads alongside motorists.