Velo Podcast

In this special episode, co-host Bobby Julich becomes the hot-seat guest as Tejay van Garderen and Gus Morton pepper the Olympic medalist and Tour de France podium finisher about not only his career, but the decisions behind his actions, his regrets, and his most cherished moments. After watching ESPN's two-part LANCE documentary, van Garderen has questions for Julich about how the sport and society treated riders who doped, citing the depression and drug-related deaths of Marco Pantani and Frank Vandenbroucke. Julich talks about his own involvement in doping, his now-wife's prescient words about it decades ago, and his decisions to not only opt to race clean years ago, but to come clean to Team Sky years after, knowing that it would cost him his job. Van Garderen and Morton are empathetic but probing in their frank conversation. Van Garderen raced under Julich's guidance at BMC and still considers him a mentor. The younger American says he regrets racing too cautiously in the past, and seeing success as a zero-sum game, and asks Julich if he feels the same about his career. Julich also talks about his rare moments of zen on the bike, including one special instance during his Olympic time trial ride in Athens that netted him a silver medal.

We have a packed episode of The VeloNews Podcast this week, with interviews and segments that take you into pro cycling's return to racing. Andrew Hood is at the Vuelta a Burgos this week, which marks the first international pro men's race to be held since the coronavirus shutdown back in March. Andrew provides an on-the-ground account of what it's like to be inside a race during the pandemic, including his perspective on the safety measures being used to curb the spread of the virus. Then, we hear from American Sepp Kuss, who is racing the Vuelta a Burgos about his return to racing, and how he feels about being back in a bike race. Our countdown to the Tour de France continues this week, as we take a deep dive into the opening 10 stages of this year's Tour with James Startt. We analyze each stage's elevation profile and offer our thoughts on whether it's a day for the GC riders, sprinters, or breakaway specialists. We also offer our picks for each stage's winner. Then, Betsy Welch and Fred Dreier link up with American rider Tayler Wiles, who recently traveled back to Europe to start up the pro women's season. Wiles participated in races over the weekend in Spain, and offers her perspective on whether or not she fees safe in pro cycling's return. The Tour de France is just around the corner, and the 2020 VeloNews Tour de France guide is now available for pre-order. This year the guide is again packed with insight and analysis on all 21 stages and 22 teams. We also have feature stories that examine the Tour's history with global crisis, and the simmering battle between Team Ineos and Jumbo-Visma. You can order yours now at www.velopress.com.

Gear and tech can often dictate the outcome of a stage, or the overall race, at the Tour de France. On this episode of the VeloNews Tech Podcast, European correspondent Andrew Hood joins tech editor Dan Cavallari to recount some of the most interesting and consequential tech moments of his tenure covering the Tour, which started in 1996.

How many athletes can you name that use one sport as cross-training for another? Probably a few, right? But can you name any athletes that participate in the very highest levels of professional competition in one sport as preparation for another sport? That is exactly what Ineos-Grenadier rider Cam Wurf is doing, using WorldTour racing as training for the Ironman world championships, which were recently postponed until February. In this episode of Put Your Socks On, Cam catches up with Bobby and Gus after the hosts catch you up with the final two stages of the Virtual Tour de France on Zwift. Oh, and if you're impressed with Cam's two-for-one professional sports plan, you should also know that he has been to the Olympics — in rowing!

The clock is ticking to the start of the Tour de France, and we are taking a deep dive into various elements of the race over the next six episodes. We will examine the stages, the contenders, the storylines, and even the race's history between now and the race's start on August 29. On today's episode we take a broad look at the 2020 Tour de France route, and examine how it fits into the current trends for grand tour route design. Andrew Hood and James Startt offer their analysis on the 2020 Tour route, and offer insights into how the overall route will impact the racing. Then, we catch up with one of the country's top up-and-coming junior racers, Zoe Ta-Perez. Zoe rides for the Luxx-Sideshow women's team, and she is a 12-time national champion and a current UCI world champion in the Madison event. Zoe discusses how the COVID-19 shutdown has impacted her racing goals, and what it's like to be a top cyclist while trying to maintain a normal life as a teenager. The Tour de France is just around the corner, and the 2020 VeloNews Tour de France guide is now available for pre-order. This year the guide is again packed with insight and analysis on all 21 stages and 22 teams. We also have feature stories that examine the Tour's history with global crisis, and the simmering battle between Team Ineos and Jumbo-Visma. You can order yours now at www.velopress.com.

Dan Cavallari and Ben Delaney dive deep into the world of bicycle storage, all in an effort to save your long-suffering and sagging jersey pockets from further despair. From frame bags to integrated tool solutions that hide in head tubes and handlebars, we live in an era that offers a smorgasbord of clever storage options. Find out which ones are our favorites on this episode of the Tech Podcast.

In 1996, Bobby Julich thought his career was over - as it was just beginning to take off - because of a heart arrhythmia. Instead, George Hincapie introduced him to cardiologist Mike Lepp, he had a heart ablation procedure, and went on to have a very successful career. In the wake of the untimely death of young Belgian rider Niels De Vriendt (VDM), Mike joins Bobby and Gus Morton to talk about various personal instances of how cycling can exacerbate heart issues, and what can be done about it. Mike Lepp is currently the senior athletic advisor to Joe Gibbs Racing in NASCAR, but his involvement in sports physiology and heart health goes back decades to his time as director of a cardiology clinic for many years in the 1980s.

It's official: Chris Froome is leaving Team Ineos to join Israel Start-Up Nation for 2021 and the foreseeable future. This blockbuster transfer is one of the biggest in pro cycling's recent history, and on this week's episode we examine every angle of the move. Andrew Hood and James Startt join the podcast to discuss the Froome news. What does Froome's decision mean for his legacy and the legacy of Team Sky/Ineos? How does the move impact Israel Start-Up Nation's ambitions within the WorldTour? And what are the other historical transfers of this nature in cycling's history? And, do we think that Chris Froome will win his record-tying fifth Tour? Then, we catch up with rising American star Magnus Sheffield, who won bronze at the 2019 UCI junior men's road world championships. This year was supposed to be Sheffield's big season on the domestic and international stage, and the coronavirus pandemic has sidelined him. What impact will the shutdown have on the country's system for developing young talent like Sheffield? The Tour de France is just around the corner, and the 2020 VeloNews Tour de France guide is now available for pre-order. This year the guide is again packed with insight and analysis on all 21 stages and 22 teams. We also have feature stories that examine the Tour's history with global crisis, and the simmering battle between Team Ineos and Jumbo-Visma. You can order yours now at www.velopress.com.

Jurgen Landrie has been wrenching on bikes for WorldTor teams for decades, so he has seen how much bikes have changed over the years. But just in the last five years, it seems like that evolution has accelerated. Landrie joins VeloNews tech editor Dan Cavallari on the VeloNews tech podcast to give us a sense of how and why bikes have evolved so rapidly in the last few years, and how mechanics at the top levels of the sport are adapting and taking on new roles to ensure riders get all the benefits from aerodynamics, body positioning, materials, and more.

Zwift has redefined indoor cycling. What started in 2014 with a 5km virtual track and a handful of users is now a global phenomenon. Just this weekend, for instance, Zwift had nearly 90,000 people sign up to ride one of the company's Virtual Tour de France social rides. On this episode of Put Your Socks On, Bobby and Gus speak with Zwift co-founder and CEO Eric Min about where they company came from, and where it's going. Some of the hurdles are technological: How do you ensure power-measurement accuracy and consistency with riders around the world using different equipment? And some of the hurdles are sociological or psychological: It took six years for the Zwift community to accept the idea of a burrito Power Up that makes them un-draftable for a few seconds. "So we've taken baby steps [in adding game enhancements], but now I think if you took away all the gamification in the game, it would just be boring," Min said. "We even went to ASO to ask professionals, 'do you want these events to have have power ups or not?' They overwhelmingly said yes, we want power ups because why wouldn't you want to have a gift of an arrow power up? You know, ahead of a sprint. It's a freebie."