Tour de Todd

Matisse Julien is originally from a town called Laval a city in Quebec, Canada. This season he's racing for the French team CIC U Nantes Atlantique. It's a continental team. So far he's raced the Grand Prix Cycliste de Marseille La Marseillaise, which is the traditional opener to the season in France. Plus, he just finished the Etoile Besseges stage race. Julien is racing the Coup d...

Norman Alvis is a Sacramento, California native. He started out as an athlete running cross country. At the same time he rode a bike to and from school. After riding a friends race bike he was smitten. He say it was the adventure, the sensation of being on the bike and having something of his own that drove him. He won his first race solo. He says he did very well from the beginning.  1981 he got...

Let me say this first, I'm a history buff when it comes to cycling. I love learning about riders from the past, present, their stats, and who won what race when, where and how.  Willy Wauthle from the Netherlands helps me fulfill my fascination. He is one of the most captivating individuals I've ever met.   Wauthle has one of the most comprehensive Facebook page on the history of cycling...

Yoeri Havik and Jan-Willem Van Schip won the Madison World Championships in Glasgow, Scotland this year in fine fashion. To watch the race you would have seen a master class in how to race a Madison from start to finish.   This interview took place in the middle of the Copenhagen 3 Day. Havik is riding his new white Koga with his signature bars. He looks cool.  We literally went through the Madiso...

Riley Sheehan is dope. This young man won Paris Tours 2023. I don't know if you're familiar with the race but it's 213.9 km long and starts in Chartres and ends in Tours. The 2023 version started with 157riders.  Sheehan started the race as a stagiaire for Israel Premier Tech World Tour Team.  He got a chance to join the team for a training camp at altitude in July. After that he jo...

Angelo Furlan is a sprinting legend. In the early 2000's until 2013 Furlan was racking up big wins in the European cycling world. It was a time where Mario Cipollini, Alessandro Petacchi to Robbie McEwen were winning races at will. Furlan beat all three in races.  Injuries in BMX is what led Furlan to road racing. Furlan raced BMX when Italy only had 10 tracks and about a thousand riders. He...

Serghei Tvetcov is living with Leukemia. He was diagnosed with cancer in September 2022. He was racing with his Wildlife Generation Pro Cycling Team in the Tour of Romania when he got the results. He says he knew something wasn't right. Tvetcov simply couldn't put out the numbers he was used to doing. So he went and got tested. The test revealed he was living with Chronic Myeloid Leukemi...

Henri Uhlig recently signed his first pro contract with Alpecin Deceuninck. For the past two years he's been riding for their development team. His season just ended after racing the famed Paris-Tours elite race. So, this interview takes place while he's on vacation.  Uhlig told me he's not happy with the season he had. He feels there were way too many wins left on the table. His fi...

It's been five years since Simon Gerrans retired from professional cycling.  2018 was his last season. Gerrans says it was a big transition leaving elite cycling. He says it forced him find a new purpose in his life, goals, and new ambitions. He says it wasn't easy so it forced him to stay busy. At first he did an internship at Goldman Sachs and currently he finds himself running "T...

Grant Koontz started racing a bike in his senior year of high school. He was diving and then jumped on a bike. The Houston, Texas native says his physical talents didn't mesh with football to basketball.  By the time Koontz got to college he'd won a national time trial championship. He credits the riding community of Houston for giving him direction and guidance. He says several older ri...

Alexi Ramirez is from Trinidad & Tobago. She is one of their top cyclist. Recently she raced in the Indy Crit weekend races. She finished 12th on Friday and 13th on Saturday. Ramirez has a bit of down time and then she heads to the Gateway Cup in St. Louis.  This year has been a banner year for Ramirez. She won both the national road race and time trial championships for Trinidad & Tobago....

Kaia Clemente is a household name in MTB racing here in the Sunshine State. She's always loved riding her bike with friends to the beach. But when her dad, Raphael Clemente, took her and a cousin mountain biking at 12 years old she was hooked.  When she started getting serious about racing it wasn't fitness that was the biggest challenge but rather the racing itself. Her first race at Dy...

Rene Wenzel has a long history in the sport of cycling. He started out as a junior rider in Denmark. He was quite successful as a junior by winning Danish and Scandinavian Junior Road Championships. Once he moved up to the senior ranks he eventually moved to Belgium and France to race. By the end of 1980 Wenzel says he had mono. He says that was a tough 12 to 14 months.  Wenzel would recover and e...

Ashton Lambie is a busy man. He recently completed a 1,000 mile gravel race and is now preparing to be a cyclor on one of the worlds most prestigious Sailing teams.  Lambie grew up in Nebraska. He began racing gravel and even ventured into road racing. He quickly realized road racing wasn't his thing. While living in Lawrence, Kansas he was introduced to grass track racing. And he quickly rea...

Raphael Clemente is a Florida legend. In high school he was a swimmer but got burned out. So, he bought a bike. His first race was an open race in either 88-89. He won. From then on Raphael progressed quickly through the ranks. Olympian Carl Sundquist would help him out with training.  In 1991 Raphael hit the national circuit. He got picked up by a great team called "Bicycle Sport" out o...

Steve Brunner is the man behind the Maryland Cycling Classic. Brunner grew up in Kenosha, Wisconsin. This midwest guy has worked with some of the biggest bike races in the world. He's worked with the Tour de Georgia, Olympics, Amgen Tour of California to the Tour of China just to name a few.  Brunner started King of the Mountain Sports based out of Colorado in 2006. He's got over 30 year...

TW Carbon started in 2014. They do carbon repair and custom paint. Most of their business is in the bike industry but they will venture out and do work on a boat or car.  The Kirkwood, Missouri company gets business from across the country. They do ultrasonic scans to check for damage. Owner Nick Hand says it's not the crack that's going to get you but the delamination of the carbon fibe...

In this episode Dave and I talk about his racing career, getting his start in race promoting and starting "Winning" magazine with Jack Simes. What I can say about Dave is that he's one hell of a story teller. 

I'm gong to let you know up front that this interview with Dave Chauner is going to be in two parts. Dave is an icon in the sport of cycling. He not only participated in two Olympics, 68 and 72. But he also won a bronze medal in the Pan Am games in the team pursuit.   Once he retired from racing in 1975 Dave eventually found his way into promoting bike races. Promoting bike races is something...

The debate continues on whether road racing is dead in America. In this episode a roundtable discussion is had with Sean Wilson, the registrar with Redlands, Bruce Dunn, who puts on the Joe Martin stage race, and Michael Engleman with the Tour of Gila.  Each one of them comes with their own insight into road racing and stage races. We touch on topics like sustainability, community involvement , fu...

A few weeks ago I did a roundtable discussion about road racing, where it's at and how do we bring it back to its glory days here in America.  Within that discussion junior racing was brought up by Jame Carney, John Eustice and Dieter Drake spoke about getting back grass roots efforts, local efforts to draw in more kids to the sport.  Freddie Rodriguez was listening. He got me in touch with S...

Les Barczewski was born and raised in West Allis, Wisconsin. He and his brother Leigh started out as speed skaters and quickly progressed through the ranks. By 1974 he was competing at the juniors worlds. In 1979 he was 3rd in sprints beating Jerry Ash 2-1. His brother Leigh won that year.  In 1980 Les was a member of the Olympic track team but it was boycotted. 1981 he becomes national sprint cha...

In this episode of the Tour de Todd Cycling podcaster have our first annual roundtable discussion. The topic? What's  happened to road racing in America, is it dead, how did it die and what needs to be done to bring it back.  Joining me for this discussion is Charlie Issendorf, the former top amateur has over 400 races he's promoted in the New York area like Floyd Bennett Field to the Ha...

Yanto Barker began racing at 15. Some people would say he stared late. But by the time he was 18 he was a junior national champion. He got picked up by the GB national team which helped him transition into the U23 ranks seamlessly. He did the U23 worlds multiple times. He even moved to France to race. Riding for three separate teams.  Yanto turned pro for DFL in 2005. Yet in 2006 he retired. His l...

Eddy Gragus was born in Cleveland, Ohio. His family eventually moved to Tampa, Florida. He got into cycling in his senior year of high school. He went to Colorado to visit his brother and saw the Coors Classic. Then he went home and while riding his bike to school he was passed by a group of racers from the University of South Florida. He says the second time it happened he jumped on the back and...