Canadian Cycling Magazine Podcast

The big 32-inch wheels are coming. They’ve already rolled through multi-stage mountain bike races, XC World Cups, gravel competitions and DH runs. For some, they provoke eye-rolls as the bike industry pursues yet another standard whether you want it or not. But you'll see more of them soon. Geoff Kabush, mountain bike legend, underbiking advocate and long-time gear-head, has seen all this before....

July 5, 2026 is a special date. It will mark 40 years since a Canadian, Coquitlam, B.C.’s Alex Stieda, went on an audacious breakaway and secured the yellow jersey. For a brief moment, Stieda led the Tour de France. He was the first Canadian as well as the first male North American to do so. This episode of the Canadian Cycling Magazine Podcast features a close look at Stieda’s historic ride. The...

Sometimes, a gravel champion of multiple nations simply finds himself without a floor pump. A few weeks ago, Benjamin Perry was in need of such a tool at Unbound Gravel, the premier gravel race on the calendar. Perry, who’s based in Gerona, wasn’t able to pack a pump for his North American trip. “Then, I was going around the hotel waiting for somebody to come out of a room who looked like a cyclis...

The former bassist of the Sex Pistols, long nails on race day and crosswinds all connect with Sidney Swierenga. Find out how in this episode of the Canadian Cycling Magazine Podcast. In early May, Swierenga landed on the podium of the Grand Prix du Morbihan Femmes in France. While the second-place finish marked her first elite-level result, she’s no stranger to medals. In 2025, Swierenga was secon...

Can you train mental durability? “Yes, 100 per cent,” says Haley Smith. The rider knows her stuff. She’s an Olympian who competed in cross country mountain biking. She’s a Commonwealth Games medallist and a two-time national  marathon mountain bike champion. Smith won the first Life Time Grand Prix series. Recently, she was fifth at the Traka 360 gravel race in Spain. While Smith is a top-level ri...

In this special cross-over episode with our sibling podcast, The Shakeout over at Canadian Running, host John Gay speaks with sport science writer Alex Hutchinson about the high-carb fuelling revolution that endurance sports are experiencing. Hutchinson remarks that cycling has a notable role in the latest craze. Check out the discussion that applies to marathon runners, Tour de France riders, and...

Nicole Bradbury’s World Cup short track race came down to the wire. Following terrible opening laps—where she dropped to the back of the field and then was taken down by a crash—the Hamilton rider got up to the front of the race. Not only had that event in Val di Sole this past June been a struggle, but the years leading up to that race were marked by setback after setback. A few times, she though...

Canadian cycling great Gord Fraser has many road race wins to his name. But how many exactly? A quick search online leads to the number 200. Two hundred race wins. Really? In this episode of the Canadian Cycling Magazine Podcast, Fraser discusses just where that figure might have come from and how many victories he may actually have. (Hint: it’s still a lot.) Today, the former pro from Ottawa dire...

In 2025, Squamish’s Elly Hoskin racked up a slew of successes: two Enduro World Cup wins, a victory at Crankworx Whistler, the world championship gold, as well as the national enduro title. Not bad for a rider in her first year as an elite rider who manages her own program, calling herself a pro privateer. In this episode of the Canadian Cycling Magazine Podcast, Elly Hoskin looks back at her brea...

In February, Luke Valenti won two races in Spain. He took the general classification of the three-stage Memorial Manuel Sanroma Valencia. A week later, he won the one-day Circuito del Guadiana, putting him in the lead of the under-23 Spanish Cup. The season has gotten off to a strong start for the 21 year old chasing a pro contract. In this episode, Valenti, who’s from Orangeville, Ont., talks abo...

Why is it a good idea to sleep in a pit toilet in Alaska? In this episode of the Canadian Cycling Magazine Podcast, world-record holder Ashleigh Myles explains the benefits of such grungy accommodation and other facets of pedalling from the top of the Western Hemisphere to the bottom. This past December, the Halifax rider and cycling-event organizer travelled from Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, to Ushuaia,...

In 2012, at the “old” age of 21, Montrealer Jamie Piccoli decided to pursue a career in pro road cycling. In his new book, Tell Me I Can’t , Piccoli chronicles that moment and his struggles to make it. The work is not only a story of a young athlete facing challenges, but a snapshot of time in North American cycling that has passed.

The Canadian Cycling Magazine Podcast is back with two feature interviews. At the start of 2025, both Derek Gee-West and Michael Woods were teammates on Israel-Premier Tech. But by the end of August, Gee-West wasn’t riding because of a contract dispute with the team. Woods, who was suffering from illness and a serious hernia, announced his retirement. Now, at the start of the 2026, both riders hav...

In this in-depth interview, world champion Magdeleine Vallières Mill not only looks back at the 2025 season and the lead-up to her historic win in Kigali, Rwanda, but also ahead to next year, and the events she’s targeting and how she plans to race them. The rider from Sherbrooke, Que., has seen a lot of change since September, and there’s more to come. Vallières Mill talks about the mad dash to g...

https://www.maghalierochette.com/Maghalie Rochette is coming into the cyclocross season hot. She’s released a new book. Currently, her CX Fever Tour—with book signings, clinics and rides—is moving across North America. She’s about to start racing once again, too. All this activity sits in sharp contrast to Rochette’s state in December 2024. Her European racing campaign came to an abrupt end as bur...

Trek has just launched a versatile trail platform in its new Fuel. Riders here at CCM have been fans of the previous Fuel EX and the Slash enduro bikes. The new Fuel, which actually comes in three configurations, has elements of both of the preceding models as well as the 27.5” Remedy. In this episode of the Canadian Cycling Magazine Podcast, MTB editor Terry McKall speaks with three folks from Tr...

A run-in with a badger, a gentlemanly pee break, a spectacular sunset and some amazing competition—those were just a few of the features of Rob Britton’s record-breaking Unbound Gravel XL win. It set his rough gravel season right, even if after more than two weeks following the race, the Victoria rider was still not fully recovered. Before the big event in Kansas, Britton’s season wasn’t going wel...

Shimano has released the latest version of its long-running, iconic XTR group, the brand’s flagship mountain bike set. XTR Di2 M9200 finally brings Shimano into the age of wireless shifting for mountain bikes. Anytime Shimano releases a new top-end group, it’s big news. But the Japanese brand’s mountain bike groups have, historically, foreshadowed what eventually shows up on dropbar and other bike...

You’ve seen Mara Roldan in the mix at some of the biggest races this year. She was in the breakaway at her first Amstel Gold Race and managed to finish in top 10. She recently completed her first Grand Tour, the Vuelta España Femenina. Despite a few crashes and injuries, Roldan not only made it to the end of the seven-stage event, she helped her teammates throughout. Yet, it wasn’t that long ago t...

Recently, Andrew L’Esperance and Alexis Cartier kicked off their North American race season. At the Sea Otter Classic gravel race, L’Esperance finished 13th, making him the top Canadian at the first event in the Life Time Grand Prix series. Cartier had a tough race. “It was fun, but I didn't perform at all,” he says in this episode. “I kind of expected it, but I really got smashed.” The pair of ri...

Winspace Orange Seal is a Women’s Pro Team based in France. Yet, it has a rider from Alma, Que., one from Vancouver, one from Guelph, Ont., and a rider from Edmonton. They are Florence Normand, Nadia Gontova, Kiara Lylyk and Jenaya Francis. Currently, they are all based in Europe attending races, such as the Vuelta a Extremadura Femenina, Omloop Nieuwsblad, Danilith Nokere Koerse and Dwars door Vl...

Two days before Emilly Johnston won the Argentario instalment of the Internazionali d'Italia Series, she chatted about all the new changes that have occurred in the past seven months. As the 2024 mountain bike world championships began at the end of this past August, Johnston signed with the team she’d race with in 2025, Scott-SRAM MTB Racing, the squad of Nino Schurter and Filippo Colombo. The tw...

Sprinting against Jasper Philipsen, navigating a slippery go-kart track, powering up a climb in Spain trying to put out more watts than three other finalists—those were some of the challenges Noah Ramsay faced this past December as he competed in Zwift Academy for its prize of a spot on the Alpecin-Deceuninck development team. In the end, Ramsay won. The pro road contract marks a big switch in Ram...

As a kid, Mathias Guillemette would get stuffed into the back seat of his parents car, wedged between a cooler and luggage, bikes all around, his older brother crammed in there too on their way to a Quebec race anywhere from three to seven hours away from their home in Trois-Rivières. There was also time on the velodromes in Bromont and Milton, Ont. During the past few years, Guillemette’s compete...

Recently, the country’s top cyclocross riders took on a slick, muddy course in Lévis, Que., site of the 2024 national cyclocross championships. Just past the finish line, Canadian Cycling Magazine was there to capture the reactions of six new champions. Regular contributor Jake Williams was at the event, not only racing in the relay and the championships themselves, but taking in the action. In th...