Canadian Cycling Magazine Podcast

A mother tells her son that he sucks. A pro, on his way to a race win, lobs a retort revealing local knowledge. A masters rider can’t stop thinking about a burn yelled at him across a field years ago. A course designer screams platitudes with the frightening intensity of a death metal singer. These are all part of the world of cyclocross heckles, which sting, amuse, elate and perplex. They’re supp...

How long will Michael Woods continue to race? What was it like for Michael Leonard in the breakaway in Montreal? Is Derek Gee giving up birding? Each year, the Grands Prix Cyclistes de Québec et de Montréal bring the world’s best riders to Canada. In 2024, mixing it up with Tadej Pogačar , Biniam Girmay and Julian Alaphilippe, were most of the top Canadian athletes, as well as some of the nation’s...

This past August, the day after Micayla Gatto’s 36th birthday, the freerider, filmmaker and artist was at a boatyard in Squamish. She was there to fix up the family’s sailboat. Her goal is not only to get the craft seaworthy, but to use it to travel to new riding destinations—another chapter in the varied career of the rider-Renaissance woman. In the 2000s, Gatto competed in downhill, earning nati...

Years ago, Armando Mastracci got a recumbent bike that could provide him with heart rate, cadence and power data. As Mastracci trained on the bike indoors throughout one winter, the graduate of engineering science at the University of Toronto recorded his training data on spreadsheets. He also started performing his own experiments. What happened if he maintained a certain cadence? Or power? He st...

In March 1993, four men met in secret on a beach in Cuba. The topic of discussion was mountain biking. Could they take the still-young cycling discipline to the Olympic Games in Atlanta within three years? One of the men, the one who’d been helping to build the sport for years, figured it could be done, but they’d have to continue to operate without most of the UCI knowing what they were all up to...

This past spring, Ashlin Barry won two junior national championship titles: one in the time trial and one in road race. The Toronto rider snagged the victories south of the 49th parallel, so he pulled on the stars and stripes each time he stood on the podium. Since the beginning of the year, Barry—son of Michael and Dede Barry—has been racing with a U.S. licence instead of a Canadian one. He has d...

Recently, Environment and Climate Change Canada delivered its summer seasonal forecast. It looks like things will be hot, or at least most of the country will experience above average temperatures. These temperatures will mostly be seen in the North, across most of Ontario, Quebec and the Atlantic Provinces. While we don’t know things like how many heat waves we’ll face or how high those temperatu...

At the recent cross country World Cup in Nové Město, Isabella Holmgren had her one shot to qualify for the Olympics. Her brother Gunnar also had to do well if he wanted to get the single spot Canada has for the men’s XC race in Paris. Isabella won the under-23 women’s XCO event, finishing 2:05 ahead of the second-place rider. Almost 24 hours later, Gunnar finished eighth in his race, one of the be...

Bike component maker Shimano has launched its new GRX Di2 groupset, which features 12-speed cassettes and semi-wireless shifting. On this episode of the Canadian Cycling Magazine Podcast , Dave Lawrence and Nick Legan of Shimano talk about how the latest version of their gravel group came to be, its features and what still might lie ahead for GRX. Lawrence is a road and gravel product manager at S...

This episode was just getting polished up as both Michael Woods and Riley Pickrell were involved in crashes in Stage 5 of the Giro d’Italia. Before the start of Stage 6, Woods presented symptoms of a mild concussion. The team made the decision that he should leave the race, head home and recover fully. Even though Pickrell was feeling well, he, too, didn't start Stage 6 in case of concussion. Whil...

Stephen Roche has accomplished what only one other rider has done: won the Giro d’Italia, Tour de France and the road world championships in one year. (The other is Eddy Merckx.) This season, it seems Tadej Pogačar could match the Irish rider’s feat from 1987. In this episode, Roche looks back at the challenges he faced during that historic season: the tumultuous Giro with the split within his tea...

With the final Nations Cup of the season nearing, Sarah Van Dam was in Milton, Ont., with the Canadian squad getting ready for the event. Since the Olympics are only a few months away, the Nations Cup is a key part of the qualification process for Paris. Van Dam and the other riders on the team pursuit squad are after a top-eight place at minimum. But they’re really expecting a better result. In 2...

Mel Webb, who has taken on such challenges as the Atlas Mountain Race and the Alberta Rockies 700, can weave the zany and the serious tougher almost effortlessly. Take her snooze in an outhouse this past summer. It’s kind of gross and funny, but in this episode of the Canadian Cycling Magazine Podcast, it also leads her to discuss ideas of safety and what roles a public amenity should play in a se...

Kevin Field is back on the pod. Longtime listeners will remember Field as Mr. Moneyball of Canadian Cycling . For years he’s been analyzing data to help riders perform at their best at the top levels of the sport . Today, he’s the chair of the board of directors at Bridge the Gap, an organization that works with riders as they progress toward their pro cycling careers. He’s also on the board of Te...

Dirty Reiver, Migration Gravel Race, bikepacking in the mountains of Turkey and Across Andes—these are some of the big rides that Sami Sauri took on this past year. In this episode, Sauri goes in-depth into how she managed these events. She talks about her gear choices for gravel races, and how she’s adapted to the way gravel racing is evolving. Sauri is also an accomplished photographer who bring...

World championship wins in two disciplines, a repeat rainbow jersey on the track, World Cup wins in downhill and cross country, a Tour de France stage win and more—there were a lot of big performances by Canadian riders this past year. In this episode, Canadian Cycling Magazine‘s editors—Matthew Pioro, Matt Hansen and Terry McKall—present their top-five lists. You won’t believe what some of the ed...

Cyclocross nationals is just a few days away. The competition is returning to Victoria as are many of the athletes who competed at last year’s event. In this episode of the Canadian Cycling Magazine Podcast, six riders not only reflect on the significance of nationals, but also look back at their races so far this year, as well as what lies ahead. There are former and current national champions—so...

In March 2023, Nick Khattar and five others embarked on a 1,340-km bikepacking trip from Terrace, B.C., to Haines, Alaska. The riders pedalled hardtails and pulled trailers with splitboards strapped to them. They planned to ride, snowboard and record their adventures for a film. Not far into the trek, the team faced harrowing close-passes by trucks on the narrow highway. There was also bad weather...

Derek Gee reveals a heartwarming story about how he came under the spell of the Grands Prix Cyclistes de Québec et de Montréal. Isabella and Ava Holmgren, two stars of cyclocross and cross country, find themselves with race duties in Montreal. Canadian Cycling Magazine’s photographer takes a hit. Plus, heartbreak for some Canadians at their home races. All these tales and more are mixed with tips...

He did it. But man, was it close. Michael Woods won a stage at the Tour de France this past July in a dramatic fashion on the Puy de Dôme. In this extended interview with Woods, the rider from Ottawa gets into the details of how it all came together, and how it all nearly fell apart. Find out about his relationship with Matteo Jorgenson, the rider whom Woods denied a win on Stage 9. Learn why Wood...

When Devon Clarke lined up for the national gravel championship race this past April, most riders and fans didn’t really know how fast she was. Sure, she’d won the provincial road race the previous summer, but still, she wasn’t as well known as her competitors Maghalie Rochette and Ruby West. At the end of the 108-km event in Ancaster, Ont., Clarke became the country’s first national gravel champi...

Enduro rider Kasper Woolley has had a terrible run of luck in the past year. In August 2022, a rider going the wrong way on a pump track smashed into Woolley. This past February, he crashed on a trail and damaged his spleen. The injury was so severe that he faced a five-month recovery. Woolley, who’s been on YT Mob since the start of the year, is now planning his return to competition at the end o...

Motorola, U.S. Postal and Garmin-Sharp are some of the teams that Geoff Brown has worked on, preparing and fixing bikes for the biggest road races, including the biggest of them all, the Tour de France. His first Tour was in 1994. Since then, he’s amassed many stories, some hilarious and others tragic. Find out why he doesn’t like time trials, but does like tubeless tires. Also learn how a mechani...

Since 2018, Matt Kadey has been designing bikepacking routes. Some of his most popular tracks include the BT 700, the Grand Nith Ramble and No Winter Maintenance, all in Ontario. This past March, he launched the Great Northern Bikepacking Route , an adventurous way to get from Victoria to St. John’s, N.L. Kadey discusses why riders needed a new way to go west to east, why the route is not all in C...

How did Derek Gee do it? How did he get into breakaway after breakaway at the recent Giro d’Italia? And what’s next for the Ottawa rider who impressed and entertained throughout his first Grand Tour? In this in-depth interview, Gee analyzes his four second-place stage finishes. He also talks about the feisty young Israel-Premier Tech squad that made it to Rome, the state of his apartment following...