Canadian Cycling Magazine Podcast

This past summer, Tim Johnson went on his first bikepacking trip. As trips go, this one was big: seven days, roughly 700 km on the Trans-Taiga, which is roughly 1,300 km north of Montreal. Johnson knew Quebec pretty well beforehand. Sure, he’s a six time U.S. cyclocross champion and currently a director of development at USA Cycling. His Strava profile puts him in Topsfield, Mass., but he spends m...

Throughout the Tour, Hugo Houle of Astana Pro team checked in with Canadian Cycling Magazine . Listen to his insights from inside the race. He talks about echelons, spreadsheets and crashes. Also this month, Michael Woods won a stage at Tirreno-Adriatico and held the leader’s jersey for two days. Both riders are slated to represent Canada at the road world championships on Sunday. They’ll tell us...

From jerseys won by young Canadians to Euro pros sipping Caesars to taking in a Montreal Canadiens game with a future world champion, the influence of the Grands Prix Cyclistes de Québec et de Montréal is significant. This episode of the Canadian Cycling Magazine Podcast honours those races by looking at moments, both big and small, connected with the Grands Prix. There’s discussion of poutine, to...

This is usually a busy time of year for Catharine Pendrel. She’s usually competing in cross country World Cups or preparing for the world championships or even in full Olympics mode. Her list of wins is long, but here’s a short version: two cross country world championship titles, one in 2011, the other in 2014; winner of the World Cup overall three times, once in 2010 and 2012 and 2016; six natio...

When Rob Britton got into bikepacking, he really went for it. In 2018, the Tour of Utah winner set off from Calgary to Port Renfrew, B.C., on a nine-day adventure . The saddle time seemed to prepare him nicely for spending the day in the breakaway at the world championship road race soon after. Since then, Britton has continued to have some long adventures on his bike, including a big trip to Japa...

This episode is a rebroadcast of our look at the 1980 Olympic boycott. It happened 40 years ago, but contains some lessons for what athletes are facing today. On this day, BMX competition was originally scheduled to begin in Tokyo. But in March, as rising COVID-19 cases sent nations scrambling, the Canadian Olympic Committee and the Canadian Paralympic Committee announced that Canadians would not...

This year marks three big anniversaries for Steve Bauer. The Canadian Cycling Magazine Podcast has covered his oh-so-close second-place finish in the 1990 Paris-Roubaix and the 1980 Olympic boycott that affected him and other Canadian athletes . Thirty years ago this summer, Bauer got into the leader's jersey at the Tour de France, just like he had in 1988. It's a feat that we haven’t seen since....

Leah Kirchmann, Team Sunweb athlete and this country’s time trial champion, is expecting to start racing once again in August. Still, she’s not sure what exactly the UCI safety protocols—with their team bubbles and peloton bubbles—will mean for her events. Also, with international travel now more difficult, she might be faced with some tough choices. Will she be able to race the inaugural women’s...

At the beginning of May, the UCI announced the new road calendar for 2020. One Canadian Cycling Magazine writer has dubbed it 100 crazy days. The racing runs from the beginning of August to early November, which is when cyclocross usually wraps up in most of Canada. Michael Barry, who runs Mariposa Bicycles with his wife Dede, raced from 1995 to 2012. When he looks at the compressed road calendar,...

In mid-May, Cory Wallace, the three-time 24-hour mountain bike champion and Annapurna circuit record holder from Jasper, Alta., was living a simple life in the Solukhumbu region of Nepal, which is where he’s been since the country went into lockdown in late March. He's had lots of time to think and even cook up a wild escape route from Nepal that he's mentioned on his website . It's only something...

On this day, eight years ago, Ryder Hesjedal was in the midst of the final rest day of the Giro d’Italia. He had worn the pink leader’s jersey for three days, lost it, got it again and lost it once more before that rest day. Hesjedal was still in a good position overall, but could he really win the Italian Grand Tour against the explosive Joaquim Rodríguez ? Listen to this interview with Hesjedal...

International events kept Gordon Singleton , Louis Garneau and Steve Bauer from the Moscow Games. What they experienced can offer guidance to cyclists waiting and wondering about Tokyo 2020. Also, an interview brought to you by Structure Cycleworks . Loni Hull, founder of the Calgary-based mountain bike company, discusses his unique front linkage system. It is literally, WTF: without telescoping f...

In March, Buck Miller, Eric Batty and Ryan Atkins covered all 721 km of the Wapusk trail by fat bike. The trail is the world’s longest winter road, which runs between Peawanuck, Ont., and Gillam, Man. Sections of the trail are close to Hudson Bay. Last year, they rode along James Bay, a trip they called the James Bay Descent. The Wapusk trail trip was longer and more remote. RELATED Lessons from t...

Do remember what race was supposed to run this Sunday? It was supposed to be Paris-Roubaix. But more important, do you remember who won Paris-Roubaix on April 8, 1990? Well, when Belgian Eddy Planckaert and Canadian Steve Bauer crossed the line on the Roubaix velodrome 30 years ago, neither of them was sure. After a lot of deliberation by race officials, the win went to Plankaert. After 265.5 km o...

Two weeks after Michael Woods crashed out of Paris-Nice, he was in Girona, Spain, his broken right femur on the mend. “I’ve been crutching outside to get my blood checked,” he said. The EF Pro Cycling rider was taking blood thinners following his surgery. “I go about 1.5 km from my place. It’s a good workout.” Because of the COVID-19 outbreak in Spain, the country had been on lockdown since March...

From drunk fans to a course that's muddy even when it’s dry, listen to tales of the Hoogerheide cyclocross course and its atmosphere during the World Cup. This Sunday, Canadian champions Maghalie Rochette and Michael van den Ham will compete in the final event of the CX World Cup series. Ruby West , the under-23 Pan Am champ, will also be there. Hear what they have to say about the Dutch race. Als...

Top riders from the Canadian cyclocross championships speak about what some of their wins and disappointments mean, and about the event itself and some things we can look forward to next year. If you missed our coverage of CX nats, check out our reports and galleries . Jake Williams, from frenemy podcast The Lantern Rouge , checks in from the Pan Am championships. You can see all the muddy action...

Canadian star ’crossers Maghalie Rochette , Michael van den Ham , Jenn Jackson and Ruby West look ahead to two of the most important cyclocross races in Canada: the national championships and the Pan Am championships. Coach Peter Glassford has advice for transitioning to trainer season. He shares great tips for riding on the spot throughout the winter. Hamilton rider Ed Veal recently spent 24 hour...

During the cross country mountain bike season, Sandra Walter can rip up the course. For late October cyclocross races, she dresses up. Her costumes have included a cave woman, a monster, Pippi Longstocking, Minnie Mouse, a cow and some sort of sea creature. Walter offers tips on how you can get in costume and race this Halloween. This past Thanksgiving weekend, editor Matthew Pioro and producer Ad...

Two top Canadian mountain bike riders teamed up recently to race Epic Israel. Catharine Pendrel of Cliff Pro Team and Haley Smith of Norco Factory Team took on the four-day stage race in the north of Israel . Pendrel, who has won the cross country World Cup series three times and the world championships twice, kept an audio throughout the event. Coach Peter Glassford has tips that will help you ru...

Behind the scenes throughout the past 15 years, Kevin Field has been using data to improve Canada’s cyclists . He helped orchestrate this country’s success at the 2018 road world championships . In this episode, he discusses numbers and previews the 2019 road cycling world championships in Yorkshire, England. Full Send/No Send on the Grands Prix Cyclistes de Québec et de Montréal, Team Canada’s ef...

Michael Matthews looks back on five appearances at both the Grands Prix Cyclistes de Québec and Montréal , especially his wins at the two events in 2018. He gets into the tactics of the races he says are real thinking games. For Matthews and other pros, the GPs are exciting because there’s always something going on. Many pro and amateur cyclocross racers target CX weekends with competitions on bot...

Catharine Pendrel talks about her springer spaniel Mingus, the Lenzerheide World Cup – where she was on the podium with her fifth-place finish – and the upcoming mountain bike world championships at Mont-Sainte-Anne. In 2018, Pendrel and Haley Smith rode together and won the Swiss Epic . In this interview, Pendrel reveals what race she and Smith will be tackling together after worlds. “It really r...

This past July, some of gravel cycling’s top minds and practitioners gathered in Peterborough, Ont., to ride and discuss gear. Matthew Pioro spoke with members of the Shimano Gravel Alliance, a group that the Canadian Cycling Magazine editor believes is the “Gravel Avengers.” He wants to know who their Thanos is. Related: The Canadian influence on Shimano’s new gravel groupset Leah Kirchmann of Te...

Canadian Cycling Magazine heads to Blue Mountain, Ont., for the Sea Otter Canada cycling festival. Editors Matthew Pioro and Dan Walker, and photo editor Matt Stetson, bring you the vibes from the event. They are impressed that on the first day, the first Friday of July, that there are a good amount of people at the expo. Walker figures they had read ‘ 12 excuses you can use to sneak out of work e...