Domestique Cycling Podcast

Gene Bates, Sporting Manager at Jayco AlUla, joins the Domestique Hotseat with Aidan Burgess on the eve of the Tour de France in Barcelona. We get into the team's plan to hunt stages instead of riding for GC, Michael Matthews' comeback from two broken wrists, Mauro Schmid's move to Q36.5, and why Bates thinks nobody can stop Pogačar this July. He also opens up on managing Ben O&apos...

Damiano Caruso is riding his eighth and final Tour de France. Before the start, he joins us to talk about Paul Seixas' reported €13 million contract, why he thinks it puts unfair pressure on a 19-year-old, and why he'd always choose a team that feels like family over a bigger paycheck. We also cover Bahrain Victorious' chaotic run to the pink jersey at this year's Giro d'I...

On Saturday the 113th Tour de France rolls out of Barcelona: 21 stages, 3,333 kilometres to Paris, opening with a team time trial for the first time since 1971. For the sixth year running it comes down to Tadej Pogačar against Jonas Vingegaard, and this time the Dane arrives off a crushing Giro win with his cleanest run-in since 2023.  But two new faces are forcing their way into the picture: 19-y...

Three-stage races, one clear message: the Tour de France is coming, and the favorites are flying. Tadej Pogačar turned his Tour de Suisse debut into a public training camp - a 69 km solo on stage 1, a time trial win by four-hundredths of a second over Mathieu van der Poel, and a mountain win to finish. Three stages, the overall, and not a rival within six minutes. We break down the stage-1 "g...

The Critérium du Dauphiné is done, and a 22-year-old just announced himself to the world. Bram and Ethan break down Isaac Del Toro's back-to-back summit wins on the Grand Colombier and Plateau de Solaison, Paul Seixas' brave ride and painful final-morning abandon, and what it all means for the Tour de France. Is Del Toro already a better climber than Remco Evenepoel? We think so. We also...

Michael Storer has just delivered the best Grand Tour result of his career, finishing seventh overall at the Giro d’Italia for Tudor Pro Cycling. In this conversation, the Australian reflects on the race, explains why Jonas Vingegaard could beat Tadej Pogacar at the Tour de France, and offers a different perspective on cycling’s safety debate. We start with the Giro. Storer discusses the breakaway...

The Critérium du Dauphiné 2026 (now the Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes) is wide open, and 19-year-old Paul Seixas arrives as the favourite ahead of Isaac del Toro. Two days in, the breakaway has won both stages by method of Alex Baudin and Anthon Charmig while the GC men wait.  We break down stages 1 and 2, why João Almeida is out of the Tour de France, the team time trial, and the brutal mountain fina...

Brent Copeland rarely gives interviews. As General Manager of GreenEdge Cycling (Team Jayco AlUla and Liv AlUla Jayco) and President of the AIGCP, the teams' union, he sits inside almost every room where cycling's future is being decided. In this conversation he opens up on all of it. We start with the Giro d'Italia: the stage 2 crash that took out Andrea Vendrame and changed the en...

Jonas Vingegaard wins the 2026 Giro d'Italia with five stage victories and a final margin of over five minutes, completing the Grand Tour treble. But was it the race we hoped for? Bram and Ethan break down everything from the Giro: the GC fight that was won early, a surprise podium, the breakout of Alfonso Eulalio, Felix Gall's second place as a statement to his own team, Jai Hindley&apo...

Uno-X Mobility's Johannes Kulset joins us fresh off a massive Giro stage win for the team. Fredrik Dversnes went into the break on a pan-flat sprint stage and executed a plan the team had been sitting on since day one. Johannes breaks down exactly how it happened, why the win means more than most people realise, and what the team is hunting in the final week. We also get into: why the Giro an...

Nine stages into the Giro and the race has delivered chaos, crashes, and near misses. Marcel Kittel joins us on the rest day from inside the Unibet Rose Rockets camp to break down how the team has handled its first Grand Tour test, why stage 6 hurt so much, and what it really takes to build a sprint train capable of mixing it with the best. Marcel is now on the other side of the race, guiding the...

Jonas Vingegaard finally laid down his marker on the Blockhaus, with Felix Gall the only rider who came close to following him and Giulio Pellizzari paying the price for going too deep, too early. We make the case for Eulálio as a genuine third-place podium contender, and discuss why Jai Hindley might be the one rider who can stop him. We also dig into the power data from Velon. Vingegaard's...

Three stages into the Giro and the race is already cracked wide open. Rasmus Søjberg joins us on the rest day to break down what we've seen so far: the crashes, the sprint margins, and why UAE could still win stages despite losing key riders. Rasmus is one of the lead-out men for Tobias Lund Andersen at Decathlon CMA CGM, and he walks us through what went right and what went wrong on stages 1...

Three stages in Bulgaria, three completely different stories. Paul Magnier wins the opening stage in Burgas and takes the first maglia rosa of his career, then doubles up in Sofia. Guillermo Thomas Silva becomes the first Uruguayan ever to win a Grand Tour stage, taking pink into Italy. And on a slippery road with 23 km to go, a mass crash takes Marc Soler, Jay Vine, Adam Yates and Santiago Buitra...

In this episode, Gorazd Štangelj joins Aidan in the Hotseat for a look inside the role of a sports director, from preseason planning and race tactics to the split second decisions made from the team car. Gorazd explains why modern racing has become faster and more chaotic, with positioning now often deciding races before the climbs even begin. He reflects on his own Giro history, the race’s unique...

The 109th Giro d'Italia starts this Friday in Bulgaria - three weeks, 3,459 kilometres and 50,000 metres of climbing all the way to Rome. Jonas Vingegaard is the clear favourite, chasing the third Grand Tour of his career and the treble that would put him alongside Merckx, Hinault, Anquetil, Gimondi, Contador, Nibali and Froome.  We break down the route stage by stage - the Bulgarian Grande P...

Pavel Bittner sits down on the Hot Seat to talk through a brutal Paris-Roubaix campaign, what it's like watching the race from inside the broom wagon, and why he keeps coming back to a race that has, in his own words, "always treated me pretty shit." We also get into his breakthrough win at the Vuelta a España, beating Wout van Aert in a sprint at 21 years old, the unspoken etiquett...

Tadej Pogačar wins Liège-Bastogne-Liège for the fourth time, three in a row, thirteen Monuments, but the story of Sunday is Paul Seixas. The 19-year-old Frenchman became the only rider in history to follow Pogačar on the Côte de la Redoute, matching 8.7 w/kg for nearly four minutes and setting a new climb record in the process. We break down the most extraordinary edition of La Doyenne ever raced,...

Liège-Bastogne-Liège is the last monument of the spring. 259.5 km through the Ardennes, 11 climbs, and one big question: can anyone stop Tadej Pogačar? He is chasing a third consecutive win, something not done since Argentin in 1987, after already taking Strade Bianche, Milan-Sanremo, and the Tour of Flanders this season. Two riders are threatening to end it. Paul Seixas, 19 years old, just won La...

Kate Veronneau joins Aidan Burgess for a wide-ranging chat that covers everything from the moment London landed the 2027 Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift Grand Départ to why Zwift made the heartbreaking call to walk away from Paris-Roubaix Femmes sponsorship. Kate explains why bringing the race to Greater London's 15 million dwarfs even Rotterdam's 650,000 roadside fans, how a random Ric...

Remco Evenepoel wins the Amstel Gold Race, revenge served cold, one year after Skjelmose pipped him on the line. Bram and Ethan break down how Evenepoel strangled the race into submission without a single flashy attack, why Skjelmose's ability to hang on confirms last year was no fluke. They also dig into Group 2 syndrome rearing its head again, Evenepoel's quietly lethal sprint that has...

Benji Naesen joins Aidan Burgess for a wide-ranging chat that covers everything from how a Pro Cycling Manager disc taped to a magazine got a nine-year-old Belgian hooked on cycling, to weighing 130 kilos and being too ashamed to tell anyone he wanted to change it. Benji opens up about his weight loss journey, the moment he first showed his face on camera and didn't sleep the night before, an...

The cobbles are done, but new storylines are lining up. As the peloton heads into the 60th edition of the Amstel Gold Race, all eyes are on Remco Evenepoel, returning after an eye catching ride at the Tour of Flanders and lining up as the man to beat in the Ardennes opener. Bram and Ethan break it all down: Evenepoel's chances after his Ronde debut, whether anyone can match him on this terrai...

Wout van Aert finally has his Paris-Roubaix. In one of the most emotional finishes in recent Monument history, the Belgian beat world champion Tadej Pogačar in a two-up sprint on the Roubaix velodrome, ending the most dominant run of Monument results the sport has ever seen. Bram and Ethan break down every moment: the drama in the Arenberg Forest, Mathieu van der Poel's race unraveling in an...

In this episode, three time Paris-Roubaix winner Johan Museeuw joins Aidan in the Hotseat for an in depth look at the Hell of the North, breaking down what it really takes to win one of cycling’s most brutal races. Museeuw reflects on how the race has evolved, from the cobbles and equipment of his era to the modern peloton, where riders like Tadej Pogačar and Mathieu van der Poel are redefining wh...