Stanley St. Social | Cycling News and Interviews

Stage 7 gave us a genuine bunch sprint for the first time this Tour, and Merlier proved once again why he might be the fastest man in the race. But this episode goes deeper than the finish line - Alex and Max take a hard look at cycling's concussion protocol after two riders in three stages passed roadside checks only to be pulled with head injuries hours later. In this episode: Merlier's...

Pogačar went at the 42.7km mark — Del Toro went with him, did a turn, then cracked human — and from there it was just Tadej riding away to a 2:40 stage win and the yellow jersey. But the real drama wasn't even the stage win. Remco Evenepoel stopped for a nature break, got dropped, had to chase back on — and then used the press conference to publicly rinse teammate Florian Lipowitz for not doin...

Stage 5 was billed as the big sprint showdown, but it played out more like a quiet day in the legs — and Alex and Max dig into whether that was fatigue, tactics, or something closer to a protest ahead of tomorrow's Tourmalet. In this episode: Why nobody wanted to make Stage 5 hard, and what that says about where the peloton's head is at The chaotic final sprint — Alpecin and Lidl-Trek in c...

Stage 4 was run in genuinely brutal conditions — 44 degrees on the road, no heat protocol in effect, and a peloton that paid for it. Alex and Max break down a day where the tactics mattered as much as the legs. In this episode: How hot was it really, and why there's still no UCI heat policy in play Trek's perfectly played hand — sending their lead-out men up the road instead of controlling...

Stage 3 into the Pyrenees delivered exactly what a first mountain day should — a mass crash inside the opening 15km, an hour-long fight to form the breakaway, and a GC shakeup as the race hit altitude in 41-degree heat. In this episode, Alex and Max break down: The early crash that caught out Decathlon, Ineos and Lidl-Trek riders Why the breakaway took so long to go clear, and who made the cut Vis...

Barcelona put on an absolute show — 36 degrees, brutal wind, and a street circuit that turned into a proper GC selection race. Alex was trackside for the carnage, Max is calling it from Melbourne, and this one's got everything. In this episode: Brandon McNulty's ridiculous shift on the front — basically a one-man UAE train for 25km A break that was never getting there, and why Q36.5 still...

Vingegaard draws first blood. Visma smash the Barcelona TTT to snatch yellow off Pogačar on day one - but it's Ineos who'll be gutted, with Vauquelin's puncture undoing a near-perfect ride and leaving Ganna to drag them home solo. Alex and Max break down the TTT chaos: Movistar's Uijtdebroeks losing over a minute, two crashes inside the neutral zone, and why the new individual-time...

Three YouTubers and a PowerPoint presentation. That's how Unibet Rose Rockets started in 2023 — and this year they lined up at the Giro d'Italia. Bas Tietema sits down with Max and Alex to unpack how a content-first team cracked professional cycling: signing Dylan Groenewegen, chasing UCI ranking points to guarantee a Tour de France start, why most WorldTour teams still don't understan...

The last Social Club before we go daily for the Tour. Matthew Keenan joins Max and Alex for the full Tour de France 2026 preview — Pogačar, Vingegaard, Remco, Del Toro, Ben O'Connor and Luke Plapp, team-by-team, with GC tips and every jersey battle. From UAE's B-team being better than everyone's A-team to Caja Rural's 39-year comeback. The Paul Seixas v Del Toro white jersey scrap, green, polka do...

Jimmy Whelan's back for a third time on the show — except he's not a bike rider anymore. Last time he was on EF. Now he's a full-time pro runner, banging out 200km a week off the back of treadmill sessions in Barcelona, chasing LA 2028. We chat professional cycling, the bunch challenges, learning from the sport, 2nd place to Plappy at Nationals, the Queen stage win at the Volta a Portugal and the...

Twelve days from the Tour and the big one lands live on the pod. Luke Plapp gets the call pre-episode to confirm he's officially in the Tour de France team. We get into his week off the bike, the Girona TTT camp, and how the build's shaping up. Then the usual Monday wrap: Wout van Aert ruled OUT of the Tour — the elbow infection and the hole it leaves in Visma Pogačar's monster return at the Tour...

World triathlon champion Matt Hauser sits down with us in Andorra mid-altitude camp — three weeks of climbing, dodging PlayStation hours and chasing the 1-percenters that turned a 'part-time athlete' into the bloke who ended Australia's 20-year world title drought in Wollongong. We chat, why triathletes are 'too dumb to be cyclists' and just drill it on the front, what 15 hours...

Plappy's back in the Social Club fresh off the Dauphiné, and not in the best conditioning, battling gastro and a flu two weeks out from the Tour. Alex, Maxi and Plappy break down a strange eight days of racing: the team time trial's return, breakaways staying away everywhere you look, Luke Tuckwell's stunning ride into the yellow jersey (and Paul's post-race disrespect), Del Toro c...

American sprinter Luke Lamperti joins us on Stanley St Social for a ride through one of cycling's most intriguing young careers. We go back to the beginning — growing up in Sonoma County, California, swapping motocross dirt bikes for road cycling at age 11, and the junior racing days that put him on the map (including that top-10 at Paris-Roubaix Juniors). Luke takes us through his Trinity Rac...

Fresh off an eight-point King's Birthday win over Collingwood at a packed MCG, Max Gawn and Ed Langdon join Alex. We map out our daily TDF coverage plan, break down the big four (and why there's no head-to-head showdown before Paris this year), and dig into a chaotic stage at the Dauphiné where Plappy snuck into the move and finished seventh. Plus: the latest batch of UCI rule changes that have Ma...

Finn Fisher-Black is a professional road cyclist from New Zealand, currently riding for Red Bull–BORA–Hansgrohe. A former junior world record holder in the 3000m pursuit, he turned heads across the cycling world as a teenager before signing with UAE Team Emirates alongside Tadej Pogačar. Winner of the Muscat Classic and a stage at the Tour of Oman, he is widely regarded as one of the most versatil...

Giro d'Italia 2026 final week recap with Matthew Keenan: Vingegaard's five-stage dominance, the Ciccone vs Rubio KOM feud, Sepp Kuss's historic stage win, and Milan's Rome sprint. Plus a Neil Danaher tribute, Kooij's return, and Max's UCI rules Top Five.

Tobias Foss joins the Stanley St. Social to talk Norwegian culture, his career, and what it takes to reach the top. The Netcompany INEOS rider and 2021 World Time Trial Champion opens up about life in Andorra, the Epstein-Barr diagnosis, and why he believes his best racing is still ahead. He breaks down Norwegian cycling's rise, the Uno-X effect, double session training, lactate testing, and w...

Alex Clement joins Plappy from 2,450m up in the Andorran mountains while Max Gawn holds it down in Melbourne, as the boys break down a massive week in cycling. This week: the Giro d'Italia's wild Stage 15 neutralisation controversy in Milan, Ghana's dominant 42km TT win and what watts-per-CDA actually means, Alex Segaert perfectly planned stage 12 attack, Visma's textbook Stage 14...

Melbourne Football Club captain and cycling analyst Max Gawn joins his pod to go deep on his cycling journey, his leadership journey, and the practices he'd apply to build a winning cycling team culture - when (not if) Stanley St. Social gets a WorldTour squad. From accidentally discovering the Tour de France on SBS as a kid to breaking down monument tactics and GC battles, Max traces how he b...

Luke Plapp calls in fresh off a third place finish at the Tour de Hungary — long travel, wet roads, and a GC that got away thanks to a cancelled stage and 50km/h crosswinds. We break down the drama of stage four, the cinema of stage five, and what Cosnefroy bonus second dominance. Then it's a full Giro d'Italia wrap through stage nine — Narvaez back to winning ways, the Arrieta and Afonso cobblest...

Heinrich Haussler is a Sports Director at Decathlon). We chat as the team prepares for the 2026 Giro d’Italia starting in Bulgaria. Haussler dives into the logistical challenges of the early Bulgarian stages and the transfer to Italy, the role of a DS handling logistics, hotels, vehicles, and performance, plus how the team has stayed injury-free heading into the Grand Tour.  He breaks down Decath...

Ed Langdon join Max and Alex to review the first 3 stages of the Giro.

Zak Dempster is the Chief of Sports at Red Bull – BORA – hansgrohe. He raced at the WorldTour level for over a decade before transitioning into team management, rising quickly through roles at Israel Cycling Academy and INEOS Grenadiers to now oversee all sporting and performance operations for Red Bull – BORA – hansgrohe.

Giro starts Friday. Plappy's back after a top five at the Tour de Romandie, and we're getting into all of it. The watts, the motorbike chaos, Lipo refusing to ride with Pog, and exactly where Plappy lost time in the prologue - spoiler, it's the corners. Then we preview the Giro. Vingegaard goes in as the overwhelming favourite for a race he's never done. The GC field's already...