The road.cc Podcast

Send us Fan Mail Episode 63 of the road.cc Podcast is coming at you a week early, because hot off the press are shocking reports regarding the future of Wiggle Chain Reaction Cycles. What happens if the cycling and multisport retail giant folds, and are we surprised about the reports considering the turmoil the whole bike industry has found itself in throughout 2023 so far? George and Jack are joi...

Send us Fan Mail It's the unfortunate saga that just keeps rolling on (or coming to a very abrupt halt if you're one of the unfortunate cyclists affected), and on episode 62 of the road.cc Podcast we've got the view of a specialist product recall solicitor on Shimano's failing cranksets and the "mess" that has ensued since. Thomas Jervis of Leigh Day Solicitors does n...

Send us Fan Mail Episode 61 of the road.cc Podcast is slightly different to what we had planned originally, because Shimano has finally acknowledged that there might be an issue with some of its previous generation Ultegra and Dura-Ace cranksets... We discuss what happened, how it compares to other big bike industry recalls in the past, what Shimano has had to say so far and what we think about th...

Send us Fan Mail It’s something of a nostalgia fest on the 60th episode of the road.cc Podcast this week, as we’re joined by retro bike restorer extraordinaire and leading proponent of the lost art of ‘drillium’, the Campag Kid, for a fascinating discussion about the roots of his obsession for classic bikes and illustrious Italian components, the lengths to which he’ll go to satiate that 50-year-l...

Send us Fan Mail In episode 59 of the road.cc Podcast, George, Jack, Ryan, and Simon gathered around the table to discuss the week’s big news story – the much-debated extension of London’s Ultra Low Emission Zone, which after months of often toxic political and online discourse, finally came into force on Tuesday in outer London.  While the extended ULEZ only affects a relatively small number of d...

Send us Fan Mail For episode 58 of the road.cc Podcast, we’re turning our attention to two very different ends of the cycling spectrum, by exploring what it would be like to completely give up on any and all forms of motorised transportation – and to circumvent the globe in the process – before going in-depth on all things aerodynamics, and why a more efficient jersey could help you along on even...

Send us Fan Mail For this special bonus edition of the road.cc Podcast in association with Hammerhead, our 57th episode, we’re coming at you live from the inaugural ‘Super’ UCI Cycling World Championships in Glasgow! Ryan and Jamie discuss the crazy men’s road race, and ‘that’ big not-so-secret bike launch from Specialized, with Remco Evenepoel and numerous others debuting the all new Tarmac SL8 i...

Send us Fan Mail It's time for episode 56 of the road.cc Podcast. Last weekend, just in case you were doing your best to avoid the news, Rishi Sunak promised the UK’s motorists that he was “on their side”, as the Prime Minister ordered a review of Low Traffic Neighbourhoods in England.  The review comes as the debate over green active travel policies continues to sharpen in the wake of the Co...

Send us Fan Mail On episode 55 of the road.cc podcast, we're asking: what’s the best way to buy a new bike? What schemes and initiatives can I take advantage of to help me afford my bike? How can I save money? Those are the questions we posed to Cycling UK’s Head of Commercial Russell Stephens, who gives George a whole host of hints and tips for when the time comes – as it eventually will – t...

Send us Fan Mail The Tour de France is in full swing for episode 54 of the road.cc Podcast, and throughout this season we couldn’t help but spot that some riders have been missing something in their drivetrains! If Jonas Vingegaard – currently the hot favourite to claim another Tour de France yellow jersey – is now using a single chainring (1x) set-up for some stages of the biggest bike race in th...

Send us Fan Mail On episode 53 of the road.cc Podcast, George and Ryan are joined by Dr Mark Limb, the academic behind a recent much-discussed study from Australia which concluded that cyclists are perceived to be less than fully human, and that those who wear helmets and hi-vis gear while riding their bikes are viewed as less human than those who do not. An urban planner, lecturer, and self-descr...

Send us Fan Mail On episode 52 of the road.cc Podcast, we turn our attentions to a debate that dominated the especially grim opening two weeks of the recent Giro d’Italia: Have pro cyclists ‘gone soft’? That particular controversial question, fuelled in part by the decision to shorten a mid-race mountain stage due to torrential rain, even prompted some cycling fans to accuse the Giro peloton of be...

Send us Fan Mail On episode 51 of the road.cc Podcast, we’re joined by rail expert Gareth Dennis to get to the bottom of why taking a bike on a train in the UK continues to be such an emotive issue for so many cyclists, and what needs to be done to make our rail network more accessible for everyone. A railway design engineer, writer, podcaster, and lecturer at the Birmingham Centre for Railway Res...

Send us Fan Mail The road.cc Podcast is 50! To celebrate we're giving away some schwag, so be sure to listen to find out how to enter our special competition and potentially bag some great cycling goodies.  To start this episode, George and Jack sit down for a fascinating discussion with PC Mark Hodson, one of the pioneers behind police close pass operations and a big advocate for third-party...

Send us Fan Mail One of Ireland’s most iconic sporting events, the Rás Tailteann has endured a turbulent few years of cancellations, financial worries, and unlikely comebacks. A lack of title sponsor, and then the Covid-19 pandemic, ensured that the Rás – a stage race intrinsically linked to Irish sporting, cultural, and political identity – was kept off the road for four years, before returning i...

Send us Fan Mail Last Friday’s announcement that the Women’s Tour – one of the biggest races on the women’s international calendar – has been cancelled for 2023 capped off a miserable few months for British bike racing. In this episode, Ryan chats to Peter Hodges, PR director for Women’s Tour organisers SweetSpot, about the various factors that forced them to pull the pin on one of the most presti...

Send us Fan Mail On episode 47 of the road.cc Podcast, we’re joined by Chris Dixon, co-founder and director of training at the cargo bike logistics company Pedal Me, to talk all things cargo bike. Inspired by a column from a certain British broadcast and writer claiming modern cargo bikes costing in the region of £4,000 are “pedalled by (obviously) affluent parents”, we take a deep dive into the w...

Send us Fan Mail On this bumper episode of the road.cc Podcast (our longest yet!) we’re joined by car expert James Martin, also known as JayEmm, who you may know from his very popular YouTube channel JayEmm on Cars. A small snippet in one of James’ videos, in which he explains the importance of respecting cyclists as fellow road users, got us thinking about the crossover between car and bike enthu...

Send us Fan Mail On episode 45 of the road.cc Podcast, we’re going there and talking 15-minute cities… or the incredible amount of misinformation being spread about them anyway! George and Jack are joined by the award-winning transport journalist Carlton Reid to dissect how a quite innocent urban planning concept that recommends amenities should be a short walk or cycle away from people’s homes tu...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode of the road.cc Podcast, we’re debriefing after awards season and talking hardcore virtual racing on Zwift. George is joined by Jack, tech editor Mat Brett and senior road.cc reviewer Stu Kerton to break down how road.cc does the road.cc Recommends awards, and bike industry trends of the past year are discussed. We also address some of the wilder theories about how...

Send us Fan Mail Recently, road.cc published a video and feature diving into the rising prices of bikes, components and pretty much everything connected with cycling in the last few years… and we definitely ruffled some feathers! In this follow-up podcast episode, we’re joined by Colin Williams from FLi distribution to talk about the current situation, and why many things beyond the control of the...

Send us Fan Mail It’s the first road.cc podcast of 2023, and we have some very special guests to kick us off! First up, George and Jack talk to the legendary founder of Brixton BMX Club, Ken Floyde, who has rightly been recognised with a British Empire Medal for his decades of tireless voluntary service to the South London BMX scene. Ken started the club way back in 1981 in the midst of the Brixto...

Send us Fan Mail Episode 41: A Christmas cracker with Jo Burt, including which cycling-themed presents would be welcome – and which ones most certainly would not!  The final full episode of the road.cc podcast for 2022 is here, and with just a week and a half to go until Christmas Day, we have a festive treat for you as Jo Burt sits down with George and Jack for a chat about gift-giving; that at t...

Send us Fan Mail Episode 40 of the road.cc podcast in association with Laka is here, and features a long chat with British ultra-distance cycling legend Steve Abraham. The exploits he’s perhaps best known for – the highest distance ridden in a month, and his attempts at the Year record – take a back seat here, however, as he talks to Jack about his work as a food delivery rider in Milton Keynes. I...

Send us Fan Mail There’s been a lot of talk recently about the “dehumanisation” of cyclists on social media as well as on radio phone-in shows and in the comments sections of online newspaper articles, with British Cycling warning last week that such abuse increases the danger for people riding bikes, adding that the problem seems particularly acute in London and the south east. In the latest epis...