The Cycling Podcast

Daniel Friebe and Lionel Birnie are joined in Reggio Emilia by Brian Nygaard to assess stage 11 of the Giro d’Italia, which – as expected – ended in a sprint finish.
Along the way there’s conversation about prosecco, parmesan cheese and legendary singers in leather trousers.
AMARATERRA Amaraterra provide our theme song, Cozze, and other music for The Cycling Podcast’s coverage of the Giro d’Italia. Their Bandcamp page is here: https://amaraterra.bandcamp...

La Gazzetta dello Sport is much more than just a newspaper. Founded in 1896, ‘La Rosea’ or ‘The Pinky’ (or also just ‘La Gazza’), quickly became an Italian institution and some would argue a cultural icon. The paper also launched the Giro d’Italia in 1909 and gave the leader’s jersey its unmistakable pink colour. Coffee and Gazzetta remain synonymous fixtures in many Italians’ morning rituals, but the print media has, of course, fallen on hard times...

The Giro d’Italia resumed after the rest day with an historic stage and an unfortunate moment on the podium.
Daniel Friebe and Lionel Birnie discuss a stage that had all the hallmarks of an Italian one-day Classic.
We hear from the winner’s teammates and sports director. Matt White explains why Simon Yates is determined to continue in the Giro despite his knee injury and time loss at Blockhaus...

It’s the rest day and Daniel Friebe and Lionel Birnie have been in Abruzzo staying at a vineyard with a pair of jacuzzi pools in the garden.
Rest assured, the press conference episode was not recorded in the jacuzzi. We tackle some of the questions sent in by listeners and we also hear the accounts of the opening week of the Giro d’Italia from our three diarists in the peloton – Pavel Sivakov of Ineos Grenadiers, James Knox of Quick Step and Ben Zwiehoff of Bora-Hansgrohe...

We left the story of the 2012 Giro d'Italia on the eve of the Stelvio stage on the penultimate day of the race with the destiny of the maglia rosa still delicately poised.

Ryder Hesjedal had trimmed Joaquim Rodriguez's lead at Alpe de Pampeago and just needed to keep the Spaniard on a leash to stand a great chance of becoming the first Canadian grand tour winner in the final time trial in Milan...

The first of the Giro d’Italia’s big mountain stages to Blockhaus shuffled the general classification but kept the race very much alive.
Join Daniel Friebe and Lionel Birnie as they assess the winners and losers from stage nine...

Join Daniel Friebe and Lionel Birnie in Napoli, the home of pizza and Ciro Scognamiglio, as they recap stage eight of the Giro d’Italia.
We discuss a second Giro stage win for a breakaway specialist ten years after his first. Which rider is developing a reputation for riding grand tours as if they were a giant game of snakes and ladders...

The first of a trilogy of difficult stages in the Giro d’Italia  took the riders from Diamante to Potenza. Join Daniel Friebe and Lionel Birnie outside the busy Barmacia as they unpick the stage and explain who the powerful diamond of the day was.
We dissect the stage and look ahead to Saturday’s race in Napoli with Blockhaus looming on the horizon on Sunday...

This is the tenth anniversary of one of the closest grand tours of all-time, decided by just 16 seconds after a two-week tussle between two very different riders.

The Canadian Ryder Hesjedal and the Spaniard Joaquim Rodriguez took turns wearing the maglia roas as if they were playing a game of pass the parcel. It was an intriguing clash of styles too – the patient diesel versus the jack-in-the-box...

Daniel Friebe and Lionel Birnie made it to Scalea despite being stuck behind the e-Giro for more than 50 kilometres. Fortunately, the Giro d’Italia peloton was racing a lot less aggressively than yesterday and stage six finished well behind schedule.
We unpick the sprint finish and hear from two of the winner’s teammates after the finish...