The Cycling Podcast

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 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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

Daniel Friebe, Lionel Birnie and Brian Nygaard in a sunny square in Genoa after stage 12 of the Giro d’Italia.
We go on the hunt for focaccia, break down the way the breakaway captured the stage and ask whether a win for a team’s established superstar is worth ‘more’ in terms of PR than a victory by a less well-known rider.
Brian also talks about being team manager of Leopard-Trek when the Belgian rider Wouter Weylandt died in a crash at the 2011 Giro...

For most directeurs sportifs, especially one who spent his most important years as a cyclist in Italy, taking and defending the maglia rosa might be a euphoric experience. It is indeed for Trek-Segafredo’s Yaroslav Popovych, but, to him, Juan Pedro López’s pink jersey may also feel more like a welcome distraction. In February, Russia declared war on Popovych’s Ukraine, and three months on their bombs are still falling...

Join Daniel Friebe, Lionel Birnie and Brian Nygaard in Barolo country for a discussion about the Giro d’Italia’s frantic chase between the break and bunch.
Expect some wine chat, general disgust at the idea of dipping focaccia into cappuccino, the merits of the Giro’s transitional stages, and a fierce debate about whether the overall race has been exciting enough. We hear from the riders, sports directors and there’s another installment of the Giro del Bufalo...