The Cycling Podcast

S14 Ep30: Ineos Turn to AI to Get the Pulse Racing

The spring Classics campaign has come to an end and the Giro d'Italia is just around the corner. To bridge the gap between the two, and with Daniel Friebe absent as he prepares for the Giro, Lionel Birnie is joined by Tudor Pro Cycling's Larry Warbasse to wrap up the first part of the season, look ahead to the first Grand Tour of the year and react to some huge sponsorship news which may help Ineos Grenadiers challenge for the Tour de France once again. In part one Larry updates on the Tour of the Alps, where he and a lot of riders were fine-tuning their form ahead of the Giro and one of his teammates made a rapid and successful transition from speed skating to elite level cycling with a stage win. He also talks about his version of the all-day-breakfast and heat training indoors. In the second part, Lionel reports back from the big reveal which confirmed a new title sponsor for Ineos Grenadiers. From the Giro d'Italia they will be Netcompany-Ineos thanks to backing from a Danish IT company that is pumping in a figure thought to be around €100m over five years. The target is for the team to win an eighth Tour de France in the next five years, but its the introduction of Netcompany's AI software, Pulse, which makes this more than just a sponsorship deal. Pulse, which is used at several major airports, including Heathrow, will be used to help the team make 'better decisions more often'. We ask whether its use can extend beyond logistics and training and start to influence racing strategy and tactics. In the final part, we tie up all the loose ends from the spring and turn our attentions towards the Giro before handing over to Daniel and co for daily coverage of the Corsa Rosa, which starts in Bulgaria on Friday, May 8. Image courtesy of Netcompany-Ineos. Follow us on social media: Twitter @cycling_podcast [https://twitter.com/cycling_podcast] Instagram @thecyclingpodcast [https://www.instagram.com/thecyclingpodcast/] Friends of the Podcast Sign up as a Friend of the Podcast at thecyclingpodcast.com [http://thecyclingpodcast.com/] to listen to new special episodes every month plus a back catalogue of more than 300 exclusive episodes. The 11.01 Cappuccino Our regular email newsletter is now on Substack. Subscribe here [https://thecyclingpodcast.substack.com/] for frothy, full-fat updates to enjoy any time (as long as it’s after 11am). The Cannibal & Badger Friends of the Podcast can join the discussion at our virtual pub, The Cannibal & Badger. A friendly forum to talk about cycling and the podcast. Log in [https://thecyclingpodcast.supportingcast.fm/] to your Friends of the Podcast account to join in. The Cycling Podcast is on Strava [https://www.strava.com/clubs/thecyclingpodcast] The Cycling Podcast was founded in 2013 by Richard Moore, Daniel Friebe and Lionel Birnie.

Meltdown: The Race to Escape Nuclear Disaster | Part 1: Chain Reaction

This episode of KM0 by The Cycling Podcast is available for everyone to listen to for a limited time before it moves across to our Friends of the Podcast feed shortly. If you enjoy it, and are not already a Friend, consider subscribing annually or monthly to support The Cycling Podcast. The support of our Friends of the Podcast subscribers enables us to deliver our weekly and daily Grand Tour coverage free for all. Sign up at thecyclingpodcast.com [http://thecyclingpodcast.com] [http://thecyclingpodcast.com/] Next week the Giro d’Italia will start behind the former Iron Curtain for the third time in five years, specifically in Bulgaria. For Italians, the Giro has always represented the sporting highlight of May – but for those living in Eastern Europe, for half a century, the Peace Race took centre stage. The 1986 edition was an unforgettable one, for reasons that had nothing to do with cycling. Ten days before the race was due to start in Kyiv, 90 kilometres from there, at the Chernobyl power plant, there was an explosion in one of the reactors. The ensuing catastrophe turned into the worst disaster in the history of nuclear power.  Hundreds of billions of dollars, hundreds of thousands of Soviet soldiers and hundreds of thousands of evacuations would be required to restore at least the illusion of control. Meanwhile, a cover-up of unprecedented scale and unimaginable consequences began – and allowed the 1986 Peace Race to start in Kyiv.  In the first of this two-part series, Daniel Friebe journeys back in time to the moment of the disaster. He speaks to men who were supposed to travel to Kyiv and didn’t, and to riders who had no option but to race while a vast radioactive cloud spread across Europe and beyond.  Part two will cover what happened when the Peace Race peloton left Kyiv, and over subsequent months and years, as the horrific implications of Chernobyl slowly revealed themselves. That will be released on Wednesday May 6, the day before we travel to Bulgaria to kick off this year’s Girovagando - our daily coverage from the Giro d’Italia.  Meltdown: The Race to Escape Nuclear Disaster is a series written and produced by Daniel Friebe. Episode art is by Daniel Friebe.

S14 Ep29: Arrivée: Liège-Bastogne-Liège (Women)

Get the waffle-o-meter out for one last time as Rose Manley and Lizzy Banks react to the the final Spring Classic of 2026, Liège-Bastogne-Liège Femmes. With the Ardennes Classics providing both surprise winners and familiar champions so far this season, which way will this tenth edition of Liège-Bastogne-Liège go? Could breakout star Paula Blasi go for victory once more this week? Might Demi Vollering make it a record-breaking third title at the race? Or could Kasia Niewiadoma finally take the top step after a season littered with podiums? Also on the agenda: a picnic’s worth of puns and Preston Bus Station… obviously.

S14 Ep28: Arrivée: Liège-Bastogne-Liège (Men)

Daniel Friebe and Lionel Birnie recap the men’s edition of Liège-Bastogne-Liège, the final race of the spring classics and the oldest one day race of them all.

KM0: Seixy Basque

This episode of KM0 by The Cycling Podcast is available for everyone to listen to for a limited time before it moves across to our Friends of the Podcast feed shortly. If you enjoy it, and are not already a Friend, consider subscribing annually or monthly to support The Cycling Podcast. The support of our Friends of the Podcast subscribers enables us to deliver our weekly and daily Grand Tour coverage free for all. Sign up at thecyclingpodcast.com [http://thecyclingpodcast.com] [https://thecyclingpodcast.com] To say that Paul Seixas has taken the world of professional cycling by storm this spring would be an understatement of similar proportions to the 19-year-old Frenchman’s gift for riding bicycles. His victory in Flèche Wallonne was just the latest in a series of jaw-dropping performances in 2026. That first win in a World Tour one-day race was preceded and no doubt informed and abetted by an equally remarkable display in Itzulia or the Tour of the Basque Country, where Seixas took three stage wins and cruised to the overall title.  Daniel Friebe was in Spain that week to witness the definitive explosion of a cycling superstar. In this special episode, we go on a journey into the heart of the race, as history is made and the future of the sport rewritten. Seixy Basque was written and produced by Daniel Friebe. Art is by Daniel Friebe. The episode features music by Blue Panda and Amaraterra.