Life in the Peloton is proudly brought to you by MAAP Since retiring from the pro pelo, I’ve been itching to dip my toes into as many different cycling disciplines as possible. I raced on drop handlebars and skinny tyres for over a decade, now I want a heap of new challenges to tackle on the bike.  I love getting out and exploring on my gravel bike, and I’ve tried my hand at some gravel races; but the bikes and bunch dynamics feel a little too similar to road racing sometimes. I want to get...

Life in the Peloton is proudly brought to you by MAAP We’re back this week with another Talking Luft Top Six. This week it’s the turn of special guest - and Monument winner, Matt Goss, who shares his Top Six Most Influential from Paris Roubaix!  As those of you who caught the last edition will know, we’ve mixed things up with Talking Luft this year,  focusing on a single event each month, talking through the most influential, editions, teams, riders styles and stories from that race.  It’s a...

Life in the Peloton is proudly brought to you by MAAP In this week’s Life in the Peloton pod, I’m taking a dive into the topic of ketones. Ketones arrived in the peloton just a few years ago, and to many people they are seen as a sort of wonder fuel, but to others they are still a grey area supplement. To get stuck into the subject I was lucky enough to chat to Michael Brandt, the co-founder and CEO of H.V.M.N, the ketone partner for team Visma Lease A Bike. Michael is a pretty handy athlete...

It’s full gas racing season in Europe, so I’ve been really looking forward to catching up with Luke & Tom for what I knew would be a pretty action-packed Race Communiqué! The boys have been on very different schedules; Luke has been with Jayco-Alula at Paris-Nice and then on to the cobbled classics, which he dialled in from this week. Meanwhile, Tom is on the Ardennes program with EF Education - Easypost (obviously avoiding having to drive his car over cobbles) in stage races in Spain and...

Life in the Peloton is proudly brought to you by MAAP It’s Classics season! It’s my favourite time of the cycling year and I am so stoked to be able to bring you an absolute legend of the Classics, a Flandrien legend, and a true king of the cobbles, Tom Boonen.  When it comes to the Cobbled Classics, Tom’s palmarès are mind blowing: he is the joint record holder for wins at both Flanders (3) and Roubaix (4) as well as being the out and out record holder for the most wins in E3 (5). Just one...

Life in the Peloton is proudly brought to you by MAAP Ok guys, here we go, Classic season is almost here and to get things going we’ve torn up the old Talking Luft script, and come up with something new!  So then, let me introduce Talking Luft’s Top Six…  In this new format, we are going to focus on a single race with our guests and discuss the six most influential rides or editions that each of us can remember from that particular race.  It doesn’t need to be the most famous or prestigious...

This is a short excerpt from the longer episode. To listen to the whole thing and future episodes become a member of The Pelo.  For our second subscriber special, in this episode of Life in the Peloton’s Chronicles, Sveino and I take a deep dive into the hot topic of sauna life.  Saunas were something that both of us got into at a young age and also found ourselves getting into during our racing careers, and since then (but not because of us!) more and more people are being drawn to the many...

Tune in to Life in the Peloton for an enlightening conversation with Allen Lim, co-founder of Skratch Labs. Discover how his innovative approach transformed cycling into a healthier and professional sport. From pioneering power meters to revolutionising nutrition, Allen’s story is a must-listen for cycling enthusiasts and anyone craving a great story. Sit back, relax, and enjoy the ride!

We’re back this week with the Race Communiqué; getting the inside track on what is happening in the pro peloton with myself and my good mates Luke Durbridge and Tom Southam. The last month has been a busy one for the pro peloton. We’ve had the first European races, some stage race action in the Middle East, plus of course the most important bit - the classics season finally got going over the weekend in Belgium, at Het Niewsblad and Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne.  Naturally we had a load to catch up...

Life in the Peloton is proudly brought to you by MAAP The Melbourne to Warrnambool is a race like no other. It may not get a huge press outside of Australia, but the 129-year-old event truly is an iconic race. Starting off as a handicap back in 1895 the race route has never included any major climbs, instead it is a race that is shaped by its brutal length and frequent crosswinds. In years gone by it was the biggest race of the year for generations of domestic Australian professionals, in...

Life in the Peloton is proudly brought to you by MAAP We’ve got a bumper edition of Talking Luft for you this week, as I had the chance to hit up the 2024 World Tour peloton with some of our favourite - and most important, questions from the show, at the Tour Down Under. The TDU starts are famously laid back, so it was the perfect place for me to mill about and get some answers from some World Tour heavyweights, lightweights and everything in-between. We’ve got the likes of Bernie Eisel,...

Chronicles is a new podcast that I’m excited to be bringing as exclusive member content for 2024. This is a short excerpt from the longer episode. To listen to the whole thing and future episodes become a member of The Pelo.  For this series, I’ve got together with my good friend and former team (and room) mate Svein Tuft. As a few of you will know, ‘Sveino’ is a fascinating guy, with a unique perspective on pretty much any subject out there.  Both Svein and I love to dive into new topics –...

Join host Mitch as he catches up with Luke Plapp at the Brunswick Velodrome, discussing Luke’s journey from a sports-obsessed kid in Melbourne to becoming a decorated track cyclist and turning pro with Ineos at just twenty-three. Dive into their conversation about Luke’s experiences adapting to life as a pro in Europe, his humble approach to improvement, and why his story is a must-listen for cycling enthusiasts everywhere. Tune in and enjoy the last rays of the Aussie summer with this...

Life in the Peloton is proudly brought to you by MAAP Welcome to the first Communiqué for the 2024 season! First off, I’m delighted to say that my good mates Luke Durbridge and Tom Southam are back with me for another year. If you haven’t heard it yet, the Communiqué is our pro racing specific podcast, and I couldn’t think of a couple of better guys to have on board to get some great insight into the races. As well as being good friends of mine these two have years of experience in pro...

Life in the Peloton is proudly brought to you by MAAP We’re right in the middle of the Aussie cycling summer so - keeping with the local theme - for Talking Luft I caught up with my riding buddy Pat Drapac, down in Adelaide’s central market during the Tour Down Under.   If you’ve not had a listen to the podcast about the adventure that Pat and I had riding across from Melbourne to Adelaide, then go and give it a listen! Pat’s a great talker with a huge range of interests, and he’s also one of...

Life in the Peloton is proudly brought to you by MAAP 2024 is here and I wanted to kick off my new adventure with MAAP with another adventure of my own. I’ve really enjoyed getting into adventure riding in the past few years since I retired from professional racing, so I thought what better way to head over to Australia’s biggest race, the Tour Down Under? The route was a tough one, my goal this year was to make a bee-line from Melbourne to Adelaide. It’s a 900k trip (at best) so I drew a...

It has been a big year here at Life in the Peloton, and we’re going out with a bang for this last episode of the 2023 season. I’ve got one of the greats of the young new generation in Australian cycling on the pod today – I’m Talking Luft with Luke Plapp. We’re both long-time Brunswick Cycling Club members, and I always love getting the chance to record the pod in person, so it was a special moment to sit down at the iconic Brunswick Velodrome to record this episode with Plappy. He’s home...

Daryl Impey, a house hold name when it comes to a long standing and well respected pro in the world tour.  Daz is a close friend of mine as we had the pleasure of crossing paths, racing side by side and living around the corner from each other and our families throughout my time in Europe.  He is closing out a monstrous 16 year career this season! But it hasn’t been without some major set backs and challenges along the way. He has had life threatening crashes, false allegations and teams...

We’re getting to the end of the Life in the Peloton season, and I’ve saved a special episode for this week. Just as the long road season winds down, the winter cyclo-cross season is firing up for the year. And you might be asking – what exactly is cyclo-cross racing? To learn a little bit about the sport and its history, I’ve found someone who can talk me through it. But it’s not just any old person, I’ve gone and found the best in the business, the undisputed G.O.A.T – Sven Nys.   Sven has...

This week, I’m Talking Luft with the great Dutchman himself, Niki Terpstra. He’s one of the most successful classics riders of our time and a proper one-day racing legend - he’s won just about everything there is to win up north, from E3 Harelbeke to Dwars door Vlaanderen (twice), and of course his epic solo victories at Paris-Roubaix in 2014, and Tour of Flanders in 2018, where he became the first Dutchman to win the great race since Adri van der Poel in 1986. He’s a two-time Olympian, a...

Life in the Peloton is proudly brought to you by Rapha  Would you ride up and down a mountain all day in an attempt to reach the virtual height of Mt Everest? I didn’t think it was for me either, but I decided it was a trend I needed to try for myself! If you haven’t heard of Everesting, come along as I make my attempt to reach the lofty heights of the majestic Everest, with a day riding the slopes of Mt Macedon.   At first glance, it might sound crazy, but the idea behind this episode was to...

Life in the Peloton is proudly brought to you by Rapha   We’re back with the third installment of The Race Communique – where we get back to our roots chatting in depth about what’s happening in the pro peloton. This week we’ve got the whole gang back together, with Luke Durbridge, and Tom Southam, both joining me on the pod.   I couldn’t wait for this opportunity to really pick apart all the happenings of the Vuelta – and there was a lot to unpack. Of course, the incredible performance...

Life in the Peloton is proudly brought to you by Rapha   It’s great timing to have this guy on the pod, he is the man of the moment and has been dominating the Vuelta a Espana – I’m talking of course about Sepp Kuss. I was so excited to get Sepp on the pod to learn a bit more about this enigmatic American rider and hear the backstory of his meteoric rise to the top ranks of the World Tour. He’s something of an anomaly in the pro peloton, having tread a very different route to the top of the...

Talking Luft is back, and I'm chatting with my friend Andy White aka FYXO, to put him through the full Talking Luft treatment! Last week on Life in the Peloton I sat down with FYXO to talk about a whole range of fascinating things, from what it's like to work as a bike messenger, to the underground subculture of alley-cat racing, and all things fixed gear riding - plus a whole lot more. It was a super fun episode and I loved getting to know more about one of the more niche ‘pelotons’ out...