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 cycling with Luke currently racing for Jayco Alula and Tom who is a DS at EF Education Easypost. All through the racing season we will be diving inside the pelo with Luke, hearing the view from the team cars from Tom and, of course, I’ll be providing my own armchair style take on the racing! For this first episode we’ve got an early season theme. After a good few weeks at home Luke is well settled in Perth, getting ready to start racing without having done any racing back in Australia – something he’s – amazingly – never actually tried before! He reflects on the difference between starting early at races like TDU or kicking off in the more traditional European style. We discuss our thoughts on the way that the top riders tackle the off-season these days (or don’t!). He also has some cracking tales from his legendary local bunchie - which I’ll leave for you to enjoy.  I’ve been on the ground at the Tour Down Under of course, and I’ll bring you up to speed with the latest racing news, as well as a few of the things that grabbed my attention at the first World Tour race of the season. It’s also been a busy period for Tom, who was DS-ing the early season Australian races. He takes us a bit deeper into the world of the DS and talks about some of the tactical detail of the recent races, as well as getting our thoughts on the why recently retired riders do so well in the team car.  It was really great to get things going again making this pod. We all love the racing, whether we are doing it ourselves, talking about it, or even just watching and reading about it. Getting back together and getting into talking about the races was really exciting after the short break. Let’s hope it’s the start of a big year to come. Sit back, relax and have a listen to The Communiqué. Cheers! Mitch