Life in the Peloton is proudly brought to you by MAAP After a short pause, this week we’re back with another episode of The Race Communiqué! We’ve had an absolutely bumper month of racing with the first Grand Tour of the year, the Giro d’Italia, wrapping up in Rome just a few days ago. Racing is what this pod is all about and we are going to be driving right into the heart of all the recent action with current pro Luke Durbridge and sports director Tom Southam helping me pick apart a brilliant few weeks of cycling. Before we get into the action on the road though, the big news is the results of our first attempts at our sponsor - The Escape Collective’s, brilliant fantasy league game are in! We all had a bit of fun with this one here at the pod, and I’ll let you have a listen to see how we went. I would say though, that given the experience and knowledge on this podcast panel, you may be surprised by some of the performances in the league! As well as covering the big stories at the Giro we each nominate our revelations of the race. As ever, a lot of the best bits of the race were the stories behind the headlines, and there were some cracking sub-plots going on with revelations like Georg Steinhauser and Guilio Pellizzari turning a few heads. There has been plenty going on in the peloton outside the Giro as well. Luke gives us some insight into how the UCI points ranking is already a huge topic for riders and teams at the mid-point of the three-year cycle. Tom looks at the complications of even just getting into the breakaway these days before the super teams hoover up all the wins on the road, and why that will be a big influence on the way the racing goes in the rest of the season. It’s great to get back to chatting about what is happening in the pro peloton and really get behind the scenes with a lot of the stuff that is new to me these days. I hope you guys enjoy this one.   Cheers, Mitch