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...

Life in the Peloton is proudly brought to you by Rapha We’ve finally got him on the pod – a spot that in his own words, he was born ready for, and I couldn’t be more excited to chat with my friend FYXO (aka Andy White), to take a deep dive into the fixie world. It morphs nicely into the trajectory that Life in the Peloton has taken this year, where I’ve been talking a lot about uncovering all the different pelotons out there, and this is one of the most niche pelotons of them all. Andy...

Life in the Peloton is proudly brought to you by Rapha It’s just me and my old mate Luke Durbridge this week, with Tom Southam out on the road at the Vuelta a Burgos, but we’ve got plenty to get through on this edition of The Race Communique. It’s a bit of a tricky part of the year –  it has been a long season and the hype and glory of the biggest races have subsided following the TDF and the World’s, it’s the summer holiday month of August in Europe which lends itself well to lying...

  It’s hard to find someone more knowledgeable about sports nutrition than Will Girling – he has been a nutritionist at all levels of the professional cycling world, from Continental to pro-Continental, up to World Tour level, and he’s been the nutritionist at EF Education-Easy Post for the past several years, where we first crossed paths. He also holds a Master of Sports Nutrition and is currently working towards a Doctorate – in short, he knows his stuff.   So while he knows top-level...

This week on Talking Luft we’re taking one last look back at the 2023 TDF, where I took my History of the Tour de France quiz to the masses! Or better put, to a whole bunch of current pros and DS’s that I managed to pull aside for a chat on the roadside of the Tour, to put them through their paces - including Caleb Ewan, Mat Hayman, Ian Stannard, Jai Hindley, Luke Durbridge, and Neilson Powless, among others. It required a bit of specialist TDF knowledge, and a bit of historical insight,...

Life in the Peloton is proudly brought to you by Rapha I’ve got something a bit different for you on the pod this week, but it’s a fascinating topic and one that has really gained traction in women’s sport over the past few years. I’m chatting to Maghalie Rochette - she’s a Canadian cyclo cross rider and mountain biker, she came to the sport from a background in running and triathlon, and she also has her own successful podcast called Fever Talk. But what sets Maghalie apart is that she...

I’m back with something brand new for you this week, the first of a new monthly series called The Race Communique.   The idea is to get back to our roots, since LITP has moved on from the pro peloton with me, I wanted to get back amongst the action and back to chatting about the World Tour. We’ll be unpacking the trends, the race results, all the news and happenings in the pro peloton – to try to get the lowdown for you, the listener.   Joining me on the pod each month will be one of two guys...

Life in the Peloton is proudly brought to you by Rapha It’s nearing the end of the Tour de France for another year, and I have been in the box seat for the first two weeks of this phenomenon of an annual sporting event, following the Tour with The Cycling Podcast. Along the way, I had the chance to chat with an absolute expert in cycling history – François Thomazeau. His encyclopaedic knowledge of all facets of the Tour is extraordinary, and I am so excited to have him on the pod today...

Life in the Peloton is proudly supported by Rapha   This week on Talking Luft I’m chatting with an old friend and teammate of mine – he is a former UK national champ, he has ridden for some of the world’s biggest teams, and – I’m calling it – he's the new voice of cycling. I’m talking about Adam Blythe and I can’t wait to put him through the full Talking Luft treatment!   I have always admired his crafty racing style and his ability to read a bike race, and when the conditions got tough, he...

Life in the Peloton is proudly brought to you by Rapha Well, it is Tour time, and I´m taking this opportunity to look at one of the most fascinating technical aspects of pro racing – the art of the lead-out. And what better time to do it than right now, at the beginning of the Tour de France, so you can sit back and watch the adrenaline-charged sprint finishes, with a deeper understanding of the game of chess that is playing out on the road.   The idea of the designated lead-out man is...

Life in the Peloton is proudly brought to you by Rapha I have a special guest on the pod this week, making his debut appearance on Life in the Peloton. He´s no stranger to you all though, he is a fellow Victorian, a former mountain biker, road world champion, and Australia´s only ever Tour de France winner, I´m talking of course about the legend himself, Cadel Evans. This was a great opportunity to really get back to the beginning of the Cadel Evans story and hear it in his own words. I...