On the eve of the summer edition of the People’s Grand Tour, Jack goes for a spin around the back lanes of rural Hertfordshire with cycling journalist Lionel Birnie, a regular guest on The Bike Show, who writes about professional bike racing for the Sunday Times and Cycle Sport magazine. The People’s Grand Tour is open to anyone willing to commit to riding at least ten days over a 23 day period, starting this Saturday 11 August. It’s free to enter and a great way of increasing the amount of riding you’re doing.
Cycle-touring at the Olympics
There’s a lot of cycling at the Olympics. On the road, on the track, BMX and mountainbiking too. But there is one aspect of cycling that is quite neglected by the UCI and the IOC: cycle-touring. I propose for the 2016 Rio Olympics a new cycle-touring discipline. It will take the form of an Omnium, [...]
Live from Belgium House
In a live broadcast from Belgium House, a temporary Olympic Village and ‘cycling paradise’ in London’s Middle Temple, Jack finds out about Flandrien cycling culture from Rik Vanwalleghem, director of the Tour of Flanders centre in Belgium. At the launch of the Rapha Cycle Club in Soho, Rapha founder Simon Mottram reflects on the eight years since the company was launched in 2004. London cyclist Nick Hussey of the recently launched Vulpine clothing brand talks about designing and making top quality, stylish apparel for the discerning cyclist. And Resonance FM engineer Chris Dixon rides up a virtual Koppenberg.
Remembering Albert Winstanley and announcing the Bicycle Reader
Tim Dawson and Jack Thurston talk about Albert Winstanley, the Lancashire writer, broadcaster and cycletourist who died earlier this year aged 95. Winstanley was a top notch nature writer and had the rare talent to convey in his writing the pleasures of a simple bicycle ride. One of Winstanley’s articles features in the first edition of the Bicycle Reader, a new collection of quality writing about riding, co-edited by Jack Thurston and Tim Dawson, and available for Kindle and other e-book readers for the very modest price of £1.53.
Remembering Albert Winstanley and announcing the Bicycle Reader [ 29:52 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download
Tour de France Rest Day Chit-Chat with Lionel Birnie
Today is the last rest day in the Tour before the race heads into the Pyrenees for tomorrow’s frighteningly gruelling mountain stage around the Circle of Death. The rest gave Jack Thurston time to catch up with Lionel Birnie, The Bike Show’s favourite cycling journalist. Lionel writes for Cycle Sport Magazine and the Sunday Times. You can follow him on twitter at lioneljbirnie and read his articles in Cycle Sport Magazine and in the Sunday Times.
Taking the Long View of The Tour de France
This year’s Tour de France is the 99th edition of a bicycle race that is rich in meaning and symbolism for the French nation. Christopher Thompson is professor of history at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana and author of a widely acclaimed cultural history of the Tour de France. He discusses how the race came about in an era of rising nationalism and how the route itself was loaded with political meaning. Professor Thompson argues the race projected carefully constructed role models and entrenched traditional gender archetypes. More recently, controversies over doping in cycle sport can be linked to concerns about recreational drug use in wider society.
How Ned Boulting Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love the Tour de France
It’s July, that means it’s the Tour de France. Jack Thurston talks with Ned Boulting, a sports reporter who has been covering the Tour for ITV since 2003. He talks about the rise in popularity of cycle sport and everyday cycling over the past decade and the high jinks he’s got up to while covering the last nine Tours de France Ned’s book, How I Won the Yellow Jumper, is out now, published by Yellow Jersey Press.
How Ned Boulting Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love the Tour de France [ 54:50 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download
Touring tips #6: Maps revisited: computer mapping
In the first of these touring tips I wrote about Ordnance Survey paper maps (specifically the 1:50k Landranger series) and why I thought these are the most useful and satisfying UK maps for the touring cyclist, and how they can be borrowed for free from public libraries. A few people pointed out OS Maps are [...]
Over the col du Tourmalet, 1879 style
This is an extract from an account of a summer touring trip to the Pyrenees, published in the London Bicycle Club Gazette (1879). The group of London cycle tourists rode their machines, or more likely pushed them, up all the major cols including the Aubisque, Tourmalet, Aspin & Peyresourde. They were almost certainly riding high [...]
Vous Faites le Tour de France?
With this year’s Tour de France just a few days away, Kieron Yates and Jack Thurston talk about the best places to go touring by bicycle in France. They share their ideas on where to go, where to stay and how to get there and back.
Stephen Roche, twenty five years later
1987 was an annus mirabilis for Stephen Roche, one of a wave of world class Irish athletes that rose to fame that decade. He won the Giro d’Italia, the Tour de France and the World Championship road race. The only other rider to have accomplished this feat, know as the ‘triple crown’, is Eddy Merckx. Roche has a new book out called ‘Born To Ride’ and talks about his life in cycling, winning the triple crown, as well as his thoughts on today’s peloton, the scourge of doping and his own implication in an EPO doping conspiracy.
His new autobiography, Born to Ride, is out now, published by Yellow Jersey Press.
Stay in touch
Enter your email address here to receive very occasional emails from The Bike Show (and no-one else) about rides, events and that kind of thing.
