Life in the Peloton, presented by MAAP Mitch Docker

Life in the Peloton is proudly brought to you by MAAP
This episode is supported by our friends at The Escape Collective.
The Tour de France is here, and this week’s Race Communique podcast is our Tour preview with a difference!
I’m joined, as always, by Luke Durbridge and Tom Southam, who’d literally just got their fresh TDF haircuts, to discuss our takes on the race. 
Luke will be on the start grid of his 10th Tour in a row, and Tom will be hopping into his air-conditioned team car and directing what will be his 8th. 
The two of them have a huge amount of experience in and around the race, and we get right in behind the scenes as a rider and a DS at the big show! 
Before we got into the details of the Tour, there was plenty of action to catch up on in recent races, and I asked what their take was on the performances they had seen at the warm up events in France, Switzerland and Slovenia. 
Luke also took us through what it takes to get ready for the race and how it feels to make selection for the Tour, which is something every rider wants but not everyone gets to do. 
Meanwhile, Tom explains how this process works from the other side of the fence, what influences decisions and how it is to make the calls on who is at the Grand Depart and who isn’t. 
As well as our Tour tips and a hint of our tactics for the Escape Collectives Fantasy Competition (which we will be hoping to smash the armchair pundits in!), we also bring you the Communi-quiz, where Tom managed to find a board game to help him out as quiz master. 
We recorded right before we all hopped on flights to the Tour, so it’s as fresh as the boys Tour haircuts! 
Have a bit of fun with this one, and get involved in the Escape Collective Fantasy league here.
Cheers!
Mitch
 
The Life in the Peloton book is OUT NOW! Get your copy now exclusively at maap.cc! Can’t wait for you to read it.

Life in the Peloton is proudly brought to you by MAAP
This week on Life in the Peloton we have a dead set legend of a guest, Geraint Thomas might be a Tour de France winner, but the Welshman is also, so, so much more. These days you could think of him as a Grand Tour guy, but ‘G’ has not only had an incredible career, but an amazingly varied one.
He went from being a young Olympic trackie, to a (very good) Classics rider by the time he was in his mid-twenties, finishing in the top ten at Flanders in his second attempt at the race. But while, like me, he is a passionate classics man, unlike me, he has also had the energy and skills to win almost every major stage race going, including of course the Tour de France!
We’ve seen him do some amazing things on the bike, not just winning for himself on all sorts of terrain - he’s won at E3 and on Alp d’Huez… but also pulling some truly exceptional leadouts for others, doing things in the bunch the rest of us could only dream of. Most recently, we’ve seen those measured efforts that keep him right at the pointy end of racing in the world of modern cycling, scoring two Giro podiums in the last couple of seasons.
I loved the chance to speak to someone who has had such an incredible career, and has adapted to the changes in the sport over such a length of time. His story is exceptional for his longevity and also his ability to adapt and just get on with things in his own - pretty cool, style.
To top things off G also has his own Watts Occurring podcast with Luke Rowe, and he’s handy at that too, which meant he was a great guest. This really is a bumper pod, and I am stoked to bring it out for you all this week.
Cheers!
Mitch
The Life in the Peloton book is OUT NOW! Get your copy now exclusively at maap.cc! Can’t wait for you to read it.

Life in the Peloton is proudly brought to you by MAAP
I’ve been loving doing the Top Sixes on this show lately, but this week I thought it would be fun to go back to the old-school style of Talking Luft! So this week it’s back to the rapid-fire questions, having some fun and putting our guest under a bit of pressure while we work out what their cycling style is all about.
We were lucky again to have grabbed Aussie star Jack Haig for this one. You will know by now that he loves a top ten in a ridiculously hard stage race, but at Talking Luft we wanted to get the really important stuff out of him: how does he wear his cassette? What is his all-time favourite kit? Who does he think is the most stylish rider? (Of course, he just went for a tall redhead!)
Talking Luft is always great fun to record and listening to this reminds me why I love making these episodes so much. Aside from the important questions on style, I also got to hit him up about some of the things that he loves and hates in the races; turns out he’s not a fan of echelons in the neutral… And we also got to share a great war story of his hardest day on the bike - which incidentally I shared with him in a grupetto in Poland (what feels like) a long time ago!
Anyway, I’ll let you have a listen. It’s a really fun little blast through a few of the things that I love about the sport with a great guest!
The Life in the Peloton book is OUT NOW! Get your copy now exclusively at maap.cc! Can’t wait for you to read it.
Cheers,
Mitch

Life in the Peloton is proudly brought to you by MAAP
Jack Haig is one of only a handful of Australian riders to have stood on a Grand Tour podium. An almost accidental pro who fell into a career on the road whilst surfing and mountain biking back in his home in Australia as a teenager, he has been a constant presence in the biggest stage races in the world since his breakthrough ride, winning the Queen stage of the 2017 Tour of Poland as a second-year pro.
While his consistency as a stage racer is pretty standout (he’s been fifth at the Dauphiné three times, which is eye-opening when you know how bloody hard that thing is!) his story off the bike is just as - if not more, fascinating.
There can be a lot of pressure to conform in professional road cycling but there is something a little bit unique in a lot of pros, and the best ones are the ones who accept that part of their character and embrace it to be a better rider.  With Jack, it’s been clear since the very early days (when we were teammates at Orica) that he was a rider who did things his own way and didn’t feel the need to fit into what was expected.
I love getting behind the scenes with characters like Haigy here on the pod. These are the guys, the opinions, and the stories that make the peloton such a fascinating place, and prove that you can do things your own way off the bike whilst being hugely successful on it. 
As well as the big results, Jack has dealt with some pretty serious setbacks too, crashing out of the Tour in 2021 when in the best form of his life. We talk about how he dealt with this and other setbacks, as well as what keeps him coming back to be in the mix in those super hard week-long stage races that he loves (watch out Dauphiné - he’s currently lurking just outside the top ten of this years edition…)
It’ll hopefully be a big European summer for Jack so chuck the pod on and get to know one of the peloton’s true characters!
 
This episode is supported by our friends at HVNM.
The team at HVMN have an offer for all Life in the Peloton listeners with a whopping 30% offer for orders when you visit hvmn.com/lifeinthepeloton.
Head across to RESTRAP.com to check out all their amazing products, and use the code Pelo10 for a cheeky discount.
RESTRAP have now opened an Australian-specific store! For Aussie listeners AU.RESTRAP.COM.
 
Cheers,
Mitch

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

This is a short excerpt from the longer episode. To listen to the whole thing and future episodes become a member of The Pelo.
In this month’s Chronicles Sveino and I have gone for probably our deepest dive yet - back to where we first got to know each other, taking a look at the formation of Australia’s first ever World Tour cycling team, GreenEDGE. 
Most of you will know the team - which is now known as Jayco Alula, already, and many of you may remember those first few years and big wins. These days it’s easy to take it for granted but when this team arrived in Europe it was fresh and very new, and it delivered right from the start - taking out thirty races, including Milan San Remo with Simon Gerrans in its first year of existence! 
As well as performing on the road the team had an amazing presence with guys like Dan Jones working to create the image of a real Australian team, and having a lot of fun along the way with a few unconventional ideas - like that infamous ‘Call Me Maybe’ video from 2012. 
For myself as an Australian being part of a team like GreenEdge was huge. It was as close as you could come outside of the World Championships to racing for Australia. The team represented a country and a culture, and for the international riders on the team like Sveino it was a chance to be brought in to the Aussie way and to be a part of a really special team. 
As riders we had both experienced the team from the inside, and it played a huge role in our careers, so for this episode we wanted to really get behind the scenes and understand how the team was built, what was the idea behind it, and how and why it worked the way it did. We wanted to cover all angles and hear about the parts that even we didn’t see or understand at the time. 
We were lucky to get hold of the son of the founder and the man who helped make it all work, Andrew Ryan, as well as head DS Matt White, star riders Simon Gerrans and Daryl Impey and our good mate Luke Durbridge who is now in his thirteenth pro season with the team. On top of all of that we spoke to the man behind bringing a lot of that fun hardworking (occasionally pie-eating) Australian culture videographer Dan Jones. 
Of course, Sveino and I also chip in with our own stories and experiences riding for and being a part of the team. 
This is a really special episode for myself and for Sveino. GreenEDGE formed a huge part of our racing career and there are so many memories there that this was a real gift to be able to record. We both really hope that it comes through to you guys and you take the time to give it a listen, it’s a big one but it’s a good one! 
Cheers!
Mitch