Escape Collective

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Channel • 7 Shows

Sport

Sport

Updated 17 Mar
Entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurship

Every two months
Sports News

Sports News

Updated 8 Mar
Sports News

Sports News

Updated 14/01/2025
Sport

Sport

Updated weekly
Sports News

Sports News

Updated weekly
Sport

Sport

Updated weekly

03/07/2025

The ‘why’ behind my circumnavigation of Ireland helped me find the ‘how’ to pull it off

In this special episode of Performance Process, Ronan shares the story behind his 3,000+ km solo circumnavigation of Ireland – a ride powered not by chasing records, but by purpose. This was a deeply personal challenge to raise awareness for food allergies and support life-changing research, all while adhering to the same strict allergen-free diet his six-year-old daughter Sophia must follow daily. From the original plan of a record attempt to the emotional pivot toward solidarity and visibility, Ronan breaks down how and why the ride evolved, the symbolic meaning of circling the island, the injuries, and what it revealed about resilience and navigating life with allergies. Expect raw honesty, plenty of reflection, and the beginnings of a much bigger story. The fundraiser is still open here, every contribution makes a real difference. • £10 provides allergy education packs for a school• £25 trains 50 teachers to support allergic kids• £100 covers a life-saving dose of treatment for a child• £1,500 funds six months on the life-changing Natasha Clinical Trial Hitting the target, could fund 20 trial places for allergic children, and take a real step toward a future where no child has to live in fear of their food.

03/07/2025

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52 min
10/12/2025

Introducing Escape tyre testing: Get ready to rethink accepted wisdom

In this episode of Performance Process, we finally dig into the tyre-testing project that quietly consumed most of my year. Nine months, six tyre widths, hundreds of test runs, three road surfaces, four identical wheelsets, and far too many cold late-night tests than any sane person should attempt. But it was worth it. Today, Ronan is joined by John Buckley the founder of Streamlines Aero, the company behind the hardware and technical support so crucial to this testing. Together, we break down how the test protocol worked, why it’s different, and why those differences matter. We also unpack the major findings: why pressure mattered more than width in this dataset, why some long-held assumptions didn’t hold up in the real world, and how tyre temperature turned out to be one of the biggest and least appreciated variables affecting performance. This is just the beginning. Later in the episode we explain where our tyre testing goes from here and what to expect in the new year.

10/12/2025

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24 min
25/11/2025

The unseen struggle behind women's cycling rise

You could make a Bingo game out of how many times Gracie, Loren, Georgia, or Abby bring up the development problem in women's cycling – the lack of lower-level races and teams, WorldTour teams signing riders too young, etc. But we aren't the only ones constantly harping on about these issues. This week, Loren and Abby sat down with someone who has been pinpointing these problems for years and is actively working to combat the lack of development on a daily basis: Natascha Knaven-den Ouden. If you follow her on social media, you'll know she has come head-to-head with a lot of the challenges currently facing the lower levels of women's road cycling, and as the General Manager for NXTG Racing, she's guiding the next generation through the growing landscape.

25/11/2025

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59 min
26/07/2025

Tour de France Femmes, stage 1: Vos in yellow after Visma masterclass

What a stage to kickstart the fourth edition of the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift! Loren Rowney, Georgie Howe, and Matt de Neef break down all the action from a day in which the stage-hunters and GC favourites (and the GOAT herself) duked it out for the first yellow jersey of this year's Tour. Today’s episode features audio diaries from Brodie Chapman (UAE Team ADQ), Jelena Erić (Movistar), Ally Wollaston (FDJ-Suez), and Mags Vallieres (EF Education-Oatly).

26/07/2025

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38 min
31/07/2025

Director Files: Move up!

Shawn Clarke is back, reporting from the Liv AlUla Jayco team car. Clarke talks through his observations from car 2 - more crashes, full gas racing, and more riders struggling with positioning.

31/07/2025

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14 min
17/11/2023

Building DeFeet

DeFeet is mostly thought about as a sock brand, and that’s largely the case, even though they also make arm warmers, gloves and base layers. After 31 years of being in the trade, they’re the longest-standing business dedicated to socks in the cycling market that I’m aware of. Back in the 90’s socks may have been the least interesting, and most neglected piece of apparel in a cyclist's wardrobe, or any athlete’s for that matter. They were just flimsy tubes of cotton or wool that covered the feet. It was a thankless job nobody gave much thought to. What it took to change that was a man by the name of Shane Cooper, who had a unique set of skills, hobbies and passions that all came together to change the game in socks.

17/11/2023

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1hr 4min
14/02/2023

Building The Sufferfest

In this episode of From the Top, I speak to The Sufferfest founder David McQuillen about how he went from working in the Swiss Banking industry, to creating one of the largest indoor training platforms in his spare time and later selling the business to Wahoo Fitness. I first met David back in 2010 at the Road World Championships in Geelong and we became good friends thereafter. We were both in similar start-up stages of our businesses and we had lots in common. When David moved to Melbourne we got together frequently to discuss business, cycling and the general landscape of both. David is one of the most enthusiastic, humble, and clever people I’ve had the privilege of knowing and it’s been an absolute joy to watch his business flourish. As you’ll find out, even though The Sufferfest may have been a ‘happy accident’, none of the decisions he took on his successful journey have been by mistake. This is David’s remarkable story of how he built The Sufferfest. If you enjoyed this and want to hear more, please become a member of Escape Collective by joining here: https://escapecollective.com/member

14/02/2023

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1hr 4min
07/06/2024

How the founders of Kona Bikes saved their company

It’s been said that Kona is 'The Smallest Biggest Bike Company in the World'. They’re best known as the quintessential North Shore bike brand, yet their global head office is just down over the border in Ferndale, Washington. The quirky company stood out with outrageous bike model names such as the Stinky Dee-Lux, Sex One, Sex Too, and, Jackshit, which placed them well and truly as the "alternative" bicycle company. The business was founded by Dan Gerhard, Jacob Heilbron in Vancouver, BC along with mtb hall of famer Joe Murray as their designer. With a rich history of iconic bikes and factory race teams, it was all overshadowed by the recent events of their former owners, Kent Outdoors, who were responsible for running Kona into the ground (my words, not theirs) before the original founders bought the company back last month. Only a few weeks after Dan and Jake bought the company back, I spoke to Jake about Kona’s founding story that dates back to 36yrs ago in 1988, the sale of the business to a private equity-backed company, and what happened that led them to buying Kona back. If you like this podcast and want to hear more, please support our work by becoming a member: https://escapecollective.com/member/

07/06/2024

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1hr 28min
05/09/2024

Building Zwift (replay on their 10th anniversary)

Indoor training has been around for longer than I can remember, but when Zwift came along in 2014 it changed the market forever. The company came into the world with bold ambitions, reimagined the space and what it could become, and has grown the market to a size that nobody could have imagined. Some of the earliest pioneers in the indoor virtual world space were the likes of Computrainer and Tacx back in the late 90s, early 2000s. But they never really delivered on the promise of making indoor training much more enjoyable. They can’t be blamed for lack of vision or not trying – the technology wasn’t even there at the time. Social networks didn’t exist, multi player online games weren’t around, broadband speeds were slow and wireless protocols such as ANT+ and BTLE hadn’t been invented yet. But, in 2010 when a gaming software developer in Southern California named Jon Mayfield began tinkering with his kinetic trainer and finding ways for it to communicate with a virtual world he built, he had no idea how big this would become. Escape Collective is entirely member-funded. If you like this podcast please consider supporting us by becoming a member: https://escapecollective.com/member/

05/09/2024

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1hr 10min
4 MAR

Uplift - The Woman Lifting Women in the Bike Industry

This episode's guest is Rachel Burnside, who is the creator and force behind Uplift, a mentoring and networking program she built from scratch to support women working in the cycling industry. Uplift started simply: connect women early in their careers with senior women who'd already navigated the road ahead. But it's grown into something much bigger - a global community with over a thousand women in the bike industry, and live events at Sea Otter, Eurobike, the Tour de France Femmes and many other smaller ones. All of it built in Rachel's spare time, powered by goodwill, and kept free for everyone involved. We talk about how Uplift works, what she's learned across five rounds of mentoring, the role of male allies, and what it'll take to keep more women in cycling for the long haul. Find out more at www.shiftactivemedia.com/uplift/ and you can get in touch directly by emailing uplift@shiftactivemedia.com. If you like this podcast and want to hear more, please support our work by becoming a member: https://escapecollective.com/join/

4 Mar

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45 min

Welcome to Escape Collective, your home for independent cycling journalism.