Stanley St. Social | Cycling News and Interviews

Max Gawn, Luke Plapp and Alex Clements
  • 4.6 (11)
  • Sports
  • Updated Weekly

Cycling podcast for race news, rider interviews and honest takes from inside the peloton. Melbourne AFL captain Max Gawn, WorldTour pro Luke Plapp and Alex Clements break it all down. Cycling news every Monday, long-form rider interviews every Wednesday, plus daily coverage through the Tour de France - alongside the Giro d'Italia, la Vuelta, the spring classics, the WorldTour and Australian racing. Race recaps, tactics, gossip and the odd terrible take.

  1. 19h ago

    Michael Matthews | Kobe Bryant, GreenEdge Then & Now, and Pogi

    Bling / Michael Matthews joins the podcast for a wide-ranging conversation spanning his entire career — from a motocross-obsessed kid in Canberra who stumbled into cycling, to Australian champion within six months, to a decade-plus at the top of the World Tour. Bling opens up on the origin of his nickname, meeting Kobe Bryant in a hotel elevator during his first year as a pro, and the eerie parallel of watching LeBron James walk through a crowd in Paris untouched. He walks through the highs — winning the Green Jersey with Sunweb, the emotional 2017 Tour de France stage win in Rodez two years after breaking ribs on the same climb, the legendary Green Edge "Aussie rock star" era — and the lows, including a horror pre-Tour crash in 2014 and a brutal, injury-riddled run through the 2015 Tour just weeks before his wedding. He also reflects candidly on team culture then versus now, what he sees of his younger self in Tadej Pogačar, the role his wife and daughter play in keeping him motivated at 35, and why the World Championships remains the one jersey that's slipped through his fingers — with Canada, a course that's been kind to him before, right around the corner.

    Michael Matthews | Kobe Bryant, GreenEdge Then & Now, and Pogi

  2. 5d ago

    David Spindler: Team Culture, Concussion Science & The Neurochemistry of Winning

    Dr. David Spindler is a neuroscientist, cognitive performance strategist, and elite athlete wellbeing expert who's spent his career helping athletes and teams understand that brain chemicals matter. He's worked with some of the biggest names in professional sport, most famously alongside Mark Cavendish through the darkest years of his career, chronicled in Netflix's "Never Enough." Three big segments in this one. Team culture. David breaks down the actual neurochemistry behind why old-school GreenEDGE had that "I'd do anything for my mate next to me" quality — it comes down to oxytocin, the same bonding chemical released when a parent holds their newborn, and why some teams manufacture it constantly while others can't buy it no matter how much they spend. He and Alex build an entire hypothetical Australian WorldTour team from a blank sheet of paper — values, non-negotiables, culture — and get into why "old school Green Edge" gets thrown around constantly but almost nobody can actually define what it means. Concussion. A proper breakdown of concussion protocols in the peloton and why cycling is dangerously behind rugby and the NFL on brain safety — including the messy legal reason nobody wants to call an impact sensor a "concussion sensor," and who actually carries liability when a rider gets hurt. Training the brain. David explains the real neuroscience of reactionary decision-making, why riders like Tadej Pogačar seem to have supernatural crash radar, and the actual mechanics of how he trains neural efficiency in elite endurance athletes to extend time to exhaustion — plus how his own PhD on decision-making under physiological load in professional cyclists led him down this path in the first place.

    David Spindler: Team Culture, Concussion Science & The Neurochemistry of Winning

  3. 6d ago

    The Pogi-to-Australia Masterplan (Sky Decks, Highland Cows & One Very Specific Tennis Player)

    The boys have a plan to get Tadej Pogačar down under. Meanwhile the Vuelta has completely flipped on its head, someone's playing it ice cold in the red jersey, and the mountain bike world championships produced one of the most ridiculous rides of the year from a guy who basically chose to start from the back. Max's new top five ranks the teams he'd actually send a rider to and there's a brand new segment debuting this week that involves some very confident guesswork about riders' salaries.

    The Pogi-to-Australia Masterplan (Sky Decks, Highland Cows & One Very Specific Tennis Player)

  4. Aug 26

    We're (Alex is) sorry | Max's 9th Jacket + Ed hard-launches the next cycling project

    We're (Alex is) sorry — Monday's show fell apart in a car park in Stage 3, so here's the make-up episode. Max's 9th All Australian jacket, plus Ed hard-launches the next cycling project: an Everesting attempt in October with zero training.:Max's Top 5 on fixing cycling coverage and a full Vuelta recap.

    We're (Alex is) sorry | Max's 9th Jacket + Ed hard-launches the next cycling project

  5. Aug 20

    Matthew Richardson | AUS To GB, The Lifetime Ban & Getting Taken Out In Japan

    Alex sits down with Matthew Richardson at his home in Manchester for his most open interview yet. The world's fastest man over 200m takes us inside the Japanese Keirin World Series — the deliberate hit that broke his scapula and put him in a Tokyo hospital, body armour, betting culture, and three days locked away with no phone and a stack of second-hand DVDs. Then, the full story of the switch: deciding on Christmas Day to leave Australia for Great Britain, telling AusCycling after winning silver in Paris, the equipment saga, the two-year ban threat that became a lifetime ban, and why he'd do it all again. Plus 240kg squats, why he never trains his upper body, creatine, LA 2028, and a golf handicap that shouldn't be ten.

    Matthew Richardson | AUS To GB, The Lifetime Ban & Getting Taken Out In Japan

  6. Aug 17

    Keeno's Home | Tour Wash-Up, Vuelta Preview & Max's Top 5 Commentators

    Keeno's back from 44 days in France. Matthew Keenan, Max and Alex wrap the Tour and TDFF. We preview the Vuelta a España — UAE's three-headed monster, Gall, Onley, Landa's last World Tour Grand Tour, Tuckwell's GT debut — and run through Hamburg, Czech Tour, Norway (Uno-X, obviously), Del Toro's deal to 2031 and the transfer whirl. Max's Top 5 commentators, with Keeno sitting right there. We also pay tribute to Finlay Tarling. Wednesday: Team GB sprinter Matthew Richardson.

    Keeno's Home | Tour Wash-Up, Vuelta Preview & Max's Top 5 Commentators

  7. Aug 12

    James Moran | Building Uno-X's Nutrition Program

    James Moran is Head of Nutrition at Uno-X Mobility, joining the team in December 2019 as a consultant when they were still a Conti squad, before building the entire nutrition program from the ground up as they turned WorldTour. What began with just a list of riders and no instructions beyond "teach them about nutrition," has grown into three full-time chefs and nutritionists across the men's and women's programs. He works closely with nutrition partner Mauten on carbohydrate absorption research and oral microbiome testing, and was central to Jonas Abrahamsen's transformation from 68kg to 78kg - one of the team's biggest nutrition success stories. Before cycling, James worked in track cycling with British Cycling, and has also consulted across boxing, tennis, and rugby.

    James Moran | Building Uno-X's Nutrition Program

  8. Aug 10

    Top 5 Riders Teams Should Sign, Max's Grand Final-or-Everesting Gamble, and Monaco's Car Rankings | Social Club

    Plappy's back from San Sebastián. Max's off-season plans hinge on one thing: Melbourne's finals run. Either he's playing in a grand final, or he's Everesting a climb in South Australia with Ed Langdon — completely untrained, in the hunt to be the heaviest person to ever do it. Also floated: getting Plappy to hand down one of his old sports cars as the podcast's official team car. On the bike: Wout van Aert's Denmark treble, Jensen's cruel near-miss ("biggest blue balls of my life" per his own Instagram), Marco Brenner's Poland win, Remco's record San Sebastián, and Felix Gall's Burgos victory — with Oscar Onley's return to form the one Plappy was happiest to see. Gianni Moscon adds another line to the rap sheet with a fresh DQ. Max builds out his All-Australian squad (37 riders deep and counting, no room for Uno-X yet despite their stacked year) and floats basing a second Aussie team in Asia. Plus Max's Pillar Performance Top 5 out-of-contract riders — Danny van Poppel, Habats, Christophe Laporte, Toms Skujiņš and Laurens De Plus — a Comm Games track wrap, and the reveal of the TDF Femmes Zwift prize winner, a 26-year-old triathlete lawyer from Adelaide who couldn't have written a better use for it himself. Plus your voicenotes. 🎧 Subscribe for daily cycling news & interviews💬 Got a question or comment? Leave us a voice message: https://www.speakpipe.com/stanleystsocial

    Top 5 Riders Teams Should Sign, Max's Grand Final-or-Everesting Gamble, and Monaco's Car Rankings | Social Club
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4.6
out of 5
11 Ratings

About

Cycling podcast for race news, rider interviews and honest takes from inside the peloton. Melbourne AFL captain Max Gawn, WorldTour pro Luke Plapp and Alex Clements break it all down. Cycling news every Monday, long-form rider interviews every Wednesday, plus daily coverage through the Tour de France - alongside the Giro d'Italia, la Vuelta, the spring classics, the WorldTour and Australian racing. Race recaps, tactics, gossip and the odd terrible take.

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