Cycling Conversations with inGamba

inGamba Bike Tours
  • 5.0 (2)
  • Places & Travel

Welcome to cycling conversations with inGamba, where we celebrate the art and the culture of the sport - the rhythm, the ritual, and the refinement that surrounds it. inGamba means in the know, and as with our luxury guided European cycling tours, these conversations are meant to bring you behind the scenes in our world.  This is the space for when sport meets elevated living: where a former pro racer dissects the brutality of racing a Classic, followed by a cycling-CEO sharing their favourite spot for a post-ride Negroni. Along the way is our creative director and award-winning cycling photographer James Startt who joins cycling journalist Molly Hurford, to unpack the cultural currents shaping the sport and the destinations that make it so beautiful.  To learn more about our award-winning bike tours and to join us, visit ingamba.pro

  1. 5d ago

    A Cultural Guide to the 2027 Tour de France: Ed Pickering & James Startt

    The 2027 Tour de France route has just been announced, and before anyone starts debating watts per kilo and summit finish counts, James Startt and Ed Pickering want to talk about haggis in Edinburgh, the bakers of Wevelgem, cassoulet in Toulouse, and what awaits riders at the top of the Puy de Dôme. Between them, they’ve covered dozens of editions of the race, and the conversation covers far more than the racing. The men's race opens in Scotland and travels through Liverpool and Cardiff before crossing back into France via Cherbourg, and the women's race adds Leeds, Manchester, and a London time trial finishing on the Mall beside Buckingham Palace. From there, both races carve through Brittany, the Loire Valley, La France Profonde, the Massif Central gorges, Toulouse cassoulet country, the Basque Country, and back to Montmartre. The women's race ends on the Puy de Dôme, the volcanic lighthouse of Clermont-Ferrand, and both Ed and James have a lot of feelings about that. Want to ride these roads before the peloton does? inGamba's 2027 calendar is live at ingamba.pro/trips

    A Cultural Guide to the 2027 Tour de France: Ed Pickering & James Startt

  2. Oct 19

    Race Director Scott Sunderland on the Art and Soul of the Flanders Classics

    What does it take to turn a one-day bike race into a monument? To make a climb so familiar that fans around the world hold their breath every time the peloton turns onto it? Scott Sunderland has spent the better part of three decades figuring that out, first as a professional cyclist racing the cobbles himself, then as a team director at CSC and Sky, and now as general race director of Flanders Classics, the organization behind the Tour of Flanders, Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, Scheldeprijs, Gent-Wevelgem, and more. Host Molly Hurford and inGamba creative director James Startt sit down with Scott for a conversation about what actually goes into designing a race that works for the rider grinding through it, the fan standing on a Kwaremont switchback in the rain, and the television viewer watching from their living room in Sydney. The answer, it turns out, has a lot in common with writing a great song: you need the chorus, a bit of a lull, and one memorable solo that lands at exactly the right moment. Along the way: the history of Oudenaarde as a pirate shipping hub, why the Muir was removed from Tour of Flanders and where it went instead, the Westmalle Tripel versus the Duvel debate, and what it means to be a true Flandrien, plus what to expect from the 2027 Tour of Flanders and why you need to join inGamba for the trip!  inGamba's Cobbled Classics trip puts you inside the race week itself, with VIP access and riding on the race roads. Find the full 2027 calendar at ingamba.pro/trips

    Race Director Scott Sunderland on the Art and Soul of the Flanders Classics

  3. Oct 9

    Someday Is Not a Date: Katie Boling on Community, Solo Travel & the Scheduling Joy

    Katie Boling has spent nine years in her role at inGamba, but before that, she was already looking for adventure, from racing Ironman to spending two years of backpacking across 55 countries. When she first arrived at our home in Borgholecchi over a decade ago, she knew she’d found her place, and since then, she’s helped build the inGamba community into what it is today. Host Molly Hurford and creative director James Startt sit down with Katie for a conversation about what inGamba's community actually looks like from the inside, why solo travel is less solo than people expect, and why someday is not a date worth putting on your calendar. The conversation covers the surprising reality that a large portion of inGamba guests arrive alone, and why that often leads to the deepest connections of any trip. Katie talks about the art of matching people to the right group before they even pack their bags, why Women's Weeks have become so important to our calendar, and why the months most people overlook when it comes to cycling— January, February, March — are some of the best times to be riding in Europe. Find the full inGamba trip calendar and Katie's piece on choosing the right tour for you in the show notes at ingamba.pro.

    Someday Is Not a Date: Katie Boling on Community, Solo Travel & the Scheduling Joy

  4. Sep 28

    Postcards from Montreal: Road Worlds, Cycling Clubs, Smoked Salmon & the Best Record Store

    The UCI Road World Championships have come to North America for the first time in decades, and inGamba was on the ground in Montreal to bring you behind the scenes of the city. Host Molly Hurford and inGamba creative director James Startt trade the race bubble for the neighborhood streets of Montreal to put together four vignettes of a city that we’ve come to love.  First up is Sébastien Arsenault, president of the race organizing committee, who has been dreaming of this event since 2013 and describes the decade of political headwinds, sponsor hunts, and public convincing it took to get here. Then Jake Greenberg of Chez Greenberg, Montreal's hyper-local, Jewish-inspired smoked salmon institution in Mile End. Then Paul's Boutique, a 25-year-old record shop on Plateau with a bright yellow facade and a back room that James calls a goldmine. And finally, Guillaume of Le Club, the pioneering cycling cafe that has become the unofficial Montreal home of the pro peloton, which now runs over 100 community events a year, roasts its own beans, and recently expanded into a full cycling boutique next door. inGamba's 2027 trip calendar is now live and booking fast. Find all upcoming trips at ingamba.pro/trips

    Postcards from Montreal: Road Worlds, Cycling Clubs, Smoked Salmon & the Best Record Store

  5. Sep 23

    Where Art and Cycling Meet with Contemporary Artist Zio Ziegler

    Contemporary artist Zio Ziegler makes the case better than almost anyone that a long bike ride and a long day in the studio can feel the same. Host Molly Hurford and inGamba creative director James Startt sit down with Zio, whose work has shown in museums from Tokyo to Milan to Basel, for a wide-ranging conversation about creative obsession, the discipline of simplicity, and of course, a shared love of the bike. Zio speaks to how his career has been built on constantly outpacing his own aesthetic instincts, from graffiti and street art to the large-scale totemic figures and stripped-back tree paintings. He also gets into why he still struggles to call himself an artist in public, why social media optimizes against the kind of decade-long thinking serious painting requires, and what Jackson Pollock's drip paintings have to do with the mathematics of the human nervous system. The cycling connection runs deep: Zio loves to ride and has even joined us on an inGamba trip in the past.  Cover photo: Bryson Malone

    Where Art and Cycling Meet with Contemporary Artist Zio Ziegler

  6. Sep 1

    Inside the Peloton for 50 Years with Allan Peiper

    He guided Tadej Pogacar to his first Tour de France victory. He helped Mark Cavendish become one of the most prolific stage winners of a generation. He arrived in Belgium at seventeen with $300 from his mother and a bike, and figured out the rest. Allan Peiper may not be a household name outside the sport, but inside it, he is one of the most quietly consequential figures of the last five decades. Host Molly Hurford and inGamba creative director James Startt sit down with the Australian-born directeur sportif, now a strategic consultant to Red Bull Bora Hansgrohe, for a conversation that ranges from sleeping on doorsteps at French amateur team ACBB in the late 1970s to the parking lot at Planche des Belles Filles in 2020, where he crouched behind a car and cried after Pogacar crossed the line. In between: twelve years of cancer treatment, a chemotherapy recovery that ran straight into the most important Tour de France of his career, and a front-row seat to what it actually takes to build a grand tour winner. The conversation also turns to Remco Evenepoel's second place at this year's Tour, the interdepartmental masterclass that got him there, and why emotional intelligence now matters as much as VO2 max when it comes to identifying and developing talent. In this episode: Leaving Australia at seventeen with $300, and racing the Track World Championships in the US on a borrowed bike—and still getting silverWhat he saw when a nineteen-year-old Pogacar losing his passport in Australia and stayed completely calmThe 2020 Tour: hiding Pogacar from the race lead, the bike change zone at kilometer 32.6, the junior cassette on Planche des Belles Filles, and why Jumbo-Visma didn't do their reconTwelve years managing prostate cancer alongside a career at the highest level of the sportWhat it took to get Remco Evenepoel to the Tour de France as a 2.0 version of himselfWhy VO2 max alone is not enough, and what he looks for instead in young talent

    Inside the Peloton for 50 Years with Allan Peiper

  7. Jul 29

    Cycling Legend Chris Froome on Retirement, What’s Next, and Why Mont Ventoux is a Favorite Memory

    What does it feel like to watch the Tour de France as a spectator after winning it four times? Chris Froome found out this past July, and it turns out it takes him right back to being sixteen years old in a boarding school common room in Johannesburg, watching some of the greats battle through the mountains and thinking: I want to get there one day. Now, he’s on a mission to help other young riders in Africa do just that with the Froome Foundation—and you can help his mission. Host Molly Hurford and inGamba creative director James Startt sit down with the four-time Tour de France champion and seven-time Grand Tour winner just days after his first Tour de France as a spectator, hosting guests on early morning rides with Skoda. We chat about the three career moments that still stand out above everything else, what it was like to run in cycling shoes up Mont Ventoux with a broken bike and the yellow jersey in 2016 compared to  winning on Ventoux in 2013 so completely spent that he had to get oxygen at the finish line. Then the conversation turns to what comes next: Chris grew up in Kenya, and that connection to East Africa has never left him. The Froome Foundation is now taking shape, with the goal of giving young East African riders access to bikes, education, and a genuine pathway into professional cycling. The foundation's first fundraising experience, a small-group ride through the South of France roads Chris trained on throughout his career, is coming up in August—and spots are still available. To learn more about the Froome Foundation trip or to inquire about spots, visit: https://ingamba.pro/trip/chris-froome-foundation-private-experience/

    Cycling Legend Chris Froome on Retirement, What’s Next, and Why Mont Ventoux is a Favorite Memory

  8. Jul 17

    Deep France And The Giant Of Provence: The Soul of the Tour with Eros Poli and Ed Pickering

    The Tour de France is not just a bike race. It is a traveling circus, a moving theater through one of the most geographically diverse countries in the world, and this episode captures both ends of that spectrum: the quiet, often forgotten heart of rural France, and its most mythic mountain: Mont Ventoux. Host Molly Hurford and inGamba creative director James Startt are joined first by Ed Pickering, editor-at-large on our recent issue of The Magazine and author of the Substack "Cycling, the Universe and Everything," for a conversation about La France Profonde, the deep rural interior that the Tour passes through every year between its famous mountain stages. Ed and James, between them covering more than 50 Tours on the ground, make the case that these overlooked flatlands and rolling farmlands are not filler but the true soul of the race: more cows than people, cassoulet in summer heat, and roads suspended in time. Then Eros Poli, former winner of the Mont Ventoux Tour stage, joins to talk about the mountain that changed his life. His 1994 solo stage win atop Mont Ventoux in blistering heat with no team car support and a can of warm Fanta as his only mid-climb rescue, remains one of the most improbable and beloved moments in Tour de France history. That win, documented in the film Grinta, is now being celebrated at film festivals around the world. Eros shares what the Ventoux demands of anyone who attempts it, and what the Tour de France Femmes riders can expect when they race to its summit for the first time this year. In this episode: What is La France Profonde? Ed and James define the "empty diagonal" that sits at the heart of every TourWhy bike racing needs wide open space, and why France has itThe best things to eat in rural France (cassoulet wins, narrowly)Eros on his 1994 Ventoux stage win: the heat, the solo attack, the warm Fanta, and the bow to the crowdHis advice for riders climbing Ventoux: "The grinta is inside you. You cannot get it from your watch."Craving France in real life? inGamba's 2027 France expansion adds the Burgundy region to our trip list, and our Provence trip runs regularly. Find everything at https://ingamba.pro/destinations/france/

    Deep France And The Giant Of Provence: The Soul of the Tour with Eros Poli and Ed Pickering
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About

Welcome to cycling conversations with inGamba, where we celebrate the art and the culture of the sport - the rhythm, the ritual, and the refinement that surrounds it. inGamba means in the know, and as with our luxury guided European cycling tours, these conversations are meant to bring you behind the scenes in our world.  This is the space for when sport meets elevated living: where a former pro racer dissects the brutality of racing a Classic, followed by a cycling-CEO sharing their favourite spot for a post-ride Negroni. Along the way is our creative director and award-winning cycling photographer James Startt who joins cycling journalist Molly Hurford, to unpack the cultural currents shaping the sport and the destinations that make it so beautiful.  To learn more about our award-winning bike tours and to join us, visit ingamba.pro

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