The 20th episode of The Spokesmen Cycling Podcast included David from The FredCast Cycling Podcast, Carlton Reid from Bike Biz Magazine and QuickRelease.tv, Tim Grahl from The Crooked Cog Network, Joe Beer from Joe Beer Smart Training, and Donna Tocci from Kryptonite. Among the topics we discussed:
- CyclingNews.com purchased by Future Publishing
- 2007 Tour de France
- UCI’s Rider Pledge
- Saddle Sawing / Lip Filing
- Big Wheeled Ballyhoo
- MTB Stage Racing (news story)
- Tips/Rants
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I haven’t made it to #20 yet but I have turned the last 4/5 podcasts off early because you focus on doping in cycling too much. The subject does not have to be mentioned every time. By now, I promise everyone in the world knows it exists and probably always will. I, nor will the other bike mechanics I work with, listen to another podcast until you guys can drop the whole doping theme. Thanks…
Mike,
Thanks for your comment. I am very sorry that neither you nor the other bike mechanics with whom you work want to listen to The Spokesmen because we talk about doping. Trust me when I say that I wish that we never had to talk about this stuff, but it truly is a problem in our sport and one which dominates cycling news.
While we always try to have a balanced show, with stories about a variety of topics, sometimes there is a need to talk about the ugly underbelly of professional road cycling. Until we can find a way to rid the sport of doping, we must talk about it in order to try to be a part of the solution.
With this in mind, I hope you’ll give us another chance. Show #20, for instance, spent extremely little time on doping. We discussed the UCI’s rider pledge and that’s about it.
Looking forward to having you and your friends back as listeners real soon.
Thanks again for your comment.
David
I agree, it’s an unsavoury topic and I’d love not to have to talk about it.
But that particular boil has to be excised and I think cycling is doing more than any other sport to root out the wrong-doers. Not talking about doping would be head-in-the-sand weird.
Let’s hope this year’s Tour de France is squeaky clean for all our sakes!
Keep listening to the show, it’s not all about doping.
Mountain Bike Stage Racing
Hi David, just listened to your latest broadcast, my ears pricked up when you mentioned mountain bike stage racing since I’m currently fighting (unsuccessfully) the early stages of an addiction to this. I did my first last year which was 7 days riding round wales with 250 ‘close friends’ then completed my second just over 2 weeks ago when 50 competitors (including 7 Americans) took part in the transportugal, this was 1000km in 8 days traversing portugal from the north east corner down to Sagres which is the most southerly (or maybe westerly) point of Europe, pretty much all off road. Bit busy at work right now but drop me a line and I can fill you in on the details (as I know them) of this mountain bike subculture, there are several events globally that seem to attract a core of participants.
link to transportugal site :
http://www.supertravessia.com/indexIng.htm
cheers
Matthew
Hi
I’m currently sat watching the live coverage of the second stage of the tour and feel compelled to write after some of the comments made in the last podcast.
I was amazed to hear the rather negative attitude Carlton and Joe had about the two English stages of this years race. They seemed to be believe that the British public wouldn’t take much interest in the race, and at the time thought they were talking nonsense!
25,000 people to watch the rider presentation, 1 million for the prologue and another million (poss. 1.5 million) for the stage to Canterbury.
I’ve watched lots of cycling events in Britain over many years and the crowds have provided fantastic knowledgeable support. I hope that the undoubted success of the Tour’s visit will give race organisers the confidence to stage more events in Britain.
I look forward to your comments.
Simon
In regards to the comments about the layout of cyclingnews.com i actually love it. It is old and outdated but i really like how everything is right where i can get to it. It is the place i go for my information. Velonews has a much better look but not near the same amount of info.
I am a pretty web savvy guy…not a 75 year old tring to figure this internet thing out. I just hope that the new site won’t be too flashy. Sometimes the new sites just stumble over themselves.
Anyway, great show. I take it the uk boys were pretty surprised by the turnout this weekend for the tour.
Keep Rollin
I love this show and the Fredcast, however I was disturbed to hear general agreement today that the problem with VeloNews is that it is focused to some degree on U.S. cycling. What is wrong with that for a U.S. publication? Not to mention that we have some pretty fair riders, teams and races and are building toward a domestic cycling culture which is necessary to fuel general riding as well as eventual interest in the European racing sceene.
Ira,
Thanks for your comment, but I don’t think I agreed about Velo News. I think I said that it was the first place I personally stop for cycling news. At least I think I said that. I’ll have to go back and give a listen!
Anyway, thanks for listening!
David
Well, I sure was wrong about the media coverage. The broadsheets fell over themselves to do huge, double page spreads photos of the prologue through central London.
It was a fantastic PR job for cycling.
And so good to see that it was the spectacle that got newspapers excited, not raking up d*ping stories.
Re Cyclingnews.com. I agree that some sites change for the sake of it and much hard info can be lost in fancy redesigns but is it really asking much to have some RSS feeds?
I think your comments about cyclingnews.com are a bit misplaced; you’re putting more importance on form than on function. Right now, cyclingnews.com is the ONLY web site with up-to-date results from cycling events world wide; I don’t mind the layout personally, but I’d put up with almost any layout to get their race coverage.
Velonews is, sadly, a distant also-ran. They only generally cover male road races; anything else just isn’t covered. Even in North America, they’ll skip an event like the Tour de Montreal (a UCI 2.1 event) and not cover it at all, while cyclingnews.com has daily results with excellent pictures.
And while we’re on the topic of form versus function: Skype isn’t working. I very much enjoy your podcast, and really want to continue listening; but the continued dropouts are getting so annoying I’m about to just stop listening. Vonage is $25 a month, provides free long distance almost everywhere (USA and the UK included), and has none of the issues you’re finding with Skype; and I’m sure there are other choices. Hey, when you end a show with funny Skype outtakes, you KNOW you’ve got a problem…..
Paul,
Thanks for your comments. I’ll try to answer each question here and I’ll send you an email follow-up.
As for CyclingNews, I totally agree with you that the content is top-notch and that they provide some of the best all-around cycling news available.
My problem with them is exactly what I stated on the show, namely that their site is so incredibly cluttered that it is impossible to find the information you’re looking for. The stories and the links are so mixed up and jumbled together that you have to fight just to find what you’re looking for. Once they re-design the site, I have no doubt that this will become my first stop every morning as I begin my surfing day.
Finally, I have to agree with Carlton that they are way behind the times in that they don’t provide RSS feeds. Many of us use news readers to stay up-to-date and the lack of RSS makes it all the more difficult to read their stories. Plus is makes them appear behind the times.
As for Skype, we agree with you 100%. We’ve been working on a solution and hope to roll it out in a show in the very near future. Unfortunately, Vonage is not the solution for us (I’ll explain in my email to you).
And while Skype has been annoying, you have to admit that the outtakes are funny, right? 😉
Thanks for your comments and for listening. Stick with us a little longer and you’ll hear the improvements.
All the best.
David
Where you all GONE?????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 🙁
We’re still here! We recorded a show this morning and now I need to edit it. Stand by!!
David
😀 GRRRRRRRRRRRREAT 😀
PS. Talk about doping all you want by the way-Always most informative.