S13 Ep139: Back To School

Listen up class! The Cycling Podcast Féminin has returned after our post Tour de France Femmes summer break and we have that back-to-school feeling.

Rose Manley, Denny Gray and Rebecca Charlton tackle some enticing subjects after a number of contentious topics have arisen over recent weeks. We discuss weight loss in cycling, the disqualification of five teams at the Tour de Romandie, Lorena Wiebes’ continued domination and we look ahead to the World Championships in Rwanda.

We broach the furore surrounding Pauline Ferrand Prevot’s four kilogram weight loss in preparation for her victorious Tour de France Femmes campaign and delve further into the conversations around health, weight and disordered eating that have been brought up in the weeks since.

In technology (or as Denny says, should it be politics?) we talk about the disqualification of five major teams at the Tour de Romandie after refusing to pick a rider to trial the UCI’s new GPS tracking system. The teams – Visma Lease-a-Bike, Canyon SRAM, EF Education Oatly, Picnic Post NL and Lidl Trek – wanted the UCI to choose the riders, citing that mounting the 60 gram tracker would put that rider at a disadvantage. The UCI refused and disqualified the teams before the start of the race. The fall out has raised a number of questions over safety, stakeholder rights, the commercialisation of cycling and data usage and ownership, all of which we go into here.

In geography, we cast our eyes over the upcoming World Championships route in Rwanda, centred around the capital city of Kigali. The race is notable not just for being the first time that the World Championships have been held in Africa but also for promising some dramatic racing on a climb-packed course.

Also on the agenda: the debating club champion debates with herself and the odd things Denny used to do at the back of the bus with a protractor… or should that be a pair of compasses…

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The Cycling Podcast was founded in 2013 by Richard Moore, Daniel Friebe and Lionel Birnie.