La Marseillaise and a note from Lionel

by Lionel Birnie

The French road racing season bursts into life today (Sunday, January 28) with a barrel-chested blast of La Marseillaise.

Last January, Simon Gill and I travelled to the south of France to spend a long weekend with François Thomazeau exploring the graffitied streets and getting under the skin of a city with such a strong, independent identity it barely considers itself French.

Marseille is François’ home city and he showed us the bits that you don’t see in the guide books, giving us a real flavour of the place.

We explored the city’s sporting, cultural and political history. We saw a match at the majestic football stadium, which looks like it’s recently arrived from outer space, and which has a deep connection to cycling that goes far beyond its name, the Stade Vélodrome.

We enjoyed pastis before lunch, and bouillabaisse for dinner. And we talked about cycling too, of course. I met Dan Martin, who rode as an amateur for the city’s big club, VC La Pomme.

Then, on race day, we dived inland, into the hills where the weak late-January sun warmed us just enough to convince us we were leaving winter behind.

The resulting five-part series was released for Friends of the Podcast subscribers and although it focuses on the 2023 edition, won by Neilson Powless, it’s a timeless mini series that captures the sense of newness and excitement that accompanies the early days of every season.

Listen to the trailer: La Marseillaise

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Daniel was joined by François Thomazeau and Mitch Docker, who was fresh from the Santos Tour Down Under, to discuss the opening days of the 2024 season and, in particular, Stevie Williams’ overall victory and the instant impact of 20-year-old Mexican prodigy Isaac del Toro of UAE Team Emirates.

The Cycling Podcast Féminin also returned for the new season with Rose Manley at the helm. She was joined by Denny Gray and journalist Rebecca Charlton to focus on the racing in Australia and to shine the spotlight on a talented generation of Kiwi riders.

Next week, Daniel will get his feet muddy previewing the cyclo-cross World Championships in the Czech Republic with Renaat Schotte and Rob Hatch.

Chapeau, Joe

In early 2016, Richard Moore travelled to Nice to meet three young American riders making their way in the professional peloton. Joe Dombrowski was 24 and riding for Cannondale. Ian Boswell had just turned 25 and was with Team Sky. And Larry Warbasse was the oldest of the three, approaching 26 and in his second year with IAM Cycling.

That episode, Young Americans, was released for Friends of the Podcast and led to Joe keeping an audio diary for us at the 2016 Giro d’Italia. That, in turn, prompted Stacy Snyder to contact Richard asking for his help to get one of her handmade cups to Joe.

Here we are in early 2024 and only Larry is left racing in the World Tour after Joe announced his retirement earlier this week.

Joe has ridden for Team Sky, Cannondale (which became EF Education First), UAE Team Emirates and, for the past two seasons, Astana. His audio diary and subsequent appearances on the podcast have given us an eloquent insight into just how difficult it is for riders with Joe’s skillset to create a niche for themselves within a World Tour team. On his day, he was one of the best climbers in the world, but the opportunity to win races was restricted to a certain type of stage, often at a certain point in the race.

The stars had to align in a particular way, as they did early in the 2021 Giro d’Italia on the uphill road to Sestola. That day he got into a breakaway with Alessandro De Marchi, who stood to take the pink jersey, which gave Joe the right circumstances to commit everything with a degree of confidence that it might pay off. The very next day, while wearing the king of the mountains jersey, he crashed heavily just a few kilometres from the finish and although he completed the stage he did not start the following morning. That 24-hour period seemed to sum up the precarious nature of a sport that can kick you when you’re down, but can also kick you when you’re up.

Joe was always a great rider to talk to because he had something interesting to say about almost every subject. Sometimes he’d go off at a tangent leaving you wondering what it had to do with the question that had been asked, but he’d always wrap up his story or anecdote with a neat bow.

Sometimes it was just nice to head to his team bus knowing that he’d stop and pass the time of day. One day at the 2022 Giro, when he already looked a little like a fish out of water at Astana, I arranged to talk to him before the stage and walked up a long, steep hill to their turquoise team bus and waited for him. We were in Palmi, right down in Reggio Calabria, and it was a year and a day after his Giro stage win. He leant on his bike and we talked for about 20 minutes – about Richard Moore mostly. It was a conversation full of emotion and sadness, as he recalled his first, last and most significant conversations with Richard, and reflected on their friendship. It was, perhaps, not the ideal way for a cyclist to get into the zone ahead of a near-200-kilometre stage.

At one point I looked around us and noticed that not only was Joe the last cyclist around, the team buses were starting to pull away.

‘You’d better go,’ I said, and he hopped on his bike and freewheeled down the hill to catch up with the bunch. The stage start time had passed a few minutes earlier.

As I walked back to the car, I looked him up on Procyclingstats and I clocked his date of birth. May 12th. It was his birthday today. I felt bad for not realising and wishing him a happy birthday, so I sent him a message, even though I knew he wouldn’t see it until he got back to the bus after the stage.

We’ve already had a few of you write in to suggest we make ‘Old Americans’ and get Joe, Ian and Larry back together to reflect on their careers. It’s a great idea, and one we’d love to do, but I wonder if we have to wait for Larry to retire first…

In the meantime, we’d like to send Joe our best wishes for whatever comes next. I’m sure we’ll be hearing him on the podcast soon.

A note from Lionel

If you listened to this week’s episode, you’ll have heard that over Christmas I made the decision to pass on the microphone after ten years as a regular on The Cycling Podcast.

Having spent 21 of the past 25 summers covering the Tour de France, I’ve decided it’s time for a change of focus and a summer at home with my family doing the school run in July instead of trying to navigate our way to the stage départ town. That doesn’t mean my commitment to The Cycling Podcast will be at all diminished. I’ll still be working with Daniel on a daily basis as the podcast evolves.

Recognising that there would be a different line-up at the Tour de France, it makes sense for me to vacate a seat so we can properly integrate new voices into our coverage, and allow new friendships and a rapport to develop between them, but also with you, our listeners, so they are familiar to you all before the grand départ in Florence.

It goes without saying that the past couple of years have been difficult for everyone connected with The Cycling Podcast. In a way, keeping going after Richard died was the ‘easy’ bit, because we were propelled by our grief and our determination to continue the thing we’d started together back in 2013.

And while we are as united as ever in our determination that The Cycling Podcast is here to mark its 20th anniversary in 2033, we have also realised that it needs to evolve, while staying true to its founding principle, which was that of friends who happened to be journalists – or perhaps that should be journalists who happened to be friends? – discussing cycling.

Daniel and I really appreciate your patience while we’ve been working out the next phase in the podcast’s development. We know that some of you have had questions and that the mild uncertainty about our next steps has been disconcerting. But we hope that after 10 years you know we’re not going to make any wild changes of direction. Our weekly episodes will continue to focus on professional racing, with daily coverage of the Giro d’Italia, Tour de France and Vuelta a España at the heart of what we do. Arrivée will return for the Spring Classics. The Cycling Podcast Féminin will continue to give unrivalled coverage to the women’s World Tour with daily episodes from the Tour de France Femmes. There’s been some changes there, too, with Orla’s stratospheric career trajectory now including a role hosting TNT’s rugby coverage, and Lizzy is stepping away from cycling, but Rose has a plan for the season and a new identity will become familiar before we know it.

We’ve been busy in the transfer market and as soon as we can start to confirm our plans for the rest of the 2024 season we will. Similarly, we will reveal our plans for Friends of the Podcast subscribers and The 11.01 Cappuccino very soon, and certainly before the season starts for real with Omloop Het Nieuwsblad!

As for me, the past 10 years have been a blast and it is a privilege that I can make a decision that’s best for me and my family – and, crucially, for the podcast, while still remaining deeply involved. Usually when you leave a job they make you go and work somewhere else.

The highlights are too numerous to mention. From the carefree early days of recording on Richard’s phone fretting about clanking cutlery in cafes, to saying farewell to François at Le Viscos and everything in between, it’s been a joy. As we realised and embraced the versatility of audio as a medium, I’m most proud of some of the special projects I’ve been able to. The Lionel of Flanders, the Tour d’Écosse series, and La Marseillaise, which I mentioned earlier, leap to mind, but also the occasional Lunch With… series, combining two of my favourite things.

Thank you to everyone I’ve worked with on the mic and behind the scenes, and especially to all the listeners who’ve written to me over the years. I’m not going to say goodbye because I’m not going anywhere, I’m just taking a job in the warehouse at The Cycling Podcast’s service course and I’ll continue contributing to The 11.01 Cappuccino. As Daniel said in the episode, if you have any questions or comments, drop us a line at contact@thecyclingpodcast.com

Now, I really must crack on. Those bidons won’t stack themselves…