Bobby and Jens

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PYSO, ep. 83: Nike's Kieran Ronan on riding all day inside for World Bicycle Relief Dec 17, 2020

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One day. Five hundred kilometers — inside. And one cause - World Bicycle Relief. On this special episode of Put Your Socks On, Bobby and Gus check in with Kieran Ronan, a longtime Nike executive and cyclist who is preparing to ride 500km — 310 miles — on December 30 as a fundraiser for World Bicycle Relief. There are the numbers, and then there are the reasons behind the ride. PYSO digs into both. "It's just really an interesting way how somebody of my age has had to adapt, and how the virtual world on social media can actually do good," Ronan says. "And that's that's the big takeaway that I've had in a sense of community with a love of cycling, that can be transported across the globe and bring more people along." If you are interested in supporting or even joining Ronan for part or all of his Zwift ride, you can read more here:https://www.velonews.com/culture/the-grind-up-for-a-challenge-try-500km-on-december-30/

PYSO, ep. 82: Chris Froome on his unusual path to the top of cycling Dec 10, 2020

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At the 2006 UCI world championships in Austria, a young Chris Froome walked into the manager's briefing meeting, sopping wet in his cycling kit. He was told he wasn't welcome - the meeting was for managers only. He said he was the manager, and he plopped himself down. And in fact he was. He was Kenya's sole representative in Austria. Earlier that year, Froome had impersonated the Kenya cycling federation president in email to enter himself into the races. There was no one else to support him. He had flown, alone with his time trial and road bikes, to Europe for the first time. He was figuring it out. Two days later, he started the U23 time trial and, just as he was getting underway, collided with a race official on course. Fast forward to today, and Froome of course has won seven grand tours and multiple Olympic and world championship medals. The young man from Kenya found a way. On this episode of Put Your Socks On, Froome checks in from California, where he is training four day a week at the Red Bull Performance Center. Froome talks about what is was like growing up in Africa, the obstacles he faced in breaking into a European sport, and his love for racing.

PYSO, ep. 81: UCI innovation manager Michael Rogers on progress and regulation Dec 03, 2020

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The Lugano Charter, constructed in 1996, formed the UCI's basis for regulation of bike technology with a noble ideal: the rider, not his or her access to technology, should determine who wins a bike race. The devil, as always, is in the details. Now, Michael "Mick" Rogers, a three-time world time trial champion, is tasked with guiding the regulation of bicycle equipment and clothing as innovation manager at the UCI. Rogers got his start in big-time racing with Mapei in 2000. He proceeded to have a successful career with Quick-Step, T-Mobile, Team Sky and Saxo-Tinkoff before retiring in 2016. In addition to having world-class physiology, Rogers was also fascinated with the physics and mathematics at play in bike racing, whether that was in the mechanics of a long sprint leadout train, or in the interconnected variables of a fast time trial position. At T-Mobile, which became HTC, Rogers said "we were one of the the teams to really master the leadout train. If we go back into the mid ’90s with [Marco] Cipollini and Saeco, they revolutionized the leadout train. At HTC, we took that that one step further, we started to understand some of the mathematics. We started to understand that when we were riding on the front, with two or three kilometers to go, we're at 60 plus K an hour — the amount of energy that the riders behind us would would need to come up beside Mark Cavendish was going to have a massive effect on the actual sprint." Rogers' real-world studying later included time racing at Team Sky, a team famous for its analysis and methodical racing tactics. Rogers talks about how the team could be so effective when riding in coordination. "It just kind of came down to, we knew what we were good at as riders," Rogers said of being able to reel in breakaways and attacking riders with confidence. "Simple math — when we were riding at our threshold, the power values and very high power to weight ratios. We knew that anyone riding out over that threshold, to be able to open up a large enough gap, the amount of energy required to put in is almost for most people unbearable. When you're attacking on some of these climbs, you might have to ride at 600 650 watts for for 30 to 40 seconds. And there's only a handful of guys that can withstand that kind of intensity for anything longer than a minute. So it's simple math, they're going to come back." Now at the UCI, Rogers and his coworkers are tasked with keeping up to speed with a sport that is changing rapidly. "We are aware that cycling must progress. There must be evolution," Rogers said. How that looks, and how a level playing field can be enforces among teams and nations with varying levels of financial ability, will be an ongoing challenge. Tune in to this episode of Put Your Socks On to hear Rogers' thoughts on the challenges and the excitement of regulating bike racing heading into a new world of cycling.

PYSO, ep. 80: Fabian Cancellara on a champion's mentality and the work that goes into it Nov 26, 2020

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In this episode of Put Your Socks On, the legendary Fabian Cancellara weighs on on the socks. "Socks — they need to be short," says the four-time world time trial champion. "Rapha always comes up and says the socks need to be high. No! That look is not stylish. That look it's just a no-go. So I want to have my socks short. And then it's stylish." The two-time Olympic time trial champion also points out that high socks are now aero equipment. "They think socks can give an advantage of one to five watts," he says. "There is a lot of discussion, but you know what is good? I'm out of the game. I just don't want the tan lines for when I am at the beach." Cancellara chats with Bobby Julich and Gus Morton about his long and storied career, which included three wins at both Paris-Roubaix and the Tour of Flanders. The Swiss racer also holds the record for most days in the Tour de France yellow jersey — 29 — for a rider who never won the overall. Cancellara wrapped up his career in high style right after the 2016 Olympic Games — "a better ending of a career was not possible" - but he says that his Flanders win in 2013 sticks out as a career highlight because of how hard he had to fight back after a challenging 2012. hard 2012. "2006 to ’16, I had a lot of success, but also a lot of hard times," he says, from crashes to cheating allegations. "I mean, in three weeks I gained 10 kilos. Ten days after the Olympics, I went from hero to zero. I had to learn to grow a thick skin." "To be in the spotlight, it's not easy. But if you want to win bike races, it's part of the game that when the spotlight comes you need to adapt to it and you need to be able to handle it," he says. "I worked with a life coach. I didn't only work on cycling skills, I worked on my own to have this responsibility in my daily life."

PYSO, ep. 79: Skylar Schneider on pivoting from Boels-Dolmans to L39ION of Los Angeles Nov 19, 2020

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Skylar Schneider started riding bikes at age 4, and by age 18 she moved to Holland to race professionally. Now with three years at the powerhouse squad Boels-Dolmans under her belt, the American is returning to race domestically for 2021 with L39GION of Los Angeles, the expanding team run by Justin and Cory Williams. On this episode of Put Your Socks On, Schneider talks about learning her way in Holland as a teenager with the help of other racers — she now has Dutch residency — and how the opportunity with L39GION of LA came about. "I've admired what Justin and Cory are doing with Legion for a while," she said. "And this summer, Justin and I just got on the phone, and he had some good advice. At that time, Legion didn't really have a women's program. So he really liked the idea. And then we put together a budget. And from there, it moved pretty quickly. And I'm really excited about this opportunity to have a new adventure, but also come back to the U.S." In addition to her own racing, Schneider said L39ION represents a broader opportunity in the sport for others. "With 39ION, there was this new opportunity to do something really special within the sport. Their mission is to increase diversity and inclusivity. There's plenty of little girls that need a role model as well," she said. "Right now it's really small and just kind of starting, but I think it can grow into something really big. And that's ultimately why I was really excited to join." At the junior world championships in 2016, Schneider took silver in the road race and fourth in the time trial. Looking ahead, a win at the world championships remains a goal.

PSYO, ep. 78: The storied racer Stuart O'Grady transitions to race director Nov 12, 2020

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Stuart O'Grady has done more on the bike than most pro riders. The Australian's 19-year pro career began on the track in the ’90s, where he racked up Olympic medals in the 1992 and 1996 Games. He then moved to the road where he wore the Tour de France yellow jersey and won Paris-Roubaix in the course of a long career. And now retired from racing, O'Grady has taken the helm at the Tour Down Under, the Australian stage race and traditional season opener. Put Your Socks On caught up with O'Grady to talk about his career, his aims with the Tour Down Under, and how the Australian race is coping with the various complications related to the coronavirus pandemic. PYSO co-host Bobby Julich raced with O'Grady twice in their careers, and he recalls how O'Grady had to leave the Tour twice, including once in a helicopter and once after riding the last 70km of a stage with a broken collarbone. The helicopter ride came in 2007 helicopter as O'Grady was doing 90kph down the Cornet de Roseland. "I went over the top in the front group," O'Grady recalls. "I went back to get bottles for [CSC teammate] Carlos [Sastre]. While coming back, [a rider] swerved to miss a hole as I was coming by, and took out my front wheel. I hit a pole, and that exploded everything. I had no feeling in my legs, and spent two weeks in the ICU." O'Grady also talks about some of his favorite moments from racing. "My lifelong ambition was the Olympics," he said, admitting that the Tour de France wasn't even on his radar early on. "I competed in six Olympics, which i think is a record for anyone who's not riding a horse. And riding solo into the Roubaix velodrome was pretty cool as well." As for the current state of racing, O'Grady says he is glad he is retired. "There's no real control [in the peloton]. You know, back in the day, there was a lot of respect for the kind of elder riders, especially in the classics," he said, alluding to a patron who would tell the riders when to ease off, or when it was okay to race. "These days is just it's like the gloves are off. You know, it's like a UFC cage fight. There's no rules. They attack at random moments. You see a group attacking and I'm like, what the hell are they doing that for? Next minute they got six minutes and they win the race." Now O'Grady is the race director for Tour Down Under, which was held with great success at the beginning of this year, but has already been postponed for 2021. "Being a part of the race from day one, the last couple of years of my career, I guess I started thinking, you know, I'd like to take on the reins of this, I think I can make a pretty cool race, because we haven't actually raced down a lot of the roads," he said. O'Grady and the TDU team looked into holding the race at its normal time in 201 with heavy quarantine protocols. But the logistics of that — plus the act that the UCI announced that the race next year would not be mandatory for WorldTour teams — meant that they decided to ultimately just postpone the race.

PYSO, ep. 77: Olympic long team member Mandy Marquardt has 18 national titles — and diabetes Nov 05, 2020

Show notes

Next year, 2021 should be the year of the postponed Olympics Games, and certainly will be the 100th anniversary of the discovery of insulin. American diabetic Mandy Marquardt is on the long team for track, hopes to be in Tokyo racing in the stars and stripes. Marquardt has been racing at a high level since she was 10 years old, and has 18 national titles to her name. But she was a little concerned that she might be aging out of her prime shape. Then she placed ninth overall in the World Cup standings last season, then set a national kilo record, and was named to the US Olympic long team. "Representing my country next year at the Olympic Games would definitely be the pinnacle of my athletic career. And 2021 is the hundredth year of the discovery of insulin. In ways I'm like, are the stars aligning?" Marquardt is now 29, and certainly not past her prime. PYSO host Bobby Julich shared his own story of missing out on the Olympics as he got older. "I missed the Olympics in 1992. I missed the Olympics in 1996. I missed the Olympics in 2000. And then finally, at the age of 32, I made the Olympics in 2004," said Julich, who earned a medal in the time trial. "And so just... just never say never." In this episode of PYSO, Marquardt tells her story of being diagnosed with diabetes at age 16 and being told that she would never compete at a high level again. She talks about setting the U.S. kilo record, beating the time set by her friend and former national team roommate, the late Kelly Caitlin. She talks about the long and sometimes lonely road of a track sprinter, but how she is proud of having raced clean her entire career. And she talks about having a continuous glucose monitor is like "an SRM for my body." November is National Diabetes Awareness Month. Tune in to Put Your Socks on.

PYSO, ep. 76: Alex Howes on spending his entire career on one team Oct 29, 2020

Show notes

It's been a strange year for Alex Howes, as it has been for everyone. The U.S. national champion hardly got to race in the jersey he won last year — but since nationals was canceled, he gets to wear it again until the 2021 nationals. Howes also flew to South Africa to race Cape Epic as part of EF Pro Cycling's alternate program that puts its pro roadies in adventure races. But... that race never happened. The soon-to-be father recently got back to racing. On this episode of Put Your Socks On, Howes talks about his long road with Jonathan Vaughters' team — the only pro squad he has raced for. Even before turning pro, Howes races on Vaughters' junior development team, TIAA-CREF. Also on this episode, Bobby picks Howes' brain at length for gravel gear tips...

PYSO, ep. 75: Ryder Hesjedal on his rollercoaster Giro d’Italia win Oct 22, 2020

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The Giro d’Italia is in full swing, and what a race it’s been. The unpredictable nature of the Italian grand tour this year reminds Bobby and Gus of another remarkable year, where Ryder Hesjedal took and lost and took the pink jersey, finally winning the overall in a nail biter of a final time trial. So we rang up Ryder to hear about that year at the the Giro, and to get some insight into his interesting career in professional cycling. Ryder got his start in bike racing with mountain biking in his native Canada in the ’90s. By the time he was 15, he was racing the MTB world championships. A stint with the Rabobank development road team led to a contract with U.S. Postal Service — which he used in part as training for mountain biking en route to the Olympics. After some trial and error, Ryder found his sweet spot with Jonathan Vaughters’ Slipstream team, where he enjoyed being a driving force in the scrappy upstart squad. An excellent 2011 year saw him finish seventh overall in the UCI rankings, and with the team’s directive to focus on the Giro for 2012. Here is the story of how he did exactly that. It’s time to Put Your Socks On.

PYSO, ep. 74: Richie Porte reflects on his long road to the top of the sport Oct 15, 2020

Show notes

Richie Porte has been a successful stage racer for a decade, winning the overall at the likes of Paris-Nice, the Tour Down Under, and the Tour de Romandie. And while he has raced the Tour de France 10 times, it wasn't until this year that he stood on the final podium in Paris as third overall. Although Porte has raced for many of the top WorldTour teams, he started out at the bottom, finishing dead last in his first stage race. But slowly he worked his way up from a Tasmanian team to small Italian teams to the top of the sport. Richie and Bobby first worked together at Saxo Bank, where Richie came on as a neo-pro and rode his way into the leader's jersey at the Giro d'talia in his first attempt at the Italian tour. In this episode, Bobby and Gus catch up with the typically media-shy star on his remarkable career that began on the roads of Tasmania.

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