Velo Club Don Logan

Lifted from our post-Tour funk by a wonderful Vuelta, and brilliant Tour of Britain & the prospect of a great World Championships, we find enough aimless & ill-informed waffle to fill a whole 100 (yes 100, count them) minutes.  We (almost) set aside our cynicism when discussing Horner & Valverde, we revel in the "stated goals" of Sir Wiggo in the Tour of Britain & we make the wildest of stabs in the dark to decide who might win the World Championship Time Trial & Road Races.

Venga, venga, venga!  It's Vuelta time and we spend part one discussing the race so far & just why we're not huge fans of the 86 year old chris Horner.  Part two see us round up the mountain bike World Championships & admit that if we'd had a crash as bad as Eva Lechner, our bikes would be going on Ebay & there would be no chance that we'd attempt to finish a race.

In this episode, we discover that Contador doesn't still ride for Astana!  We bring you our views on the doping "revelations" from the French Senate report & preview the forthcoming Vuelta. In mountain biking news we cover the season so far & bring you a preview of the World Championships in South Africa. Finally, you can find the excellent Cyclocross book by Balint Hamvas at his website and you can get Ned Boulting's new book, On The Road Bike, at all good literary outlets! (Or at Amazon)

After sitting on our backsides watching the Tour for 3 weeks we felt it was time to sit on our backsides and talk about the Tour.  So in the middle of an alpine-like thunderstorm in Sausage Roll City we bring you our 2013 Tour de France review.

In this episode we are live from the British National Road Race Championships in Glasgow.  We also bring you our factually-suspect Tour de France preview and we bring the mountain bike season bang up to date.

We made it to 50 & in this episode we round up the Giro & discuss the "hard questions" which, it seems, have to be asked after every Grand Tour win these days.  We add nothing of value to the news that Sir Boo-Radley Wiggins will not defend his Tour de France title & we look forward to the start of the downhill season at Fort William.

In this episode we look at the opening week of the Giro & ponder who are the real men and who are the big girl's blouses (not wanting to disrespect women, of course!)  We are growing slightly weary of the Wiggo & Froomey Tour leadership spat & we welcome the return of the Cross Country MTB World Cup.

In this episode we demonstrate some unabashed man-love for Fabian Cancellara & his successes on the cobbles.  We sound a note of caution about writing off Sky's attempts at the Classics & Gary demonstrates some motherly concern for Andy Schleck.  Graham's ranting ensures that the pod will never be sponsored by Giro, makers of the Air Attack helmet & finally, we discuss the controvery surrounding Nairo Quintana & the "came from nowhere" comments.

In this episode we are jam-packed with races.  Between one day Classics & stage races, there is an incredible amount to talk about.  We also hook up with Scottish Bike Show organiser, Rowan Mackie, who tells us about the show's move to the brand new Sir chris Hoy Velodrome in Glasgow.

Enthusiasm levels are definitely rising in Sausage Roll Studios as Classics season starts in earnest. We discuss what was left of "Openings Weekend" after a Europe-wide snowfall put paid to Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne, leaving us with Het Nieuwsblad alone. We look at the modern classic that is Strade Bianche and we look ahead to Paris-Nice & Tirreno-Adriatico. Gary gives us the lowdown on the Track World Championships & we look at the new offroad kid on the block, Enduro.

It's a 'cross special with photographer Balint Hamvas who gives us his insight into the recently ended season, the World Championships & his work following the sport.  Ceck out his brilliant work at http://cyclephotos.co.uk/ where you can pre-order his 2012/2013 book.

In a show broadly devoid of any talk of pharmaceutical malfeasance, we discuss the departure of Rocky Roads (who?) as the title sponsor of the MTB World Cup, Gary's frustration with Paul Kimmage and yes, some actual bike racing!

In this episode we avoid the subject of Lance completely.....well, after the first 50 minutes or so.  We express a degree of lethargy towards the Tour Down Under & visit the VCDL Book Club.

In this episode, we temporarily crawl out of our off-season funk and Night-Nurse induced drug haze to bring you all manner of nonsense currently swirling around in our brains. In the purest example of self-generating content, we talk about what happened when we talked to someone!  Not just any someone, however, only just flippin' Graeme Obree, who we had the pleasure of interviewing during a Q & A session at Ronde in Edinburgh a couple of weeks ago. We made mention of the excellent Eddlestone via Shiplaw blog by Andy Shaw, who took some great pictures of Graeme on the night. We discuss the strange "forgotten man" tag that surrounds Carlos Sastre, and come to the conclusion that it is neither accurate or deserved. Finally, we chat through the recent Change Cycling Now conference and the resultant Charter of the Willing which they published.  Is it the catalyst for change or the catalyst which will result in the true catalyst for change emerging?

In this episode we have a roundup of the season & nominate our rider, team & race of the year.  We have some more discussion about Sky's zero-tolerance policy & finally, we have in interview with Mike Jardine of rare Managment, who is just back from helping to put on the mountain biking test event in China.

Part 2 of our interview with Brian Smith where he tells us about his own career, from his early days at ACBB to his time with Motorola in 1994.

In this episode of VCDL Extra we bring you Part 1 of our interview with Brian Smith of Endura Racing, recently merged with Net App.  Brian tells us about his work with Cervelo Test Team and subsequently Endura Racing, and gives us some great insight into rising star Jon Tiernan Locke.

In this episode, we bring you a farce based on evidence from serial perjurers and those who were coerced through threats & sweetheart deals.  Yup, with only one story in town, we just couldn't ignore it.  We also discuss how Sky (and other teams & riders) have dealt with the fallout.  Finally we look at how Team Sky came across in the recent documentary series, The Road to Glory.

In the first of our Extras, Gary speaks to mountain biking superstar Tracy Moseley about her somewhat varied 2012 season.

To celebrate 2 years of the VCDL Pod, we have tweaked our format a bit.  Fear not though, it's still the same cosy, fireside fan-chat between Gary & Graham as this week they discuss the UCI Road World Championships, Tyler Hamilton's book, The Secret Race & the UCI Mountain Bike World Cup season.