Could it be the end of an era for one of Britain's greats?

Bespoke podcast from BBC 5 Live.

As Mark Cavendish reveals he's taking a break from cycling, we'll ask if the Manx missile

will fall just as short of Eddie Merck's famous record.

We'll tell you the best places to get a glimpse of Frum Thomas

and Co at the Tour of Britain and we'll assess a hot first week at the Vuelter.

Welcome to Bespoke with me Ben Croucher sitting in for Tom who's working on a top secret project

as we speak. With me two bespoke favourites, cycling authors and orators, Jeremy Whittell and Michael Hutchinson. Hello to you both. How are we? Hi, Ben. I'm very well. Thank you. I'm good. Thank you, Ben. How are you? Good. Not too bad. Not too bad. Better than Mark Cavendish, it seems, who has been diagnosed with Epstein-Barr virus this week. Hodge, tell us a little bit more. Well, Epstein-Barr virus is one of the viruses behind glandular fever. So, you know, the symptoms are fatigue. They, you know, sore throat. Sometimes it gets more serious. And the only cure for this is rest. He had it last April he was diagnosed with it, and that ruined most of last season for him.

He's never really hit top for him this year, and it seems that essentially he still has the virus.

And he's wound up his season, off for a period of sustained rest, and he'll be hoping to get back next year.

I think it's interesting that he hasn't recovered from it because obviously

this season he wanted to race a full program. Time is running out for him to equal Eddie Merck's

record number of stagements in the tour and yeah he's up against it now because this is a washout

and last year while there were flashes of the Lmark Cavendish there weren't that many

and ages against him now so I'm I'm surprised his health hasn't been slightly better managed

because you'd think if he was still suffering with it they wouldn't have put him into the program

that they did this year but there you go yeah I'd agree with that because clearly he hasn't been

back to form and it's clearly,

you know, been a significant problem for him and obviously a very significant problem for the team.

Significant problem for him in the team, he's also had a bit of bad luck this year as well. Yeah,

he has. I mean, he had a crash blighted early season. He was involved in a particularly silly crash with the

automatic braking system on the lead commissarist car was it uh which which of which of the far eastern

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