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Hello and joining you on Valentine's Day from Berlin, where one of the city's newspapers this week celebrated the occasion by reporting that

inhabitants of the German capital are twice as likely to cheat on their partner in this city as in Stuttgart, who said romance was dead.

My name is Daniel Freiber and I am the host of this episode of the Cycling Podcast in which we will strive to reward your fidelity as we describe how in Andalusia yesterday,

a lot of faces were red, spirits were blue, mortals ate dust and pogache our flu.

One of our guests today will hopefully help us to do that. From the South Broadclane, most photographed town in New England, a boast that merits further investigation given the peachum has a population of just 665 and was also described by no less a publication than Yankee magazine as the best village in New England, the best village.

He was a world tour probe seven years, mostly spending five years with Team Sky, a last in the last few hours he has arguably lost his crown as the preeminent strawberry blonde climber in American road cycling history to Mateo Jorgensen.

But he retains his status as one of the leading exponents of the nascent cycling discipline known as gravel racing. He's a veteran of the Cycling Podcast.

He's got his own podcast breakfast with the boss, so I don't know who's cheating on who today he is in the boss, and he's wearing some terrific head gear. Tell us about your head gear Ian.

Yes, well, thank you, Daniel. I'm wearing a hat that I bought at, I believe it was tour of the Alps one year, we started in.

Are you bought? I thought you'd want it. No, no, I didn't win anything at that race. No, I think it was like a snowy day before tour of the Alps one year and I walked to a shop and picked it up for 20 euros.

100% wool made in Austria for 20 euros. So yeah, that is my hat and our town of Peachum. It is a small village and I think 650 people is a summertime population.

It probably drops to about 350 in the winter time. So we're pretty isolated out here this time of year.

And is it do you believe that both that it's the most photographed town in New England? Let's start. How big is New England? Remind us. What does New England encompass?

Oh, that depends on who you ask. So it would be Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, New York and some people would include or exclude Connecticut.

So kind of the upper eastern seaboard. It is. It's so readily photographed.

We have a church that is in town that has a steeple and kind of behind that is the white mountains and you can see Mount Washington. And it is a pretty iconic and beautiful setting to take a, you know, people stand up on this field and take a picture of the church with the Mount Washington in the background, which last week recorded the lowest ever temperature in North America at the top of Mount Washington minus 104 degrees Fahrenheit with wind gel.

Also, doesn't it is very famous for its wind speeds up there is there is it is always the highest ever wind speed in the state. I think it was recorded up there. Is that right?

It is. Yeah, I think I think it's highest ever wind speed recorded on earth, which is crazy because it's only at 4,000 feet. You know, it's less than less than 2,000 meters. So it's not even that high. But for whatever reason, it gets this weird weather pattern.

And let's introduce our second guest also joining us today is a man whose namesake Lionel Richie performed a song Endless Love, the Billboard recently anointed the most romantic of all time in the song, a duet Richie Cerenes Diana Ross with words, my first love your every breath that I take you every step I make.

Whereas our Lionel once refused point blank to sing a few words of happy birthday on the podcast due to potential copyright issues, he may be more pullover than cussing over.

And there's no less here's line of money. Thank you. Happy Valentine's day. Thank you, Daniel. It's great to have been reunited for a couple of weeks prior to the big one Valentine's day episode. Did you mention that people in Stuttgart are more or less faithful than people in Berlin?

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