Hello and welcome to the Cycling Podcast. I'm Lionel Bernie and the countdown to the Tour de France starts here because the Giro d'Italia is now in the rear view mirror.

I'm already halfway through the Criterion du Dauphiné which means that the Grande Par is on the horizon. It all starts in Bilbao on July the 1st and the Cycling Podcast will be there of course.

Now television Daniel Frieber is on ITV due to this week as he will be during the Tour de France. So with the Netflix release of the long awaited series Unchained, I'm joined by two stars who have plenty of screen experience between them.

Whether on screen or behind screen, well I'll leave you to judge first up fresh from the inaugural Barth Bristol Barth Classic where he beats Sean Kelly and I in a sprint finish, recovering from a three-week stint in the commentary box at the Giro and in the thick of his research for the Tour where he'll be on the mic for Eurosport GCN.

It's Lancashire's finest Rob Hatch. Welcome Rob. Thank you very much Lionel, how are you? Very well thank you, where are you Rob?

I'm in Northern Spain just having a couple of days off at the minute and on my way for a quick trip back to Lancashire actually before netting down and getting ready for the Tour de Suisse.

Terrific, terrific. Well our other guests need to know in introduction at all. He's the star of our Friends of the Podcast series La Mace is which we recorded earlier this year.

A journalist, author, novelist, punk rocker, former restaurant owner, the list goes on. He's also the man who while working for Reuters 25 summers ago broke the Festina scandal story and since 2017 he's been injecting a rich dose of French flavor into our Tour de France coverage.

And I'm very pleased to say that he'll be joining Mitch Docker and I at the start in Bilbao although we will be dropping him off at his second home, Le Viscos in the heart of the Pyrenees towards the end of the first week but it will be a pleasure to have Francois Thomas again with us for the Tour de France. Welcome Francois.

Thank you very much Lionel for their introduction and yeah yeah there's been lots of rumors like with Tibault Pinoui, will he be at the Tour? I'll be at the start of the Tour.

That's one thing.

You'll be at the start of the Tour. We will take it Francois. We'll take it. Talking of screen appearances, I've actually just watched Enter the Slipstream which is a film that was made during a lockdown Tour de France in 2020 by some Friends of the Podcast actually or the people who became Friends of the Podcast actually making a kilometer zero about that for the Tour de France.

Francois, you were one of the experts on screen in that film but this week of course it's all about the Netflix series isn't it I've actually watched the first two episodes so far.

Yeah, I think it's officially released tomorrow for the general public but well tap side of nose I had a sneak preview of the first two episodes I'm not going to spoil it but the first episode focuses on Quick Step Alpha vinyl and the second features Yombo Vizmah and Centres on the Cobble stage.

But the first episode Julian Alaphilippe is kind of a key figure to Quick Step Alpha vinyl tour last year even though he didn't ride and well he's back on form we think at the Dofene will talk about the Critium Doudofene in the next part but stick him with all things screen all things TV.

I did wonder whether Lance Armstrong's appearance in stars on Mars have you heard anything about this yet either of you have you seen any of it.

I saw Instagram trailer and actually wondered whether they were sending him into space. I was a little naive when I saw the sort of music and the titles and then I did sort of lose interest a little bit I'm afraid I've already down week after the year I'm only just resurfacing they're not sending me into space are they.

Well I had to read this story a couple of times to verify that it wasn't some kind of hoax but no he is appearing in a reality show in the US.

A load of celebrities do they have what it takes to basically live on Mars I mean the obvious joke is he was on another planet between 1999 and 2005 from Swar was only but there we are American listeners have the benefit of watching stars on Mars not something that I've seen yet but it sounds absolutely out of this world.

Before we crack on and talk about the Cratoon do dofene quite a bit of news to round up lots of racing in May while our eyes were all on the jury tally I won't go through every result from the month of May but a couple of things that might give us some pointers for the Tour de France that were of interest mark heirshi of your ET member at one both the tour to Hungary and the Juro del Appanino that was a one day race in Italy a few days ago now so he's obviously rediscovering his mojo a bit.

Richard Carapaz won the classic Alp Maritim just leading into the Cratoon dofene which I thought was an indicator of his form picking up just at the right time of the season.

A little mention also for Ben Tullit of Ineos Grenadiers the young rider who took the tour of Norway and that race was also notable because Tibo Nisse the son of the cyclic cross legend I think we have to call him Sven Nisse won his first major race on the road and bringing the

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