S13 Ep153: Context, What Context?
The Cycling Podcast
The Cycling Podcast
4.7 • 3K Ratings
🗓️ 27 November 2025
⏱️ 72 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
With most teams about to gather for their first pre-season training camps, some also face an uncertain future. The long-mooted Lotto-Intermarché merger still hasn’t been confirmed, raising questions about who will even be in the WorldTour in 2026. The UCI’s introduction of a promotion and relegation system was supposed to ensure that such matters were decided primarily on sporting merit. With the latest three-year cycle having just concluded, Daniel and Larry discuss whether the UCI needs to go back to the drawing board.
We also discuss what was formerly Israel Premier Tech’s new identity, Marcel Kittel’s eye-catching recent comments about doping and why exactly the pro peloton has got so much faster since Covid.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | You are listening to the cycling podcast. |
| 0:35.4 | Hello, joining you on November the 26th. That is the birthday of Tina Turner, the NHL, that's National Hockey League, you non-American listeners, and the American holiday known to all of us. They're not really understood in Europe as Thanksgiving. |
| 0:39.2 | My name is Daniel Freeber. I am the host of this episode of the cycling podcast, |
| 0:43.8 | and I'm mainly here today to express my gratitude to my co-pilot, Larry Warbass, |
| 0:46.8 | for joining me in the cockpit at a time of year, Larry, when getting a blue tick in reply to one of my WhatsApp messages from cyclists, |
| 0:51.5 | team managers, coaches, seems about as difficult as winning several Stanley Cups. |
| 0:56.3 | First of all, Larry, hello. |
| 0:58.3 | Secondly, thank you. |
| 0:59.2 | And thirdly, where the hell is everyone, Larry? |
| 1:01.0 | Why does no reply to my messages at the moment? |
| 1:03.7 | Hey, Daniel. |
| 1:04.3 | Yeah, good to be here. |
| 1:05.4 | Hi, everyone. |
| 1:06.3 | And I don't know, Daniel. |
| 1:09.2 | I mean, that might be a you problem I'm not sure you don't know most |
| 1:14.3 | most people can probably guess okay before we go any further though Thanksgiving so the |
| 1:19.2 | birthday of Thanksgiving it's not Thanksgiving today is it Larry that's tomorrow and but |
| 1:23.6 | Thanksgiving was when it was sort of declared I haven't even you can tell I haven't done the proper research on this, |
| 1:29.3 | it was officially sort of declared an American holiday, |
| 1:32.9 | I think it was in, was it George Washington in the 18th century? |
| 1:36.4 | On November the 26th, that was the first official Thanksgiving. |
| 1:40.1 | Larry, do you understand much about Thanksgiving? |
... |
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