S13 Ep80: Putting the Cheval in Laval | Stage 8 | Tour de France 2025
The Cycling Podcast
The Cycling Podcast
4.8 • 2.9K Ratings
🗓️ 12 July 2025
⏱️ 42 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
We’re back on the road for the 13th time with daily episodes recorded at the heart of the world’s biggest race. Our nightly episodes feature race analysis, interviews and plenty of French flavour.
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VAN RYSEL, OUR TOUR DE FRANCE SPONSORS
We are very pleased to welcome Van Rysel as our sponsors for the first half of our Tour de France coverage. The Tour gets underway in Lille, the city where the company was founded and has its headquarters. The city is steeped in French cycling history and heritage, not least because the cobbles of Paris-Roubaix are on the doorstep.
Van Rysel supplies bikes and kit for the Decathlon-AG2R La Mondiale World Tour team, who feature Felix Gall, Bruno Armirail and Aurélien Paret-Peintre in their line-up for the Tour.
If you are going to Lille for the opening weekend make sure to drop in at Van Rysel House, a pop-up venue and hub for cycling fans. It’s located at Hein Estaminet in Place Saint-Hubert a short walk from the Euralille train station. It’s a place to have a drink or something to eat and watch the race on TV and there’ll be lots going on over the weekend with a quiz night to test your cycling knowledge each night at 8pm. There’s also some group rides setting out from there. A chance to see the Van Rysel bikes and the innovation that goes into their design.
Visit www.vanryselcycling.com to find out more.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is the cycling podcast at the 2025 Tour de France with Lionel Burney, Graham Wilgoth and friends brought to you in association with Van Riesel. |
| 0:14.0 | Today we're in Laval. Well, I know that's the start to the cycling podcast that we've been waiting for, isn't it? |
| 0:46.3 | Today's depart in Saint-Mine-Lagrand, stage eight of the Tour de France. |
| 0:51.5 | What was it? |
| 0:52.4 | Well, it was the bagpipes. |
| 0:53.4 | It was the pipers, wasn't it? |
| 0:54.7 | And it was very Breton in the start town of San Manuel Le Grand this morning. |
| 1:01.1 | This morning, it wasn't even this morning, was it? It was this afternoon, |
| 1:03.7 | although we got there this morning. We were there very, very early. |
| 1:06.3 | But it really felt like proof that Brittany is the sort of beating heart of French cycling, so much |
| 1:13.6 | passion for the sport. And the town had really, well, they had all the bunting out. They had old |
| 1:19.5 | cars from the Tour de France, a sort of race direction car from I think about the sort of early |
| 1:24.7 | 80s, wasn't it? It was a Peugeot. Which you can see on our |
| 1:27.6 | Instagram. And I had a little visit to the Louis-on-Boubet museum, more on that a bit later on. |
| 1:33.3 | The crowds were huge and very enthusiastic and everything felt like the Tour de France was being |
| 1:40.3 | given a fantastic welcome this morning. It was, as you say, a bit of a reminder of just how |
| 1:45.7 | seriously they take their cycling in this part of the world and we weren't, as you say, the only |
| 1:50.3 | ones up early. Where are we now? We should place ourselves. Well, we're now in the Mayenne region. We're in |
| 1:56.5 | Laval, which is the capital of the Mayen and it's a bit of a collector's item this afternoon, I think, because if I'm right, this is |
| 2:04.5 | only the third time the Tour de France has finished a stage in LaValle. |
| 2:08.5 | And all three winners are on the race this year. |
| 2:13.5 | Tom Steele's won a stage here in 1999. |
... |
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