S8 Ep168: Life in the Peloton – Greg Griffiths
The Cycling Podcast
The Cycling Podcast
4.7 • 3K Ratings
🗓️ 21 October 2020
⏱️ 53 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In this episode of Life in the Peloton, Mitch Docker talks to one of the team of UCI officials who enforce the rules, dish out the penalties, and keep the peloton on the straight and narrow.
Greg Griffiths is from Mitch's neck of the woods, in Melbourne, Australia, and every year he travels round the world working as a commissaire – or judge – in professional cycling.
But what does a commissiare do? What are they looking out for, when do they decide to enfore the rules and what is their relationship with the riders like?
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Theme music
The theme music for Life in the Peloton was composed by Pete Shelley, who was lead singer of the punk band Buzzcocks. It was commissioned by the production company behind Channel 4’s coverage of the Tour de France in the 1980s and was used as the theme music for the nightly highlights show. Pete died in December 2018. We were given permission by Pete’s widow and his manager to continue using the music for the theme tune to Life in the Peloton. To hear more about the music, listen to the Andre Greipel episode of Life in the Peloton.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Get a Hey everyone and welcome to Life in the Peloton. |
| 0:28.7 | I'm on the eve of the Vuelta Espania and I thought I'd sit down with Lionel to introduce the next episode. Welcome Lionel. |
| 0:35.2 | Hi there Mitch, it's just gone mid-October and you're getting ready for a three week grand tour. |
| 0:41.3 | It must feel really quite strange. The days are getting shorter, the temperatures dipping a bit. |
| 0:46.5 | What's it like there in Spain where you are? |
| 0:49.1 | I tell you what, it felt like today the break of spring. |
| 0:53.0 | It was a very, very weird feeling because it was like a bit cool in the air, the sun was breaking through and I thought this feels like a day just after you know, |
| 1:02.1 | parry Rubei and I'm just starting to get myself ready for the next block and I was like hang on. |
| 1:07.3 | It's the end of the year and I'm about to step into the Vuelta Espania. |
| 1:10.4 | It doesn't feel like I'm on the eve of a grand tour, let alone the Vuelta. |
| 1:15.0 | So it is a very surreal feeling but on the other side of things I'm very much looking forward to doing a big race |
| 1:22.5 | and making 2020 all worthwhile with a big race at the end of the year. |
| 1:28.0 | Well it is the day after the Tour of Flanders, I suppose you weren't that far wrong. It's very unusual though. |
| 1:34.2 | It is very unusual and it's very unusual watching these races and everything being out of sync and it is just a bizarre sort of season but you know, |
| 1:43.4 | whatever it was two, three months ago, maybe four months ago, I was very skeptical that we would get this far. |
| 1:49.0 | And I'm very happy that we have got this far. I never thought we'd be able to do all this and race so late but it's amazing what you can get yourself to do when the circumstances are changed. |
| 1:59.4 | So who's in this week's episode of Life in the Peloton match? |
| 2:03.4 | I've got an exciting episode this week. I thought it'd be very good to bring this episode up because I originally wanted to release this when the Vuelta Espania was originally on |
| 2:11.7 | because today I'm talking to Greg Griffiths who is a UCI International Commerce Air and he is from Australia and I sat down with him over the summer when I was in Australia. |
| 2:21.6 | He actually doesn't live too far away from me, he's from Melbourne and we were talking about when I see him at the Vuelta Espania and I take note from him popping his head out of the top of the car there and I thought, |
| 2:32.0 | great, this is going to be a great episode to release just before the Vuelta. |
| 2:35.2 | So here we are a little bit delayed, we're on the eve of the Vuelta. I thought, be great to hear about behind the scenes from a Commerce Air. |
... |
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