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The Cycling Podcast

S9 Ep7: Life in the Peloton – Jack Thompson

The Cycling Podcast

The Cycling Podcast

News, Sports News, Sports

4.73K Ratings

🗓️ 3 February 2021

⏱️ 55 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

It's a bit of a departure from the norm this week because my guest is Jack Thompson – aka Jack Ultra – who is not a professional cyclist but whose adventures on two wheels have demonstrated to me the power of the bike.

When I first heard about the type of riding Jack does I was impressed by the sheer scale of the targets he sets himself. From Everesting three mountains, one in Italy, one in France, one in Spain, back to back to attempting to ride further in a week than anyone else has done, these solo rides are very different to the shoulder-to-shoulder intensity of life in the pro peloton.

And yet I thought there'd be some similarities and when I learned that for Jack cycling is something of a therapeutic pursuit for him I was fascinated to find out more about him and why he does what he does.

I hope you enjoy the episode.

Cheers,
Mitch.

Life in the Peloton 2020 playlist

Keep in touch with Life in the Peloton

Keep up to date with everything that’s going on with Life in the Peloton at my website lifeinthepeloton.com

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Check out my range of Life in the Peloton merchandise on our Etsy store too, from beanies and caps to embroidered tees, logo tees and much more. Visit the Etsy store.

Or follow on social media:
Instagram: @lifeinthepeloton
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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

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

We'll get our guys and welcome to another episode of life.

0:29.9

I'm back from training camp and Lionel, you're in the middle of your training camp.

0:39.9

They're in the indoor machine. How's it going there mate?

0:42.9

I've been doing a lot of riding Mitch on the indoor trainer. The weather here in the UK hasn't been fantastic.

0:48.9

We had a bit of snow a couple of weeks ago or a week and a bit ago.

0:52.9

The indoor training has been keeping me fit so I'm looking forward to getting back outside on the road and hopefully feel the benefit of a month riding indoors.

1:02.9

I can guarantee that mate. I've been through that myself last year and I was absolutely flying come that first race.

1:09.9

So, organise yourself a race and you will be wreaking in the benefits once the sun comes out.

1:15.9

But that's not going to be a long time for you. I'm afraid to say.

1:20.9

Well, this week on Life in the Pelzon we've taken a bit of a different tact. We're talking to Jack Thompson who is an ultra cyclist.

1:28.9

What I mean by that is he takes on these ultra events and why he does that is he's suffering from clinic depression and he's trying to find a way about how to counter that.

1:40.9

And the bike is his medicine. I'm not going to say too much more about that but it's a fantastic episode. Sit back and enjoy this one. I was when I was speaking to him about it is I was able to see so much correlation to what we do on the bike as a pro cyclist.

1:55.9

And there's so many great little insights and things that he goes through out there on the bike that I'm able to relate to as a pro cyclist as well.

2:04.9

But before we get to the episode I've got some fantastic and exciting news coming up. I alluded to it last week.

2:12.9

Life in the Pelzon has collaborated with Raffa and we are making the first official Life in the Pelzon kit.

2:19.9

I'm super excited about it. It's been a lot of work. But if you guys want to get your hands on some of that you've got to get over to Life in the Pelzon.com and subscribe to our newsletter to get the first official drop of that.

2:32.9

It's coming up. If you're not a subscriber you're not going to be able to get your hands on any so make sure you get across and get yourself subscribed to hear more about what's coming.

2:40.9

But now we're going to get into the chat with Jack Thompson. So sit back and enjoy that.

2:46.9

Yeah, just before we hear from your conversation with Jack. He talks about his everesting challenge where he ever stood three mountains in each of the countries that host a grand tour.

2:57.9

So that's Italy, France and Spain. An absolutely incredible challenge that he set himself. He talks about a climb that he calls the Bonnet.

3:05.9

I just wanted to give people a heads up that that's the cold elabonnet that he's referring to very well known climb that's featured in the Tour de France.

3:12.9

Of course, yeah, I just wanted to make sure people knew which of the climbs he was talking about. But let's get into your conversation with Jack Thompson.

...

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