The cycling podcast powered by SuperSapiens. Energy management for committed athletes and coaches.

Hello my name's Richard Moore and well joining us on the regular cycling podcast this week.

This is a first it might even be the first time you to have met Ian Boswell. Hello Ian. Hello Richard.

And Francois Thomas though. Hello guys. We met before actually. Not very often but yeah I even talked to you on his bike once so you see.

Yeah I remember well I guess when you're old the tour Ian perhaps you pass before that actually remember coming across Francois at the hotel Fontenac up in Quebec City but I knew him from the podcast I think he had come on this is early days of a Francois joining.

And I remember walking past him in the hall and I wanted to go say hi but I was a little bit actually too too scared to go go introduce myself so yeah here we are.

Oh yeah you should have.

Well I mean I should this is this all goes really well doesn't it I mean some basic fact checking like you know have you to met and actually it turns out you've you're more than well acquainted with each other.

But well we've drawn this this team together and Francois will be joining us at the third France in a few weeks of course and with well for various reasons we're all we're all spread across the globe at the moment.

Ian you are somewhere very interesting with a very interesting weekend ahead if you tell us about it.

I'm in Emporia, Kansas for the unbound 200 which is on yeah I think it's June 6th coming up on Saturday I'm not sure when this is going out but it's yeah the I would say the most kind of prestigious gravel event globally it's for one reason or another it's become kind of the crown jewel of gravel racing.

And seems like everyone is here actually road with Lawrence 10 damn and Thomas Decker yesterday which is a which is a funny kind of turn of events actually cook dinner for 10 damn the other day and he after you sat down for dinner he's like I never thought that you'd be cooking dinner for me and it's just a funny world to see that you know race with these these guys so long in the world tour now I'm cooking dinner for them in the middle of the U.S. and planes of grass.

Lawrence 10 damn famously eats a barbecue every night I hope you hope you grill the meat for a while I did not I made a Tigray curry with chicken he ate a lot of it I mean he finished his plate but I didn't I didn't have any barbecue or steak grilled.

Yeah that's one of the quirks of Lawrence 10 damn he has claimed in the past he he has a barbecue every night so anyway well I mean maybe that's a great way of sort of interrupting his buildup into the race I mean this is your thing now obviously last year was was heavily disrupted if any races happened at all how are you feeling ahead of this one are you are you going to win.

Well see we did I did a hundred miles yesterday with with the with the Dutch Navy with 10 damn and there's some other riders over here and that's only half the distance of the race coming up so 200 mile event you know I've been riding and feeling fit I did a race a couple weeks ago down in Arkansas the rule of three which was only a hundred miles.

So 200 mile event is something completely different and there is a very you know stacked field here I've been speaking to Mateo Georgensen who just came out of the Giro.

So you never know how you know some of these world tour riders will kind of transfer over to to an event like this mean even you look at an event like the Giro there's nothing as long as as this race coming up with you know 200 miles like the winning time will be around 10 hours which is.

Yeah something from racing of of old you know you think of old Euro stages may have had some 10 hour days but seems like road racing is getting shorter and the gravel events are getting longer so.

So I'm not going to win I don't know but I'm happy to be here it's not going to be raining which is fantastic I'm not a big fan of getting all muddy and dirty so it'll be it'll be an experience nonetheless and there's quite a lot of buzz here in a very small town in in Kansas around around the event and it's cool to see kind of the growth of gravel race in here in the US and to be quite frank if this is probably the biggest cycling event in the US now you know when you think the absence of tour California and Colorado and Utah.

So this is probably the single biggest cycling event in the US in 2021.

And honestly when I've watched these races they're more spectacular to watch than a lot of American road races with no disrespect intended but I think that's possibly I mean it could be the future of bite racing in the US and the US you know bite racing scene really following its own gravel path.

And this so the I think it's the final several hours are actually going to be televised this year you know the biggest issue is you know one budget you know of these event organizers but also you know we're oftentimes in remote area so actually being able to get service and you know a way to actually transmit live feed is challenging but you know with the improvement of technology it is happening and I don't know if any of anyone wants to watch 10 hours of racing but yeah a little highlight real would be would be cold to see how the race kind of unfolds.

...