Hello Ned. Hello, that's a way to start, isn't it? There we were in our Zoom meeting,

not knowing how to start a podcast. But that's a good away, is any. How are you doing,

David? Yeah, I'm good. I'm good. I've just, well, as you can see, and our listeners can't

have just arrived in my, what will be my home for the next two and a half weeks every afternoon,

a hotel suite in Gerona, which after this call, I will convert into the mobile studio from which we

will be co-commentating on the Volta, Spain. It's like the new normal, isn't it? Like three or four

months ago, we would have been surprised that we were, that this was happening at all, but now it's

just, oh, of course, it's got you in a hotel room in Gerona, that's, that's how it's going to be

standard. Totally standard. But what is surprising, I think, is the fact that we're here, it's the

end of October, and we've still got a three-week grand tour to look forward to almost three-week

grand tour. It's just incredible, isn't it? I never have imagined, in my wildest dreams, that the

Volta would actually be about to start. It's some, I think you have to give great credit to,

ultimately, I suppose, the political will to push these races through in the three host countries

involved, because there must have been lobbying at a high level to ensure that this wasn't nipped

in the bud. Yeah, yeah, I agree. I think it's, it's miraculous, and what I do like about it, and I

think it's, it's part of the, the reason we love cycling so much is that it's just, only cycling

could pull this off, and we'd normalize to it so quickly, and still, essentially, even, there's

no crowds, the side of the roads, the calendars upside down, races are overlapping. And yet, you know,

what? It's just bike racing. People are still just, just loving it, and the bike races, the,

the audience, you know, so it says a lot for the actual essence of the sport, I guess.

Yeah, there was this fear before it all got underway that too many of the races, and especially

some of the one-day races would be kind of devalued, you know, because, I mean, I suppose it's

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