The Inner Ring | Cycling Podcast Reviews

I’m showing my age but there was a time where the only way to get cycling results was to buy a newspaper and scour the results section on the sports page. If you were lucky you’d find the top-10 of Paris-Roubaix in small print. Today the internet means you don’t just get the results, you can have pictures, commentary, video and of course blogs. These have all been around for a while but one newer form in the cycling media is the podcast. You might already have your favourites but if not, here are some I think are worth subscribing too if pro cycling is what you’re after.

This is the first in a series of podcast reviews. I’ll link this post to others as I review the others in the field to build a directory.

Real Peloton

Run by Matt Rendell and Ned Boulting, this is my current favourite. The duo work together for British channel ITV’s coverage of the Tour de France and clearly three weeks of cramped cars and shared hotel rooms means they have got to know one and other, the chemistry works. Rendell is a long term follower of the sport and has an address book of contacts thick enough to make many rivals jealous, Boulting is a generic sports reporter who has been sucked into the sport in more recent times. So there’s a bit of an insider-outsider thing going on which works well. They don’t make any assumptions about listener’s knowledge but neither is this Bike Racing 101.

As professional broadcasters they have a good delivery, this is not scripted word-for-word, in fact it sounds like a bar conversation which is appropriate because it is sometimes recorded in a London pub. But like pros they don’t “um and ah” their way through the piece. Above all, it’s informative and fun. You get recorded interviews with the pros on a regular basis and the analysis is usually spot on.

It’s all in a fun spirit too, far from serious. A recurring feature is “sod off corner” where they take some of the more stupid aspects of the sport to task. For example whilst others put Ricco as their front page splash, Real Peloton will take aim at the cheats.

Any criticisms? Well it’s not out every day. But Ned Boulting has pet rants about France and Islam which go beaucoup off topic. But if you have a view, drop a comment below.

It’s all here: http://www.realpeloton.com/2.html

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