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How do you go about building a Tour de France team effectively from scratch? That’s the question I asked when I popped around to the rest day hotel of Julian Alaphilippe’s Tudor Pro Cycling squad, who are making their debuts at this year’s Tour.

The Swiss team are relative newbies to the sport, only launching under the Tudor name in 2022, two years after classics legend and national hero Fabian Cancellara took over the Swiss Academy Racing project. The squad then stepped up to the second-tier ProTeam level the following year, and has enjoyed something of a meteoric rise to the top of the sport, making their Giro debut last year, before being invited to the 2025 Tour.

On this week’s episode, I chat to Tudor CEO Raphael Meyer about the team’s growth and how you get ready for a race as big as the Tour de France.

I clambered up into the team truck, to have a nosey at the squad’s bikes and wheels, and to chat to their head mechanic Diego Costa about what it takes to put together a Tour de France bike.

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Tadej Pogačar, already four stage wins to the good this year and chasing his fourth Tour de France title at the age of just 26, is busy cementing his status as one of cycling’s greatest ever riders, with yet another dominant, cannibal-esque performance at the sport’s biggest race.

But is Pogačar’s relentless dominance hurting the race? And is he just too good? That’s the big debate featured on the latest episode of the road.cc Podcast, where Ryan is in the Pyrenees following the Slovenian’s exploits this week.

Ryan also chats with one of the big stars of the first two weeks of the Tour, Ben Healy, whose swashbuckling, attacking displays were rewarded with a stage win and two days in the yellow jersey.

After relinquishing yellow on Hautacam, Healy reflected on his spell leading the Tour and why he’s looking forward to getting back to doing what he does best: attacking.

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It’s July, it’s hot, the men’s and women’s pelotons are both deep into grand tour season – and the road.cc Podcast is hitting the road and embracing all the stage racing madness, as part of a new mini-series we’re calling… errr, ‘road.cc on the road’.

And kicking off this tentatively titled podcast series, I headed to northern Italy and the self-proclaimed cheese capital of Europe, Bergamo, for the start of the Giro d’Italia Women, one of the biggest, most prestigious week-long races on the calendar.

During my weekend in Bergamo, in-between eating as much casoncelli as I could physically manage, eavesdropping on interminable cat selfie shoots, and dodging thunderstorms and VIP mascots (you’ll have to tune in to find out what that’s about), I caught up with four riders on extreme ends of the Giro experience spectrum: four-time Giro winner Anna van der Breggen, and debutants (and future stage winner and pink jersey) Anna Henderson, Pfeiffer Georgi, and Irish champion Mia Griffin.