Podcast Liftoff

I love podcasts and have been playing with the idea of creating my own podcast for awhile. I also love cycling podcasts, but have yet to find a cycling podcast I love that publishes consistently. I really liked Flammecast, but that imploded and the revamped VeloCast is not really to my liking, as it too much music and not enough cycling talk (although, now that I go back and listen to the recent episodes, it seems they’ve gone away from the music bit. So it looks like I’ll be listening again!). I also listened to Velo Club Don Logan, but I lost interest as they talk a lot about the local scene in Scotland and many things that I consider peripheral. I LOVE Real Peloton, as they are funny, knowledgeable and have a great rapport, but they publish so infrequently it’s hard to stay excited about them. The Spokesmen Cycling Roundtable podcast has good content, but the format makes it hard to listen to- there are too many people trying to get a their opinion in and that results in a lot of overtalking. In addition, there are quite a few podcasts out there that have a pro and local focus as well as ones that are skills focused.

Now, all of those podcasts are great and maybe they suit your taste. But I wanted a podcast that was exclusively about pro cycling and which paid special attention to American riders and teams. So I decided to take matters into my own hands and create my own. Plus, I love the sound of my own voice. I found a casting partner, Dan Kalbacher (@DanKalbacher), and after extensive research (podcasting is a lot harder than it looks. So hat to those who make it look easy), was able to put voice to the ether.

This is our first attempt. I know the audio quality is not great, but the content is awesome! (if I’m allowed to have an opinion) We also do not have a name yet. Coming up with clever names is hard. If you have suggestions, drop them in the comments. I’m working on making it RSS readable, so if you use an RSS reader to read the blog, you might have to click through to get to the actual file. You can subscribe to the blog in a reader! And eventually I’ll be putting it up on iTunes. When I can figure out how to do that.

Enjoy!

The Cast

In this first episode we talk about the dropping of the Armstrong case by federal investigators (Dan’s article here), how much I love Tom Boonen and how he might be bike doping, the Tour of Oman, and the effects of the breakup of HTC.

Listen directly here:

Download here! (to save to your computer so you can transfer it to an mp3 player, right lick and choose Save Target As… or Save Link As… you Mac users are on your own.)

Let me know if you have any problems or comments/suggestions, either here or on Twitter. I’m @bloomingcyclist and Dan is @DanKalbacher