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This week, Ryan chats with the co-founder of the latest big idea hoping to shake up the conservative world of cycling: Formula Fixed, a new US-based indoor racing series featuring bikes with no brakes on tight, twisting, go-kart style circuits in a ticketed arena setting.

With this new brand of cycling set to launch this year, Formula Fixed founder James Grady chats about his background in cycling, his plans for his new racing league, how it will actually work, and why big swings, not marginal gains, are required to give cycling a metaphorical boot up the backside.

We also talk about turning cycling from a participant-based sport into a fan-based one, the issues afflicting US racing at the moment, why Formula Fixed can boost the road scene, not usurp it – and why he doesn’t care what people in France think.

And most importantly: Does our sport really need a rebrand and can Formula Fixed, ahem, ‘fix’ cycling?

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This week, former WorldTour pros Harry Tanfield and Sophie Wright kindly interrupted their packing for Sea Otter to hop on the podcast and discuss how they’ve adapted to life as rookie gravel racers with Britain’s newest professional cycling team, the Ribble Outliers – including getting used to wider tyres and lower pressures (and why they’re a big plus when it comes to riding on Britain’s battered roads).

The duo also chatted about the pressures facing British cycling at the moment for riders, organisers, and fans, Harry’s ill-fated bid to set up his own road team last year, and why the Tour de France’s visit could be a kick-starter for the local scene… If we can watch it on TV, of course.

Oh, and why the UK’s active travel approach is lightyears behind our European counterparts (yes, there was a lot covered).

And in part one, Jack and Ryan are joined by road.cc founder Tony Farrelly and regular contributor Jo Burt to pay tribute to the brilliant John Stevenson, our friend and former colleague at road.cc, and an absolute titan in the world of cycling journalism for four decades, who died earlier this month.

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To mark Security and Storage Week on road.cc, this week’s episode focuses on one of the most useful and controversial – if you’re a grumpy SUV driver, anyway – urban cycling innovations of the past 15 years: the cycle hangar.

Invented by Cyclehoop founder Anthony Lau, and spawning a host of imitators, Bikehangars provide secure shelter for six bikes in half the space normally occupied by a car parking space, giving cyclists outdoor, weather-protected cycle storage near their homes. And they’ve proved exceptionally popular too, currently numbering 3,000 across the UK.

Lau joins for a wide-ranging chat discussing the origins and growth of Cyclehoop, the persistent and increasing problem of bike theft in the UK, the lack of safe, secure storage facilities for cyclists, and the criticism his company’s faced from motorists for taking spots once reserved for cars.

Oh, and why SUV-shaped bike hangars could be the future…