Home Roads

For all the wrong reasons, Shanaze Reade was once labelled a rockstar. In this episode of Home Roads, you'll hear she really is a star for all the right reasons. Born in Crewe to a white teenage mum and a black dad she hardly saw, Shanaze didn't let being a mixed race girl in a world dominated by white middle class boys stop her. She went on to compete at the very highest level, not just in her first discipline of BMX but also on the velodrome track too, and to great success. It took it's toll though, and in this interview recorded while coronavirus restrictions prevented us from riding together, she reveals how she overcame several challenges to come out of the other side as a winner, but also a happier, healthier woman.For more about the podcast, find seek out @HomeRoads on Instagram and Twitter.

Starting in San Francisco in the mid-2000s as a loose group of fixie racers, MASH gained global attention by pushing their track bikes to the limits and filming their exploits in the way skaters had previously. With pro-cycling at the time obsessed with performance and tarnished by cheating, they were the antidote that reminded people just how fun riding and racing could be, pure and simple. It led to highly-desirable frame collaborations with Cinelli, a physical store on Sanchez Street and hundreds of thousands of followers around the World. For this episode, recorded remotely during the global pandemic lockdown, I caught up with founder Mike Martin and rider Chas Christiensen at their homes in California to hear the story of MASH.

Tom Pidcock is the most exciting young cycling talent to emerge in the UK in the last couple of years, but really, it's in the mud and under the grey skies of continental Europe where he has impressed the most. Getting silver early in 2020 at the cyclocross world championships in Switzerland was the first time a Brit broke the stranglehold the Dutch and Belgians have had on the podium. Normally at this time of year, Flanders is home for Tom, but the pandemic sweeping the planet meant he headed back to the family house in Leeds in Yorkshire, where he spoke to me from the dining room turned pain cave.

Aussie Lachlan Morton and US National Champion Alex Howes have been friends since they raced each other as teenagers. Despite coming from different parts of the planet, they're now on the same pro team and based a few miles apart in Colorado, USA. Compared to life in lockdown for many of their teammates at EF Pro Cycling, they have it slightly easier as they're still able to head out into the Rockies and train at altitude - provided they don't encounter lightning or some of the big wildlife that shares their home roads, as you'll hear.

Rohan Dennis is the best men's time trialist in the World, having taken the famous rainbow jersey (or skinsuit) for the last two years. His ability against the clock is simply incredible, and as he showed in Yorkshire in 2019, that's even when the road ahead is far from flat. The same is true of his experience as a pro over the last couple of years too - it's been a bit of a bumpy ride. Sitting indoors on my Kickr turbo, Rohan chatted candidly to me from lockdown in his apartment in Girona in Catalonia about the highs and lows of his impressive career so far, and why his teenaged views on men in lycra meant it almost never happened.

Ian Boswell (aka Boz) should probably still be racing his bike on the road at the age of 29, but a bad crash at Tirreno-Adriatico in 2019 forced him to rethink his future plans. Having criss-crossed the planet wearing the jerseys of famous teams like Sky and Katusha during his career, he jumped on his Kickr bike in the basement of his Vermont, USA home to chat to me about his hopes for getting back on the gravel, and why living as a top-level pro was very good preparation for life in lockdown

Grayson Perry is one of Britain's best-known and most-recognisable artists, thanks to his flamboyant ceramics and penchant for wearing even more noticeable dresses. He loves cycling too, and when I approached him to go for a ride, he gave me two options - mountain biking in Epping Forest or a "mooch slowly around London a bit pissed on my Dutch bike; a kind of two-wheeled flâneur". I chose the latter, and it didn't disappoint. Contains swearing.Follow @homeroads on Instagram and Twitter for more.

Yorkshire's Lizzie Deignan knows what it takes to become World Champion. When her surname was still Armitstead, she claimed the coveted rainbow jersey in Richmond, Virginia in 2015. In the couple of years afterwards, Lizzie was in unbeatable form, hoovering up wins in some of the biggest races on the women's calendar. Then, having settled down with husband Phil (also a pro-cyclist), she took 2018 out of the sport to become a mum. This year though, the Worlds are back in Britain for the first time in a generation, and being raced on the Yorkshire lanes Lizzie knows so well. We rode together on a loop out of Harrogate, that took in the finish where she aims to clinch the rainbow stripes again.Look for @HomeRoads on Instagram, Twitter and Strava for more information, images and the rides.

It's exactly a decade since Cadel Evans became the first Australian to become World Champion on the roads around Mendrisio near the Swiss-Italian border. Prior to that, he'd had success racing - both on road and mountain bikes - but hadn't quite reached the highs he was obviously capable of. Soon after though, he also became the first Aussie to win the Tour de France, consigning to history the two times he'd been runner up. Since retiring, Cadel has made his home in Switzerland, and lives just a few kilometres away from where he pulled on the famous rainbow jersey. He took me for a ride around the route of his triumph, before we climbed over the border for lunch next to Lake Como.Look for @HomeRoads on Instagram, Twitter and Strava for more information, images and the rides.