Cosmo Catalano and Dane Cash break down a grueling edition of the Tour of Flanders and ponder whether anyone in the peloton could have done anything to challenge a dominant Mathieu van der Poel.

We're back with a special on-the-ground episode from Oudenaarde, the finish town of the Tour of Flanders. It's wet, it's cold, but we've found a bar and a fire and are ready to talk about a spectacular bike race (even if the last 50 km were slightly less spectacular). As always, for a deep run-through of the women's Flanders, don't miss Abby and the Wheel Talk crew early this week. 

Bridge Bike Works is an upstart brand that's trying to make a go at building premium carbon fiber bikes in Canada. It's not just a geographic thing or a point of national pride here, though. Bridge says it's obviously proud of making bikes in its own backyard, but it's also striving to make better product, period, by keeping the entire process – from R&D to lay-up and curing to paint – under a single unobtrusive industrial roof in Cervelo's old stomping grounds. In this Geek Warning episode, James sits down with Bridge co-founders Frank Gairdner and Mike Yakubowicz to see just what makes the company tick, why it might be smart to start asking about hobbies the next time you interview someone for a job, and how the quest to build its own fork nearly broke them.

The Placeholders crew is together in Belgium and talks through the route, key storylines, and crash-reduced field of favorites for the men's Tour of Flanders. 

Welcome back to Geek Warning! In this week’s edition of the regular show, Ronan and Dave discuss why current road bikes may not be ready for emerging trends in seated positions. Later Ronan shares a PSA related to multi-tools that turns out to be more of a Pick One and a rant.On the news side, the geeks discuss the new Cannondale Scalpel cross-country race bike. Pinarello has finally officially revealed its Bolide F HR that Italy will race on the track in Paris. There’s more 3D-printed tech to discuss in the hubs of Scope’s new and impressively light Artech wheels. And Dave gets excited at the chance to talk about Feedback Sports’ new Pliers Wrench tool.As usual, the end of the episode is kept for a quick discussion of other interesting new things. There you’ll hear about Wahoo’s firmware update, another new Mirror saddle (the comfy 3D-printed type) from Specialized, and CeramicSpeed’s new OSPW RS derailleur cages.Happy geeking!Time stamps:4:25 - Cannondale’s new Scalpel is yet another 120 mm cross-country bike option9:10 - Pinarello’s 3D-printed Bolide F HR track bike is now official15:10 - More 3D-printed tech with Scope’s new Artech wheels23:40 - Feedback Sports release a Pliers Wrench28:00 - The limitations of modern road bike geometry is on Ronan’s mind40:45 - A non-PSA that unexpectedly into a wider topic and Pick One about multi-tools53:40 – A firmware update to Wahoo head units55:15 – Specialized brings S-Works Mirror technology to the Phenom saddle56:04 - Our thoughts on CeramicSpeed’s new OSPW RS1:01:00 - Where much of the Escape Collective team will be next week

This week's episode of Placeholders, recorded after a busy weekend of racing – but before Dwars door Vlaanderen ... – ponders which men's Classics team is best right now, riders skipping races to go to altitude, and whether the "Big Six" is really a thing.

Another great episode this week with Abby Mickey, Loren Rowney and Gracie Elvin.They talked about Classic Brugge-De Panne and Gent-Wevelgem, specifically SD Worx-Protime’s tactics and the sprint finish where Lotte Kopecky made the difference for Lorena Wiebes.In order to really pick apart the sprint finish on Sunday they watched it live while recording. If you’d like to join in you can find the video we watched here.

In our final episode of this limited series, we turn the floor over to member questions. Thank you to everyone who became members throughout this series. Every single one of you helps make us produce more content like this. If you're not a member, you can join here: https://escapecollective.com/join/You can listen another podcast you'll enjoy about 'Why are modern bikes so expensive' podcast here: https://escapecollective.com/why-are-modern-bikes-so-expensive/

Cosmo Catalano and Dane Cash have plenty to talk about after a week that was absolutely jam-packed with racing. The E3 Saxo Classic, Gent-Wevelgem, and the Volta a Catalunya all get the How the Race was Won treatment as the Tour of Flanders looms.

Welcome to the first episode of The Rest Day with Jack Haig! This new podcast is hosted by Bahrain-Victorious' Jack Haig and will take you behind the curtain of pro cycling. The first episode is a chat between Jack and his roommate, Wout Poels, discussing Paris-Nice and Tirreno-Adriatico from the inside.