Off the Back Podcast is our weekly podcast where the Cycling Weekly team chat all things cycling, bike racing and tech, offering you a quick and convenient way to get up to speed with everything happening in the world of cycling each week. You can find Off the Back on YouTube, via Apple podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
April is a big month for bike racing, so it was also a moment for some heated debate. Not only was it time to wrap up the Spring Classics, but the Off The Back team only mentioned Tadej Pogačar once or twice, and James was in Austria for the Tour of the Alps. The serious stage racing started with the Tour de Romandie, of course. And arguably the biggest tech-talking-point of the month was Mathieu van der Poel's pedals and, of course, big road tyres.
Back to big tyres – which already feels like the most talked about tech issue in 2026 – with even bigger ones reportedly on the way, thanks to the launch of the outrageous Open WI.DE 2.0 gravel bike raising questions about whether the best gravel bikes really need 2.6"/66mm of tyre clearance.
In April, the team recorded a bumper 6 podcasts of the podcast. If you missed any, you can, of course, head over to your preferred platform to listen, but make sure to like, subscribe and set to automatically download. If you want to listen to them now, you can find all of April's episodes below: