VN Podcast: Vaughters on cycling’s ‘EPO era,’ plus our final take on the 2019 Tour de France

On this week’s episode of The VeloNews Podcast, we sit down with Team EF Education First CEO Jonathan Vaughters, who has written a new book, “One-Way Ticket: Nine Lives on Two Wheels” about his career in pro cycling. Fred Dreier recently wrote a review of the book, and now we hear from Vaughters himself.

The book chronicles Vaughters’s 30-year career in pro cycling, as a rider and team manager. Vaughters sheds light on his experiences during cycling’s ‘EPO era,’ and on his own use of performance-enhancing drugs during this time. Vaughters discusses his own career in great detail, and explains why he is confident that today’s peloton does not face the same stark reality that he did 20 years ago.

Vaughters also discusses the professional divorce between himself and Bradley Wiggins, which he says occurred because of Team Sky Principal David Brailsford.

Before we hear from Vaughters, Fred Dreier and Andy Hood give us their final analysis and opinions on the 2019 Tour de France. Was it really one of the best Tours ever? Will we remember Egan Bernal’s victory for his attacks in the Alps, or because of the truncated stages? How did the disastrous weather impact our overall opinion of the race? And what does the future hold for Team Ineos, which now has three Tour de France champions on its roster?

This week’s episode is sponsored by Whoop, the performance tool that is changing the way people track their fitness and optimize their training. Whoop tracks your heart rate and gives you a strain scores that lets you know how strenuous your training was on your body, with additional information around your sleep and recovery to tell you how well your body rebounds from training. Right now, listeners can get 15 percent off a Whoop device by going to www.whoop.com and using the code ‘velo’ at checkout.