Episode 49: How to save a bike race – Rás Tailteann organiser on keeping Ireland’s biggest race alive, ‘difficult second album syndrome’, and why some races just mean more + Mavic’s new superlight e-bike motor

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One of Ireland’s most iconic sporting events, the Rás Tailteann has endured a turbulent few years of cancellations, financial worries, and unlikely comebacks. A lack of title sponsor, and then the Covid-19 pandemic, ensured that the Rás – a stage race intrinsically linked to Irish sporting, cultural, and political identity – was kept off the road for four years, before returning in a shorter, more homespun format last year.

However, dark clouds continue to linger over the race’s precarious future – and while this year’s Rás is all set to go ahead next month, the financial position of the race, currently reliant on short-term sponsorship deals, has been described by the organisers as “unsustainable”.
In this episode, Ryan chats to race director Ger Campbell, the man charged with resuscitating the event last year and whose own association with the Rás stretches back almost fifty years, about his efforts to ensure the race’s survival, his plans for its future, the event’s importance to Irish sport, and why he won’t be answering the phone to any WorldTour events any time soon.
And in part two, Dave is back on his bike, for a pleasant spin through the Alpine city of Annecy, where he was riding with and chatting to Mavic’s head of product management Maxime Brunand about the French company’s new superlight compact e-bike motor, the X-Tend, which could well be the catalyst for an e-road revolution…
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