World championship medallist Emilly Johnston leaps to the next level with her dream team

A run-in with a badger, a gentlemanly pee break, a spectacular sunset and some amazing competition—those were just a few of the features of Rob Britton’s record-breaking Unbound Gravel XL win. It set his rough gravel season right, even if after more than two weeks following the race, the Victoria rider was still not fully recovered.Before the big event in Kansas, Britton’s season wasn’t going well. Bad luck, mostly, led to a series of results that left the Victoria rider frustrated. To change things up, he registered for the 350-mile version of Unbound. At 3 p.m. on May 30, he set off with a group of riders that included Ted King, Laurens ten Dam, Robin Gemperle and the rider Britton jokingly refers to as Gravel Jesus, Lachlan Morton. The next day, 17:49:51 after the race began, Britton crossed the finish line, winning Unbound XL with a record-setting time.In this episode, recorded just before gravel nationals in Water Valley, Alta., (but with a short clip following that event), Britton gets into the details of the race, including gear, fuelling and some of the tactical decisions he made. He discusses his long-time relationship with Lachlan Morton, which goes back to some of the Australian’s earliest road races in North America. Today, there’s a “Morton effect” on gravel racing that even had an influence on Britton’s race beyond the one-on-one duelling on the rough roads of Kansas.Back in 2017, when Britton was a pro roadie, he won the Tour of Utah stage race. How does the biggest win of his road career compare with his victory at gravel’s main event? How long does he think his Unbound XL record will last? And does his win in Emporia, Kansas, change anything or open any new doors for Britton? Find out.

Shimano has released the latest version of its long-running, iconic XTR group, the brand’s flagship mountain bike set. XTR Di2 M9200 finally brings Shimano into the age of wireless shifting for mountain bikes.Anytime Shimano releases a new top-end group, it’s big news. But the Japanese brand’s mountain bike groups have, historically, foreshadowed what eventually shows up on dropbar and other bikes. Disc brakes? Clutch? 12-speed? 1-by? All started on trails before hitting tarmac.So with XTR being the brand’s first fully wireless groupset (Dura-Ace is semi-wireless, with wires running from the main battery to the front and rear derailleurs), everyone at the CCM office is paying close attention.In this episode of the podcast, you’ll hear how the group was developed and about some surprising, innovative and maybe mildly controversial (for Shimano, at least) design decisions. All these details come from Nick Murdick, Shimano’s North American product manager and a member of Shimano’s global product development team. Murdick has been driving the development of XTR Di2 M9200, all the way back to its origins in 2015 with XTR Di2 9050.  Murdick gives candid insights into some of the internal debates at Shimano, some changes to the team’s culture there and how they’re reflected in XTR M9200. He even addresses the elephant, or Eagle, in the room of why it took so long for Shimano to respond to its biggest competitor with a wireless mountain bike group.It’s an interesting conversation, especially considering the details covered about gears, brakes and levers. Dive in, then check out mountain bike editor Terry McKall's full review of XTR Di2 M9200, as well as his thoughts on what this means for the future of Di2 across Shimano’s range and electronic shifting more broadly.And, for even more good stuff, check out this interview from our archive with long-time Shimano rider Geoff Kabush.

You’ve seen Mara Roldan in the mix at some of the biggest races this year. She was in the breakaway at her first Amstel Gold Race and managed to finish in top 10. She recently completed her first Grand Tour, the Vuelta España Femenina. Despite a few crashes and injuries, Roldan not only made it to the end of the seven-stage event, she helped her teammates throughout. Yet, it wasn’t that long ago that the 21-year-old rider, born in Whitehorse, wasn’t really that into road racing.Roldan and her family—parents, twin sister and younger sister—spent about 10 years travelling North America in an RV (a Blue Bird Wanderlodge to be exact). At 13, she entered her first mountain biking race. By 15, she was training seriously, even as her family moved around. The young rider was diligent, making sure to get the workouts done. “It was kind of up to me to find places to train, whether that was on rollers in the back of a Walmart parking lot one night or on a super nice trail system the next night,” she says. “We just tried to make it work where we were because we were obviously never in the same place. It was a challenge, but I think also a really fun part about travelling.”In this episode of the Canadian Cycling Magazine Podcast, Roldan gets into her unique route to the WorldTour, the role of the development team Tag Cycling on her career, as well as the time Alison Jackson likely saved the young rider’s life.Archive: Another Canadian has ridden on Roldan’s team. From 2016 to 2022, Leah Kirchmann was on the squad based in Sittard, the Netherlands. Check out the feature interview with the Giro stage winner and multi-time national champion.This episode of the Canadian Cycling Magazine Podcast is supported by MS Bike. It is running 11 great rides this season in seven provinces. Each MS Bike ride is fully supported with fuel, roadside assistance and first aid. These events are very welcoming. You only really need a bike, a helmet and the desire to keep pedalling. It’s all for an important cause: raising money to help those with MS. Register now and start your fundraising journey at msbike.ca.

Recently, Andrew L’Esperance and Alexis Cartier kicked off their North American race season. At the Sea Otter Classic gravel race, L’Esperance finished 13th, making him the top Canadian at the first event in the Life Time Grand Prix series. Cartier had a tough race. “It was fun, but I didn't perform at all,” he says in this episode. “I kind of expected it, but I really got smashed.”The pair of riders will find themselves at many of the same races this season, including other Life Time events, such as Unbound, and gravel nationals in Water Valley, Alta. They are both racing as privateers, responsible for their own logistics, sponsorships, maintenance, on top of all the training and competing. Each one has a unique plan and set of goals for the season, which they discuss in this episode. L’Esperance is mixing gravel, mountain bike and even road racing. Cartier is blending his training and transportation: he’s bikepacking to all six of the Life Time Grand Prix events.Also on the pod, Canadian Cycling Magazine editors Matthew Pioro and Matt Hansen, as well as feature writer Jake Williams, discuss recent races, such as the men’s and women’s Amstel Gold and De Brabantse Pijl. Pioro reports back from Sea Otter. He says he knows a bunch about the 32” wheels that seem to be coming to mountain bikes, but what is he actually able to reveal?

Winspace Orange Seal is a Women’s Pro Team based in France. Yet, it has a rider from Alma, Que., one from Vancouver, one from Guelph, Ont., and a rider from Edmonton. They are Florence Normand, Nadia Gontova, Kiara Lylyk and Jenaya Francis. Currently, they are all based in Europe attending races, such as the Vuelta a Extremadura Femenina, Omloop Nieuwsblad, Danilith Nokere Koerse and Dwars door Vlaanderen.The team, Winspace Orange Seal, has been around since 2013. In 2022, when the squad was at the continental level, and called Stade Rochelais Charente-Maritime, it got an invite to the Tour de France Femmes, where it got hammered. Of the six riders who started the race, only one finished. This year, the team has been invited back. It’s now moved up to ProTeam status. Also, its riders seem to be levelling up, as well. It will be exciting to see what they can do at the big event this July.The team has only 11 riders. Four of them are Canucks. In this episode of the Canadian Cycling Magazine Podcast, you’ll find out all about them, and how they all got on this French ProTeam.This episode of the Canadian Cycling Magazine podcast is supported by MS Bike. It has 11 rides across the country. These are top-notch, fully supported events. The first ones are in June in Alberta. The last one is Waskesiu, Sask. There are also rides in Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec and Nova Scotia. No matter which one you choose, there’s still plenty of time to prepare. If you need some training tips, there are two-month and three-month plans for you on the Canadian Cycling Magazine website.Remember, through an MS Bike event, you raise funds, which go to help MS research and services. Did you know that 60 per cent of those diagnosed with MS are between 20 and 49, with an average diagnosis age of 43? Give your riding some focus and some purpose. Head to msbike.ca. Register and start fundraising. 

Two days before Emilly Johnston won the Argentario instalment of the Internazionali d'Italia Series, she chatted about all the new changes that have occurred in the past seven months. As the 2024 mountain bike world championships began at the end of this past August, Johnston signed with the team she’d race with in 2025, Scott-SRAM MTB Racing, the squad of Nino Schurter and Filippo Colombo. The two-year contract came just as the rider from Vancouver Island’s Comox Valley was nearing the end of her final under-23 season. Her first year in the elite level would truly be with the elites of the sport.Johnston covers a wide range of topics In this in-depth interview. How had the geography of her home region shaped her as a rider? Why did she do a cool trick in a high-stakes race? Does she tie her own flies for fishing? Johnston talks about some of the people who’ve had a big effect on her career, including an innovative bike builder on Quadra Island. She shares her insights about the current state of Canadian women’s cross country mountain biking and how, in a sense, she has two lives: a European one and a Comox Valley one.Also in this episode of the Canadian Cycling Magazine Podcast, editor Matthew Pioro and writer Jake Williams chat about recent races. Milan-San Remo, men’s and women’s, were stunning events. XC racers had many successes in the UC Cup races in Fayetteville, Ark. Gent-Wevelgem is coming up. It’s a race that Williams, a Luca Paolini doppelganger, has a particular fondness for.For more on one of Johnston’s cycling influences, head to the podcast’s back catalogue. In August 2020, two-time world champion Catharine Pendrel was featured. The episode, quite rightly, is titled “Catharine Pendrel is awesome.” Check it out. 

Sprinting against Jasper Philipsen, navigating a slippery go-kart track, powering up a climb in Spain trying to put out more watts than three other finalists—those were some of the challenges Noah Ramsay faced this past December as he competed in Zwift Academy for its prize of a spot on the Alpecin-Deceuninck development team. In the end, Ramsay won.The pro road contract marks a big switch in Ramsay’s cycling career. For the past few years, cross country has been the focus of the 22-year-old rider. This past fall, he was 11th at the Lake Placid World Cup XCO race and fifth in the short track event at the Mont-Sainte-Anne World Cup. Despite Ramsay’s promise on the singletrack, he didn’t have a team that could help him further his racing career. In August, a friend of Ramsay’s recommended he try out for the Zwift Academy, a talent-identification competition supported by the virtual training platform. Ramsay made it to the finals, which were held in Spain this past December.In this episode of the Canadian Cycling Magazine Podcast, Ramsay tells the behind-the-scenes story of his Zwift Academy win. Also, Ramsay’s coach Peter Glassford of The Consummate Athlete gives an account of the rider’s talents that have gotten him to the Alpecin-Deceuninck development team. Ramsay looks ahead to his upcoming road season, discusses his hopes for the next few years and muses about where mountain biking might fit in with his new road career.Also in this episode, editors Matthew Pioro and Matt Hansen, as well as feature writer Jake Williams, discuss the men’s and women’s Strade Bianche, and look to Trofeo Alfredo Binda and Milan-San Remo. For the Classicissima, the focus is more on the women’s race, which is back after a 20-year hiatus. What’s the right length for a race called “Milan-San Remo?”Recently, on the Canadian Cycling Magazine Podcast, another rider making a cycling-discipline switch was featured. This season, Mathias Guillemette is making the switch from track to the road. Give that episode a listen, too.This episode of the Canadian Cycling Magazine Podcast is supported by MS Bike. Its first rides are in June. There are two in Alberta, Airdrie to Olds and another from Leduc to Camrose. The latest ride of the season is in Waskesiu, Sask., in September. And there are eight more—in B.C., another Alberta one, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec and Nova Scotia. Whichever one you choose, you have plenty of time to check out our training and preparation advice for MS Bike events.Every MS Bike ride is a professional event. It's fully supported with fuel, roadside assistance and first aid. These events are very welcoming. You only really need a bike, a helmet and the desire to keep pedalling.Of course, this is all for an important cause, that is raising money to help those with MS. Did you know that on average, 12 Canadians are diagnosed with MS each day. You can help. Register now and start your fundraising journey at msbike.ca. 

As a kid, Mathias Guillemette would get stuffed into the back seat of his parents car, wedged between a cooler and luggage, bikes all around, his older brother crammed in there too on their way to a Quebec race anywhere from three to seven hours away from their home in Trois-Rivières. There was also time on the velodromes in Bromont and Milton, Ont. During the past few years, Guillemette’s competed in some of the world’s top track cycling events, including the Track Champions League, where he’s won an elimination race, and the Paris Olympics.  This year, Guillemette’s cycling career is taking a new direction. He’s landed a spot on the Tudor Pro Cycling continental-level development team. At 23, he’s a senior rider with some teammates four years younger than him. In this episode of the Canadian Cycling Magazine Podcast, you’ll find out how Guillemette, with a little tip from another track cyclist turned roadie, got on to the Swiss team and how his skills on the track might translate to success on the road with the devo team and the ProTeam.This episode of the Canadian Cycling Magazine Podcast is supported by MS Bike. Its first rides are in June. There are two in Alberta, Airdrie to Olds and another from Leduc to Camrose. The latest ride of the season is in Waskesiu, Sask., in September. And there are eight more—in B.C., another Alberta one, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec and Nova Scotia. Whichever one you choose, you have plenty of time to check out our training and preparation advice for MS Bike events.Every MS Bike ride is a professional event. It's fully supported with fuel, roadside assistance and first aid. These events are very welcoming. You only really need a bike, a helmet and the desire to keep pedalling.Of course, this is all for an important cause, that is raising money to help those with MS. Did you know that on average, 12 Canadians are diagnosed with MS each day. You can help. Register now and start your fundraising journey at msbike.ca.

Recently, the country’s top cyclocross riders took on a slick, muddy course in Lévis, Que., site of the 2024 national cyclocross championships. Just past the finish line, Canadian Cycling Magazine was there to capture the reactions of six new champions.Regular contributor Jake Williams was at the event, not only racing in the relay and the championships themselves, but taking in the action. In this episode, he shares his interviews and stories from Lévis with editors Matthew Pioro and Matt Hansen.Emilien Belzile grabbed his first championship win in the junior men’s category. He faced a tough race and even went down on the course. In the end, he had to sprint hard against Evan Moore for the finish line. In early November, Belzile was third in the junior race at the Pan Am championships. This past June, the Fédération québécoise des sports cyclistes named him mountain bike athlete of the month for his podium placings in Canada and Quebec Cup events.Nineteen-year-old Mika Comaniuk is no stranger to CX nationals or racing in Lévis. In 2023, he won the C2-level Cyclocross de Lévis. Back in 2022, he was second in the junior race at CX nationals in Victoria. This past weekend, he got a gap on his fellow racers in the under-23 men’s group that he was able to maintain until the end.Marin Lowe took a break from her studies at the University of Victoria to jet across the country, borrow a bike and win the under-23 women’s race. Lowe already has a maple-leaf jersey in her collection: she is the 2023 junior cross country champ. Also that year, at the cross country world championships, she crossed the line in second place, behind her then-teammate Isabella Holmgren. In this episode, Lowe reveals the unique indicator she has that tells her when she’s really ready to race.Like Comaniuk, Rafaelle Carrier won in Lévis in 2023. Actually, Carrier has won in a whole bunch of places the past two years, including Gullegem in Belgium and in Missoula, Mont., at the 2023 Pan Am championships. This year, Carrier was second in the junior category at the cross country world championships. In a way, it’s no surprise she defended her 2023 national junior CX title. Still, her competition was top-notch. In second was USCX overall winner Nico Knoll. Third was Aislin Hallahan, a regular on recent USCX podiums.While Isabella Holmgren’s elite win wasn’t much of a surprise either, she also faced some serious competition, too, like multiple CX champ Maghalie Rochette and current Pan Am champ Sidney McGill. Ian Ackert continued his relatively compact but successful 'cross season by snagging his first elite title. You’ll learn how he celebrated that win and how those festivities didn’t really seem to hinder him on his next race day at the C2 event.Throughout this episode, Jake, Matthew and Matt bring their analysis to the event, mixed with their signature humour.

A mother tells her son that he sucks. A pro, on his way to a race win, lobs a retort revealing local knowledge. A masters rider can’t stop thinking about a burn yelled at him across a field years ago. A course designer screams platitudes with the frightening intensity of a death metal singer. These are all part of the world of cyclocross heckles, which sting, amuse, elate and perplex. They’re supposed to be fun. But sometimes they go terribly wrong.At a recent CX race in Toronto, editor Matthew Pioro looked into the cyclocross heckle. He spoke with Isabella Holmgren, the current elite Pan Am champion participating in one of her first 'cross races of the season. She revealed how family can unleash some pretty harsh words. Ian Ackert, the under-23 Pan Am champ racing in bleached blond hair, seemed to have corralled any disses around his locks. Sidney McGill, two-time under-23 national champion, has been followed by a squirrel-related heckle. The three pro riders not only spoke about course-side razzing, but their goals for the ’cross season ahead as well.Pioro also went looking for a heckler who landed what the editor considers some of the harshest burns he’d ever received. The meeting and the conversation goes in a direction that Pioro didn’t expect. Could it be time to retire the heckle and replace it with something more positive?In this episode, Pioro has help with CX heckle analysis from Canadian Cycling Magazine web editor Matt Hansen and feature writer Jake Williams, two guys who know all about unleashing trash talk.