And I remember thinking at the time, this is what I want to do. And I could say I was 16. I thought I want to ride my bike as a pro. I want to do the Tour de France. And I never did get to ride the Tour de France, but I did get to ride a lot of big races. Represent my country at the Olympics World Championships. Feel Dever baby. Oh yeah. It's a. Slam dunk. He's. Absolutely breathtaking. Welcome to the Bike Bites podcast. I'm your host, Garrett Best. This is a companion podcast to the Bike Bites television series, and you can check out the links in the show notes to find out more information about where to watch the series. Now, in today's podcast, I'm joined by Matt Stevens. Matt is a former professional cyclist and popular content creator, known for his engaging and insightful videos about cycling after successful racing career, which included stints in top teams and notable performances in various competitions including the Olympics. Matt transitioned to the media side of the sport. He quickly became a beloved figure in the cycling community through his work with platforms like GCN Global Cycling Network and Sigma Sports, where he shared expert analysis, bike reviews, and cycling tips with his approachable style, a mix of humor and deep knowledge of the sport. Matt has established himself as one of the most influential voices in the cycling world. Now I'm excited to get into this episode, but before that, I want to take a moment to thank our sponsor. Plus, for the support of the Bike to Bites podcast, when your tomorrows are built on technology, you need to partner with superior insight, with expertise in cutting edge innovation across ai, cloud security and workplace transformation. E plus is on the front line of today's modern enterprise e plus where technology means more. Without further ado, I want to welcome our guests to the studio, to our podcast Matt Stevens. Matt, I can't thank you enough for joining us today. Garrett. It's an absolute pleasure. We talked about this near a vineyard, I think in France back in beautiful June when we were on a ride with Greg Lamond and a bunch of other people. And here we are finally, our paths have crossed, but it's taken, we're both busy men, aren't we? We're both busy men. It's the festive season, but we're in, can I use the word festive? Well, we're over the perineum now, aren't we? In between Christmas and New Year, but there's an extra little perineum because it's my birthday tomorrow. But no, lovely to speak to you mate. Lovely to speak to. You. Oh, happy birthday in advance of tomorrow. So exciting. Thank. You. I've been so looking forward to doing this interview with you. You have had a pretty illustrious career and I think I've watched a lot of video of you on YouTube. I've done a lot of research on you and I think in many of the interviews that I've seen that you've actually done, we learn a little bit more about yourself and every one of those cafe rides that you do, I learn a little bit more about you. It comes out in little nuggets. And so what I thought, because you're making in the Cafe rides, it's all about the subject matter that the person that you're interviewing, But yet you do get a little pieces of Matt that come out in those interviews, which I think are just beautiful and fun to fun tidbits that I pick up along the way. So I want to dive a little deep into who is Matt Stevens, right? Because I think people know you through the various roles in which you've kind of been part of IE as a pro cyclist when you as a commentator, sports journalist. So I'd like to have you take us back at the beginning of your career in cycling and before cycling because you weren't always, you started cycling I think in your teens. Some people started earlier than that. So walk me back a little bit about your past and what led you to ultimately the path that you currently are on. We've all got different stories to tell, haven't we? And my trajectory through being a kid through cycling and then through to doing what I'm doing now and being professional cyclist isn't particularly orthodox in what you'd expect. And I know from our previous conversations that you do know a little bit about me and there's a lot of stuff out there now because I really enjoy taking people through my own little personal journey from time to time. It's a lot of fun because it's given me so much. But in a nutshell, otherwise we might need another separate podcast, a it'll bolt on. Could be a couple of chapters. It might be a couple of chapters. And I'm turning 55 in 24 hours, so there's a lot to get through. But essentially I've come, I was born into a pretty sport mad family really. My mom was as well as being a teaching assistant. She was really mad on keep fit. We're talking about the Jane Fonda days of leotards and leg warmers in the 1980s. Well, I'm a contemporary of yours, so. I can relate. To that reference. Yes. So we're talking about that. My mom was looked after herself and then my dad at the time was, well, he joined the police force in 1968 I think it was, from being in the armed forces. So he was always around, surrounded, well, always into sport. He played rugby, he ran, he was a very, very keen cyclist, which we'll get onto a bit. He was a boxer. He also played football, so he just loved sport and was always out and about keeping fit. And so as a kid at school, I really enjoyed sport as well. I wasn't particularly academic. I was a bit of a joker, one of those weird kids that hung around with I guess the American equivalent of the jocks. But also I hung around the kids who liked movies and music and stuff as well. I flitted in between because I was pretty fit. But I also, I loved movies. That was my big thing as a kid. Comic books and movies was what I was into. But I was also into keeping fit, a bit of a strange combination. I had a very, initially, quite a myopic view of what life would be. I thought that I would be a professional footballer, not an American footballer, a soccer player by virtue of not understanding particularly well how many people made up the population of the United Kingdom. I thought there'd be just a few thousand people. And because the amount of football clubs and I was okay at football, I'd just fall into the life of a professional cyclist. This is when I'm like 10 or 11. So I thought life as a professional athlete was what I was going to do. Ultimately, it wasn't football because I was a very average player, but I became pretty good at cross country, running at school, running on the track, 800 meters, 1500 meters. But when I was about 15 or 14 or 15, I had an injury. And it's a very common injury amongst teenagers who athletics or football, it's called Osgood Splatters. It's not a disease. It's a condition where you are basically putting a lot of pressure and impact on the bones and you're trying to grow at the same time. And it doesn't actually cause any damage, but what it causes is acute pain. So as was in acute pain, when I was running and I was playing football and I rode my bike to running club and my dad said, and the doctor said, well, I advise you stop playing football and running because you're going to be in a lot of pain. Why don't you do something else? And my dad quite simply said, why don't you ride your bike and join a club? My dad had been into cycling and I was surrounded by cycling magazines at home. My dad had several bikes. He raced quite keenly on a domestic level as well as being in the police. And so I joined a local cycling team, of which I'm still a life member, Hemel Hempstead Cycling Club just for fans of geography. It's a little place just north of London in a county called Hartford Cheer. So half an hour train journey and you'd right in the center of the big smoke. That's where I kind of grew up. So I joined this club and quite quickly got bitten by the bug, meant met a lot of friends and we're talking about 19 85, 86 now, a lot of friends enjoyed going out and club runs. There was a lovely community atmosphere within the club. So you're 15, 16 years old at this point? Yeah, 15, 16. And cycling in terms of on the international stage, I wasn't really into it, but it had just by a process of osmosis had just, I'd absorbed it like a sponge. I was aware of the tour of France, the classics and stuff. It was all my dad ever talked and there was his magazines lying around Winning magazine, which was lying around a really glossy French magazine called International Cycling. Sport was all color. And that was a cool magazine that I looked at. And I remember being impressed by the fact my dad could look at a picture of a Peloton and name nearly all the riders just by their style on the bike and their head shape and stuff. I was like, how the hell does he do this? That's impressive. Anyway, fast forward to 1986 and my dad said, you're fancy coming to see the Tour de France. We'll drive down in our little Citron and we'll go to the Alps and we'll watch a couple of stages. And I said, okay. So we drove down the car, kept breaking down on the way down, kept overheating. It was a really cheap car. My sister refused to be picked up from school in it because it was such a disgrace. So she had to be dropped off around the corner, that kind of vibe. But my dad was like, he loved that. He liked the fact that he drove around a really crappy car. It's funny, I'm just going to interrupt you right there, because rewind my life. 16 years old, 17 years old, first car that I ever had. My brother was working in New York and needed to be driven to the train station every day. And his deal with me was, I'll buy you a car, but the deal is you have to get up every morning before you go to school and you got to take me to the train station and you got to pick me up at night. And then after that, the car is yours and he buys me this clunker. It was a 1970 something Chevy Tte, and it had no floor on the passenger side. Literally you could see the road from, was that legal? Was that. Legal? It wasn't illegal at all. And when I would pull into the parking lot of my high school, they used to call me Fred Flintstone because the car bottom. And eventually I put a plate, but it was a car that I was embarrassed sometimes to be seen in. And I would imagine that if I drove my daughter around in a car like that, she would never get in. Yeah, that's really good. I'm glad you totally get it. We used to call it the Tin Can. It was an old Reno four, quite collectible actually. I've recently posted a picture on Instagram from 1987, and that car is in the background so you can see it. I'm there in my Hem Hempstead kit at the start of a time trial. And my dad's car is there in the background if you're interested. I'm going to go check it out. Check it out, check it out, mate. It's just the outline. It's brown, it's awesome. Anyway, so we got to the Tour de France, and in a nutshell, the experience for me was just amazing. Riding my bike with my dad in the Alps, riding up the cold de gliber, the cold de grandon, the Tomay, those iconic climbs that all of us are familiar with in the world of cycling. But to see them for the first time as a kid was mind blowing. And then to see the riders of the Tort de France racing up them was even more incredible. And on the day, the famous battle in the 86 tour when Greg Lamond ended up winning, didn't he? The famous battle with his teammate Bernard Hino. I was on the slopes of outdoors when those two rode by. And again, I recently spent some time with my dad at Ruler Live where unfortunately we didn't manage to meet up, did we? But, and my dad brought a photo album that I'd not seen for 30 years, including a picture that I took of Eno and Lemon on Outdoors, Which again, I just recently posted on Instagram. So check it out because it's about to have really good photo. Did you share that with Greg? I couldn't. I, I had a quick chat with Greg, but I didn't manage to do it unfortunately. But next time I see him, which I hopefully will be in the next year or so, I will share it with him. But I didn't have the chance. He was just what Greg's like, he's magnetic. He was surrounded by people. I just couldn't, I'd had I thought, oh, I need to show him this, but I just couldn't. And he was whisked off. I just spoke to him a couple of weeks ago, send it to me. I'd love to see it. I would love to see. It. I will do. I will do. It's just a scan of it. I've obviously scanned it, but I will post you that. But that picture and those memories, and I remember thinking at the time, this is what I want to do. And I could say I was 16, I thought, I want to ride my bike as a pro. I want to do the Tour de France. And I never did get to ride the Tour de France, but I did get to ride a lot of big races, represent my country, the Olympics, world Championships, Commonwealth Games. Became, I like the way that you just downplay that under your breath, represent my country under the No. But you were an Olympian. My friend. I was only six years after that. Pretty amazing. The side of the road. But that was the turning point. So from then on to 1986, I think I did actually race that year unsuccessfully. I was quite underdeveloped as a kid. I went through puberty quite late. So I wasn't particularly strong until I was 17. So 14, 15, 16, I was quite short. But anyway, 17, I guess I kind of bloomed a bit and won some big races in 1987 and 1988 on a domestic level. And then in 1989 rode the world championships for the first time in Bury where on the pros, which I watched on the day after the amateur race, Greg Lamond won again. So there's this constant theme of Greg Lamond in terms of where I am. He remains an inspiration to me. He really does. And I know that you are immensely fond of that chap as well. He is an absolute hero. Amazing. An amazing guy. So he's been one of the most, as well as my father and one or two other people, somebody that's inspired me, just the way he conducts himself on the bike and off it. But then I thought, well, I really want to pursue a career as a professional cyclist. And in 1990 through a contact and through a friend and a man that you'll know Paul Schoen, who sadly is no longer with us, the famous commentator, former British champion, he got me in contact with a team called A CBB based in Paris, in France, athletic Club, Belo and Bian Corps located just to the southwest of Paris. So I went there for three years with a name to turn professional. I won three big races, one every year. And in 92, as we've touched on, I rode the Olympics and the team in 1993 was going to turn from an amateur team to a professional team at the time when the amateur class in cycling changed into the elite class basically. And I was due to term Pro in 1993, but during the winter, the off season, one of the big sponsors pulled out and I was left without a team. So I went back home, I got married, I got a full-time job, a well-known supermarket in the uk, but I still believed that I would be able to turn professional. So I worked a full-time job for the next seven years and rode domestically very, I was one of the best riders in the country for four or five years. And then in 1985, I finished in the top 10 of the world championships, got contacted by the US Postal Service team who wanted to sign me. And again, the guy that a famous coach called Eddie bvi, who a lot of your listeners will know, he then left the team in the winter. And this is before emails and stuff. And all I had was an office phone number and that all fell away. So I was beginning to think this is the kind of end now I'm 26, 27, another couple of years passed. I ended up winning the British Championships, still working full-time, beating some of the professionals, well, all our pros at the time. And then in 1999 I got Sier with the Linda McCartney British team, I guess the equivalent then of Team Sky. Now, I mean a far smaller setup, but they were the biggest team we had since the 1980s. Got a gig with those impressed in my stasia, half a season with them up in Canada. And then I turned pro in 2000 at the age of 30, quit my full-time job and then had a one year career because in 2001, the team folded and I was left without a job, without any money. I was broke, I was claiming social security. Went to work at supermarket. Supermarket, again, fell out of love with the bike, couldn't pay the bills, couldn't pay the mortgage. Was that, just stop for one second, take a beat, because that's interesting. Was that a moment where you were kind of at a bottom for you? Yeah, because that year in 2000, we were essentially riding the equivalent now of the world tour. So we rode by the J Italian and all the races leading up to that, to Roy, et cetera, tore down under which I finished into the top 10. So I was actually a pretty decent rider having worked full-time for my pretty much the previous seven years and was quite mature. But I had a contract for 2001, which I signed just after the Giro, but unfortunately the team folded in the winter and I was at a very low air. I remember we had a team launch, a few of your listeners will be aware of this. This is in the public domain, but we had a team launch, but the guy that ran the team didn't turn up, sent a fax to Sean Yates, another man that you know very well, who was my director, sportif at the time. Bradley Wiggins was there. He was a member of our team as well. And he said, the team isn't going to happen. So it was like a punch in the stomach. And I remember, I can still remember the feeling now, it was if my whole world had dropped away, I had no way of supporting my family. I'd been on a, had reasonable living wage the previous year, but it was just month to month. I wasn't a wealthy person. But my son had just been born Josh, and he'd been born very premature. So that was very stressful. So yeah, I was a lot going on there. I didn't touch my bike for nearly a month. I just fell out of love with it and I just had to get a job. So I worked in a supermarket and eventually I needed to ride my bike for my own mental health. I wasn't in a great spot, but it wasn't awful, but it was bad. I've been in worse spots. But that was a particularly low point in my life, but fell back in love with the bike by just riding it and getting my head in a good place. And by coincidence, the press officer of the Linda McCartney team also worked part-time at Sigma Sports and said, do you want to ride for their shop team just to get your mojo back? So I did that. Met one of my best friends now Ian, who was the CEO of Sigma and was wonderful. He said, what do you want? And I'll give you the numbers. It is the equivalent of 5,000 bucks for a year. Okay, this is while I was working as well, but just to pay my expenses, which is about 3000 pounds back then. And he had this tiny little office in London where the shop just near where the shop is now. And he opened this safe and he got 1500 pounds out in cash and gave me it, which meant I could pay the mortgage for three months. And I'll never forget that moment. He's the best man at mine. And Holly's wedding 15 years later, 17 years later, because of the trust that he showed me. And then I thought, what am I going to do? So I raced and I thought, well, I don't want to with respect work in the supermarket for the rest of my life. I've done that previously, but what am I going to do? So I spoke to a friend over a cup of tea, very British thing to do out on a club ride. And he said, have you thought about joining the police? And my dad was a police officer. And I said, no, never. I never wanted to be a police officer. What year are we talking about now? 2001. This is 2001. So I'm 31 years of age 2001. So I applied to join the police. I hadn't been to University College, I'd left school quite early and all of my career had been sport-based and essentially a vocational one. But I joined the police, got in through quite a rigorous application process then living, which is Cheshire, which is up in the northwest of England, not too far from Liverpool, Manchester, that kind of neck of the woods, just for again, fans of geography near North Wales. So you can picture it, joined the police, got in, and then for the next 12 years approximately was a full-time police officer, which, so all through my thirties into my forties, I was a copper as we say. And then in 2001, halfway through 2001, I started to race again quite successfully, won some big races in the UK and found an equilibrium between working full-time as a police officer riding for enjoyment, but also for a few pounds. And then ultimately setting up the Sigma Sports Pro to the UCI team as well through the two thousands. And then coming towards 2009, 2010, we basically had set an objective, me and me and Ian, the CEO of Sigma at the time to ride the tour of Britain, which we did. So we had a UCI team, of which I was the direct sportif. I was like player manager and a full-time police officer. So we did the tour of Britain on a couple of times and then the TV stuff started to come around. The race was on television, and I was interviewed a few times and one of the producers said, do you want to do a couple more interviews and give us a course preview because you come across really well? I was like, okay. So I did. And that led to a permanent pundit gig on the tour of Britain and also on a series of city center race. These now the criterium that we had in the UK at the time, a good friend Mick Bennett who ran that series, set that up. So again, I was racing managing a team and then doing a bit of TV work, and it was becoming my life. I was burning the candle at both ends, and then I got a call and then I thought, well, I really, really like this. I'm really enjoying it, but I can't. And I had a word with one of my friends in the police who was actually a very senior officer who I used to go on my bike with. He lived around the corner and he was the second in command of Cheshire police, lovely guy called Phil. And he said, look, Matt, you need to make a decision here because I'm not saying it's impacting your work, but you've got a massive opportunity and you continue to do both. And he said, we'll support you if you want to do the other thing. So I made a decision to leave the police and pursue a media career, and I didn't really know how I was going to do it. I'd already done a bit of after dinner speaking, I'd sent my CV off to Eurosport, but I hadn't got a reply yet, and then had heard about this GCM project that was happening. So I thought, well, I've just got to go all in here. My wife was exceptionally supportive. Holly was like, well, what's the worst that can happen? You'd always get a job. We'll always be able work. We we're pretty capable people. And her saying to me, what's the worst could happen? Just put into, I just framed it beautiful. It's like, yeah, what is the worst that's going to happen? I'd already reset 10, 12 years earlier when I'd lost everything, when not lost everything, but lost my professional cycling career. So I reset again at 43 years of age just after London Olympics, and here I'm now another 11 years further on and I've managed to carve out this very idiosyncratic career. Well. I have to say, I have to say, I mean, what a history, and I'm going to go back to a couple of things along your story that I want to go back to. But I have to say in terms of where you are now and what you are doing as a commentator, as a journalist, sports journalist, you're really good at it. And I'm not just saying that because you're on the other end of this podcast interview that we're doing. You're really good at it, you're empathetic, you're compassionate, you are a great listener, which I think is the key to any great interview is to be a better listener than a talker. And I'll talk about that in a second in the context of where maybe we talk a little bit about Bike to Bites, I'll share with you a comment that was made to me about that show, but I want to go back for a second. I find it really interesting. I myself had a pretty interesting trajectory and one of the things that you said in what you just told me in terms of your story really resonated with me. And that was when Ian from Sigma stepped up and took cash out of a safe and gave it to you and took the pressure off. And I think that was a pivotal moment for you in that it allowed you to thrive. And I can relate it back to one of my own personal experiences, and I've had a couple of those situations. I've been fortunate enough, and I say fortunate, I think even though in the moment you're at rock bottom, you're feeling like, oh my gosh, I don't know how I'm going to get through this. Fortunate enough to be able to have somebody step up, step in. And I was working my first moment that that happened to me in my life, I was working, I put myself through college, a university in Boston, Massachusetts. I went to Emerson College. It was very, very difficult, very expensive school. I was working five jobs while I was in college and full load of classes and managed to also get an internship, I think it was my sophomore year of university was able to get, which is second year, which was I was able to get this internship at an ad agency. I wanted to produce commercials. That's what I wanted to do. That's why I was going to school and I'm working the internship, working my five jobs. The internship was unpaid, doing my full class load and it still wasn't enough. I was always running behind in terms of being able to pay the university. I literally would go into student accounts with pockets filled with cash and pay the student accounts director what I could. And he was very kind in that he allowed me to continue to stay registered in my classes and go to school, even though technically he probably should have said, you can't take classes right now until your bill is paid. But I guess he liked me and I was very fortunate, but there was a moment where the gap became too big and I had owed the university like $2,600. Now we're talking at this point, it's 19 86, 80. It's a lot. Of money. That's a lot of money. And I am feeling like I'm going to have to drop out of college for a little while, take a break, regroup, make some money, and then I'll get myself back in and pick myself back up. Well, the guy that was running the ad agency, he had owned his own ad agency and he sold it to this bigger ad agency in Boston. A guy by the name of Jack Rothchild, I'll never forget him. He hears through the person that I'm interning for that college. And he gets very upset by it. And I get called into his office the next day not knowing why I'm being called into his office. So I'm thinking, oh my gosh, did I do something wrong? I was was a pretty jokester just like you and thought maybe I said something that I shouldn't have said to the wrong person. But he calls me into his office and he goes, what's this? I hear that you're dropping out of college. And I was very angry at my account executive who had basically shared what I confided in him to this guy and what I confided in him to hopefully keep a secret and not say anything. But he had told the head boss that Garrett, our intern is going to out of Jack, really liked me, calls me into his office, and he goes, what's this? I hear that you're dropping out of college. And I go, well, Jack, I am not dropping out. I'm taking a hiatus. I'm going to take a beat and regroup. And he goes, well, what do you owe the university? And I told him, I owe like 20, 26, 20 $800, something like that. And he goes, he takes his checkbook out of his drawer and he writes me a check for $2,800 and he gives it to me and I go, I can't take that from you. He goes, well, I just hold onto the check. He goes, please, I want you to take this, go pay the university. You're not dropping out of college because the moment you drop out of college, Garrett is the moment you will not go back. I am telling you. So he goes, I really don't want you to do that. So I take the check home and I'm really perplexed and torn about what do I do? It was like a moral dilemma that I was having about That's a stranger and my life who's coming up and doing this for me and thought about it the next day. And I hand him the check back and I go, here's the check check. I can't, I can't. As kind as your gesture was, I just can't do it. I can't take this money from you. He goes, well go, it's, he goes, it's a loan. I go, if it's a loan, where's the loan document? This isn't a loan. You're giving me a check. He takes a piece of paper out of his drawer, he puts it on his desk. I Garrett, best promise to pay Jack Rothchild back $2,800 when I can. And he hands it to me and he goes, sign it. And I sign it and he goes, now take the check. Go pay the school. I'll see you back at work tomorrow. And when I finished college, I graduated one of the first people that I paid back was him. But had that gone a different way, my life would've gone a very different way. And I think you can relate to that because hearing your story about Ian and what he did for you in that moment changed the course of your life. Yeah. It's a strike. I've mentioned it a couple of times and the thing is, when I mentioned it to Ian, I get quite emotional about it. And you've had a beer or something, and I don't catch up with him as much as I'd like because both very busy, but when we do, it's a lot of fun. He's a great guy. You might have actually bumped into him. He's been on a lot of the LeBlanc events. He loves those and obviously Sigma or a partner for a while. But yeah, so it was, that day was the first time we'd ever met. And he obviously knew about my career as a writer. Relatively a stranger. But we'd never met. We'd been introduced and it was like, well just sit down and let's see what we could do. But then we're still friends now. And so that was from the race team and who would've thought that we're now 15 years later, aren't we, that I'd be still working for him in a completely different capacity, but helping the brand or the company that him and his best friend set up in 1989 to succeed. And it, it's pretty amazing. The more I think about it, it's a. Great story. The first person actually to highlight it, people have listened, but they've never really highlighted it like that. But it was pivotal and also importantly as well as I'd already joined the police for that. It was happening, but it enabled me to do what I love, which is ride a bike and riding a bike in a team isn't a cheap thing to do. And I was all ready to just quit it and just do something different, but I didn't. And he gave me that opportunity to just enjoy cycling and to get my head straight to look after my family, and then the rest just falls into place. So it was a big step, but to give me half of my payment upfront in cash was just blew my mind. I didn't expect that a lovely, generous, important thing for him to have done and hence him still being a very important part of my life and hence him being the best man at my wedding. He looks very much like George Michael as well. He looks like a chief. I. Have met him. You met him? I have met him. Yes. Cool. Anyway, less about Ian, but no, an and important moment in my life. You're quite right. And so I want, in the story that you were sharing, you kind of glossed over the fact that you were an Olympian. I want to go back to that. Your first Olympics, well, your only Olympics, right? I want to ask you were you had the Olympics amazing accomplishment. Talk to me about that experience. Then four years later, I were you trying to make the team again and you didn't make the team? What happened during that period of time? Yeah, so basically I qualified the Olympics in the end of 1991. Well, a shortlist, and back then our Olympic team was only three, the biggest team was three. So competition to get in the squad was really hot, but I was racing internationally. I'd had some wins, as I said in France at the high level, but going to the games as a 22-year-old was just an incredible experience. My dad came down, he actually, he rode his bike from London to Barcelona through France and Spain. He rode his bike the entire distance, didn't book any accommodation. To come see you. Ended up ending up sleeping on the floor of one of the Brit team, the GB team swan years. But anyway, that was an amazing experience because in the Olympic Village, you are rubbing shoulders with not just people in your own sport, of course, people from your other sport and from other sports. And I remember sitting down for breakfast day next to Boris Becker for example, and I was like. Wow. It was just mind blowing because I'd been into all sorts of sports as a young man, and I was fully aware of it when there was less options on tv, but there's a lot of athletics on, just the whole Olympic experience was mind blowing. Unfortunately, I crashed in the final kilometer, but I'd been away in a breakaway. I've still got a video cassette up in my loft. I need to digitize it. But on Eurosport with my little name, I was riding really strongly and figured in the race that the very sharp end, but got involved in a crash near the end, I wasn't injured. But the whole Olympic experience, to answer your question, was an amazing one. And then we came through like 93, 94. I was racing at the highest level still, although I was still based at home working, but I kind of found that balance. And then 1996 or the end of 95, 19 95 came around and it was when the professional and the amateur classes merged, as I said before. So for the 1996 Olympics like 1992, we had professional tennis players. 1996 we had professional golfers. So basically a lot of the sports that were defined by pros and amateurs had merged, and cycling was one of those. So it was basically elite. So there was professional cyclists for the first time were in the Olympic Games, so I was up against it with some of our pros. But in 1995 at the World Championships in just outside boar in Columbia, we had to qualify one rider in the top 20 countries, and I finished until the top 10. That was what got me that, well, the supposed gig at us post it was my climbing pross on a very hilly course. None of the other British riders finished, and I qualified the whole of our cycling team for the input games in Atlanta, but I didn't get picked the following year, which was very disappointing. So. Is that a let down for you? Yeah, it was a big letdown. So I was basically disappointed, but that was the decision that was made at the time. I had to abide by it, and we did have some good pros that went instead, but I still think I should have gone, and I think I would've been more than capable of handling the course and the terrain. Although Max Keandre, who three, four years later was a teammate of mine, did manage to get, I think it was a bronze medal. Chris Baldman got silver in the time trial. Max Keandre got bronze in the road race, but had it not for my ride in Columbia, we wouldn't have had a team. So that was the big significant play. Was this the same Columbia ride in which the toilet incident occurred. Or a different period of time? No, there was the toilet incident. The toilet incident. I mean, I think that might be a separate podcast, but there's two toilet incidents. One was in 1997 on the course and one was at somebody's house in. Columbia. Oh, I love watching the interview about but we'll talk about that. That's another. I think we might go too far off tangent. We would. Go too far off. I agree. So more reason for people to come back and hear our next time that we get together on podcast, we. Can do a deeper dive on that sort of stuff if you so wish. Gary, very funny, very funny. I was really disappointed, but all that did was fuel my desire. So that was 96. I was still technically an amateur rider, and the British scene at that point wasn't particularly good in terms of teams. So I was scrubbing around for a ride. Well, although I was one of the best riders, there was just no teams knocking about. So it was a difficult period domestically. But in 1998, there were a new team formed called Herod's, the big department store in London, And I ended up riding for that team, and that's the year in 1998 that I ended up winning the British Championships and got that beautiful jersey and that then led to the contract with Lyndon McCartney the following year. So the disappointment of missing out on a contract in 1995, the disappointment on missing out on a place in the Olympics again in 96. All it did, and I think I've always been doing that or able not good at doing it, able to do it, I think is a word you're not good at. You're just able to absorb and turn around that negativity and that disappointment. What I did have and what I still do have is a very strong self-belief in what I'm capable of. Not so much physically now, but more cerebrally now. But when I was a kid in my twenties and I look back and I was a kid, I was physically blessed, and I knew that I was good enough to ride at the world tall level, and I did. I ultimately, and I'm quite proud of that belief that I had through that very difficult period to find a get on the start ramp of a grand tour riding with the likes of Chipi and Pantani in 2000 was not exactly a redemption, but it was just affirmation of my own belief that started off in 1986. Yeah, it's what an amazing trajectory of a career because I think if you look at someone's career, it's all about building blocks. One chapter leads to the next chapter, and eventually you end up having this whole book. You had a quote on one of your interviews that I'm going to read you, and it said, none of us are ever the finished article. I stand by that. Yeah, what you ever do if you want to succeed, you just have to keep trying and make sure you don't, don't rest on your laurels or take anything for granted. You said that in an interview and I thought, wow, that's just pretty amazing. What a great mantra for how to live your life. Yeah, I think it's very easy to become complacent, I think, and what I've learned as well, because I'm quite interested in business and economies and stuff like that, I've become quite interested since lockdown in a lot of other things in life. And complacency is something that you've got to be really aware of, I think especially in a very fast moving industry, especially the industry that both you and I occupy slightly differently, but there's a big overlap with the cycling side of things And our interest in travel and food and enjoying yourself, let's say the early autumn, late summer of our lives, let's put it that way, the finer things sometimes. But I think that we've earned. But I think, yeah, the moment you think you've learned it all is the moment you kind of accepting defeat, really where you waving the white flag. We are always, I think learning new things is the older I get, the more enjoyment I get out of learning, which it's like, who was it that said that? The famous poet that said Youth is wasted on the young. It kind of is in many ways, and there are a lot of very capable young people who are acutely aware of how beautiful education is, but it's only in later life because of my slightly lassez fair attitude to school that I'm realizing that education is massively important and self-education. So learning stuff and being inspired by others, being inspired by culture. I love that quote that you said, and I love it so much that I'm actually going to type this out and I'm going to put this on my board in my, because I love this first part of your quote, which is none of us are ever the finished article. That's a powerful statement. That means that we are always forever continuing to write our story. Everything we do, and again, it's only a little bit later in life that I've realized it. We do it every single experience, everything that we experience, every conversation that we have every day is different and throws up sometimes quite difficult things for us to make a call on. Other things are far more nuanced and subtle that we don't even, that's part of being human. All these neurons are kind of firing. We are not the finished article. We are who we are, but we never stop learning and experiencing new things. And when you become aware of that without getting overly profound and borderline existential and awareness of self and an awareness of the importance of learning and new experiences is what keeps us alive. It's what fundamentally makes us human. The human experiences is basically socially interacting and learning, discovering, solving problems. That's what we're all about. Which is, if I read that quote and I process, it kind of lends weight to the argument about why you chose the direction you chose when given the choice of staying with GCN or not staying with GCN. And I think there's been lots that you've interviewed and you've talked about the relationship with GCN, you did a whole video on why it was time for you to move on, but I think you were faced with a choice in that offer that was presented to you about sticking to one thing or filling my life with all of the things that I love to continue to do, which leads to that weight of that argument about we're never the finished article. If we're the finished article, then I'll just plant myself here and this is what I'll do and I am done. But in your case, you felt like you had a lot more that you wanted to do a lot of things that were continually of interest to you. And so the G CN decision didn't kind of fill the mantra, if you will, of we're never the finished article because. Yeah, but to a degree, yeah, I accept that. I think it was, the thing is the caveat to that, it's not even a caveat, it's just a reminder to folks listening to this pod who maybe hadn't listened to that previous interview, was that I'd kind of come to the end of the road there. Got a lot of, still got a lot of friendships there, of course, a great bunch of people. Actually, I overlapped recently when I was down in Spain doing the SW Academy with those guys, and it was great to see Dan Lloyd, so I owe GSN a lot for, and it came to the point where I did need to make another call, and also I was at a different part of my life. Sorry, Holly's just come in from a little stroll. Okay, so excuse me. This is a live environment, everybody. We've got a little alarm system that confirmed Holly's arrival. You're right, Holly, I'm just still on the pod. She's fine. Thank you. So, no, yeah, there's several reasons. I wanted to continue to be creatively inspired and also make my own decisions, and that was becoming something that was happening more infrequently at GCN because of the beast. It had become this massively successful commercial success. And I felt that I got to the point where I needed a bit of a change. And also there were opportunities outside of GCN that I wanted to explore that I couldn't have done in staying and cards on the table as well. There were economic reasons too. I felt that there was far more stability in actually taking a bit of a risk and doing it on my own and that risk appetite for risk, not reckless risk, but that kind of weighing up options, looking at asymmetric bets and stuff in your head and looking at, I quite like that process about taking on a little bit of risk, and that element of risk that you have in the pit of your stomach just drives you. And without a tiny, I mean, risk extends to going out on a bike ride. Now that little bit of risk in our lives is what inspires us, I think. So I needed something. I needed a bit of a refresh, and I needed to do some things that I wanted to do that inspired me, but I owe a lot still to gci. I just needs to do something else, of. Course. But I think I look at what you've done now since you've done so many amazing things. You're commentating for eurosport, you're doing live events, you're doing the cafe rides with Sigma. I think all of those things that you're doing are filling your dance card with a wealth of creative inspiration. I'm one of those people. If I was put into a corner to do just one thing, I don't think I'd be happy. You know what I mean? I think I derive happiness from the versatility, the variety of what's in my life in terms of the types of things that I'm involved in. And I think that, and when you do that, I think it comes out, you can see it, right? I watch you in these cafe rides. They're amazing. And I want to talk about them in a second, in a deeper dive because I really feel like I get to know Matt in those cafe rides. You know what I mean? I got to know Matt on the bus in France while we were going from one place to the next. That was probably the funniest standup comedy act that I've ever been to in my adult life. And it was on a bus that we were going from the hotel to voco for a dinner, and you were on the bus as the onboard entertainment. Hysterical, absolutely hysterical. Do you know what? I hadn't thought about that since it happened. Thank you for reminding me of that, Garrett. Very kind of you. It was awesome. But yeah, no, yeah, I can be myself and I, I've got very much like you said there. I don't think the kind of nine to five is for me now. And also I'm at stage of life where I really enjoy making my own decisions. And the responsibility in that is a massive motivator as well. So it's a privilege as well. So when you mentioned the quote earlier on about not resting on your laurels, it's like constantly reminding yourself, there's a lot of people that would love to do what you or I both do as a police car going by what you and I both do. So every now and again, just gently reminding yourself, although I completely deserve where I've got, because I've worked really hard and I've made some quite difficult decisions. But also the flip side is don't forget where you came from. And I think that's quite a simple thing to every now and again, remind yourself of, especially when you might look at something and think, oh, this is a bit of a drag. And then think, no, this isn't a drag. Think what you could be doing or what other people are doing. There is a drag. A lot of life is monotonous, and we need to earn a living. And sometimes that isn't overly pleasant. So every now and again, I take a rain check and it's like, Matt, this isn't on a long transfer. In the Tour de France, I thought, oh, this is a drag. So Matt, you're on the Tour de France. It's just a drive or travel. I'm in an airport, the plane's delayed by half an hour. Matt, you're traveling to a beautiful place to do some really fun work. So I'm straight on it. This other little mat is like, no, I'm the same way, Matt, don't you ever complain. I'm the same way. It's funny, I spent 30 years behind the camera, and when I got in front of the camera with Bike to Bites, I never, for one second take for granted the privilege, the privilege that I have to be able to do something that I love and have it be something that I can derive a livelihood from. But it's not the only thing I derive a livelihood from, but I'm not doing it for that reason, right? I'm doing it because I love doing it. And I was able to, I never forget. I never forget about the other side being on the other side of the camera. I'm always appreciative of the fact that this is a gift. The fact that I can ride my bike, meet all these unbelievable people and make it about the journey that I'm getting, getting to go on and share that with people that are interested in hearing it. And it's funny, I told you I was going to reference back to Bike to Bites for a second before we get into Cafe Ride. When we first piloted that show, our show Bike To Bites, I remember sending it off to two former network executives of mine. One of 'em was at Food Network, one of'em was at Travel Channel here in the us, and they both had a similar reaction to watching it. I wasn't originally supposed to host that show. I just did it as a proof of concept with the idea of like, I'm going to do the show. I'm going to prove out the concept, and if I can sell it to a network, then we'll find somebody like you, Matt, to come and host it, and then I'll just produce it. And I ended up getting in front of the camera, just, it was in my head and I needed to get it out of my head. And we did that. And the reaction from both executives was the same. Oh my God, dude, I had no idea you were hosting this show. And I was like, no, no, no. It's just proof of concept that are like, no, no, no. My former network executive from Food Network turns to me and she says to me, I don't want you to take this the wrong way. And I'm like, oh, no. I go, okay. She goes, no, no, just hear me out for a second. She goes, I watch this and sometimes I almost forget that you're there. And I go, oh. She goes, no, no, no, no. It's a good thing. She goes, because you make it about all of the people that you're meeting along the way, and not about yourself as a host or as a celebrity chef or whatever. You're making it about making the subject matter be the star. And that's refreshing because in a lot of television these days, that doesn't happen or video, it doesn't happen. A celebrity or a host is making very much part of the fabric of what it is and is not afraid to tell you that. Not in every instance, but in a lot of instances. And I thought about it for a second, and what she thought she was caching as a potential, I thought was maybe going to be a criticism, actually was one of the biggest compliments, somebody that could have ever given me. And what it reminded me of is that this is all about feeling like I'm very blessed and very fortunate, and I want to share other people's stories about what they're doing and the greatness that they are creating for their communities. That was the whole point of wanting to do it and not ever forgetting where you come from and making it about everybody else. And the reason I told this story just now is because I think there's a parallel to what you do in the Cafe Ride series that you do. I watched quite a few of them. I've watched quite of them. And Matt, my gosh, I mean, first of all, I love the fact that you love food as much as I do. And that could be a whole nother show, but I watch your interviews with these people and you truly make it about them, I have to say. Talk to me a little bit about this series, the inspiration behind the series. You've had unbelievable guests that you've ridden with on this series. I have so many questions about the making of the series because I think there's some interesting things that you guys do from a production standpoint and being a producer, it's just I can appreciate some of the techniques that are implemented in creating creating because it's really very, very compelling content. What was the genesis of the Cafe Ride series? How did it come about? And then I want to go a little bit deeper into, and then we'll wind down, but I want to go a little bit deeper into some of these interviews that you've done because they've been amazing, absolutely amazing. No, it's very kind of you to speak to highly of the Cafe Ride. It's a series that I'm very proud of and that the team at Sigma and Ian of course is very proud of. But before I do, you sent me some links to watch Bikes to Bites, didn't you? And quite often when I do, I think I've done four pods this year as a guest, which I've really enjoyed. I don't do too many, but generally people will always send me a link to a previous pod and I'll watch just a couple of minutes to get a sense of it. And so I made a bit of time this afternoon to watch what I was going to do is just watch several, three or four minute chunks out of your video. But I ended up watching pretty much the whole episode of the St. Louis one and I thought, shit, I started watching it. I thought I just didn't skip forward, I just kept watching it. And I said to Holly, she, what's that? We watched and I said, I'm on this PO with Garrett later and this is his series. And I said, I'm really enjoying it. And then I showed Holly one of the, I think it was the lady who baked the kind of french toast And then suddenly we both wanted to go and make lunch because we've seen all this stuff. But I've only watched one episode. But great. I love it. It's really lovely. It's really well done. And I can see why you might think there are parallels is because you let it breathe and you let the guests talk. It is about you, but it's about your journey. Interact with other people about making a difference in their community via food. So well done mate. I appreciate that. Definitely. It's really good. Sometimes. Can I ask you on this podcast if you'll come join me on season three for an episode in the States? Can I twist your arm? As long as the food's nearly as good as that. Yeah. Of course. It's a deal mate. Yeah. Awesome, awesome. Yeah. Well let's talk but well done mate. I shall start watching a few more episodes, but it's a really lovely take. And then I was looking on a Matt Western Louis is because I've got, wife's a really good geographical knowledge of the US all its presence. She loves the US and we come when we can, but then I wanted to know where it was. So that little half an hour, 45 minutes of watching that I really enjoyed. It's well done mate. Anyway, thank. You for that. Yeah, the cafe ride. So when I left GCN in 2018, I needed, and the Sigma Sport team had gone smaller and I'd left the Sigma Sports team when I joined GCN, although I'd kept in touch with Ian and the first person I rang up about me getting a bike was Ian spoke to Ian and said, look mate, I've left GCN, I'm going to be doing stuff for Eurosport. I'm going to be doing stuff for wt, I'm going to work for the Italians on the Giro and I've got a little portfolio of work, but how about, but I haven't got anybody to give me a bike. How about you give me a bike every now and again, couple of times a year and I do some social media and this is in 2018. And really the whole ambassador side of things was still only just taking shape. It was still in its nascency. YouTube was with G said, we were at the very start of that and that was established, but the whole ambassador thing wasn't really a thing. So I thought, let's do some stuff. So he said, okay, here's a deal. And so we decided to do a little introduction video about me rejoining Sigma Sports. So basically we shot it on one camera and it was me coming back to work and getting like a Sigma Sports fleece, having my own locker and then coming back to work at Sigma, like Matt, welcome back Matt after. So we did that. And then so I did a couple of bike review videos, but I don't really like doing bike reviews, so we just needed to do something a little bit different. One of the guys in it wasn't actually my idea, although I had wanted to do an interview based show. I did a show which I love the name of, called Chat Stevens for ruler. And we shot one episode and then ruler kind of without me funny under the different owners, didn't have any more money to make another one because it wasn't cheap relatively speaking. So Chat Stevens we did and I wanted to do something else and one of the guys in the shop called Jake, who's still with Sigma, works for the universal color side of it and also does works with me a lot on side projects when I sometimes work for different brands. He said, I've got, how about what you do interviews with famous cyclists and we go to a cafe and have a conversation. I thought that's a really good idea. And he said, and then we thought, what are we going to call it? He said, what about the cafe ride? Really easy? So we thought, okay, who are we going to get on as a guest? And so I think it was Alex Dous, it was our first guest, I can't quite remember. And we did. And so we came up with this idea that this simply was we go to the house of the person. The idea, the key ingredients we wanted was somebody sharing a ride with us. But it has to be super personal. So we kind of semi insist we go to the house. So it's quite imposing in many ways, which you don't really see in any other sorts of interviews that I'm aware of. Even outside of cycling, actually going to somebody's house, it's normally in a hotel or it's a junket or something, which is fine, but it can be. Slightly sterile. And they're so natural. Those moments like the one with Tare and the one with Adam. Oh. They're just funny. Well, that's the whole, I mean because got this character that he's been on ice for a while, Kenny, and I'm very into comedy as is my wife, as is my son. So making people laugh is something I've always liked to do, even as a commentator I can be quite irreverent, although I'm serious when I need to be. I do see the funny side and quite like I've got a lighter touch and also I'm just interested in people. And that goes back to my role in the police in the later years and the final six years as I've told you on a one-to-one basis was I worked in child protection and dealt with some very complicated dark cases in the police and I had to become quite good at communication and interviewing people. And I think that had been something that I was always good at, but I'd never really come to the surface and it did in the police and I was able to hone it in order to gather evidence and also get people's trust. So I found it easy to be around people and get things from people, not in a nasty way, just I could make people feel at ease. I found that was something I could do. And that then came across, I think in the cafe ride. So I'd always been good at interviews and I'd been interviewing in the cycling world for a long time, but this was a different level going to somebody's house, speaking to them. So there was no script. It was basically we'd give that person control. So the key to the series is is that they agree, of course, can we start at your house? I'd say 80% of the rides do start at somebody's house and there's one or two people that have just said, look, I really want my privacy. I really want to do this video, but can we not come to my house? And that's fine, we don't want to super imposed. The Andrew originally one, he was lovely, but said, guys, can we just start somewhere neutral? And I said, it's fine. That was a great one too. I love that one. So that was a lot of fun. That's done really, really well and he was marvelous. Yeah, and the reason we wanted to start at people's homes was to get them relaxed as well. So it wasn't like, oh my God, we're going to go to Adam Blythe's house and show you behind the scenes. No, these are just people's houses. It was just a starting point where they could be themselves, not take. So it was all about what I wanted and what the team wanted. So the team was Jake who a lad called Ewen who still works with us. Nile, who's a very important guy, who was a comedy writer who was a copywriter for Sigma and now is my podcast editor with a background in comedy and writing. And also Dan who, Dan Kogan, who basically heads up the digital team, does all the logistics and stuff like that. So it's a very tight little team. And I. Was going to say, how many people are actually out. Filming? So we will do, it's generally, so there's two camera guys now. We have a still photographer generally, so one other just for social media stuff really in publicizing it. And then depending on the shoot, we'll have a sound engineer and then a producer. So seven including me are six or seven. And then we have a moto driver. It's kind of like bike to bites. Yeah, it's minimal. We small minimum crew, but we do need two cameras. We have to have two cameras and sound editing as once we started to get the views that we're getting, it meant that we could just go a little bit higher on the production. We, I mean, three cameras would be great, but actually the bigger the production team. Gets more complicated. The more it becomes, I dunno, they're doing some an ad or something like that. I mean Taday was really complimentary, so he'd been with Netflix and not taking anything away from Netflix where they were obviously going to bring a massive crew along and it's quite invasive and it's nobody's fault. That's just the way those kind of operations work. It's borderline and movie kind of operation. There's. Something about the intimacy not only of your conversation, but of the footprint of the production team that I think that makes it much more accessible and feeling and relaxed. Right? Totally. So I think you definitely get that from watching these. No, no thank you. And that's what we try and do. And Nile for example, is we'll look at speaking to, sometimes we deal with agents increasingly we don't like to not taking anything away from the agents, but it's nice to deal directly with the man or the woman if we can. Sometimes we can't, but just so they're really clear and there's no agenda here. The only agenda is to share to people how much this person loved this bike ride and get to know. And I think what the aim is, people watching the cafe ride is like, you think this person, hopefully we are going to take you, we're going to share something quite intimate with 'em and you're going to get to know them like you've never known them before. And I can pretty much say that we've done that with every cafe ride. There's nothing quite like it out there in our own space, I don't think. And that's something we really care about. So there's a lot of work that goes on in making sure that firstly we can have that we've got good access if we can't get good access. And there's a little bit of resilience, there's a couple of the rise. We've just actually aborted, not midway through. We never feel it's just in the early stages. Do you know what this, Hey, it's not going to work. There needs to be a two-way process in terms of this is giving people control over it. And that extends to my work with Eurosport as well in interviews too often interviews are so sterile. So what I try and do is just soften that environment a little bit and take people outside of the hotel to put them in a place where you're going to feel far more relaxed. And I, I've been used to doing that for quite a few years now. And again, it's never ending. It's like there's never the perfect interview, but there's always the striving to get the most out of somebody. Something that I find, as you can probably tell by me rambling on now is something that I love it. I really do process well, you're really. Good, you're really. Good at it. Conversation, they're really, really good. But yeah, so we care about them and we've got some more lined up. I have to ask a question. I haven't watched all of them. I've watched a chunk, believe me, I've watched more than half I think of them. I'm curious to know, is there one that comes to mind as being one of, what was your most challenging interview? And I want to qualify that challenging from the standpoint of you're in a room, you're with this person, you're sharing stories. Some of the stories might, some of the stuff that's coming out of the interview could be difficult to go back and recant. I'm just curious to know, did you ever feel in any of these interviews, this is a little challenging either from a, not difficult in your ability to do the interview, but challenging in the sense that what you're talking about and the subject matter and the going back in history with some of these people and some of the histories might not always be so pleasant. Was there ever a moment in any of these interviews where you felt like this is an interesting interview and it makes it an interesting interview? Yeah, I mean the first one we actually shot, although the second one we shot was the first one we released, and that was with a guy called Nick Craig. He's a guy that lives not too far from me up in the peak district. And this was before we were in the early stages while we were building momentum, we would get guests on who would be people that I know really well within the cycling industry who are, but Nick is maybe somebody that the American audience hasn't heard of, but he's still competing now. He's multiple national mountain bike champion, cyclo Cross champion once and World Cups back in the 1990s, I think he's about 56 now, so that video's still up. But a few years ago now, he lost his son, Charlie Craig through basically was 16 years of age and just died in his sleep. And Nick and his wife were obviously just, well, it just tore their world apart. And they've now got a charity called Ride for Charlie, which basically raises money for awareness on sudden infant death. And there's, they don't know why young people suddenly dine their sleep and there's ongoing research into that. So that particular interview, knowing Nick very well and knowing Charlie a little bit, because it cut through the domestic cycling circuit in the uk, it was just awful hearing of that. And that was a really difficult interview because I wanted to talk about it, but we certainly couldn't do it as soon as we walk in. And the thing is, when I walked into their kitchen at the start, there was a big picture, a black and white picture of Charlie on the wall in his cyclo. And he was just a lovely lad and a very talented bike rider. And it had only been, I think it was only three years after or two years afterwards. And I knew I'd spoken to Nick before saying, look, we're going to bring it up at some point. But I didn't warn him about it, but I just knew that it wasn't early in the ride. So basically we did this ride on mountain bikes in the snow, so much fun. I fell off great stuff in the snow, drift covered in mud. And then we were just in an old English pub in the part of the peak district with a walk with a fire. And you've watched it. And then I knew I had to bring it up, but we talked about it there. And I think my line was Nick, we had to bring this up and he said, yeah, I know Matt and his eyes were wet with tears. Mine were. And that was very difficult. But it was important because Nick's life up to now as well is basically he's got to earn a living from him and his Mrs and the rest of the family, but it's driven by his memory. And I, there's no second take of something like that. They can't, oh guys, can we reset? It's no second take. So there was a massive responsibility in just raising the subject and we had to do it. So I dunno whether I'm, I guess I'm happy with the way that went, but it was very difficult. It was a beautiful, and then to wrap it up as well, and then still keep some humor and some levity there after talking about somebody losing their son. In terms of, I watched that and it was an unbelievable episode. And it's funny, that was on my list of probably that would fit the bill of the question that I just asked you, which was some of the most challenging. The other one that I thought that I'm curious to get your reaction to was Sir Bradley Wiggins. Yeah. I found that, I found there were moments in the interview where he, I think was really reflective about, you had asked some questions and you got him thinking, and it was an emotional moment where he was talking about the gentleman that he met at the hotel from the military, and he was reflecting on, you could see his mind working and he kind of glossed over some of the controversies during your ride of, he didn't gloss over it, he talked about it, but you could see his mind was processing still as if he's still processing unbelievable athlete. Unbelievable. I mean, by God, there's not much you wouldn't say about his accomplishments. But I found that interview really, I think struck some chords, is what I'm saying in that interview. Did you feel. That? Yeah, yeah. I mean Bradley has had a very difficult time of it the last few years actually. I think by his own admission, it's obvious to see ever since the win in the tour de France in 2012 and the Olympic success a week later, Bradley's star never shone brighter, but that's when the start of all his problems came to roost and trying to reconcile who he was, his relationship with, his father who was murdered, and all the subsequent stuff that has since come out that Bradley has had. He struggled with his mental health. Let's make no bones about it. And. I, I've known Bradley for a long, long time. He's a decade younger than me, but we raced together. We were briefly in a team together. He shared that in the interview. Oh God, yeah. He gave. You. A little dig. There's a lot of stuff from that interview that he was giving me digs most of the time. But that's part of his character. He's a lot of fun to be around. He's an edgy, funny character and loves trying to press buttons, which I love. I did love that ride, that interview the bit with the guy in the military that I think Bradley struggles with people looking up to him. I think that's the thing that he doesn't see himself as a role model because some of the role models in his life have failed him. And then he might think, he might have thought in many ways that he's failed, which ist the case. But I think Bradley now is in a far better place than he was. But that particular time he was really struggling and it was good him to actually, and we wanted to do it for a while, and it was coming up to the anniversary of his win. So we filmed that in 2022, or it might've been early 2023, so maybe just after, I think that was 2022 actually. It was some beautiful storytelling, I have to tell you. I mean, it really was. It made him look, well, he is human, he's fallible, right? We're all fallible. And I think you did a really good job, I think, of trying to steer that conversation. And I thought it was a wonderful interview really nicely. No thank you. At times it was difficult. At moments, it was just a breeze because we'd hung out. We've hung out together quite a lot. I wasn't living at that point too far from where he was. So we'd been out for meals down the pub and been out on the bike once or twice. So it was really nice you to. Eat, don't you, Matt? You do love food. I do love food. I remember hearing somewhere in one of your interviews that you almost were a chef at one point, I think it was. You were in that interview. In the interview with him, you revealed that you had almost decided to become a chef. And so your love of food, where does that come from? Your father was a great cook. Yeah, so my mom used to bake a lot. I think back when we were growing up, people used to go out for meals less when nobody had any money, really did they? Life looked different. And going to a restaurant was a big treat, even like getting fish and chips for a takeaway was a big treat. And I remember the first time we probably went out for a meal, we went to a pizza express in hamster, and I was like, whoa, what is this? Spaghetti bolognese? But anyway, but my dad used to cook wonderful meals. He used to entertain at home, little mini dinner parties and cook food. So him and my mom were going to open a pub and he'd actually passed the examinations to actually be a landlord in a pub and wanted to run a restaurant on a pub that never came to pass. But my mom made wedding cakes as a part-time job and decorated them, and both of my grandparents baked, so everybody cooked and there was always this mother baking in the house. If it wasn't baking, it'd be my dad preparing the evening meal. And that's the way it kind of worked and me and my sister washing up. And then, yeah, I thought that I did want to become a chef until I realized how much school you had to go to first and just be good at maths. And then, as I said, I was a lassez fair kid who liked to have fun more than apply myself academically, but I still love food. Are. You a sweet or savory kind of. Guy? Oh, that's a good one. Depends on the mood. I think I'm both, but I would say more savory now. I used to be more sweet, but more savory. I slightly more savory. I love the interview with Eleanor. Oh yes. What I loved about that was the juxtaposition between It was a very cool, I also love to see you struggle on hills. It makes me feel better about myself. I struggle on every hill. And to see a pro and to see a pro actually with, I saw you do it with Adam. I saw you do it with her. You're working, right? I'm working and you're climbing and you're conducting an interview at the same time, which is really, really difficult because you're trying to regulate your breath while you're going up this massive incline and you're conducting this beautiful interview on a bicycle. And I'm like, how is he doing that? I would be on the ground at that point. I'd be on the ground. Yeah. I mean, I try and keep myself in as much shape as I can. Oh no, you're in great shape. Yeah. But yeah, sometimes, I mean the worst one, this is Juicy N Days. If you want to really look back, you might've seen it. Look at me being at my comfort zone. It was the Alberto Contour interview with GCN that we did on Mount Aetna. Look at that one. And when Alberto started to ride with one leg and I was just cooked and I was a fair bit of fitter then, so watch that one. If you want to see the contrast between fitness. I will watch it. But I love the interview with Eleanor, and I also love the fact that your little bit at the end at the restaurant, the cafe that you were at and the splitting of the cookie, and I guess what was that sweet little peanut buttery thing that you were eating? Yeah, I think it wasn't a cookie, but it was like borderline sweet and savory. And we were in this really kooky little restaurant in liaise as well, weren't we? Which, so that was a funny cafe because we thought that she basically rented the wrong part of Belgium. We thought she lived in Flanders and we ended up going to be meeting her in the den, which bizarrely, because she lived in a different place than we thought. So our whole cafe ride that was in a completely wrong part of Belgium, so she's not even really a climber. So that we were both like, what the hell are we doing here? We could have met in Flanders. And it been a flat ride with a few bugs. But anyway, it was fun. And you're right, the generational thing, because she then would've been only about 20, I guess, because that. She was. 18, three or four years. 18, she was 18. She was 18, and you were blown away in the interview by the fact that she was 18. She wasn't even going to run her first professional race. She was going to run her first professional races at the age of 18. And you were amazed by that. And she was very lovely. And it was just nice seeing the dynamic between the two of you. I have to say, Matt, you have an infectious laugh. I love when I watch you and I see you do interviews and I see you really, it's not forced, it's just this genuine love of life, love of what you're doing. And I have to say it's really enjoyable, really enjoyable to watch. I could sit and binge on those cafe ride episodes and I will watch more of them, but I've watched a lot of them and I absolutely enjoy them. And even more reason why I want to get you, I'm going to get you on one of my rides with me. You'll probably outpace me for sure, because I am by no means at your level. But we'll have fun. I'll be good fodder for your comedic standup act on the road of me riding and trying to keep up to your wheel. I'm sure. No, mate, let's definitely do that. I can, yeah, when I say speak to my people, my people are basically me and Holly. So we've got that across the line. Let's just look at a date and a location. I'd love to do that. It'd be a pleasure. Be a lot of fun, A lot of fun. Matt, we got to do this again. This was a lot of fun and I feel like I could never run out of content to talk to you about as I continue to watch more of you and what you're doing. And for people who are out there following you, where do they find you? How do they find Matt Stevens? Why don't you give yourself a little plug in terms of the places in which they can see you doing what you do? I do various things. So the cafe rides, if Garrett has wetted your appetite, please give them a watch head to at well Sigma Sports on YouTube and type in the cafe ride. And you'll find that that's where I make the majority of my YouTube content. And then you'll see me on Warner Brothers Discovery or WBDS as the brand is known now, which is changing. So you see me in the US on Max, I believe, and on TNT this year in the UK as Warner Brothers go through the big brew brand. So I'm on telly there on tv, and then you can see me on Wheel of Cycling as well. What I do work for Skoda, and you can see me on Swift as well. So I work for a lot of different people, which keeps me, I dunno, I'm privileged enough to have a view of the sport, which is almost 360 degrees, which is really lovely. So I've worked with lots of different partners who have a different view on the sport, including LeBlanc as well. And that's how hopefully, fingers crossed, I'll definitely be on a couple of the LeBlanc events. And that's where me and Garrett actually ultimately met and had some really nice chats over in France and we worked together, didn't we? In iha? In iha. So IHAs, definitely my diary. Let's see, hopefully we'll add paths will cross earlier. But yeah, you can see me hit me up on Instagram at Real Stevens as well. And that's the kind of entrance to all the stuff that I do. And I showcase and sign, post my stuff on Instagram, so at Real Stevens. Awesome. And we'll make sure to put everything that Matt just said in the show notes below so that you'll be able to appreciate it, kind of check it out. So Matt, this has been awesome. Thank you for sharing part of your evening with me. I know it's late in the uk, but what a pleasure. This has been a really fun, fun interview and I can't thank you enough. Thanks for making me. Feel so welcome, Garrett. Take care, mate. Thank you. Awesome. Wow, what an incredible interview with Matt Stevens. It was a real pleasure having him on today's episode of the Bike de Bites podcast. I also want to take a moment now to thank our sponsor. E plus E plus helps organizations harness the power of technology for truly transformative results from AI and security to cloud and workplace transformation. Plus, brings you the right solutions at the right time, in the most efficient way. Plus is on the front line of today's modern enterprise. Check them out@eplus.com. Now, if you enjoyed this content, please give us a like and don't forget to subscribe. Until next time, pedal, eat and repeat.