“A bike race is complete madness”: David Millar on why cycling is “inherently dangerous”, the demise of CHPT3, and his new Factor role + Is TNT set to destroy cycling in the UK?

“See me ride out of the sunset, on your colour TV screen” – so begins the opening verse of AC/DC’s 1976 classic TNT, sneered with typical dripping menace by the late, great Bon Scott.

Now, it’s highly doubtful that the denim-clad, tattooed rockstar was thinking of digital sports channels and hefty subscription fees when he penned that particular ode to unbridled machismo. But it’s fitting that, almost 50 year later, another form of TNT could prove central to professional bike racing riding off into the sunset, in the UK at least, anyway.

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Since it was announced early last week, Warner Bros. Discovery’s controversial decision to ditch Eurosport in the UK and Ireland, after over three decades of quirky, wonderful broadcasting, and move all of its cycling coverage to the all-encompassing, £31-a-month TNT Sports (hiking the price up by 443 per cent in the process), has been the subject of intense debate among cycling fans, riders, and stakeholders.

> How to watch cycling for less now it's moving to £30.99-a-month TNT Sports

(ASO/Charly Lopez)

Viewers have labelled it “exploitation” and a decision that will “destroy our sport”, and threatened to report Discovery to the market regulator for “price gouging”, while Lidl-Trek’s former Giro d’Italia winner Tao Geoghegan Hart said the broadcaster’s “monopoly” on the sport is a “huge shame”, and former UCI president Brian Cookson compared the whole debacle to… errr, shopping for baked beans.

In part one of this week’s road.cc Podcast, Ryan, Dan, and Emily dissect the earth-shattering news, the backlash from across the cycling world, and what it all means for the future of cycling coverage (and the sport itself) in the UK and Ireland.

> “The Tour is the only race that matters. And that’s gone now”: Ned Boulting on the end of free-to-air Tour de France coverage in the UK and his “deep sense of loss”

And in part two, road.cc’s tech editor Mat Brett sits down for a chat with one of those high-profile cycling figures set to be directly affected by this new, monopolised cycling media landscape, especially after July’s last (for the foreseeable future, anyway) free-to-air Tour de France on ITV4 – four-time Tour stage winner-turned-ITV commentator David Millar.

While Millar’s stint at the mic may be coming to an abrupt end, the former Garmin and Cofidis rider can keep his CV safely tucked away for the time being, after it was announced at the end of January that he will be joining Factor as the premium bike manufacturer’s new brand director.

According to Factor, Millar, who’s worked with the brand in the past, will be based in the company’s Girona offices as he steps into a “strategic leadership role”.

The move comes after Millar’s clothing brand clothing brand CHPT3 – which we featured on the podcast back in August on episode 85, when they released the Transit 2.0 commuter shoe – entered liquidation and ceased trading with immediate effect at the end of last year, a process the 48-year-old described in our interview as “death by a thousand cuts”.

“It wasn’t sudden, it was very gradual. At the time it almost seemed like a relief, because I had been under a huge amount of stress with it. There was obviously sadness, but I also thought, ‘Thank God, it’s done’,” he told Mat.

“But I didn’t appreciate at the time how much I’d learnt in my decade of doing it, and I discovered that when I came into Factor, which is a wonderful revelation.”

> “A lot of it was caused by greed”: Factor’s CEO on navigating “self-inflicted” bike industry chaos, Chris Froome’s set-up complaints and why rim brakes are never coming back

Reflecting on how his new Factor role came about, Millar said: “When I closed down CHPT3, and made the decision to finally give up, I was wondering ‘what the hell am I going to do?’.

“And [Factor owner] Rob Gitelis just called me up out of the blue and said he wanted me to do something, like be a ‘super ambassador’ and squeeze me dry!

“And I thought, fair enough, that sounds good. But then I started digging a bit more into Factor, getting to know their team, and suddenly realised there was all this stuff of value I could add.

“I’ve always loved Factor, and Rob in particular, because he’s got such an interesting story – he’s the wizard behind the curtain of the best bikes of the last 20 years. And the geek in me just loved what Rob was doing with Factor.

“So I’ve always had this really close association with them, without it ever being official. Weirdly, it does feel like a homecoming.”

Finally, Millar and Mat discussed one of the other hot topics in the cycling world this winter – safety in the peloton.

Asked about the UCI’s introduction of a yellow card system for dangerous riding, and recent calls for gear restrictions, increased bike weights, and even air bags, the five-time Vuelta stage winner said: “I think we need to have ideas and discussions about safety, and I think the elephant in the room is that cycling is inherently dangerous. There are so many variables involved. It’s never controllable, never.

“When you consider what a bike race is, it’s complete madness. And that’s just the course and the terrain, before you get to the weather.

“The core issue is you’ve got 180 racers, all right next to each other at their limit. And the human condition means that risks will be taken and crashes are going to happen. I don’t know if limiting gears will do it, but those are the questions that need to be asked.

“I think all the initiatives are good, because they force the riders to be proactive and self-police. There needs to be respect in the peloton, of each other.

“The riders could even give yellow cards to each other. Because there’s a lot that goes on that nobody sees, and there are certain riders who are more risk prone than others, and put everyone else at risk. Perhaps we should empower the peloton to self-police to a certain degree as well.”

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