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It’s time for the first road.cc Podcast episode of 2025, and we decided to kick off the new year by mixing things up and delving into unexplored territory for the podcast – by analysing the ongoing struggles facing the cycling industry and assessing where the BBC went wrong in their latest controversial active travel take. Oh wait… Well, start as you mean to go on, I suppose.

And to just underline how little ground we’re planning on breaking this year, in part one Ryan and Jack are joined once again by Rory Hitchens, a long-time bike industry stalwart, for what’s fast becoming an annual segment on the podcast: assessing the state of the cycling industry as we enter the new year.

For most of last year, the bike industry’s motto seemed to be ‘Survive until 2025’ – and it’s clear that there is plenty of surviving still going on.

However, despite continuing negative headlines, Hitchens is optimistic that the storms which have battered the cycling industry since the Covid pandemic are starting, finally, to abate, as the industry reshapes itself into something “leaner, meaner, and more creative”.

And speaking of creative thinking, in part two e-biketips editor Alex Bowden joins us to pick apart THAT recent BBC Panorama documentary on e-bikes – widely criticised for appearing to conflate legal e-bikes with illegally modified machines, and the dangerous riding and criminality associated with them – and ask: Where did Adrian Chiles go wrong?