This is our XL Tour de France preview with Lionel Birnie, Daniel Friebe and François Thomazeau – a bumper episode looking ahead to the race, which starts on Saturday.

A few days before the grand départ, as the team line-ups and new jerseys are unveiled we look ahead to see what's in store at the biggest race in the world.

It's shaping up to be a clash between defending champion Jonas Vingegaard and Tadej Pogačar – who have won the last three editions between them – but is there more to the race for the yellow jersey than that?

We weigh up the sprinters and the relatively few opportunities for them to shine and ask the big question – can Mark Cavendish win his 35th stage and claim the outright record?

Our Tour de France logo this year features the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao and the silhouette of the Puy de Dôme, which the Tour will visit for the first time in 35 years.

We also hear from Mitch Docker, Ian Boswell and Richard Abraham, who will be joining the podcast team at various points through the Tour.

The Cycling Podcast's daily coverage starts on Saturday evening, after stage one, but we are continuing our build-up by kicking off our Kilometre 0 series early. To mark the 10th anniversary of The Cycling Podcast we have created a mini series for Friends of the Podcast called The 100th Tour, 10 years On. It's the story of the 2013 Tour as told by the podcast and it will be released daily as we build up to the start of this year's race in Bilbao.

The Cycling Podcast is supported by Science in Sport.

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The Cycling Podcast was founded in 2013 by Richard Moore, Daniel Friebe and Lionel Birnie.

S11 Ep69: The XL Tour de France preview