With the demise of the Global Cycling Network GCN+ app at the end of 2023, watching cycling live in the United States will likely plunge back into the dark ages of bike race viewing using a mix of VPN-enabled feeds and illegal, buggy sites that may risk introducing malware onto your computer.
Inevitably, YouTube cycling channels will become an even more important source to get your news fix. It remains to be seen just how much of GCN will remain. Though the app will close down, which means that all the live cycling we have been treated to the past couple of years will no longer have a home, at least evidently not in the immediate future. However, GCN started out as a YouTube channel, and it sounds like that part of the company will continue.
GCN grew from a weekly show to having multiple feeds, including GCN Tech, GCN Racing, GCN MTB, GCN Tri, and GCN in multiple other languages (German, French, Spanish) with local presenters. How much of that output will remain is yet unclear, but we have high hopes much of it will be able to continue as before.
Best YouTube cycling channels
We generally fall into two categories when looking for cycling entertainment: race-oriented and tech-oriented. For racing in a post-GCN+ world, we’ll have to be fairly clever and be prepared to do with slightly less access, at least until some new channel manages to marry so many cycling broadcast rights in one place. But there are already several YouTube cycling channels that can keep us well entertained with racing news and coverage.
Chris Horner’s Butterfly Effect and Beyond the Coverage:
Chris Horner has often worked on American television as an expert commentator during the biggest races of the year. Now he has turned his attention to building his YouTube channel into one of the most informative and educational for cycling tactics and gossip. He puts a ton of effort into his shows, which includes watching the whole races, breaking down the tactics, and then producing shows that last up to 25 or 30 minutes. Since Chris Horner made it clear that he was getting most if not all of his coverage from GCN, it will be interesting to see whether the lack of coverage will hamper his own production options. If we return to a world where only the last 50km of a race are broadcasted, instead of being able to watch from the very first moment the race begins, then that will make breaking down any tactics difficult. It will mean, though, that Mr. Horner won’t need to get us quite so early in the morning!
Link to the channel: https://www.youtube.com/@ChrisHornerCycling
UCI Track Champions League:
If you enjoy watching track racing, this official UCI channel offers loads of highlights and interviews, though seldom does it show races in full.
Link to the channel: https://www.youtube.com/@UCITrackChampionsLeague/videos
Cycling Pro Net:
This cycling YouTube channel doesn’t typically show races, but it will replay a lot of the interviews that take place before and after races. This is a great source to get the race story right at source from the riders who participated.
Link to the channel: https://www.youtube.com/@CyclingProNet/videos
Col Collective:
Though not as prolific in producing videos as he has been in past years, Mike Cotty provides a huge resource of high quality videos on YouTube filming him riding all the most important passes in Europe and America. More inspirational than race-oriented, his videos offer bite-sized moments cycling nirvana. And if you’ve never watched any of his videos, you can put together several playlists that will help you through more rides on the indoor trainer this winter.
Link to the channel: https://www.youtube.com/@TheColCollective
YouTube cycling videos for tech
If you are interested in learning all about the tech behind the brands, there are lots of sites that offer in-depth reviews and paid promotions. But if you are really interested in getting some unvarnished truths, there are two sites that we continually revisit.
Mapdec Cycle Works:
The YouTube channel of a cycling workshop and fitness center in the Lake District in England, this channel has loads of videos that review and occasionally ripe apart various bike brands. They aren’t mean-natured about it, but rather they seem to be giving their honest opinion from personal experience as mechanics dealing with the bike mishaps that their customers bring in. Since their experience will be naturally skewed to those brands that they see in their work stands, and occasionally have terrible mishaps or warranty responses, the conversation will frequently revolve around what one brand or another could do better. But they do have their personal favorites – looking at you LOOK and TIME – that they will also talk about in detail. Home mechanics can learn a lot from this channel.
Link to the channel: https://www.youtube.com/@Mapdec
Luescher Teknik:
In spite of the name, Luescher is based in Australia, and is another site that focuses on some of the less confidence inspiring engineering mistakes and failures that occasionally befall carbon bicycle frames. He’s a super laid back guy with a no-nonsense presentation and he seemingly has no axe to grind. He has made a name for himself by cutting up and reviewing carbon frames, though now that frames are so expensive, he has to wait till someone suffers a catastrophic frame failure before they give him the chance to cut it in half to see what’s up. Obvs, that voids any warranty! Perhaps that’s why he hasn’t been able to cut in half a frame on his channel for over three years. Let’s hope that’s an indicator that carbon frame production in general is much better than they were even just a few years ago.
Link to the channel: https://www.youtube.com/@LuescherTeknik
Hambini:
If the guys at Mapdec are just nice blokes, and Luescher is a quiet bookish-type, then Hambini is the Brit who gives absolutely no f*#ç%s who he pisses off. He loves the ream out brands for poor quality and high prices. He works a day job a “Technical Specialist Engineering Role” so when he says some bike brand’s engineering solutions are crap, he is at least speaking from an educated position. If you’ve never heard of him and are inclined to check his videos out, be warned to have your volume low to begin with, because he always starts with a fairly enthusiastic, if not entirely obnoxiously loud, intro salutation. Any cats in the room will be disturbed.
Link to the channel: https://www.youtube.com/@Hambini
Bonus Cycling YouTube channel
If you are wondering whether there is a channel that has reliably good recommendations regarding training and training methods, then Dylan Johnson’s channel is a good place to start. Dylan is a professional gravel racer and also a certified cycling coach. He uses his own training and racing to test his theories, and those that seem to work out well, he shares with his clients, and it seems with his YouTube followers. Dylan goes into the science behind the performance to have some A priori reasons to test any potential advancements in training methods. And his presentation is engaging without taking himself too seriously.
Link to the channel: https://www.youtube.com/@DylanJohnsonCycling
Conclusion
There are tons of cycling related YouTube channels, but these are the ones that we keep coming back to and even share with friends.
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Link to our Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@wrenchscience1179/
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