Active Hobo

René Haselbacher — Tour de France sprinter turned Cape Town kit maker and Double Century winner.

At 21, René Haselbacher lined up at Paris-Roubaix on 23mm tyres, with no idea what cobblestones could do to a body. Four years later he was chasing Mario Cipollini's wheel at the Giro d'Italia, finishing third on two stages. Then came the Tour de France — the prologue ramp under the Eiffel Tower, a breakaway that nearly went all the way, two big crashes, and a snapped handlebar nobody in the press wanted to believe. By the time he signed with Astana and rode alongside Alberto Contador, René had done 14 years as a professional cyclist and seen the whole arc of an era. Then he stopped, at 31, almost overnight.

This conversation covers a lot of ground. The physical brutality of sprint positioning, what it was actually like riding in the Lance Armstrong era, watching Mark Cavendish through the ups and downs and then seeing him win his final stage, and what RH77 would need to kit out a Tour de France team. René speaks like a man who has made peace with every crash and every near-miss — warm, honest, and still very much racing. His son is on the start line this Sunday. So is he.

# === CHAPTERS ===================================

0:00 — René Haselbacher Joins Active Hobo: DC Winner, RH77 Founder, Tour de France Sprinter

2:27 — Vienna, a Cycling Father, and Making Austria's Under-23 National Team

4:28 — First Pro Race: Standing at Paris-Roubaix at 21 Years Old

5:04 — Giro d'Italia: Racing Three Weeks and Sprinting Against Mario Cipollini

13:03 — The Mental Game: Discipline, Self-Belief, and What Ronaldo Gets Right

21:02 — Tour de France Debut: The Prologue Ramp Under the Eiffel Tower

25:36 — Two Big Crashes, a Broken Handlebar, and the Media Story That Got Away

36:47 — Greatest Sprinters of All Time: Cipollini, Cavendish, and Being There for Both

47:03 — The Lance Armstrong Era: An Honest Conversation About Doping and Its Legacy

53:19 — Worlds in Salzburg, Riding for Astana With Contador, and Retiring at 31

59:52 — Why RH77 Exists: A Rain Bag, an Austrian Championship, and a Factory in Italy

1:10:36 — The Big Dream: RH77 Kit at the Tour de France

1:19:15 — The Double Century: René's Favorite Race in the World

1:24:25 — Pink Bibs, the RH77 DC Team, and Racing for It Again This Year

1:30:37 — Custom Kit Orders: How to Work With RH77

1:35:15 — Cape Town Cycle Tour, Cape Epic, and What the Year Ahead Holds

1:44:15 — Family, the Future, and Living Fully in the Present

# === LISTEN ON THE GO ===========================

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5GselFmeym7YgYXtcyPUXU

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/active-hobo/id1846864699

# === FOLLOW ACTIVE HOBO =========================

Subscribe: https://youtube.com/@activehobo?sub_confirmation=1

Website: https://activehobo.com/

Instagram: @theactivehobo

Strava: https://strava.app.link/ciVbx92FJ2b

# === THE CREW ===================================

Dave @davlewjenkins

# === MORE FROM ACTIVE HOBO ======================

Latest episode: https://youtu.be/VRIeP2JYf5U

Full podcast playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLc2XIoaiAXafwoZykJM-jg6HnrLkWlJXH

Related episode: https://youtu.be/lGfvanjllXY

# === WORK WITH US ===============================

Sponsorships & collabs: [email protected]

Send a question for the show: [email protected]

#ActiveHobo #CyclingPodcast #SouthAfricanCycling #RH77 #DoubleCentury #CapeTownCycling

Join us as we take an in-depth view into the life that was is and will be with the South African icon in cycling - Ryan Gibbons. He has led out greats like Tadej Pogacar, competed in all the world tours and swept up local honours at home in South Africa.

We start with a statement as Ryan shows Dave what real out the saddle sprint form looks like and settles into a beautiful trip around the Peninsula of Cape Town.

We hope you enjoy this format and subject matter.

Massive thank you to Ryan Gibbons and Scicon Sports for making it happen.

🔗 Scicon Sports SA — Premium eyewear and luggage for cyclists who take their kit seriously. https://theactivehobo.short.gy/sciconsports-discount

👍 Like, Subscribe, and share this video to support what we love doing.

- Instagram: @theactivebobo

- Website: www.activehobo.com

- Cafe: 6 Stibitz, Westlake, Cape Town, 7945

0:00 The Opening Sprint

2:25 Intro: Ryan "Gibbo" Gibbons

3:17 Riding Style

3:47 Vuelta Stage 20: 60km Solo in the Mountains

5:31 Career Highlights & First Pro Win

8:42 What It Was Like Racing Alongside Pogacar

10:45 Why Cycling Is Actually a Team Sport

13:37 Best Teammates: Cavendish, Pogacar & Mads Pedersen

17:54 Classics vs Grand Tours

19:20 Paris-Roubaix

22:09 Coffee in Scarborough

25:35 Looking After South Africans in the European Peloton

30:42 Injuries, Concussions & When the Body Speaks

33:31 Why Do Pros Make the Sacrifice? The Real Answer

35:01 The Unsung Heroes: Partners of Professional Athletes

39:50 The Retirement Decision: Making the Call

43:38 Falling Back in Love With Cycling

47:46 Ryans next Chapter

51:02 Cape Town Stacks Up Against the World's Best Roads

58:17 The Cyclist vs Driver Problem: Road Safety in SA

1:01:40 Why Belgium Respects Cyclists & We Don't

1:06:32 His Sons First Ride

1:09:56 The Cannondale Lab 71: Full Breakdown

1:25:29 Pro’s Social Life

1:41:42 Closing

In September 2025, Tyler Jacobs became the first South African woman to ever win a medal at the UCI Mountain Bike World Championships short track race. Three years earlier, she was getting dropped by her dad and her brothers on Sunday rides and crying about having to go.

Tyler is 21. She rides for Liv Factory Racing out of the United States, trains out of Stellenbosch with coach Barry Austin, and in 2026 added the South African Elite Women's Road Race Championship to her name in her final year as an Under-23. A month after Worlds, she won her first UCI World Cup — the U23 XCC at Lake Placid — on the global debut of Liv's new Pique Prototype. The frame has "factory test prototype frame number 4" printed on the side of it. She's one of only four people in the world riding one.

In this episode of The Active Hobo Podcast: Femme Series, Tyler sits down to talk about nine years growing up in Nairobi, being the kid who had to be pumped up and packed for rides she didn't want to go on, meeting Ty White at the Drive Academy in Ballito in 2022 and everything that followed, getting picked up by Liv in Leogang after running the last half lap with a smashed wheel, what the Matterhorn podium actually felt like, and why she describes herself as "the most unserious person" her roommate has ever met — except during intervals.

🔗 Scicon Sports SA — Premium eyewear and luggage for cyclists who take their kit seriously. https://theactivehobo.short.gy/sciconsports-discount

👍 Like, Subscribe

0:00 ★ Meet Tyler: historic Worlds bronze, Lake Placid World Cup winner

1:00 ★ Born in Umhlanga, moved to Nairobi at nine

2:42 ★ Home-schooled, always active, never serious about the bike

7:07 ★ 2022: meeting Ty White and Drive Academy in Ballito

10:14 ★ The Holla Trails sprint the locals call "World Champs"

12:09 ★ Why the European field is a different sport

18:00 ★ The SA pipeline: what's working, what isn't

24:36 ★ Living and training in Stellenbosch

24:57 ★ Coach Barry Austin and learning to use the course, not just the power

27:22 ★ Winning SA Elite Women's Road Champs by being bored

31:40 ★ How a smashed wheel and a run to the finish got her a Liv contract

34:27 ★ Brazil, Harry and Lloyd, and finishing 5th-6th as teammates

35:57 ★ Worlds 2025: rice and Nutella, then the podium

38:41 ★ The first McDonald's of her life

40:30 ★ Inside Liv Factory Racing

48:35 ★ The Austrian team house

49:14 ★ Cape Town Cycle Tour and the state of SA women's racing

52:37 ★ The XCO goal: top three in 2026

Errin Mackridge was told after the 2024 UCI World Championships that she was an embarrassment to South Africa. She was 17, racing at her first Worlds, and she didn't finish. The people who said it weren't racing. They were typing.

She has six national titles now. Four on the mountain bike, two on the road. She is the reigning Junior South African Road Race Champion — a title she's won in back-to-back years, 2024 and 2025. She represented South Africa at the 2025 UCI Road World Championships in Kigali. And in August, she boards a plane to Banner Elk, North Carolina, to race for Lees-McRae College — one of the most successful collegiate cycling programmes in the United States, and the same programme that has produced the likes of Brent Bookwalter.

In this episode of The Active Hobo Podcast: Femme Series, Errin sits down to talk about the gap between SA racing and the European fields where the real depth lives, what Ty White has built at the Drive Academy in Ballito that keeps producing national champions, the sprint the Ballito locals jokingly call their "Holla Champs," and what it costs — financially, emotionally, and physically — to chase a professional contract from the bottom of Africa.

🔗 Scicon Sports SA — Premium eyewear and luggage for cyclists who take their kit seriously. https://theactivehobo.short.gy/sciconsports-discount

👍 Like, Subscribe

0:00 ★ Meet Errin: six national titles at 18

1:28 ★ First title, red jersey, and a second-place that started everything

3:09 ★ 2024 — the year that changed the trajectory

4:09 ★ Winning SA Road Champs with Megan Botha in a two-up breakaway

6:03 ★ The deep pool of SA women's cycling nobody talks about

8:00 ★ Ty White, the Drive Academy, and the culture of winning

9:40 ★ Culture as the multiplier: why humility shows up in the results

10:40 ★ Road vs mountain bike: why XCO always wins

12:35 ★ The gap between SA and Europe is real, and it's money

14:12 ★ Lees-McRae College, North Carolina: the plan

19:29 ★ "I was told I'm an embarrassment to South Africa"

22:50 ★ Nutrition, Hexis, low-cadence intervals, and Holla Champs sprints

30:57 ★ Who she'll race at SA XCO Champs in Bloemfontein

32:29 ★ The kit she takes stateside, and why Maxxis stays

In 2023, Shanae Williams qualified for the Olympic pathway with a silver at the African Games. Then she got sick. Pushed through. Her heart gave in. Doctors pulled her out of training for six months — and she spent that time asking herself whether she wanted to do any of this ever again.

She's now the 2025 Africa Elite Women's Triathlon Champion over Olympic distance, the 2025 Africa Sprint Champion, a four-time SA Sprint National Champion, and a Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games representative for South Africa. Not bad for someone who started out as a water polo player and synchronised swimmer, and whose first proper triathlon involved renting a bike, riding ten minutes the day before, and racing with basic cage pedals because she'd never ridden a road bike in her life.

In this episode of The Active Hobo Podcast: Femme Series, Shanae sits down to talk about the unlikely path from a Cape Town school pool to the World Triathlon Championship Series, why the hardest six months of her life ended up being the most clarifying, what it takes to chase an Olympic dream from a country that barely publicises the sport she competes in, and why she's spending the next two years pointing everything at Los Angeles 2028.

🔗 Scicon Sports SA — Premium eyewear and luggage for cyclists who take their kit seriously. https://theactivehobo.short.gy/sciconsports-discount

👍 Like, Subscribe

0:00 ★ Meet Shanae: Africa's Elite Women's Triathlon Champion

2:07 ★ From water polo and synchronised swimming to the Cape Town waterfront

3:04 ★ Renting a bike the day before her first World Series schools challenge

9:21 ★ The decision to go all-in after high school

11:23 ★ Why the swim is the hardest part — and why it made her career

14:37 ★ How World Triathlon actually works (and why it isn't Ironman)

20:20 ★ Commonwealth Games Birmingham 2022

25:00 ★ The sport nobody in South Africa is allowed to see

28:20 ★ Transitions, mounting at speed, and the cost of a pinky toe over the line

29:45 ★ African Games silver, food poisoning, and the Olympic qualifier that got away

30:54 ★ Six months off the bike: the heart virus that almost ended it

33:34 ★ Why she didn't quit — and what 2028 looks like

34:21 ★ Moving home: why happy athletes are faster athletes

41:54 ★ Shoes, sponsors and the art of rotating gear

51:00 ★ Falling in love with Cape Town cycling culture