The six riders from the U.S. that will start the Tour de France on Saturday give the Americans perhaps their strongest contingent in the grand tour in years.

Lawson Craddock covers a wide array of topics in this episode of In The Village with podcast host Elizabeth Beisel. The cyclist discusses raising big bucks to repair his hurricane battered velodrome back home in Houston, his collection of too many bicycles and he imparts this piece of wisdom: “I can tell you that racing these days is a whole lot easier when you don’t have a fracture in your shoulder blade.”