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Spin Cycle
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Hello!
Welcome back to Spin Cycle, Escape Collective’s news digest.
As the white heat of the road racing season slowly begins to subside (sorry for reminding you about this fact) the good news is that in lieu of huge, earth-shattering news from the world of bike racing we have a smattering of adjacent nonsense that is like a side dish you took a whirl on to complement the main course.
Today we have some mind-boggling money-wasting from some Strava hardos, Lotto Dstny strapping onions to their feet (seems par for the course for that team) and then Geraint Thomas shakes off a hangover with an all-time interview. Here we go!
Strava surrogates
Here’s a fun one – Strava users in Indonesia are apparently paying fast kids to log activities on their Strava accounts.
So-called “Strava jockeys” are charging $0.62 per kilometre ran at a pace of four minutes per km, with a half-price discount for a pace of eight minutes per kilometre, in search of leaderboard accolades they can gloat about to friends. Running is growing in popularity in Indonesia, especially post-pandemic as society became more health-conscious, Channel News Asia reports, and naturally there is a market for everything. Yay capitalism.
Of course, we don’t really care about running, so let’s imagine what this would look like for cycling. Paying local legends to nab a mate’s KOM or pip them on a prized segment? We reckon the idea potentially has legs … but is it actually real? As our Cosmo Catalano pointed out when discussing this story, why would you pay some guy for a GPS route when you could just generate a fake GPX file?
Victor Camponionaerts 🧅
Victor Campenaerts (when he’s not driving his wife down from an altitude camp in order for her to give birth to their child), is not only a pretty decent bike racer but also a proficient vlogger.
In his latest video diary, Campenaerts films Vuelta teammate Lennert van Eetvelt strapping an onion to his foot in order to deal with inflammation. As you do.
Whether or not the onion remedy worked, Van Eetvelt was unfortunately forced to abandon the Spanish Grand Tour after a torrid stage 11 where he lost more than 17 minutes and felt like he “couldn’t breathe” on the bike. “He is experiencing a lot of discomfort in his lungs and will undergo further medical examination in Belgium,” Lotto Dstny confirmed in a statement.
Feed Zone 🥖
🇨🇳 Italian sprinter Jakub Mareczko (Corratec-Vini Fantini) took the 50th win of his career on the opening stage of the Tour of Hainan.
🦌 Following his crash with a deer, Giulio Ciccone (Lidl-Trek) has abandoned the Vuelta a España.
🐂 Isaac del Toro (UAE Team Emirates) told ESPN he will continue the Vuelta despite testing positive for COVID-19.
💼 Multiple candidates are lining up to take over beleaguered cycling clothing company AGU, the company said in a press release.
♻️ Jonathan Milan (Lidl-Trek) beat Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Deceuninck) in the opening sprint of the Renewi Tour, while a crash caused by Tim Merlier (Soudal-Quick Step) saw the Belgian relegated and the Dutchman Dylan Groenewegen (Jayco-AlUla) left with a broken collarbone. Visma-Lease a Bike’s Olav Kooij was involved in an earlier hard crash and has also been forced to abandon after making it to the finish line.
🔀 “My empire of sealants and adhesives, I will let you down and leave the team, I am mountain domestique Jan Hirt.” Or, for the non-Johnny Cash version of the news: 33-year-old Jan Hirt departs Soudal-Quick Step for Israel-Premier Tech next year.
🥇 USA won gold in the team relay on the opening day of the Mountain Bike World Championships in Andorra.
✍️ Niamh Fisher-Black swaps SD Worx-Protime for Lidl-Trek, completing the American squad’s roster for 2025.
📱 Ben O’Connor has deleted his Twitter account after he sent a series of tweets criticising the race jury for handing his Decathlon-Ag2r La Mondiale the first-ever yellow card for blocking the road on stage 11. Joe Lindsey has more on the story here.
Cycling on TV 📺
Saturday August 31st
Vuelta a España – Stage 14
(07:20-12:00 ET/12:20-17:00 BST/21:20-02:00 AEST) Eurosport/Discovery+🇬🇧, Peacock🇺🇸, FloBikes🇨🇦, SBS🇦🇺
Renewi Tour – Stage 4
(07:45-10:00 ET/12:45-15:00 BST/21:45-00:00 AEST) Eurosport/Discovery+🇬🇧, Max🇺🇸, FloBikes🇨🇦, Staylive🇦🇺
Sunday September 1st
Vuelta a España – Stage 15
(07:00-12:00 ET/12:00-17:00 BST/21:00-02:00 AEST) Eurosport/Discovery+🇬🇧, Peacock🇺🇸, FloBikes🇨🇦, SBS🇦🇺
Renewi Tour – Stage 5
(07:35-10:00 ET/12:35-15:00 BST/21:35-00:00 AEST) Eurosport/Discovery+🇬🇧, Max🇺🇸, FloBikes🇨🇦, Staylive🇦🇺
Monday September 2nd
No live racing …
🍹 Speaking your mind of the week 🍹
Originally, this award was going to go to Jarno Widar, Lotto Dstny’s 18-year-old pre-race favourite for the Tour de l’Avenir who, speaking to DirectVelo, blamed his team for his performance: “I already told the team two months ago that I was racing too many races, but they didn’t listen to me,” he said. “Now we see where that has led to. This week has really shown that I should have trained more and raced less.”
Bold words for a young man, although the fact he has a contract with the Belgian team until 2027 means he’s fairly bombproof for the timebeing. Meanwhile, old head Geraint Thomas is borderline doing Ineos Grenadiers a favour by sticking around at the WorldTour team seemingly in an unending freefall, who says he’s had less-than-ideal preparation after drinking the bar dry on holiday.
“I’m not going to lie: I’ve been drinking quite a lot of alcohol. I’ve been to Mallorca, in one of those all-inclusive hotels. I don’t know if it’s the British mentality, but for the British, a buffet like that means more all you can eat. Everything has to be finished,” he said on his Watts Occurring podcast.
“The cocktails were good there too, that hotel was unbelievable … Normally you have to wait an hour for a new drink. But here: they kept asking if you wanted a drink, so why not? You name the cocktails, I’ve had them all.”
The 38-year-old wasn’t done just yet, however, continuing his candidness on the ground at the Renewi Tour, his first race since the Tour de France, in conversation with In De Leiderstrui.
“I’m not looking forward to it. The Renewi Tour is the only race that nobody really wants to do,” Thomas said. “There is a lot of street furniture, there is a lot of racing on narrow tracks and it is always left, right. In addition, there are often a lot of sprinters and classic men, so a lot of candidates. I used to participate in this work a lot, but that was a long time ago.”
“Why are you here then?” asked the reporter.
“Someone had to be here,” he admitted. “I needed some racing miles, but I don’t really feel ready for it. It’s going to be tough, but it’s good to be back with the team. A shock to the system, sometimes you need that. We have a good team here, so I’m going to do my best for the guys.”
Thomas added after the Renewi Tour he is likely done for the 2024 season, and it’s looking increasingly likely 2025 will be his last year as a pro. If this is what we can expect from him as he waves goodbye to the sport, we can’t wait.
And finally …
Things you didn’t expect to see … a Burgaudeau x Halfords collab!
“The competition partnership we didn’t know we needed,” writes in Charlie. “The link takes you to Halfords online where if you buy some engine oil you have a ‘chance’ to win the prize …”
Mathieu Burgaudeau certainly looks absolutely chuffed about it.
In case you missed it 👀
Mathieu van der Poel with an almighty save during the Renewi Tour time trial.
🧺 Send us yer laundry pics
“Any use?” our Ronan McLaughlin asked before sending over this laundromat. Yes, perfect. Thank you Ronan.
As always, we are accepting your laundry photos (especially ones with the doors open so we can Photoshop riders inside the drum) to star in Spin Cycle. Either send them via the Discord or shoot me an email: [email protected]
Until next time …
That’s all folks! Thanks to José Been and Ronan McLaughlin for contributions to today’s edition and a big thank you to all of you who have signed up already as Escape Collective founding members. If you haven’t there is no time like the present. To smooth the process just click this link here and hit the Join Today button in the top right of the page.
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Spin Cycle
Enter your email address to get our unique spin on news from the world of cycling delivered directly to your inbox!
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