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Welcome back to Spin Cycle, Escape Collective’s news digest.
Wow, what a couple of road races we had to decide the new World Champions. Lotte Kopecky’s victory featured a slightly hairy moment before some half-expected and self-defeating Dutch subterfuge, while Tadej Pogačar’s win saw cycling’s dictionary needing updating for a new level of modern superlatives. Not sure about you, but we definitely need a lie down after that.
Kopeck-eeee! 🫣
Lotte Kopecky cannily defended her rainbow jersey, winning a sprint from a reduced group, having earlier survived a staff member leaning out of a moving support car armed with a box cutter to fix a broken zipper. Yikes!
Having survived 30 km/h speeds with a sharp blade inches from her stomach, Kopecky would have likely thought she was home and dry, ready for another year in the bands of the World Champion.
Unfortunately, in yet another classic case of professional cyclist tries to lift human, Julie de Wilde’s failed hoisting of her leader led to them both collapsing on the floor of the podium.
As predicted by Kopecky last week, the strong Dutch team failed to work as a collective and the elite women therefore came away without a Worlds medal for the first time in a decade.
After a variety of Dutchwomen had helped to close the gap to an attacking Riejanne Markus, Demi Vollering helped to eliminate Markus and Marianne Vos from the group of nine riders on one of the last short climbs with 10 km to go.
With the Dutch the most numerous in this group, it could have provided the perfect launchpad for one of the three to head up the road while the other two sit back and watch as their rivals are forced to give chase.
“Those other girls don’t respond to them,” Vollering said of her rivals’ treatment of Vos and Markus. “They only focus on me.”
If that is the case, then what a perfect tactical situation to find oneself in over the closing kilometres … as long as you’re not only interested in victory for yourself!
Incredulous yet inevitable 🤯
The next day, despite some histrionics from Remco Evenepoel when he remonstrated that no-one in the chase group would help the double Olympic road and world time trial champion chase down Tadej Pogačar (go figure, Remco), the men’s road race was more a case of growing incredulity, as the Slovenian attacked from 100 km out.
He was aided by the ever-loyal Jan Tratnik – who immediately came back from the breakaway when he heard his teammate was on the move – briefly had another companion in trade teammate Pavel Sivakov, and then rarely looked back as he rode the Zürich circuit alone for more than 50 km to become the third person ever after Eddy Merckx and Stephen Roche to complete the triple crown of winning the Giro d’Italia, Tour de France and Worlds in the same year.
“It was not the plan, it was a stupid move,” Pogačar admitted afterwards, before poetically adding: “You don’t decide stupid moves; you don’t think, you just attack, that’s why they are stupid. But this time it just came naturally, it worked and so perhaps it’s not stupid.”
Of course, Le Parisien had Merckx on speed dial as soon as Pogačar crossed the line to get his thoughts:
“What he did is really unbelievable. I have no words for it,” Merckx said. “You have to be crazy to do that. When he attacked, I started to fear for him. I thought that Tadej had left much too early. Normally it is impossible to win after such a long attack, but Tadej did it. He is the strongest rider of his generation. There is no doubt about that. You know, at my age it takes a lot to blow me away. Well, Tadej succeeded. I suspected he could become World Champion, but never like this. He really is the very best – congratulations.”
After putting the phone down, L’Équipe then rang, with Merckx giving them enough so that he would hopefully be left alone to enjoy the rest of his Sunday.
“It’s obvious that he is above me now,” Merckx told the French newspaper. “I already thought as much deep down when I saw what he did in the last Tour de France, but tonight there’s no doubt about it.”
Speaking to NOS, Roche added: “It feels like I’m in the sandwich between Merckx and Pogačar, which is not bad.”
To provide some context to the superlatives, as journalist Daniel Friebe has pointed out, Pogačar and Merckx are actually on a fairly similar trajectory currently.
HOWEVER, as pointed out by Cycling out of context, if Pogačar was his own cycling team for the current promotion/relegation period, his 19,000 UCI points would be enough to for him alone to qualify for a WorldTour licence.
Feed Zone 🥖
✍️ Vuelta a España revelation Pablo Castrillo is heading to Movistar, reports Gazzetta dello Sport.
👴 Jakob Fuglsang has apparently told Danish media he will sign a one-year contract extension with Israel-Premier Tech, which will see him remain a pro when he turns 40 years old in March.
👋 Israel-Premier Tech and their Sporting Manager Rik Verbrugghe have parted ways “amicably” with immediate effect.
🗓️ Mathieu van der Poel has said he will not race the upcoming Il Lombardia, adding he has no idea where those rumours came from, but that he will be at the UCI Gravel World Championships in Leuven next weekend.
🤕 Julian Alaphilippe was forced to abandon the Worlds road race after a crash that dislocated his shoulder and saw him taken away in an ambulance.
🇲🇾 Bit of a hectic start for a few teams over at the Tour de Langkawi, as numerous bikes belonging to Tudor, Equipo Kern Pharma and Corratec-Selle Italia were lost in transit. Some of the Tudor riders were forced to borrow Shimano neutral service bikes for training rides as mechanics hurriedly built replacements with the spare parts they had with them, while other teams have also leant spare models. The race is also bracing for thunderstorms and potential flooding.
🗞️ You can find all this and more in our Daily News roundup. All the news you need on one lovely and clean website. Lovely.
Cycling on TV 📺
Tuesday October 1st
Tour de Langkawi – Stage 3
(02:30-04:10 ET/07:30-09:10 BST/16:30-18:10 AEST) Eurosport/Discovery+🇬🇧
Binche-Chimay Binche Women
(07:00-08:20 ET/12:00-13:20 BST/21:00-22:20 AEST) Eurosport/Discovery+🇬🇧, Max🇺🇸, Staylive🇦🇺
Binche-Chimay Binche Men
(08:35-11:20 ET/13:35-16:20 BST/22:35-01:20 AEST) Eurosport/Discovery+🇬🇧, Max🇺🇸, Staylive 🇦🇺
Cro Race – Stage 1
(07:30-09:30 ET/12:30-14:30 BST/21:30-23:30 AEST) Eurosport/Discovery+🇬🇧, FloBikes🇺🇸🇨🇦
Wednesday October 2nd
Tour de Langkawi – Stage 4
(02:15-03:55 ET/07:15-08:55 BST/16:15-17:55 AEST) Eurosport/Discovery+🇬🇧
Elfstedenrace
(07:30-09:30 ET/12:30-14:30 BST/21:30-23:30 AEST) Eurosport/Discovery+🇬🇧
Cro Race – Stage 2
(09:00-11:00 ET/14:00-16:00 BST/23:00-01:00 AEST) Eurosport/Discovery+🇬🇧, FloBikes🇺🇸🇨🇦
Thursday October 3rd
Tour de Langkawi – Stage 5
(02:05-03:45 ET/07:05-08:45 BST/16:05-17:45 AEST) Eurosport/Discovery+🇬🇧
Sparkassen Munsterland Giro
(06:50-12:00 ET/11:50-17:00 BST/20:50-02:00 AEST) Eurosport/Discovery+🇬🇧
Cro Race – Stage 3
(09:00-10:00 ET/13:00-15:00 BST/22:00-00:00 AEST) Eurosport/Discovery+🇬🇧, FloBikes🇺🇸🇨🇦
Friday October 4th
Tour de Langkawi – Stage 7 (Thursday evening for America/Canada)
(22:20-00:00 ET/03:20-05:00 BST/12:20-14:00 AEST) Eurosport/Discovery+🇬🇧
Cro Race – Stage 4
(09:00-11:00 ET/14:00-16:00 BST/23:00-01:00 AEST) Eurosport/Discovery+🇬🇧, FloBikes🇺🇸🇨🇦
MTB
UCI MTB World Cup, Monte-Sainte-Anne – Elite Women XCC
(16:15-17:00 ET/21:15-22:00 BST/06:15-07:00 AEST) Eurosport/Discovery+🇬🇧, FloBikes🇺🇸🇨🇦
UCI MTB World Cup, Monte-Sainte-Anne – Elite Men XCC
(17:00-17:50 ET/22:00-22:50 BST/07:00-07:50 AEST) Eurosport/Discovery+🇬🇧, FloBikes🇺🇸🇨🇦
🤝 Yay team friendship of the week 🤝
Suffice to say, we try to be fair here at Spin Cycle, but we absolutely do not try to be unbiased.
So, when the two-man chase behind Pogačar ended up being Toms Skujiņš and Ben Healy we were (not wanting to disturb Sunday dinner) quietly fist-pumping while watching the pair head up the road.
And what was even better is that the duo seemed to forge their own alliance/friendship (let’s call it friendship) in the face of Pogačar’s strength as Skujiņš lent Healy a bidon, realising they needed each other if they had any hope of catching the Slovenian.
Unfortunately, they couldn’t quite make their move stick, with Skujiņš finishing fourth and Healy seventh.
“Thank God I was with Toms Skujiņš, because he was extremely strong today,” Healy said afterwards. “I did what I had to do, but I just didn’t have the legs. I would have liked to contribute a bit more, maybe we would have stayed away, but I did what I could.”
Another victory for yay team friendship in the big and (sometimes) bad world of bike racing!
And finally …
At an hour where one is not really supposed or expected to be watching the Worlds road race (if you were, congrats on both the free time and attention span), viewers were delighted with live footage of Canada’s Michael Woods spooning something out of a tupperware straight into his gob (this doesn’t feel that safe, but at least it’s less dangerous than having a mechanic stab around at your clothing with a box cutter …).
Luckily, Aussie pro Cyrus Monk was on hand to let everyone know what exactly was going on with the rather elaborate mid-race snack:
“Lot of confusion over this. This is bicarb, not rice or a solid meal,” Monk explained. Standard practice is to get it in 2-3h before ‘key point’ when you really want to buffer acidity in muscles. Riders usually just take it on the bus and miss the ‘perfect’ timing but points for creativity here!”
🧺 Send us yer laundry pics
“Hello from Vathy, on Ithaca,” writes in Al Storer, attaching today’s featured laundry photo.
“Here’s a launderette even Odysseus could find. As you can see the weather here in the Ionian is somewhat nicer than back in England, though (and get out your tiniest violin for this) the wind has been lacking which is a bit of a shame on a sailing holiday. Is modern Ithaca the same as the one of legend? Who can say. The locals certainly lean into it being the real one.”
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 Al Storer and Jase de Puit for contributions to today’s edition and a big thank you to all of you who have signed up as Escape Collective 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
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