Spin Cycle is Escape Collective’s news digest, published every Monday and Friday. You can read it on this website (obviously) or have it delivered straight to your inbox.
Spin Cycle
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Hello!
Welcome back to Spin Cycle, Escape Collective’s news digest.
It’s important to start your week the right way, which in our case means having Alexander Kristoff being very relatable, a win for team friendship in the very first road race of the year, a journalist borderline-scaring Tom Pidcock with his soothsaying ability, and there’s a bit of local beef cooking up in our laundry submission section. You do spoil us.
Starting the year with a win for team friendship 🤝
Luke Durbridge is the new men’s Australian national road champion, having set off on a courageous solo breakaway move as his Jayco-AlUla teammates marked counter-attacks behind, before Luke Plapp bridged the gap late-on to provide Durbridge with a pull over the final few kilometres and allowing him to take the plaudits and victory on home roads in Perth.
Now, had this been, oh I don’t know, the Belgian national championships, with one rider effectively given the victory regardless of how much they may have earned it due to their breakaway exploits, there would have likely been some sort of outrage or consternation. However, the reaction coming out of Australia seems to mostly be “that’s nice.”
This is a great note on which to begin the 2025 road season, in our opinion. Plapp, having already won the last three road titles at the age of 24, had a chance to make history as the first rider to ever win four in a row, but instead gave his teammate the memory of a lifetime with a second national road title 12 years after his first. What a good guy.
We have another theory, with Jayco-AlUla having a fun new kit this season, we reckon Plapp wanted to wear it instead of spending yet another year in the Australian champion bands. Tin foil hats on, we’re going to get to the bottom of this.
Also, are we seeing the immediate effect of the UCI banning riders celebrating in the bunch? Although Plapp had no one else around him, we’re gonna put his waiting-on-celebrating squarely on the doormat of the UCI along with all the other blame parcels they are yet to move inside.
(By the way, sorry for forgetting the Australian Champs from Friday’s TV guide. Presumably if you’re Australian you would have known it was going on and if you were in the US/UK you’d have likely been asleep. Thanks however to Helen Curtis for chucking the listing in the comments).
Admitting is the first step 🙇♂️
It’s been quite the cyclocross season, from Eli Iserbyt’s various dramas to the Christmas of Mathieu van der Poel and Wout van Aert’s muddy return from injury.
The latest thing we’re enjoying from the mud racing on the European continent is cyclocross riders publicly saying they want to avoid Van der Poel and Van Aert, which, if we’re being honest just like they are, is their best chance of victory.
Take Tibor del Grosso, the new Dutch cyclocross national champion, who told Wielerflits after his victory this weekend that he will be returning to the U23 ranks for the World Championships as his compatriot Van der Poel will be on the start line for the elite men’s race.
“No, I don’t think so. I like to ride a World Championship to win, and with Mathieu van der Poel at the start, that is almost impossible with the elites,” Del Grosso said. “So I would rather try to become world champion with the U23s than try to hopefully reach the podium with the elites.”
The same has been happening in Belgium. Two weeks ago Michael Vanthourenhout said many riders were focused on the Belgian national championship because Van Aert had opted out.
“That cross is in the back of everyone’s mind. Especially since Wout van Aert is not participating. Since we know that, everyone chooses their own route to be at the top of the Belgian Championship,” Vanthourenhout told Sporza, with the Belgian title won by Thibau Nys.
Arguably, the most fun thing from cyclocross this weekend just gone was the Dutch National Championships organisers planting a tree for every rider who jumped over the beam on the course in the elite men’s and women’s competitions. Funded by race sponsor Rolande, which calls itself a pioneer in clean fuel, 85 competitors across both races and six laps meant a total of 510 trees was possible. Good luck to the person tasked with counting all of those jumps.
Feed Zone 🥖
🤕 Remco Evenepoel has suffered a setback in his rehabilitation from injury, saying he’s hit a nerve in his shoulder that needs work, which has complicated things. He’s hoping it’s only delayed him by a few days.
🌈 Meanwhile, Mathieu van der Poel continues to train on the road as he recovers from his rib injury, but still plans to return at the Maasmechelen CX World Cup round on January 25th ahead of the World Championships the week after.
🏃♂️ Tom Dumoulin ran the weekend’s Egmond half marathon in 1 hour 8 minutes and 45 seconds, faster than his 2023 Amsterdam half marathon effort of 1 hour 10 minutes and 4 seconds.
Cycling on TV 📺
Tuesday January 14th – Thursday January 16th
No live racing …
Friday January 17th
Women’s Tour Down Under, Stage 1
(19:30-22:00 ET/00:30-03:00 GMT/11:30-15:00 AEDT) 🇬🇧Eurosport/Discovery+, 🇺🇸Peacock, 🇨🇦FloBikes, 🇦🇺7plus/7mate
😮 Pro riders appreciating journalists of the week 😮
Everyone knows how good a reporter Dan Benson is, but we didn’t know he could predict the future, as Tom Pidcock revealed when the two met at the recent Q36.5 media day.
And finally …
Alexander Kristoff has always been a real one …
We are on Instagram now 📱
Yes, we are branching out. New year, (slightly) new us. As well as a newsletter and a podcast under the Spin Cycle name, we are now planning on going toe-to-toe with The Algorithm as we try to get some fresh eyeballs on our various wares. Amongst podcast video clips where you can see what our faces look like, we’ll also be bringing you bitesize news hits in video form as the racing season gets underway. Find us here.
Local beef 🥩
In response to Will Partridge’s accusation in Friday’s laundry photo submission that the Swan River was smelly, we received the following in the mail from Adam Ralph, which we’ll now share for balance and in case we have libelled a river.
“I’m usually rather proud of Perth and especially so during the National Road Championships this week – it’s been a buzz so far and looking forward to the road races today and tomorrow. So it’s not surprising that I feel the need to bite on the disinformation from Will Partridge. I’m not sure if he’s a local, but … it’s ridiculous to link the relatively infrequent rotten egg smell to the road race parcours.
“Firstly, the Swan River is in pretty good health with people swimming, fishing and sailing as a usual past-time – dolphin sightings are common. Not bad for a river system in the middle of a city – well, ok, more like a big country town than a city! (NOTE: mussels and crab guts are not to be consumed due to algae – algal bloom is a serious issue in some parts of the Swan Canning system). Painting it so poorly stinks (pun intended).”
Now, what we’re going to need is a third party to provide us with the the final say over whether the Swan River stinks or not. If you can help out please get in touch to declare victory one way or another in the The 2025 Battle Of Swan River. Big thanks to both Will and Adam for bringing this issue to light. More of this sort of thing, please.
🧺 Send us yer laundry pics
“Hi Jonny, another vessel,” writes in ‘no gravy required’ via Discord, attaching today’s featured laundry photo. “Currently 100 miles north of Hammerfest where we’ve not seen the sun for the weeks. Not long till I’m off and home to sunny Scotland.”
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: jonny.long@escapecollective.com
Until next time …
That’s all folks! Thanks to Helen Curtis, Adam Ralph and no gravy required 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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