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Hello!
Welcome back to Spin Cycle, Escape Collective’s news digest.
We have a bumper newsletter for you today, thanks to drama over at Challenge Mallorca, Tom Pidcock winning the AlUla Tour (baby!) and a dispatch from Iain Treloar at the Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race, what a treat.
It can be a challenge putting on a bike race in Mallorca …
Some good news to begin the week of the peloton using its collective power to prevent dangerous racing conditions.
Saturday’s fourth leg of the five-day Challenge Mallorca was halted after 30 minutes, 23 km into the 150 km course, with multiple riders crashing and reports of team cars slipping off the road in very wet conditions.
“The riders made the right decision to protect their physical integrity and their lives,” CPA President Adam Hansen wrote on X, adding all medical personnel at the race were engaged with assisting riders and taking some to hospital, leaving none for any future incidents.
Race organisers were upset at what they saw as riders and teams taking the decision into their own hands, but Hansen pointed out that the President of the Commissaires’ Panel (PCP) should have neutralised the race already by this point after multiple riders alerted officials to the danger.
So, did race organisers apologise for not following protocol and carry on as normal for the final fifth day that went ahead without a hitch?
Not quite, reports Ultima Hora, as they pulled their stage announcer from the morning’s sign-on, leaving riders to get up on stage and just wave to the gathered fans in a slightly awkward silence. So petty! Kind of wish we’d been there.
😮 Honest rider interview of the week 😮
Lenny Martinez’s transfer away from Groupama-FDJ to Bahrain-Victorious raised a lot of eyebrows last summer, mostly because that’s not the done thing when you’re France’s next GC hope.
You’re supposed to stay in the warm embrace of team boss Marc Madiot until a run of disappointing performances at the Tour de France at which point you’re allowed to fade into relative obscurity.
But Martinez’s talent is such that he had many suitors after his signature, and he opted for Bahrain-Victorious mostly because of “their desire to have me”, he told l’Équipe, and (he admits) because they offered the highest salary, but well below the rumoured €2.5 million a year figure that was being flung around in 2024.
It turns out Bahrain boss Milan Erzen had already been in touch before Martinez turned pro, but the French youngster wasn’t quite ready to depart for an international team (he’s since been using Duolingo and watching interviews of Julian Alaphilippe and Egan Bernal to learn English words for various cycling terminology because they don’t have a “crazy accent”).
Martinez was also assuaged of any concerns over the two doping raids on his new team at the 2021 and 2022 Tours de France because “the team reassured me about that, that it was really against doping”, and he’s done his own research, finding there have been more positives at other teams than Bahrain-Victorious, but he still deleted Twitter off his phone ahead of the announcement on August 4, when people sent him a lot of abuse and, he specifies, a lot of vomit emojis.
L’Équipe really cover a lot of ground, posing every thorny question as reality bites for their French superstar, who had to decide whether he wanted to remain the pure, sweet child of July at Groupama-FDJ or try and make something of his career at a bigger team.
This includes asking about Martinez’s motives for moving to Andorra, his answer to which is refreshingly honest.
“Hmm, let’s not lie to each other, for taxes already!” Martinez said, which means his new salary may not be two and a half million, but it’s very, very good. “I was hesitating between Monaco, which I like because it’s next to France. Monaco, if I went there, for taxes it was not possible because I’m French.”
All the best, Lenny. Thanks for your candour.
Feed Zone 🥖
🇷🇼 Despite the worsening conflict in the neighbouring Congo (reportedly being instigated by Rwanda) the UCI says it has no plans to relocate September’s Road World Championships away from the African country, although La Dernière Heure says a Swiss-based back-up course is being prepared. Dane Cash has more on the story here.
🇬🇧 A British MP has joined the criticism of Warner Bros. Discovery over its televised cycling price hike. “A terrible decision by TNT Sports to put cycling coverage behind a paywall with a 400% price hike,” wrote the member of Parliament for Huntingdon in Cambridgeshire on X. “With ITV Cycling having also lost the free-to-air rights of Le Tour, next month cycling coverage is going to become a prohibitively expensive luxury to a huge number of fans.” Now, a treat for non-UK readers who may still believe the UK is a made up place. This MP’s name? Ben Obese-Jecty! Definitely, maybe a real person.
🤦♂️ We had a celebration a lap early from Czechia’s Barbora Bukovská in the junior women’s race (as can be seen from the perturbed fans along the barriers amongst a bunch of other great photography put together in a gallery by our Kit over the weekend). The mistake handed France its only victory on home soil, as Lise Revol caught and passed Bukovská before the actual finish line.
🚿 There was also consternation over the CX Worlds weekend, as the high-pressure hoses used to clean the bikes in the pits weren’t high pressure enough on Saturday, causing one team manager to call the organisation of the race “unprofessional nonsense” in conversation with Sporza before the UCI raced to replace all of the hoses overnight ready for Sunday’s action.
🏆 Fresh off his cyclocross World Championship win, Mathieu van der Poel told Wielerlifts he’ll start his road season in just over a month’s time at either Paris-Nice or Tirreno-Adriatico. His compatriot Fem van Empel won the women’s elite cyclocross world championship title.
👟 Italian 17-year-old Mattia Agostinacchio won the junior men’s cyclocross world title despite riding to victory with a broken shoe.
🇪🇨 Jhonatan Narváez won the Ecuadorian national road race championships for the third time in his career.
🇫🇷 Cofidis’ Valentin Ferron won the GP La Marseillaise in a sprint finish decided by millimetres.
🙌 Remco Evenepoel has completed his first ride outside since his December crash.
🎰 Mauro Schmid (Jayco-AlUla) solo’ed to victory at the Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race, with Ally Wollaston winning the sprint in the women’s edition.
💨 The UCI has banned the use of repeated carbon monoxide inhalation and put restrictions in place as to how and where you can utilise it for haemoglobin mass measurement. Ronan has more on the story here.
Cycling on TV 📺
Tuesday February 4th
No live racing …
Wednesday February 5th
Etoile de Bessèges – Stage 1
(08:00-10:00 ET/13:00-15:00 GMT/00:00-02:00 AEDT) 🇬🇧Eurosport/Discovery+, 🇺🇸Max, 🇨🇦FloBikes
Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana – Stage 1
(09:30-11:00 ET/14:30-16:00 GMT/23:30-01:00 AEDT) 🇬🇧Eurosport/Discovery+, 🇺🇸Max, 🇺🇸🇨🇦FloBikes, 🇦🇺StayLive
Cyclocross
Exact Cross, Maldegem – Women
(07:42-08:57 ET/12:42-13:57 GMT/23:42-00:57 AEDT) 🇬🇧Eurosport/Discovery+, 🇺🇸Max, 🇨🇦FloBikes, 🇦🇺StayLive
Exact Cross, Maldegem – Men
(08:57-10:20 ET/13:57-15:20 GMT/00:57-02:20 AEDT) 🇬🇧Eurosport/Discovery+, 🇺🇸Max, 🇨🇦FloBikes, 🇦🇺StayLive
Thursday February 6th
UAE Tour Women – Stage 1
(05:50-07:30 ET/10:50-12:30 GMT/21:50-23:30 AEDT) 🇬🇧Eurosport/Discovery+, 🇺🇸Max, 🇨🇦FloBikes
Etoile de Bessèges – Stage 2
(08:00-10:00 ET/13:00-15:00 GMT/00:00-02:00 AEDT) 🇬🇧Eurosport/Discovery+, 🇺🇸Max, 🇨🇦FloBikes
Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana – Stage 2
(09:30-11:00 ET/14:30-16:00 GMT/23:30-01:00 AEDT) 🇬🇧Eurosport/Discovery+, 🇺🇸Max, 🇨🇦FloBikes, 🇦🇺StayLive
Friday February 7th
UAE Tour Women – Stage 2
(05:50-07:30 ET/10:50-12:30 GMT/21:50-23:30 AEDT) 🇬🇧Eurosport/Discovery+, 🇺🇸Max, 🇨🇦FloBikes
Etoile de Bessèges – Stage 3
(08:00-10:00 ET/13:00-15:00 GMT/00:00-02:00 AEDT) 🇬🇧Eurosport/Discovery+, 🇺🇸Max, 🇨🇦FloBikes
Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana – Stage 3
(09:30-11:00 ET/14:30-16:00 GMT/23:30-01:00 AEDT) 🇬🇧Eurosport/Discovery+, 🇺🇸Max, 🇨🇦FloBikes, 🇦🇺StayLive
🥸 A bonus Iain Treloar segment to kick off the week 🥸
Over the weekend, our very own Iain Treloar headed down to the Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race and did what he tends to do best – ask fun and unexpected questions of professional bike riders, catching them off-guard when he doesn’t enquire as to how their legs might be feeling, or what they are expecting from an event that is yet to take place.
This time around, his chosen people of interest were Lidl-Trek’s 22-year-old German Tim Torn Teutenberg and Groupama-FDJ’s 33-year-old Frenchman Quentin Pacher. Without further ado, here are the interviews.
Iain Treloar: Tim, when we see your name written down – The R and the N of ‘Torn’ looks like an M.
Tim Torn Teutenberg: Yes. A lot of people do this mistake – even on my licence I had it once that it was not ‘Tim Torn’, it was ‘Tim Tom’.
IT: How do you feel about that? Do you like ‘Tim Tom’?
TTT: No, no, I prefer Tim Torn. I think it sounds better.
IT: What do you prefer about it? Just the sound of it? The mouth-feel?
TTT: I don’t know – I think it’s also nice that Tim Torn is a bit of a weird name in German.
IT: Whilst you’ve been in Australia, have you had [popular local biscuit] Tim Tams?
TTT: Yeah, yeah, yeah-yeah-yeah. Already a couple of times when I was here before.
IT: And did you like them?
TTT: Yeah, I love them. They are really good – I have to bring them home also, for all the people that know them; they want them.
IT: On the Tim Tam packet could you get like a little sticker and write an O, R and an N over the end of it, so you can hand them a pack of Tim Torns?
TTT: Yeah, that would be nice – maybe I should do that. Yeah. I think we can probably … [looking over to team press officer Love Island Jacob] Maybe that’s something for you – if I come back next year, we just make the stickers before, and then… ?
Lidl-Trek press officer Love Island Jacob: The problem is that they’re not a Lidl product.
IT: No, no, no. The Tim Tam is not a Lidl product. But the Tim Torn could be.
TTT: We could launch them with Lidl… and then I can, you know, do a sign with me and the Tim Torns …
LIJ: [warming to the idea] OK, let’s make this happen.
IT: Last question. Do you think that if there was a packet of Tim Torns and you, if you were holding them and looking in a mirror, would you get confused about which one you were?
TTT: [laughs] 100 percent.
IT: Thank you for tolerating my silly questions.
TTT: Thanks for the good idea with the Tim Torns.
FIN
——–
Iain Treloar: Hi Quentin, do you speak English?
Quentin Pacher: Yeah, yeah.
IT: Outstanding. I have a very stupid question for you.
QP: Yeah.
IT: Simon Geschke has now retired.
QP: [smiles] Yeah…
IT: Which means that you are one of the few remaining beards in the peloton.
QP: [laughs] Yeah.
IT: Is there any competition between you and Geoffrey Soupe?
QP: Geoffrey Soupe? No, no no. There is no competition. He’s the winner. He has the biggest one and, how you say… [mimes stroking a big beard, well off the chin]
IT: It’s quite thick, isn’t it.
QP: Yeah, it’s a BIG one. And he works on it!
IT: [gestures to Quentin Pacher’s chin] Do you ever get tempted to grow this out?
QP: Ah, no. No, no, no. I want it to stay short like this – I’m a climber. So I need a short one!
IT: Saving those grams.
QP: Yeah yeah yeah.
IT: Are there any aerodynamic benefits – or disadvantages – to the beard?
QP: I have absolutely no idea. I need to go do some aerodynamic tests to find the solution, but, you know, I don’t know yet.
IT: Okay. Final question: are there any up-and-coming beards of the Peloton that we need to know about?
QP: I hope that a team of bearded riders will grow up …
IT: A whole team?!
QP: For sure [laughs]. Maybe it can be like a project, with a sponsorship with a barber shop, I don’t know…
IT: Like a reverse Alpecin.
QP: [laughs] Maybe!
And finally …
Tom Pidcock engaging in some practice for a less than subtle “when I sign my lucrative One Cycling deal, there will be signs” as he gets dressed for the podium after winning the AlUla Tour. What a look, genuinely love it. The other boys may have tried a bit harder had they known the real prize that awaited them.
Unfortunately, he forgot to keep his head upright as he clambered up to receive his trophy …
🧺 Send us yer laundry pics
“I passed this laundromat on a frigid, grey day in Toronto and had to grab a picture for you,” writes in Matt Ianucci, attaching today’s featured laundromat.
“My apologies for the reflections in the window; I realized once I got home that I had inadvertently captured myself and my cargo bike in the image. I was also only able to open one door since the other machine was in use.”
Don’t worry Matt, we plastered Saudi Pidcock over the top of you.
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 Matt Ianucci and Kit Nicholson 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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