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.
Hello!
Welcome back to Spin Cycle, Escape Collective’s news digest.
We've got lots of little bits for you to nibble on today. Like going to a small plates restaurant, except you're not being charged £9 for two measly croquettes or some (admittedly delicious) padrón peppers. These are definitely random examples. Don't read into it too much.
Anyway, our offering today includes two doses of cuteness with a sandwich filling of odd tech goings on. Yes, you read that right, we've got cycling tech in today's newsletter. The sky is falling, hold your loved ones close.
Thibaut Pinot delivers some good vibes 🥹
We decided to parcel away the photo Thibaut Pinot posted last week of his goat's new babies for some delayed gratification and much-needed Monday vibes. Turns out we were absolutely correct to do this and now feel warm and fuzzy on the inside. Well done us.
Another nail in the coffin for cycling aesthetics ⚰️
Eagle-eyed viewers of the Tour of Oman may have noticed Visma-Lease a Bike's Niklas Behrens looked slightly different at the start of the first stage than at the end, having switched out his road helmet for an older Giro Aerohead TT helmet.
Our Ronan was ahead of this oddity last week with his article on Wout van Aert's experimentation, and using a TT helmet is legal, so nothing wrong here, apart from the continued slide of cycling aesthetics into the abyss (in our view, at least).
What is Visma Lease a Bike cooking? 👀
— Lukáš Ronald Lukács (@lucasaganronald) February 8, 2025
Niklas Behrens changed helmet mid-stage and appeared in a TT helmet in Olav Kooij sprint train at Tour of Oman.
#TourofOman pic.twitter.com/ltZTsOSWOE
Will we see more of this going forward? Judging by the reaction of the Visma-Lease a Bike riders, having successfully led Olav Kooij to the stage win, and patting Behrens on the head while laughing and joking, we'd guess the rest of the squad are going to take some convincing before sacrificing all comfort and self-respect in search of ever-finer marginal gains.
Asta-nah that's not your bike
A now-deleted post from the great cycling tech sleuth cyclingspy (deleted because they couldn't be bothered with the drama caused), who noticed not only was this Astana-clad rider using re-branded Corima wheels in order to be sponsor correct, but they'd also marked up last year's Wilier Zero SLR with X-Lab branding.
What's even better, is XDS-Astana got involved in the comments section, flat-out denying this is one of their riders, even though they appear to be riding alongside a sponsor-correct Red Bull-Bora Hansgrohe rider. And even if it is someone's mate who's been given all the kit and equipment, what's the story behind the rebranded bike?
Please, Astana, keep on doing Astana things, if only to maintain this very specific equilibrium in the world.
Feed Zone 🥖
🇨🇴 Egan Bernal also took the Colombian national road race title to go along with his time trial victory a few days prior. Kit Nicholson has more on his comeback here.
🇸🇪 Sweden will host the 2027 European Mountain Bike Championships in Gothenburg.
🇦🇪 Elisa Longo Borghini (UAE Team ADQ) won the queen stage at the UAE Tour Women en route to sealing the overall classification, with Lorena Wiebes winning the other three stages. Matt de Neef has the story here.
🍊 Two stage wins saw Bahrain-Victorious' Santiago Buitrago win the Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana, with Lidl-Trek's Jonathan Milan taking the final sprint stage victory into Valencia.
⭐ Arkéa-B&B Hotels' Kévin Vauquelin won a shortened stage four (due to weather) at Etoile de Bessèges, before also taking the stage five ITT win to seal the overall. After a week of cars on the road and teams quitting, we'll give the Star of Bessèges road race 1/5 stars.
💸 Companies House documents reveal Warner Bros. Discovery wrote off £33 million of debts outstanding before completing the sale of GCN back to its original owners. msn has more on the story.
😎 Sunglasses of the week 😎
David Gaudu, from negging his teammates on Twitch to the peloton's foremost steampunk influencer. We're glad the topknot has stayed, but Big Snogger™️ is now back for some sort of cosmic blunderbuss shootout in an alternative Victorian era circa 2077 where he's warring with an evil industrialist overlord who goes by the name of Marc Madiot.
Oh, and he's soared into the lead at the Tour of Oman, with Adam Yates second. Gaudu is BACK, baby!
I now know two people with steampunk sunglasses; me and David Gaudu. Although mine aren't gold. pic.twitter.com/PK5V6Q5MWy
— Dan Deakins (@DanDeakins) February 7, 2025
Cycling on TV 📺
Tuesday February 11th
Tour of Oman - Stage 4
(02:05-06:30 ET/07:05-11:30 GMT/18:05-22:30 AEDT) 🌐Oman Sports TV on YouTube
Wednesday February 12th
Tour of Oman - Stage 5
(02:05-06:30 ET/07:05-11:30 GMT/18:05-22:30 AEDT) 🌐Oman Sports TV on YouTube
Track
UEC Track European Championships, Heusden-Zolder - Day 1
(12:45-15:10 ET/17:45-20:10 GMT/04:45-07:10 AEDT) 🇬🇧Eurosport/Discovery+
Thursday February 13th
Track
UEC Track European Championships, Heusden-Zolder - Day 2
(12:15-16:05 ET/17:15-21:05 GMT/04:15-08:05 AEDT) 🇬🇧Eurosport/Discovery+
Friday February 14th
Tour de la Provence - Stage 1
(07:30-08:57 ET/12:30-13:57 GMT/23:30-00:57 AEDT) 🇬🇧Eurosport/Discovery+, 🇺🇸🇨🇦FloBikes, 🇦🇺SBS
Track
UEC Track European Championships, Heusden-Zolder - Day 3
(12:15-15:40 ET/17:15-20:40 GMT/04:15-07:40 AEDT) 🇬🇧Eurosport/Discovery+
🚚 Sponsorship activation of the week 🚚
Soudal Quick-Step love a traditional sponsor. Safety Jogger shoes, Soudal sealants, Quick-Step flooring. It's true cycling heartlands stuff. Real products for real people.
Which is why we were overjoyed to see that under the new leadership of CEO Jurgen Foré in this post-Lefevere world for the team, they are continuing in the same mould.
Please welcome to the cycling sponsorship game ... Buzzatti Dry Bulk Logistics! So boring but someone has to do it I guess.
And how have they managed to un-dull promotion for Dry Bulk Logistics? By getting Tim Merlier's adorable son to play with a toy version of one of their trucks. Genius! Cute! You know what, put me down for five Dry Bulk Logistics, I'll support a company supporting cycling.
And finally ...
Tadej Pogačar waited a month into 2025 before getting back to trolling the cycling world, riding the Trouée d'Arenberg of Paris-Roubaix fame alongside teammate Tim Wellens. No way he's actually racing Roubaix this spring, right?
Elsewhere in looking-ahead-to-the-Classics-already, one person has highlighted that two months out from Holy Week, Wout van Aert is putting in 900 km training weeks in his race to get fit post-injury, while Mathieu van der Poel spent the whole week skiing. A fun comparison, expect many more twist and turns before we head into the zenith of the Classics season. We already can't wait.
🧺 Send us yer laundry pics
"Knowing how much you love Saudi Arabia, I thought you would like this this shot of the community launderette on the residential camp here at Neom," writes in Grant, attaching today's featured laundry photo. "We are a large community of over 4,000 people and there is a large number of cyclists amongst us."
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 Grant, Ronan McLaughlin, Caley Fretz 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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