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.
If you work in finance or at least understand what a number is, you might want to look away now, as we dip our toes into some cycling financial market fusion.
But things could be worse. You could be the company that sponsors a cycling team and whose British consumers are pouring its product down the drain this week in protest. And no, it’s not Red Bull.
Oh, we’ve also buried the lede of this edition slightly, as Chris Froome has won a bike race!
Should have bought the dip 📉
Maybe it’s a sickness of this modern age, one borne of the fact the optimum thing I could have done for my overall prospects 14 years ago was to buy a few Bitcoin, but soon after news broke that Remco Evenepoel had been knocked off of his bike by a Belgian postal van, I looked up the Belgian Post Group (Bpost) stock price to see if there had been any knock-on effects from the unfolding situation.
How would the market view a company literally breaking the country’s star sportsman into pieces? Well, as Evenepoel was diagnosed with fractures to his rib, shoulder blade and hand, the stock continued its ongoing slide, down 2% by the end of the day.
Of course, we’re not dumb enough to truly believe this unfortunate incident shook the markets into action, because Bpost’s downward trend has already been established, down not just 58% this year but a whopping 82% over the past five years.
On the other hand, explain this to us: Just after that low of €1.86 when markets opened at 9AM on Wednesday, Evenepoel released his first statement since the crash, thanking medical services and his family for their help and also expressing support for the postal worker who knocked him off, which is a very gracious move from the double Olympic champion.
Almost immediately after the statement was released, the stock began ticking up, gaining nearly 6% at the time of writing on Friday morning. The Remco Evenepoel effect, ladies and gentleman. We knew we should have bought the Bpost dip, this is Bitcoin all over again! AARGHH!!
Crying over spilled milk 🥛
So, British people have been pouring milk down their sinks and toilets in protest at the trial of a new cow feed additive that is claimed to significantly reduce methane gas emissions in dairy cows.
Obviously, people have been posting videos on social media of them pouring away the milk, as they believe this new Bovaer additive is unsafe (experts say these claims are baseless), even though the milk isn’t even on sale yet, it’s just been approved by regulators. We are a very normal country. What’s more, the more crazy of the crazies argue in a full cocktail of misinformation that this new milk is part of a “depopulation” plot linked to Bill Gates.
Why is this relevant to a cycling newsletter, you ask? Well, this Bovaer additive is made by cycling team sponsor DSM-Firmenich, which has been forced to publish a lengthy statement against the “mistruths and misinformation” being spread about its product.
Are we about to get our own Obama Flint water moment in cycling, as Oscar Onley is dragged out before a stage of the Tour Down Under to down a pint of Bovaer milk? Hopefully it doesn’t come to that.
Feed Zone 🥖
📖 Suggested weekend reading: A thorough piece on the history of Bradley Wiggins’ financial woes from the Telegraph.
🍦 Rapha has re-released a chamois cream “inspired by the flaura found on the slopes of Mont Ventoux.” Not to be confused with regular old flora, which likely costs a quarter of the price.
🇬🇧 Tom Pidcock’s departure from Ineos Grenadiers was finally confirmed this week, with the 25-year-old signing a three-year deal with Q36.5. Scott confirmed to Escape Collective its deal to supply bikes to Q36.5 is locked in until the end of 2025, which coincidentally is when Pinarello’s current deal with Ineos expires. Q36.5 owner Ivan Glasenberg also reportedly owns Pinarello … we’re just connecting dots here.
⚙️ Campagnolo is back in the WorldTour after a one-season absence, having teamed up with Cofidis for 2025. Our Ronan broke this story three weeks ago, just to give him his dues.
Cycling on TV 📺
Saturday December 7th
Track
UCI Track Champions League, London – Round 5
(12:30-17:00 ET/17:30-22:00 GMT/04:30-09:00 AEDT) Eurosport/Discovery+🇬🇧, Max 🇺🇸, FloBikes🇨🇦, Staylive🇦🇺
Sunday December 8th
Cyclocross
UCI Cyclocross World Cup, Cabras – Women
(07:30-09:00 ET/12:30-14:00 GMT/23:30-01:00 AEDT) Eurosport/Discovery+🇬🇧, UCI’s YouTube🇺🇸🇨🇦🇦🇺
UCI Cyclocross World Cup, Cabras – Men
(09:00-10:30 ET/14:00-15:30 GMT/01:00-02:30 AEDT) Eurosport/Discovery+🇬🇧, UCI’s YouTube🇺🇸🇨🇦🇦🇺
[NOTE: World Cup streaming rights for North America have been a bit wonky of late. FloBikes did not initially list World Cups on its schedule but now does. However, it also did for last week’s Dublin round and that was free-to-view on the UCI YouTube live tab without a VPN. All of which is to say: we have no idea what will work this week. 🤷♂️]
Monday December 9th
No live racing …
🤩 Unexpected victory of the week 🤩
Chris Froome catches a lot of flack for not being as good as he used to be – and he used to be very good. Really, what people seem to be mad at him for these days is for swindling a billionaire out of six measly millions, like a lycra-clad Robin Hood.
Nevertheless, money doesn’t solve everything, and the fact of the matter is Froome hasn’t won a bike race since the 2018 Giro d’Italia … until now!
Turns out the reason he was in Taiwan with Mark Cavendish (as we saw in Monday’s newsletter) was to participate as a special (AKA paid) guest at the Gran Fondo Sun Moon Lake, covering 104 mountainous kilometres.
And thanks to this grainy photo that emerged on the internet in the aftermath, we know that he only went and won the thing! Meanwhile, Cavendish finished sixth. Good job Chris, a win is a win, don’t let anyone take that away from you.
The results sheet also provides a timely reminder that Chris Froome’s middle name is Clive. Wish our middle name was Clive.
And finally …
And seeing as we’re on our finance BS this week, here is a more comforting way to think about US national debt: just pretend it’s a Vuelta a España stage! Problem solved!
🧺 Send us yer laundry pics
“Here’s something I found today,” writes in Ira Dee, attaching today’s featured laundry photo. “It’s an ancient communal laundry in the moorish neighbourhood of Lisbon!”
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 Matt Crimp for spotting the DSM cow story, to Ira Dee for the laundry photo 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
Enter your email address to get our unique spin on news from the world of cycling delivered directly to your inbox!
Get our unique spin on news from the world of cycling delivered directly to your inbox!
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