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.
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Hello!
Welcome back to Spin Cycle, Escape Collective’s news digest.
You will notice today’s newsletter mostly consists of the men’s Olympic road race, owing to the simple fact that I watched it in its entirety while sitting on the runway at Heathrow airport for three hours, before then queueing up for a few more hours to get a replacement flight for my journey to the Arctic Race of Norway. In related news, I was then in the air for the entirety of the women’s road race the next day.
Never fear, however, as there was more than enough nonsense on Saturday to keep us occupied. Prepare yourselves for a clip spectacular!
Caught on camera 📹
Seeing as road racing happens on public roads, one of the unexpected joys is when a local municipality doesn’t turn the speed cameras off, and a print out lands on someone’s desk (we imagine), ready to be sent out to the speeding offender, only to see a whole bunch of lycra ass as a speeding peloton passes by.
This phenomenon occurred in view of the television cameras during the men’s Olympic road race, much to our delight.
And not just that, but we got the same thing in the same section of road at the women’s road race a day later. How lucky can you get?!
It’s Remco’s world and we’re just living in it
The weekend’s racing turned out two great victories: Kristen Faulkner’s canny move to steal gold from the big hitters, and Remco Evenepoel backing up his time trial victory to become the first man to win both in the same year. We can’t wait to see how much gold he manages to incorporate into his various kits and bikes over the next few years.
Of course, Remco Evenepoel hit up the Lotto Belgium House to celebrate afterwards, an events space run by the country’s federation this Olympics, which duly pumped out exactly the respectable amount of Eurotrash Europop for Evenepoel to cavort around the stage with Average Rob, a Belgian influencer beloved by the Benelux region’s sporting set.
Even more joyously, his road race victory was announced during a Belgian Pro League match, just to show you where his country’s priorities lie.
Bonus fun stat (well, fun if you’re Evenepoel, Tadej Pogačar or Mathieu van der Poel) from La Flamme Rouge on Twitter: “Since the 2022 season, Mathieu van der Poel, Remco Evenepoel, and Tadej Pogačar have won 14 of the 17 major one-day races (Monuments, Worlds, Olympics).” Yikes.
Finally, Evenepoel deserves the road race gold medal just for not stopping his Garmin before the finish line. Joyous. [It has been pointed out in the comments after publication his bike no longer featured his Garmin after he changed it with 4 km to go. We would still like to believe he wouldn’t have stopped it …]
Nils Politt’s Olympic sightseeing tour
Even if you’ve seen this video already, it gets better with every watch. Trapped in the Paris city centre circuit and desperate for a wee, Nils Politt did what any person would do and quickly ran into a brasserie in order to relieve himself. Cue a defining offbeat moment of the Olympic road race from the toothiest man in the peloton. Honestly, how he hasn’t acquired a Colgate sponsorship yet is beyond us …
Even better, journalist Daniel Friebe reliably informs us all that “this café used to be ‘the one where they filmed Amélie’.” Perfect.
📸 David Lappartient photo opportunity of the week 📸
From Nils Politt to Realpolitik, UCI President David Lappartient made sure he was at the women’s road race start line on Sunday.
“Thrilled to be at the starting line of today’s Women’s Road Race alongside Jeannie Longo, one of the most celebrated figures in women’s cycling,” tweeted UCI President David Lappartient, oddly failing to mention Longo’s doping history, but hey-ho. “Excited to experience the energy of Paris for the second consecutive day!”
Whatever energy Lappartient was excited to experience, it was not there at the start of the women’s road race, at least while he was lurking around. Just look at those faces of the riders behind him. Gloriously unimpressed with him quickly darting out in front for a photo opp before scurrying off to press flesh somewhere else in Paris.
Feed Zone 🥖
🇮🇹 Giro d’Italia 2024 revelation Giulio Pellizzari is swapping VF Group-Bardiani CSF-Faizanè for Red Bull-Bora Hansgrohe. “I can’t wait,” he said of his move.
🇲🇨 Monegasque rider Victor Langellotti has signed for Ineos Grenadiers from Burgos BH.
💰 Julian Alaphilippe has turned down a €3 million offer from Q36.5 as a bigger offer is being readied for him from elsewhere, Wielerflits report. Blimey.
😶 As we reported a couple of months ago, Dan Bigham is leaving the Ineos Grenadiers, and had this to say to the Telegraph: “We didn’t push for a number of things that I thought could have delivered quite a significant performance.”
🤑 Lenny Martinez has decided to get business friendly, as he swaps Groupama-FDJ for a likely massive deal with Bahrain-Victorious. Can someone check in on Marc Madiot, please.
🇧🇪 The Belgian Cycling Federation have a fight on their hands to hold onto coach Sven Vanthourenhout after he’s received an offer from UAE Team Emirates.
✍️ Ethan Hayter is headed to Soudal – Quick Step from Ineos Grenadiers, Dan Benson reports.
Cycling on TV 📺
Tuesday August 6th
Paris Olympics 2024 – Track Cycling, Evening Session (Men’s Team Sprint Finals @ 19:55 BST, Gold @ 20:10)
(12:00-15:30 ET/17:00-20:30 BST/02:00-05:30 AEST) BBC/Eurosport/Discovery+🇬🇧, NBC/Peacock🇺🇸, CBC/TSN/Sportsnet🇨🇦, Channel 9🇦🇺
Arctic Race of Norway – Stage 3
(11:00-13:15 ET/16:00-18:15 BST/01:00-03:15 AEST) Eurosport/Discovery+🇬🇧, FloBikes🇺🇸🇨🇦, SBS🇦🇺
Wednesday August 7th
Paris Olympics 2024 – Track Cycling, Afternoon Session
(08:40-11:45 ET/12:40-15:45 BST/21:40-00:45 AEST) BBC/Eurosport/Discovery+🇬🇧, NBC/Peacock🇺🇸, CBC/TSN/Sportsnet🇨🇦, Channel 9🇦🇺
Paris Olympics 2024 – Track Cycling, Evening Session (Men’s Team Pursuit @ 18:04, Gold @ 1833, Women’s team pursuit @ 18:57, Gold @ 19:28)
(12:05-15:30 ET/17:05-20:30 BST/02:05-05:30 AEST) BBC/Eurosport/Discovery+🇬🇧, NBC/Peacock🇺🇸, CBC/TSN/Sportsnet🇨🇦, Channel 9🇦🇺
Arctic Race of Norway – Stage 4
(11:25-15:35 ET/16:25-20:35 BST/01:25-05:35 AEST) Eurosport/Discovery+🇬🇧, FloBikes🇺🇸🇨🇦, SBS🇦🇺
Thursday August 8th
Paris Olympics 2024 – Track Cycling, Evening Session (Men’s Omnium – Scratch @ 17:00, Tempo @ 17:38, Elimination @ 18:25, Points @ 19:27. Women’s Keirin Finals @ 19:01, Gold @ 19:11)
(11:45-15:25 ET/16:45-20:25 BST/01:45-05:25 AEST) BBC/Eurosport/Discovery+🇬🇧, NBC/Peacock🇺🇸, CBC/TSN/Sportsnet🇨🇦, Channel 9🇦🇺
Arctic Race of Norway – Stage 2
(09:15-12:15 ET/14:15-17:15 BST/23:15-02:15 AEST) Eurosport/Discovery+🇬🇧, FloBikes🇺🇸🇨🇦, SBS🇦🇺
Friday August 9th
Paris Olympics 2024 – Track Cycling, Afternoon Session
(08:55-11:00 ET/13:55-16:00 BST/22:55-01:00 AEST) BBC/Eurosport/Discovery+🇬🇧, NBC/Peacock🇺🇸, CBC/TSN/Sportsnet🇨🇦, Channel 9🇦🇺
Paris Olympics 2024 – Track Cycling, Evening Session (Men’s Individual Sprint Final @ 18:00, Women’s Madison @ 1809)
(12:45-15:20 ET/17:45-20:20 BST/02:45-05:20 AEST) BBC/Eurosport/Discovery+🇬🇧, NBC/Peacock🇺🇸, CBC/TSN/Sportsnet🇨🇦, Channel 9🇦🇺
🤔 Sometimes it’s fine to just simply announce your new signing plainly of the week 🤔
Really, hiring Guillaume Martin should be enough. The rider with published books on philosophy, who owns and cares for donkeys, who is more person than bike racer. He is a real Marc Madiot signing and Groupama-FDJ is his spiritual home, filling Thibaut Pinot’s shoes nicely.
So why do the French team feel the need to boast about his five top 15 Tour de France finishes? Is that really something to show off about? Come on, Groupama …
In related news, Marc Madiot was having a normal one as he watched his rider Valentin Madouas bring home the silver medal at the Olympic road race for France. Just watch.
And finally …
Now, just in case we were getting too high on the Olympics’ supply, here’s a sobering video of Søren Wærenskjold having to hike-a-bike after he suffered a quite catastrophic mechanical issue (his brakes failed so he crashed into a fence and snapped his fork) … and then his team support car didn’t see him and drove straight by.
This left Wærenskjold with no other option than to get some preparation in for the potential future inclusion of cyclocross in the winter Olympics … “A long walk home,” was how the Norwegian captioned his own social media posting of the video.
🧺 Send us yer laundry pics
“Please find attached a shot from our local laundromat in Bentleigh Victoria, Australia,” writes in Ed Booth, attaching a photo of today’s featured laundromat.
“They have specific pet machines and dryers for our furry friends. To be honest you’d fit five of Ben Healy’s Olives, two of Fillipo Ganna’s Mia’s, in each machine they are that big, as opposed to one of our Murray, who would eat his own body weight at each sitting given a chance.”
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 Ed Booth, Kit Nicholson and Ronan McLaughlin for contributions to today’s edition and a big thank you to all of you who have signed up already as Escape Collective founding 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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