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.
We thought it best to provide a fairly light offering today to help ease us all into the week. Therefore we’ve got police on bikes riding up grassy hills, Soudal-Quick Step being their usually zany, yet commercially dedicated, selves. We’ve even got Mads Pedersen with what – especially in the view of his colleagues – is an off-season take they do not agree with.
But first, Mark Cavendish was in Singapore, causing a retirement ruckus.
Choose your own Singaporeality 🇸🇬
Okay look, Mark Cavendish obviously deserves a proper send-off for a spectacular career. And yes, for it to be a Tour de France-affiliated event makes sense.
What we won’t stand for however, and feel that we have to provide a voice of reason against, is how the Manxman portrayed his ‘victory’ at the weekend’s Singapore Criterium, the scripted non-UCI event he is calling his last ever professional race, which actually was stage 21 of the 2024 Tour de France.
“I realised in the last five laps it was the last 15 kilometres of my career. I passed the flamme rouge for the last time in my career and I felt that. But I was so on the limit … the heat here is not nice for me,” Cavendish said.
“I didn’t race since the Tour de France so I am missing that sharpness and, when the guys are here with the lead-out teams, it was always going to be difficult. But you see the amazing job that my team did leading me out, controlling the race. I had to go [for it].”
The team’s amazing job was in no doubt helped by everyone being told what will happen in the race beforehand, as is customary at these criterium events, but Cavendish didn’t stop there in laying it on so thick we had to get the pneumatic drill out in order to tunnel through it all.
“I was lucky I was able to get on [Jasper Philpsen’s] wheel and come past him for the final. I could feel [Arnaud] De Lie coming, and when I passed Jasper I could feel him speed up, but I really wanted that so bad. I’m so proud to win the Tour de France Prudential Singapore Criterium as my last professional race.”
We have no problem with this being Cavendish’s swansong; it’s a fitting tribute for a rider who has already done it all (and probably only had that one peak left in him at this summer’s Tour) to stand on the podium one last time. Had the French Grand Tour finished on the Champs-Élysées as usual, maybe he’d have felt it was right to retire then and there.
But please, for the love of all that is good and real, spare us the earnest tactical breakdown of how this win came to be. We’re all more than happy to play along with these November criteriums, but don’t over-egg the pudding/insult our collective intelligence and somewhat inadvertently shatter the grand illusion. Maybe I’m overreacting but it just feels like a slightly ungallant way in which to sign off on one of the greatest cycling career’s ever.
A bonus question: wouldn’t a farewell at September’s Tour of Britain have been a more fitting end? We wonder why that didn’t happen.
Bonus Singapore Criterium photo breakdown 📸
Some thoughts going from left-to-right:
Uno-X continue to look like they have the most fun of anyone in the peloton. Either Jasper Philipsen is not having a very good time at all or the oxygen to his brain is being cut off by the tightness of his t-shirt. What is Arnaud De Lie looking at? How has Thomas De Gendt not been signed by Alpecin-Deceuninck based on strength of hair follicles alone? We deeply, deeply, respect Chris Froome’s dad-at-the-beach vibe, he is aging gracefully into a man who looks like he can dominate a barbecue. Who is the man with the TotalEnergies denim shirt and how can we get our filthy little mitts on one? Someone please make some room for Biniam Girmay. Mathieu Burgaudeau smells excellent in this photo.
Oop, oops … on that mound is the police 👮♂️
Usually, I would agree that this isn’t something to laugh at. Feels a bit mean.
However, Aussies, your tax dollars paid for this to take place, so it’s only right you get to enjoy it and hopefully don’t mind sharing with the rest of us too.
Feed Zone 🥖
😔 Some further bad news following the recent Valencia floods: The Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana organisers have lost 95 per cent of their materials after their warehouse was caught up in the flood, Ciclo21 reports. The route presentation will therefore not take place in December and it’s currently unknown whether the February stage race will even happen at all.
🔮 With 2025 being the final year of his Israel-Premier Tech contract, Chris Froome is thinking about the future. “I haven’t definitely decided that it will be my last season next year,” he said at the Singapore Criterium, “but it’s looking more than likely.”
👩⚖️ Eli Iserbyt has decided to take legal action against the man who threw beer at him the recent Koppenbergcross. He is facing charges of having all of his bikes’ derailleurs stamped into the ground by Iserbyt himself. The Belgium legal system seems a bit odd but hey who are we to start asking questions.
Cycling on TV 📺
Tuesday November 12th – Friday November 15th
No live racing …
Okay, no cycling on telly so it’s time to dredge up something from the YouTube archives again. Erm, how about this, Cameron Jeffers riding a Boris Bike (Citi Bike but make it London) up Alpe d’Huez within the 24-hour maximum time you can have one out on hire? Feel free to send in your own favourite cycling YouTube videos to help us all make it through the off-season.
📈 Sponsorship activation of the week 📈
Yes, on the face of it this is somewhat ridiculous. On the other hand, there is no other way I’d have learned that I missed World Ventilate Day last week, and that is the point of marketing, right? Doesn’t mean it’s of any actual use to me, but that’s not really the point. But then again, if I ever need to buy a louvre I will be buying the rectangular pink one being held by Julian Alaphilippe.
Secondary question: Is there any day on the calendar now that isn’t a world-something day? Would love to know.
And finally …
We’re taking this at face value, come on Mads! Have a beer, go on holiday, chill out, enjoy life! This is real commitment to the game here. Maybe too much. Hopefully he’s joking.
🧺 Send us yer laundry pics
“I came across this when taking a cycling tour of Seville,” writes in Frank Rome, attaching today’s featured laundrette. Also, Frank Rome. What a name.
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 Frank Rome and Wade Wallace, who between them sound like a comic book crimefighting duo, 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
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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