Spin Cycle is Escape Collective’s news digest, published every Monday and Friday. You can read it on this website (obviously) or click here to have it delivered straight to your inbox.
Hello!
Welcome back to Spin Cycle,
Strade Bianche delivered the picturesque scenes we've come to expect from the Italian one-dayer, as well as the intrigue and drama demanded by a WorldTour-level event.
Elsewhere, the Saudi PIF has the Giro d'Italia in its sights, we have an Ineos update (naturally), and Pauline Ferrand-Prévot is regretting not reading her Visma-Lease a Bike contract more closely.
Crash into three (Strade Bianche wins)
It was the crash heard around the cycling world. Tadej Pogačar took a corner slightly too hot with 50 km to go in Strade Bianche and slid out across the road, tumbling off into the grassy verge and narrowly missing a bollard.
Thankfully he was okay, emerging from the grass, sunglasses askew, and chasing down Tom Pidcock, who had understandably carried on at the front of the race before realising he was being hunted down by the Slovenian and waited.
Pogačar caught up before biding his time, eventually unleashing his attack to seal a third Strade title, meaning he's tied Fabian Cancellara for most victories and will now have a sector of sterrato named after him. He said he could finally feel the pain from the crash after the finish line as adrenaline abandoned him, and he hopes the damage isn't too great.
It's not worth thinking what the UAE Team Emirates car was going through when they saw Pogačar slide out, both for his health and the fact that the season is still young with most of his major goals yet to come. Safe to say that with Pogačar eyeing up Paris-Roubaix, his team are less than keen, especially after Saturday's showing, even if Pogačar is one of those riders who through skill and luck seems to ride around within a protective bubble most of the time.
"A bad crash could jeopardise the Tour de France and maybe even the whole season,” team boss Mauro Gianetti told the media post-race in Siena. "I hope that he doesn’t do it this year, and I’ll tell him once again: there is still time in his career for him to ride Paris-Roubaix.”
Despite these comments contradicting Gazzetta dello Sport's reporting last week that Pogačar is Roubaix-bound, we have it on increasingly good authority that he still plans to line up for the Hell of the North in April.
Read before you sign on the dotted line ✍️
Demi Vollering continued her SD-Worx Protime revenge tour, perfectly timing her attack with 500 metres until the line to distance former coach and teammate Anna van der Breggen to win her second Strade Bianche.
Third place on the day, the first over the line from the chasing group left behind by the Dutch duo, was Pauline Ferrand-Prévot, returning to road racing this season and showing great promise for the months to come with this result. However, there was just one snag, which could be spotted on the final podium.
"To Martijn, my agent: we FORGOT to mention in my contract with Visma-Lease a Bike I CAN’T wear any type of cap," Ferrand-Prévot posted on Friday trying to put a brave face on things while at the team presentation for the one-day race. "I look like a police officer!!!!! (nothing against police people, you look beautiful, but NOT on me). At least we had a laugh, before we can’t laugh anymore."
To rectify this situation, the 33-year-old Frenchwoman tried to make a deal with her new employer.
"Tomorrow is Strade Bianche and my first important race of the season.
Can we maybe make a rule, a podium and no [cap] on me for the rest of the season?"
Consider us officially on PFP hat watch to see whether Visma-Lease a Bike took her up on the offer (I doubt it).
Feed Zone 🥖
🌞 Tim Merlier won the opening stage of Paris-Nice ahead of Arnaud Démare (Arkéa-B&B Hotels) and Alberto Dainese (Tudor) before doubling up with a win on stage two too.
🌊 Filippo Ganna won the opening time trial of Tirreno-Adriatico, 23 seconds ahead of Juan Ayuso.
👦 Jonathan Milan's 22-year-old brother Matteo Milan (Lidl-Trek Future Racing) has won his first UCI race at the POREČ Classic (1.2).
🙏 Ordiziako Klasika, the oldest Spanish bike race that has been facing financial difficulty, has potentially been saved by the Caja Rural bank, according to ammattipyoraily on Twitter.
🤕 Kasia Niewiadoma (Canyon-SRAM) posted a photo to Instagram showing the gnarly grazes she picked up from a crash late-on at Strade Bianche. "I would always feel disappointed missing out on the podium in Strade Bianche," she said. "I guess I got a different perspective now! It always could be worst so I’m grateful for what I’ve got, in this case: pretty strong bones."
The warm embrace of our cycling Saudi overlords draws closer 🇸🇦
Good news for all fans of the Saudi Public Investment Fund, it looks like it's going to become the new main sponsor of the Giro d'Italia!
As the dust settled from another successful edition of Strade Bianche, news dropped from Tuttobiciweb that the race organiser of both Strade and the Giro, RCS Sport, was set to agree a deal that would see the Saudi PIF replace energy company ENEL as the Italian Grand Tour's main sponsor.
The Saudi PIF has an estimated $925 billion worth of assets under its control, and has already waded into sponsorship deals with other sports such as football, boxing, golf and Formula 1.
How does this fit into the rumoured Saudi involvement with One Cycling? One would think this is part of a larger puzzle.
Cycling on TV 📺
Tuesday March 11th
Tirreno Adriatico, Stage 2
(08:00-11:00 ET/12:00-15:00 GMT/23:00-02:00 AEDT) 🇬🇧TNT Sports, 🇺🇸Max, 🇨🇦FloBikes, 🇦🇺Staylive
Paris-Nice, Stage 3
(09:45-11:45 ET/13:45-15:45 GMT/00:45-02:45 AEDT) 🇬🇧TNT Sports, 🇺🇸Peacock, 🇨🇦FloBikes, 🇦🇺SBS
Wednesday March 12th
Tirreno Adriatico, Stage 3
(08:00-11:15 ET/12:00-15:15 GMT/23:00-02:15 AEDT) 🇬🇧TNT Sports, 🇺🇸Max, 🇨🇦FloBikes, 🇦🇺Staylive
Paris-Nice, Stage 4
(09:45-11:45 ET/13:45-15:45 GMT/00:45-02:45 AEDT) 🇬🇧TNT Sports, 🇺🇸Peacock, 🇨🇦FloBikes, 🇦🇺SBS
Thursday March 13th
Tirreno Adriatico, Stage 4
(08:00-11:00 ET/12:00-15:00 GMT/23:00-02:00 AEDT) 🇬🇧TNT Sports, 🇺🇸Max, 🇨🇦FloBikes, 🇦🇺Staylive
Paris-Nice, Stage 5
(09:45-11:45 ET/13:45-15:45 GMT/00:45-02:45 AEDT) 🇬🇧TNT Sports, 🇺🇸Peacock, 🇨🇦FloBikes, 🇦🇺SBS
Friday March 14th
Tirreno Adriatico, Stage 5
(08:00-11:15 ET/12:00-15:15 GMT/23:00-02:15 AEDT) 🇬🇧TNT Sports, 🇺🇸Max, 🇨🇦FloBikes, 🇦🇺Staylive
Paris-Nice, Stage 6
(09:45-11:45 ET/13:45-15:45 GMT/00:45-02:45 AEDT) 🇬🇧TNT Sports, 🇺🇸Peacock, 🇨🇦FloBikes, 🇦🇺SBS
💂♀️ Ineos implosion update of the week 💂♀️
There was an intriguing write-up in the Telegraph this weekend of Bradley Wiggins' latest theatre tour, where he discusses his recent troubles, including opening up about the drug problem he dealt with post-career.
"Within three years of retiring in 2016, I was a drug addict," he said on stage in Maidstone in late February. It's a painful read and Wiggins is as raw and honest as ever, including when talking about his old boss Dave Brailsford.
“I’m not a fan of Dave Brailsford,” he said. “I couldn’t even sit here and say, ‘I don’t like him, but I respect what he has done.’ I really haven’t got a lot of time for him, to be honest.”
Despite Brailsford having now departed from the cycling team to focus instead on Manchester United, Wiggins still doesn't want his 19-year-old son Ben, currently racing with Hagens Berman Jayco, to race for the British squad should he end up graduating to the WorldTour.
Elsewhere in the Jim Ratcliffe scrapyard of broken sporting endeavours, thousands of Manchester United fans turned out on Sunday to protest the recent ticket price hikes and redundancies for regular employees at the club, all while the multi-millionaire footballers continue to underperform on the pitch.
While the protest wasn't wholly directed at Ratcliffe himself, it was made clear they expect him to try and get ride of the American Glazer family who still own a significant portion of the club and have saddled it with £1bn of debt, with Manchester United forced to pay £37m annually in order to service it.
That's almost the entire budget of the Ineos Grenadiers. Relatedly, keep an eye on Big Website for some extra spicy Ineos news from our roving reporter Chris Marshall-Bell later today (who will also be on the Spin Cycle podcast to talk about his exclusive).
And finally ...
A moving and slightly haunting post on Instagram from our photographer friend Jered Gruber, who was shooting Strade Bianche over the weekend and came across XDS-Astana revelation Cristian Scaroni lying in a heap on the ground.
"As we left Lucignano d'Asso today - I saw the beautiful colors of the Italian national champion jersey on the side of the road bent over in the dust," Jered wrote on Instagram.
"We were going so fast - I caught a blink of the scene it will never leave me. and it was Alberto Bettiol leaning down to his completely limp (god I hoped only unconscious) teammate, Cristian Scaroni. He was gently slapping his face. That was it. Gently slapping his face ... I later saw that I had a picture of the scene (because I really do take pictures of everything - sometimes unconsciously) - and the thing that stuck out to me was a small detail in the corner - it was Alberto's bike and it was many meters down the road from Scaroni. He had run back to him."
Thankfully, Scaroni only suffered minor injuries despite the worrying seen.
"Bike racing is beautiful (this one especially). And it's so scary (this one especially)," Jered concluded. "But yeah, the stories that stick with us - we don't really get to choose our memories, do we?"
Clarifications cul de sac 🏚️
Thanks to Jules Alain in the comments section of Friday's newsletter who gave us some context on the FDJ-United rebrand.
"Sud Radio is a (far-)right-leaning media [outlet]. They do general stuff, but they are particularly known to be the hosts of very nice people propagating hate and conspiracy theories. Only the French version of their Wikipedia article goes into detail about that stuff. Those are just boomers getting mad because the world evolves and they don't want to."
🧺 Send us yer laundry pics
"So, apologies that this doesn’t have washing machine doors open … or in fact that you can barely see washing machines. However, I thought the whole setup needed to be seen," writes in Lou Broadfoot, attaching today's featured laundry image.
"The Best Soapbox Laundromat is a shipping container in a car park on the Gold Coast Highway in Surfers Paradise, Queensland. It also has a doggy wash attached to the back. Please observe the cycling-adjacent Jayco brand placement (love a good caravan) and the council-issued Lime scooter/bike helmet casually adorning the top of the laundry, for those who need extra cranial protection while washing their smalls."
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 Lou Broadfoot and Jules Alain 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've been enjoying this newsletter then please consider signing up to support us and enjoy all the paywalled content of the wider Escape Collective universe. Go on, just click this link here.
Did we do a good job with this story?
