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Welcome back to Spin Cycle, Escape Collective’s news digest.
Lots of tasty morsels as we head into summer (sorry Aussies, you had your turn) as Peter Sagan gets the party started (responsibly), Laurens ten Dam and Thomas Dekker look awesome in their Oklahoma mugshots (jealous) and Ineos Grenadiers prove they are still as good at making friends as ever (not).
Peter Sagan, the new DUI poster boy of non-alcoholic beer 🍺
It would appear getting a DUI isn’t enough to get yourself crossed off the short list when marketing execs at Slovakian beer brand ‘Zlatý Bažant’ are looking for a new celebrity to star in their commercial. Oh but wait, this is for a 0% beer … that makes more sense.
Anyway, step forward, Peter Sagan, owner of a DUI, Slovakian passport, and three rainbow jerseys, making him the perfect candidate for an advert where someone is needed to pedal a pedalo across a lake as the public converge on you to sample your non-alcoholic wares.
Despite not going to the Olympics, between his Zlatý Bažant and Pierre Baguette exploits, Peter Sagan looks to be having quite the first year of retirement. And, well, it could be going a fair bit worse …
Culture splash 🚿
Now, we’re going to assume, seeing as they spoke and promoted the story on their own podcast, that former roadies turned gravel pros Laurens ten Dam and Thomas Dekker are comfortable with the story of them getting arrested for stripping naked in the parking lot of a Mexican restaurant in Oklahoma.
It was at the end of a training ride before Unbound, they were jailed for 10 hours before posting bail and rode Unbound as planned and have now flown home. If you missed the full story you can catch up here.
After the news broke yesterday the mugshots later emerged, and they are iconic, to say the least. Without knowing who they are, these grizzled professional athletes could easily be a pair of Florida Men.
We’re glad they seem to be seeing the light side of getting chucked in jail for 10 hours. There is quite the culture clash of attitudes to nudity not just between Americans and Europeans, but for bike racers where being naked is as comfortable as wearing clothes. You think they’re blacking out the windows of those WorldTour buses for their sake?
For those, like myself, who weren’t following cycling until the latter half of the 2010s, Thomas Dekker’s Wikipedia page is worth a read. Plus, we’ve heard some great gossip on what he’s been up to in retirement aside from gravel racing. Unfortunately, it’s not in any way printable, so if you ever bump into us in real life we can regale you then. It’s worth it.
Feed Zone 🥖
🙏 Lennard Kämna (Bora-Hansgrohe) is back on his bike following a serious training accident in Tenerife in April.
🤒 Marlen Reusser (SD Worx-Protime) will be unable to defend her Tour de Suisse title due to a stubborn infection keeping her from the start line.
✍️ Aleksandr Vlasov has signed a new contract with Bora-Hansgrohe.
🇨🇭 The men’s Tour de Suisse (starting Sunday) will not take in the Nufenen Pass due to heavy snowfall. Egan Bernal and Tom Pidcock line up for Ineos Grenadiers while UAE Team Emirates will be represented by the likes of Adam Yates, João Almeida and Isaac del Toro.
🤕 Dylan van Baarle and Steven Kruijswijk both suffered fractures in the crash that neutralised stage 5 of the Critérium du Dauphiné. The pair will miss the upcoming Tour de France. Six of UAE Team Emirates’ seven riders fell, four of whom (Juan Ayuso, Tim Wellens, Pavel Sivakov and Nils Politt) are due to support Tadej Pogačar at the Tour de France and have suffered relatively minor injuries.
⛑️ In the same crash, Remco Evenepoel says his helmet saved his life, talking to Cycling Pro Net, and as he sat on the floor assessing his injuries he thought “not again?!” having just come back from a period off the bike. Meanwhile, Primož Roglič is having checks on the shoulder he fell on, concerned because it’s the same one he had surgery on a couple of years ago. Having won the HC summit finish stage 6 and moved into yellow, it would appear he’s feeling fine.
🤦♂️ Reacting to the crash, Visma-Lease a Bike boss Richard Plugge asked on social media: “Would this also happen in Formula 1? Or would the safety organization take measures in advance?” seemingly forgetting that Formula 1 races take place on closed circuits and not hundreds of kilometres of real-life roads. Soudal-Quick Step boss Patrick Lefevere disagrees: “Five kilometers before, the streets were still dry, but look, one rain shower was enough to destroy the peloton.”
🤳 Final thing on the Dauphiné crash and then we’re done. A roadside fan filmed another angle up close to the mayhem.
💼 With the departure of Merijn Zeeman at the end of the season, Visma-Lease a Bike is shaking up its management structure starting October 1, with the new management team consisting of five members reporting to CEO Richard Plugge. The most interesting inclusion is Patrick Broe, who runs the Lanterne Rouge YouTube channel and has been a consultant to the team for a few years already.
🐝 Following the latest dents to Visma-Lease a Bike’s Tour de France plans, Tom Dumoulin has suggested on NOS that the team could utilise ‘Plan D’ and send Olav Kooij to the Tour.
🇧🇭 Bahrain Victorious have extended their contract with bike supplier Merida until at least the end of 2025.
🤝 Lifeplus-Wahoo had 14 of their bikes stolen overnight from their hotel at the Tour of Britain, with other teams rallying around the squad before the start on stage 2 to supply them with spare bikes.
Cycling on TV 📺
Saturday June 8th
Critérium du Dauphiné – Stage 7
(07:05-09:05 ET/12:05-14:05 BST/21:05-23:05 AEST) Eurosport/Discovery+🇬🇧, Peacock🇺🇸, SBS🇦🇺, FloBikes🇨🇦, ITV highlights show🇬🇧 19:00-20:00
Tour of Britain Women – Stage 3
(05:30-09:20 ET/10:30-14:20 BST/19:30-23:20 AEST) Eurosport/Discovery+🇬🇧, FloBikes🇨🇦, StayLive🇦🇺
ZLM Tour – Stage 4
(08:30-10:30 ET/13:30-15:30 BST/22:30-00:30 AEST) Eurosport/Discovery+🇬🇧
Dwars door het Hageland
(09:15-11:55 ET/14:15-16:55 BST/23:15-01:55 AEST) Eurosport/Discovery+🇬🇧, Max🇺🇸, FloBikes🇨🇦
Sunday June 9th
Critérium du Dauphiné – Stage 8
(07:05-09:05 ET/12:05-14:05 BST/21:05-23:05 AEST) Eurosport/Discovery+🇬🇧, Peacock🇺🇸, SBS🇦🇺, FloBikes🇨🇦, ITV highlights show🇬🇧 19:00-20:00
Tour of Britain Women – Stage 4
(05:45-09:20 ET/10:45-14:20 BST/19:45-23:20 AEST) Eurosport/Discovery+🇬🇧, FloBikes🇨🇦, StayLive🇦🇺
ZLM Tour – Stage 5
(08:30-10:30 ET/13:30-15:30 BST/22:30-00:30 AEST) Eurosport/Discovery+🇬🇧
Tour de Suisse – Stage 1 (ITT)
(09:00-11:40 ET/14:00-16:40 BST/23:00-01:40 AEST) Eurosport/Discovery+🇬🇧, FloBikes🇨🇦🇺🇸
Monday June 10th
Tour de Suisse – Stage 2
(09:00-11:40 ET/14:00-16:40 BST/23:00-01:40 AEST) Eurosport/Discovery+🇬🇧, FloBikes🇨🇦🇺🇸
🍼 Not even pretending to not do ketones anymore of the week 🍼
Remember when everyone was being quite hush hush about whether they used ketones? Maybe because the MPCC (representing half of the WorldTour) ruled that member teams couldn’t use them, and how one team boss, TotalEnergies’ Jean-René Bernaudeau, said they were “bad for cycling’s credibility”?
Well, seems like that’s a thing of the past. After Geraint Thomas’ recent advert on his podcast waxing lyrical about how much ketones were helping him and how you the listener should definitely try them so you can be like G, Soudal-Quick Step are just tweeting out videos and photos of Remco Evenepoel in a rainbow jersey chugging down a little bottle of not-illegal-but-definitely-feeling-slightly-grey-area-y ketones.
In case you missed it …
Absolutely can’t get enough of this clip from road.cc at the Critérium du Dauphiné, where the usually mild-mannered Steve Cummings is getting irritated that a tech journalist is trying to do their job and take photos and videos of the new Pinarellos sitting atop the Ineos Grenadiers team car in plain view of the public.
Now, we understand the difficult position of Cummings and the Ineos Grenadiers. Pinarello will be supplying them with new bikes to show off at the Tour de France, but will obviously want to test them out first at the Dauphiné, but Pinarello want the Maximal Marketing Gains of them being announced at the Tour itself. But also, the bike has been spending hours on telly this week as the Dauphiné is beamed out across the world.
A big ol’ British CHAPEAU to road.cc for going full scorched Earth and ensuring they never receive a Christmas card from Ineos ever again, chopping up their footage with full blur and colour bars, like this is a BBC Panoroma investigation into some public office misdemeanour. It’s probably the funniest tech video we’ve ever watched, not that that particular category is full to the brim with contenders.
Congrats to Ineos for once again being experts in anal-retentive-ness. Bikes are hardly small objects, and when you have them in public, people are going to be able to get photos and videos of them whether you like it or not. Probably best not to make muppets of yourselves in the process …
And finally …
At first we mistook the man in the Italian kit for Oleg Tinkov, but he’s far too busy prodding Vladimir Putin on social media and likely doing his best to keep a couple of steps ahead of the KGB.
Anyway, back to the video and the man in the Italy strip. Nothing screams the vintage pageantry of L’Eroica than setting your Garmin watch going just as the flag drops. Come on now!
🧺 Send us yer laundry pics
“More laundry,” writes Tim Cupery, rather succinctly, attaching today’s featured laundry machine. More domestic submissions please!
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 Tim Cupery 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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