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.
One of the few things we completely understand in our little corner of the internet is the need for escape. It’s kind of in the name. And the best thing about the concept of escape is that it is a freeform pursuit. If you want to emotionally live and die on the performance of real athletes playing for your fake fantasy team, or just going on a bike ride for no real reason or with no real plan, both count as escape. Or, in the case of Tadej Pogačar, you could react to the complete control you’ve exerted over the peloton this season by relinquishing all control over your hair.
Fantasy land 🏈
We are becoming increasingly enamoured with the banter era of Visma-Lease a Bike, which, Grischa Niermann motorbike references aside, is being led by podcaster-turned-coach Patrick Broe.
Part of Broe’s media empire includes a personal YouTube channel (to go alongside the Lanterne Rouge channel), which has gems such as “2 hours on the trainer then forced to watch Bridgerton”.
But in his most recent vlog, he revealed that something more important than helping Visma-Lease a Bike topple UAE Team Emirates has been occupying him this off-season.
“One of the most important things in my life has become my fantasy team, I spend a lot of time thinking about how to optimise my team,” Broe said. “Maybe more than even the Visma-Lease a Bike roster, it’s that important to me.”
Patrick Broe worrying about his fantasy team. He’s just a regular guy like you and I. And anyway, Richard Plugge is busy off having beers in the mountains with Thibaut Pinot as is his off-season tradition, so he won’t likely notice the Peter Brand to his Billy Beane is preoccupied with a made-up competition. Oddly, a few hours after we watched the video today, it was removed from YouTube …
Not so funemployment 💼
After Serge Pauwels was chosen as the successor to Sven Vanthourenhout as the men’s Belgian national team coach, Philippe Gilbert was not very happy at all, having wanted the job for himself.
“The vacancy for the position was never made public and internal agreements at Belgian Cycling prevented me from applying,” Gilbert said on Instagram after finding out he didn’t get the job.
However, the Belgian federation told Wielerflits they did have “constructive conversations” with Gilbert, so the decision to go with Pauwels is unlikely to have come completely out of the blue.
After life as a champion cyclist, it feels a bit like Gilbert is discovering the big bad real world. Jobs for mates and opaque hiring practices, welcome to the real world buddy!
More popcorn required for Pidcock saga 🍿
You might have seen our big Skyfall story this week, where we learned from team insiders about the chaos over at Ineos in recent years, but as expected new chapters are constantly being added to this evolving saga.
At this week’s Rouleur Live show, Tom Pidcock, Director of Performance Operations Carsten Jeppesen, Performance Director Scott Drawer and an Ineos press officer were all in attendance.
They were in for Pidcock’s interview, and were likely the few stony faces amidst a crowd who couldn’t help but laugh.
The comedy on offer was maybe more of an “if you don’t laugh, you’ll cry” situation. Pidcock was asked if everything has been smoothed out with Ineos after he was present at the recent Manchester team camp.
As reported by Dan Benson, host Matt Stephens asked if Pidcock was “in a happier place in terms of clarity and purpose moving forward?”
Pidcock, honest as ever, which we love him for, had a simple reply:
“No … I’m never going to lie,” before he relented slightly.
“It’s true, we’ve had a difficult year, I’ve had a difficult year. It’s not what we wanted but I do see a lot of positive changes and of course, everyone accepts that there are difficulties when you change it and we’re seeing those changes happening. I do that it can be turned around.”
We’re going to need to order more popcorn.
Feed Zone 🥖
👴 48-year-old Oscar Sevilla won the opening stage of the 2.2 Vuelta a Ecuador. Fun fact: when he turned professional with Kelme in 1998, Tadej Pogačar wasn’t even born yet.
🤔 The Giro d’Italia route presentation will take place in January, reports Spanish newspaper Diario AS, which is three months after it was originally planned. Will the Albanian Grande Partenza survive? It’s anyone’s guess at the minute, Het Laatste Nieuws reports it’s only the first three stages that are up in the air, and riders will be given details on the rest of the route as they begin to make their 2025 plans.
🇨🇴 Movistar has extended Nairo Quintana’s contract by another year until the end of 2025.
Cycling on TV 📺
Saturday November 16th
Cyclocross
Superprestige, Merksplas – Elite Women
(07:40-08:45 ET/12:40-13:45 GMT/23:40-00:45 AEDT) Eurosport/Discovery+🇬🇧, FloBikes🇨🇦, Staylive🇦🇺
Superprestige, Merksplas – Elite Men
(09:05-10:30 ET/14:05-15:30 GMT/01:05-02:30 AEDT) Eurosport/Discovery+🇬🇧, FloBikes🇨🇦, Staylive🇦🇺
Sunday November 17th
Cyclocross
X20 Trofee Hamme, Flandriencross – Elite Women
(07:40-08:45 ET/12:40-13:45 GMT/23:40-00:45 AEDT) Eurosport/Discovery+🇬🇧, FloBikes🇨🇦, Staylive🇦🇺
X20 Trofee Hamme, Flandriencross – Elite Men
(08:55-10:15 ET/13:55-15:15 GMT/00:55-02:15 AEDT) Eurosport/Discovery+🇬🇧, FloBikes🇨🇦, Staylive🇦🇺
Monday November 18th
No live racing …
It’s about escape
After last week’s 10,000-strong group ride in Colombia at the Giro del Rigo, China said hold my Tsingtao, as footage emerged of a massive spontaneous group ride containing more than 100,000 students.
What began as four friends in Zhengzhou using bikeshare bikes to head 40 miles to Kaifeng has now grown into a cultural behemoth, which amazingly has no name, organisers, or any real purpose, although apparently the city’s specialty breakfast of soup dumplings are worth sampling.
“It’s not about tourism; it’s about escape,” one observer said of the seemingly impulsive youth movement.
Obviously, there aren’t many things more worrying to Chinese authorities than a spontaneous youth movement expressing themselves, even in as simple a way as riding a bike, and so the bikeshare companies have geo-locked their bikes and police have been blocking the entrance to the main highway.
Although, the argument could be made that the ride jamming major roads and overwhelming the public areas of the small tourist city of Kaifeng posed some safety issues. But still, not to make a mountain out of a molehill, if you scratch beneath the surface it feels a rather poignant and powerful message that’s being spread.
🤙 Catchy new team name of the week 🤙
It’s been known for a while that Astana-Qazaqstan are getting a big new sponsor in Chinese carbon product manufacturer XdS, but we didn’t yet know what the new team name will be. But now according to Gazzetta dello Sport, we do know!
Drum roll please … welcome back to the 2025 peloton … XdS (Carbon-Tech)-Astana Qazaqstan! Rolls right off the tongue. Can’t tell what it makes me want to buy more, some Chinese carbon or Kazakh mineral. I’ll just have to go for both I guess.
The big shame in all of this is that Mark Cavendish is (probably, almost definitely) retiring. He would have loved thanking the team by saying the whole name at every available opportunity in interviews. Proper company man, Cav.
And finally …
Respect to Tadej Pogačar. After a year of making everyone else seem like a speck of dust in his proverbial rearview mirror, he at least let everyone gain some ground on him just before 2024 is up by ordering one of the more … experimental, shall we say … haircuts that we’ve seen for a while.
It looks like the Tadej tufts will remain intact for now, but this trim has a bit of evil villain about it.
🧺 Send us yer laundry pics
“These pics of the K9000 dog washer were taken outside the laundry at the Discovery Park campground, just out of Bright, Victoria,” writes Phil Scott, attaching today’s featured laundry machine. “The washing machines inside were top loaders but the door on this one opens wide enough that you could almost use it to wash your bike.
Bright and the surrounding high country have some fantastic gravel and mountain biking.”
Also, turns out Frank Rome from Monday’s laundry submission is obviously the father of a certain Dave Rome! Completely went over my head at the time.
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 Kit Nicholson and Phil Scott 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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