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.
This week presented a bit of much-needed down time ahead of the Road World Championships, which along with Il Lombardia in early October will provide the final brush strokes to this 2024 season (and then the Tour of Guangxi is the glitter sprinkled over the top?!).
Fortunately, Visma-Lease a Bike were up to their old tricks again, plugging the gap in the news cycle, while the fact Adrie van der Poel has basically done a tell-all podcast means we have surely reached peak podcast? Maybe when he starts flogging green goop or Huel that’s when we’ll know the end is near.
A risky VIP package
Yep, we’re still on the Visma-Lease a Bike commercial-strategy beat (more on Monday’s merch story later) and for the right price the Dutch team are offering quite the VIP package.
Hospitality packages at races aren’t anything new, but Visma seem to be taking it to the next level with a Grand Tour package promotion with touring outfitter Sportive Breaks, which includes:
- A visit on the morning before the race to the team hotel where you will be briefed by the team director on the day’s race strategy.
- A seat in a Visma-Lease a Bike vehicle for the day.
- Stops throughout the stage to assist with handing out water bottles.
We can only hope the helping to hand out water bottles just means ferrying them from the team car to the side of the road, whereby an experienced soigneur or staffer actually hands them to the rider.
If not, and you actually get to hand a bottle to a rider, that is quite the experience, regardless of the price. Who knows, chuck in an extra $50 and maybe you can have the honour of being inserted into a Tour de France Roubaix stage bike change minute of chaos.
More of this sort of thing please, peloton! I want to be able to fork out to be in a team car with Marc Madiot for the day, or get a tour of whatever happens on the Astana Qazaqstan bus. Give me Jerry World but make it cycling!
Father figure
We’ll cut to the chase of what was learned from Adrie van der Poel’s appearance on theTopsportouders podcast: he has only hugged his World Champion son Mathieu once in his life.
“I happened to do that last year after the [Glasgow] World Championships,” Adrie van der Poel said. “That was the very first time. I’m not really a hugger. I’m super proud, but I never show it. I’m super happy and it doesn’t have to be about winning, but also if he hasn’t fallen or if nothing serious has happened to him. That’s already a victory for me.”
We’re not here to judge (openly at least) but what is Adrie’s reasoning for this lack of emotion?
“I just had a Spartan upbringing,” he continued. “I’m not ashamed of it, but there is room for improvement.”
It’s all getting a bit Jerry Springer, maybe this is a part of what has driven Mathieu van der Poel on to greatness (alongside his Adrie crossed with Raymond Poulidor genetic make-up). With hindsight now, does Adrie believe he will treat any potential grandchildren from Mathieu or his brother David differently to how he brought up his sons?
“That doesn’t make up for what I didn’t do with my own children,” Adrie answered. “I have to be more attentive.”
Someone pass the tissues please.
Feed Zone 🥖
You may have noticed something new stuck to our website’s homepage called Daily News. You’d never guess from the name but it’s the news! Daily! Our reporter Dane Cash is behind the wheel of this latest venture, whereby each week we’ll have an updated article that allows you to keep abreast of all the latest news in racing, tech, cycling industry, culture and advocacy in one place. We will therefore be slimming down the feed zone to more of a mid-morning snack offering, which will also give room to more other good stuff.
🤯 Luke Rowe may be heading for a sports director role at Decathlon-Ag2r La Mondiale, according to Dan Benson. Blimey.
🐝 Jan Tratnik will move over from Visma-Lease a Bike to Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe in 2025.
🌍 Ahead of her full return to road racing next year, Pauline Ferrand-Prévot will race the Road World Championships, but Marlen Reusser will miss a home Worlds due to post-COVID health reasons.
✍️ World time trial champion Chloé Dygert (27) will ride on with Canyon-SRAM through 2026, while Elise Chabbey departs the team for FDJ-Suez.
Cycling on TV 📺
Saturday September 21st
Tour of Luxembourg – Stage 4
(08:25-10:55 ET/13:25-15:55 BST/22:25-00:55 AEST) Eurosport/Discovery+🇬🇧, Max🇺🇸, Staylive🇦🇺, FloBikes🇨🇦
Super 8 Classic
(09:45-12:15 ET/14:45-17:15 BST/23:45-02:15 AEST) Eurosport/Discovery+🇬🇧, Max🇺🇸, Staylive🇦🇺
UCI Para-Cycling World Championships – Mixed Team Handbike Relay
(11:05-12:10 ET/16:05-17:10 BST/01:05-02:10 AEST) Eurosport/Discovery+🇬🇧, SBS🇦🇺, FloBikes🇨🇦🇺🇸
Sunday September 22nd
UCI Road World Championships – Elite Women’s Time Trial
(05:50-08:35 ET/10:50-13:35 BST/19:50-22:35 AEST) Eurosport/Discovery+🇬🇧, SBS🇦🇺, FloBikes🇨🇦🇺🇸
UCI Road World Championships – Elite Men’s Time Trial
(08:35-11:55 ET/13:35-16:55 BST/22:35-01:55 AEST) Eurosport/Discovery+🇬🇧, SBS🇦🇺, FloBikes🇨🇦🇺🇸
Tour of Luxembourg – Stage 5
(07:30-10:00 ET/12:30-15:00 BST/21:30-00:00 AEST) Eurosport/Discovery+🇬🇧, Max🇺🇸, Staylive🇦🇺, FloBikes🇨🇦
Monday September 23rd
UCI Road World Championships – Junior Men’s Time Trial
(03:05-05:55 ET/08:05-10:55 BST/17:05-19:55 AEST) Eurosport/Discovery+🇬🇧, SBS🇦🇺, FloBikes🇨🇦🇺🇸
💸 The contract of a lifetime … of the week 💸
Visma-Lease a Bike eventually got back to us about the Wout van Aert ripped jersey auction and told us it was never meant to be up for sale. “An occasional mistake, unintentional,” they said, which we feel is fair to pass on to you.
But we’re sure if Van Aert was in any way miffed about it all was soon forgotten as he signed a contract extension UNTIL ETERNITY, AKA until the end of his racing career, which will keep any potential interest from Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe at bay and ensure the Belgian has a bigger granite countertop in his kitchen for each Netflix Tour de France Unchained series going forward. It will also have cheered him up as he remains on crutches two weeks after his Vuelta a España crash. Ouch.
Presumably, Visma-Lease a Bike must have done the required psychoanalysis on Van Aert and deemed him not to be an Alejandro Valverde or an Óscar Sevilla (still going at 47!) and therefore on the hook for his large salary for another decade or so. Of all contracts out there, this would be a fascinating one to have a look under the hood at. In an ideal world, this becomes some sort of cycling equivalent to Bobby Bonilla Day, where Richard Plugge still has to hand over a bus-load of cash to Van Aert long after AI has taken everyone else’s jobs.
And finally …
Here we go! British Cycling are going to try to bring the Tour de France Grand Départ to the UK in 2027, City A.M. reports.
While the previously beleaguered organisation has managed to turn things around, revamping the Tour of Britain, introducing a women’s version of the race, and getting family-friendly sponsors like Lloyds Bank and Kettle Chips on board instead of Shell, there are some who would rather see the money that would go towards a Tour de France Grand Départ be poured into the sport’s grassroots, which needs investment. Unfortunately, the case may be that the money would only be put up for something like a Tour Grand Départ. The Tour de France moves the needle like nothing else in cycling.
“The cost is still in the process of being worked through [with UK Sport] but we would definitely be within our means and prepared to step up and support against the value of just getting more people on a bike,” British Cycling CEO Jon Dutton said. “We’re looking at big population centres – London, Glasgow, Cardiff and more. We are doing a mapping exercise at the moment on the Tour of Britain to look at areas we haven’t been to previously. Hopefully we can reach more people in more places.”
If they get it done chapeaus all round … and party at my house, of course.
🧺 Send us yer laundry pics
“Tried very hard to find a laundromat photo while on a MTB trip to Nepal (!!!)” writes Sharon Sloan, attaching today’s featured laundromat. “But all you can find are these amazing women who do loads of stinky clothes/shoes and get them back to you in a few hours packed more efficiently than you could possibly ever do yourself. (Didn’t feel right including a shot of the proprietor because communication barrier too great for her to have agreed to posing for it).”
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 Sharon Sloan and Joe Lindsey 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
Enter your email address to get our unique spin on news from the world of cycling delivered directly to your inbox!
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