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.
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Welcome back to Spin Cycle, Escape Collective’s news digest.
Here is a short list of things we don't think we'll ever get tired of: 1) Tom Pidcock and his desire to always be true to himself and speak his mind. 2) Jonas Vingegaard popping up in civilian places. We don't know what it is, his boyish looks, the fact we are used to seeing him in racing mode rather than actually-a-real-person mode, or just that big coat.
Elsewhere, it's not going to be an easy week for Alpecin-Deceuninck's top brass.
Save the pennies and the pounds look after themselves 🫰
Here's an absolute gem shared by former GCN-er Cillian Kelly on his new DNF podcast.
Back in the heady days of GCN+, the responsibility fell to Kelly to sort out the free subscriptions for riders and people of general importance within cycling (NB: the bar is HIGH over at Escape Collective before you think of firing off an email).
Often, the requests for freebies would be sent to presenter Daniel Lloyd, who would then forward them on to Kelly, and the various requests would be ranked on a spectrum from polite to blunt in a WhatsApp group.
One fantastic request, from Tom Pidcock no less, was then read out on the podcast.
"Hi Lloydy," the email began. "Pidcock here, Rowey [Luke Rowe] sent a message in our group saying if anyone would like a GCN pass to email you. Be great if I could get one please. Thanks, Tom (on a £5 million a year salary from Ineos)."
Yes, that bracketed clarification is apparently how Pidcock signed off his email asking for a freebie worth £40 per year. Phenomenal stuff, we hope that's how he also signed off his emails to Jim Ratcliffe towards the end of his time with the Grenadiers.
The names of notable polite emailers are then revealed, including the Lotto pair of Arnaud De Lie and his fellow Belgian teammate Liam Slock. Kelly couldn't resist replying to Slock asking him about his rather peculiar first name of Liam for a Belgian man, to which Slock replied that his mum was a massive Liam Neeson fan. As good a reason as any.
(Note: the DNF podcast got in touch post-publication to say the bracketed bit, whilst read out without break from Pidcock's reported speech, was actually their own additional commentary rather than Pidcock's own writing).
🚗 Car in the middle of the bike race of the week 🚗
Yet another instance of 'how on Earth do you let this happen?' as a driver finds their way onto the course of stage 2 of Étoile de Bessèges and causes a crash due to the bunching. Mad, bad and sad. Race organisers need to do better.
Not even the weirdly therapeutic symmetry of the car reversing at the same speed as the peloton can undo the total shit show going on at the French stage race, as more cars appeared on the course on stage 3, leading to riders to bring the race to a halt and discuss the situation with race organisers. At the time of writing, eight teams including multiple WorldTour outfits have abandoned the race out of fear for the safety of their riders.
Somehow more embarrassingly for the race organisers, two of these teams, Unibet Tietema Rockets and Kern Pharma, were willing to continue but misunderstood the French announcements and so missed the restart. What a shambles.
A worrying disappearance
A slightly worrying story this week, which first emerged with only the information that three-time world champion Óscar Freire had gone missing.
Having returned home from working at the AlUla Tour, Freire had an argument with his wife on Monday, then leaving home in his car without his house keys, phone or wallet. After 48 hours, his wife, Laura Cobo, reported his disappearance to the Guardia Civil, who searched his apartment in Alicante but only found his car abandoned outside.
Vague media reports of the disappearance began to cause panic, with his brother Antonio forced on Wednesday afternoon to make a statement saying everything was fine and that Freire had finally made contact with his family and was returning home.
“We regret the concern that the news of the temporary disappearance of Óscar Freire may have caused and at the same time we appreciate the interest shown by fans and the press in general,” the Freire family told the EFE news agency. "It is a strictly personal and intimate matter … something private that should never have been disclosed to the media."
We hope he's okay.
Feed Zone 🥖
🇳🇿 Finn Fisher-Black (Red Bull-Bora Hansgrohe) and Kim Cadzow (EF Education-Oatly) are the new New Zealand national time trial champions. Cadzow also won the road race, while Jayco-AlUla's Alan Hatherly is the new South African national ITT champion.
✍️ Tim Wellens has reportedly signed a contract extension with UAE Emirates XRG keeping him with the team until at least the end of 2027, according to Het Nieuwsblad.
👑 Filippo Ganna has dethroned Remco Evenepoel as the Strava KOM on the popular 'Tarbena climb to Rates' segment in Alicante.
🎿 Both Mathieu van der Poel and Lidl-Trek's Thibau Nys have been given the green light from their respective employers to go on a skiing holiday after capping off their cyclocross campaigns to relax before their road seasons kick in. Can only imagine there will be a lot of sleep lost amongst Alpecin-Deceuninck management this week.
📏 The UCI will require all WorldTour teams to race the five Monuments and all three Grand Tours, ensuring against the tactic used by the likes of the wildcard-qualifying ProTeam Lotto who have made a habit of skipping the Giro d'Italia in order to focus their calendar more keenly outside the WorldTour. WorldTour squads will also only be allowed to skip one other WorldTour race all year.
🙏 Egan Bernal won the Colombian national time trial championships, his first win in four years and (technically) Ineos' first in 215 days.
Cycling on TV 📺
Saturday February 8th
UAE Tour Women - Stage 3
(03:05-07:50 ET/08:05-12:50 GMT/19:05-23:50 AEDT) 🇬🇧Eurosport/Discovery+, 🇺🇸Max, 🇨🇦FloBikes
Etoile de Bessèges - Stage 4
(08:30-10:30 ET/13:30-15:30 GMT/00:30-02:30 AEDT) 🇬🇧Eurosport/Discovery+, 🇺🇸Max, 🇨🇦FloBikes
Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana - Stage 4
(09:45-11:15 ET/14:45-16:15 GMT/23:45-01:15 AEDT) 🇬🇧Eurosport/Discovery+, 🇺🇸Max, 🇨🇦FloBikes, 🇦🇺StayLive
Cyclocross
Superprestige, Middelkerke - Women
(07:30-08:57 ET/12:30-13:57 GMT/23:30-00:57 AEDT) 🇬🇧Eurosport/Discovery+, 🇺🇸Max, 🇨🇦FloBikes, 🇦🇺StayLive
Superprestige, Middelkerke - Men
(08:57-10:30 ET/13:57-15:30 GMT/00:57-02:30 AEDT) 🇬🇧Eurosport/Discovery+, 🇺🇸Max, 🇨🇦FloBikes, 🇦🇺StayLive
Sunday February 9th
Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana - Women
(05:00-06:00 ET/10:00-11:00 GMT/21:00-22:00 AEDT) 🇬🇧Eurosport/Discovery+, 🇨🇦FloBikes
UAE Tour Women - Stage 4
(06:00-07:30 ET/11:00-12:30 GMT/22:00-23:30 AEDT) 🇬🇧Eurosport/Discovery+, 🇺🇸Max, 🇨🇦FloBikes
Etoile de Bessèges - Stage 5 (ITT)
(08:00-10:00 ET/13:00-15:00 GMT/00:00-02:00 AEDT) 🇬🇧Eurosport/Discovery+, 🇺🇸Max, 🇨🇦FloBikes
Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana - Stage 5
(09:45-11:15 ET/14:45-16:15 GMT/23:45-01:15 AEDT) 🇬🇧Eurosport/Discovery+, 🇺🇸Max, 🇺🇸🇨🇦FloBikes, 🇦🇺StayLive
Cyclocross
Trofee Veldrijden, Lille - Women
(07:42-08:57 ET/12:42-13:57 GMT/23:42-00:57 AEDT) 🇬🇧Eurosport/Discovery+, 🇺🇸Max, 🇨🇦FloBikes, 🇦🇺StayLive
Trofee Veldrijden, Lille - Men
(08:57-10:20 ET/13:57-15:20 GMT/00:57-02:20 AEDT) 🇬🇧Eurosport/Discovery+, 🇺🇸Max, 🇨🇦FloBikes, 🇦🇺StayLive
Monday February 10th
No live racing ...
Who's having a well-deserved Burger King? 🍔
Our (and that of other publication's) roving reporter Chris Marshall-Bell is always on the job, keeping his eyes open even when passing through an airport. While he's technically correct in Burger King being a poor food choice, an airport Burger King hits a little different (and only if there isn't a Wetherspoons available), but maybe that's why Chris looks like he does and I look how I do.
Sources (no idea who that could be) indicate the rider in question was actually a UAE Team Emirates rider. Which makes sense as any normal person, who is not riding for the peloton's most affluent team, would likely need to remortgage their house in order to Have It Their Way in the captive market of a departure lounge.
To be clear, we are fully supportive of this anonymous rider enjoying a well-earned burger and fries, and the fact its such a rare spot says a lot about the sport and how finely tuned athletes have to be these days. If this rider has to keep a food log, as some riders do, we wonder how honestly this section was filled in, or maybe it was mandated! BK could be the UAE Team Emirates secret sauce!
And finally ...
We might have to write something more substantial than this about Jonas Vingegaard and all the places he keeps getting spotted in his long coat. First the garden centre, now the cinema. What will it be next?
🧺 Send us yer laundry pics
"Here’s a slightly depressing laundry pic from my old apartment block in New York City," writes in Tiny Pang, attaching today's featured laundry photo. "The bike room was also the laundry room which meant any bike stored here was constantly exposed to warm humid air. This made for some very rusty chains amongst other things."
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: jonny.long@escapecollective.com
Until next time …
That’s all folks! Thanks to Tiny Pang 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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