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.
I bring grave news. As far as we can tell, there is no cycling on TV this week. Yes, that means we’ve finally arrived at the darkest days of the off-season. Hold your loved ones close, try and find joy in other things until something like a mid-week cyclocross race pops up and you are so desperate for two-wheeled action you find yourself glued to every second of it.
Speaking of cyclocross, the discipline is unfortunately serving up some bad vibes again, but also good vibes if you look a little deeper. While at the Saitama Criterium, the vibes are always good, if not a bit confusing too …
A Sait for sore eyes
You thought the racing season was over? How wrong you are! Witness a selection of the best riders in the world giving it their absolute all in a sprint finish where Biniam Girmay just about managed to pull back Primož Roglič from his gallant solo effort.
We are big fans of the Saitama Criterium, but really the riders could have tried harder to make it all a little bit more convincing at this year’s edition of the world’s most famous real-fake bike race.
One year, we hope a Laurens Rex or Anthony Turgis just decides to not follow the script and takes the victory for themselves. Just chuck one real race or a surprise winner in there every two to three years, that would keep fans on their toes.
‘Denk, I don’t like him’
We’d heard a couple of times over recent weeks from different corners of the cycling world alarming rumours that Remco Evenepoel was leaving Soudal-Quick Step but after inquiring both times this turned out to be a false flag.
There is rarely smoke without fire however (unless you’re huffing on a big ol’ raspberry watermelon vape), and as told to Het Laatste Nieuws by Belgian commentator Michael Wuyts, Red Bull-Bora Hansgrohe recently offered Evenepoel a bonus-laden contract of €10 million a year and the company of three of his current Quick-Step colleagues at the German squad.
Quick-Step boss Patrick Lefevere naturally hit back in his column in the same newspaper, saying: “Do you know my friend Ralph Denk? He has done the same thing twice: he offers a contract with very high bonuses, which is not done with riders under contract. He had already done that four years ago and now again. Last week I heard that he also visited Tom Pidcock. Denk, I don’t like him.”
We’re sure Lefevere has always done everything above board (like every single other squeaky clean cycling manager out there) and this is not a case of chickens coming home to roost. More likely, it has everything to do with the existence of Lefevere’s Evenepoel-leveraged squad hingeing on the continued presence of Evenepoel. Can only imagine Denk cried himself to sleep after reading Lefevere’s column.
Feed Zone 🥖
🇦🇺 Ben O’Connor will focus on the Tour de France in 2025, Jayco-AlUla manager Matt White confirmed to Daniel Benson.
🤞 Chris Froome hopes to return to the Tour de France in 2025 in his final year with Israel-Premier Tech, saying at the Saitama Criterium: “I can play my part – I can, maybe, chase a stage or work for my teammate Derek Gee, for example.”
🏆 Fem van Empel (Netherlands) and Thibau Nys (Belgium) are the new European cyclocross champions.
Cycling on TV 📺
Monday November 4th – Friday November 8th
No live racing … 😢
To make up for the lack of televised cycling this week, try out this wonderful half-hour video from Josh Reid about his journey cycling home to the UK from China. And you can also check out our interview with him from a couple of years ago.
🍺 Unseemly incident at a cyclocross race of the week 🍺
Not long after we had hit publish on Friday’s email, an unholy trinity of our niche cycling interests collided into an admittedly ugly incident involving a rider recently in the headlines for the wrong reasons, beers, and poor behaviour at cyclocross races.
Yes, at Friday’s Koppenbergcross, Eli Iserbyt had a beer thrown in his face by a fan, which is obviously an ugly scene, and means Iserbyt makes headlines once again for non-racing reasons after his very petulant stamping of Ryan Kamp’s bike in a race three weeks ago.
“I was not feeling well for a moment. It was right in my face,” Iserbyt said afterwards of both his reaction to being drenched and also confirming the directional flight of the liquid.
“It was unexpected, I could not find my focus for a moment. It is good that the police were able to take the man away immediately. It did not have a big impact on my race, but I still had to recover for a moment.”
Iserbyt eventually finished second and the spectator who threw the beer was arrested and may face criminal charges.
“This will not be the best day of that spectator’s life,” a spokesperson for the race organisers said, rather ominously.
And finally …
There’s a lot to be scared for concerning the British scene at the minute, but the Rapha Muddy Hell cyclocross at Herne Hill Velodrome this past Halloween weekend seems like great fun and is exactly what cycling should be in 2024.
Our favourite costume is someone who wore an oversized Giro TT helmet. Or is that actually just a regular-sized Giro TT helmet? We’re not sure anymore.
🧺 Send us yer laundry pics
“In Grafton [Australia] to watch the Jacaranda Crits this arvo I grabbed a pic of the Jacaranda Laundry,” writes Derek Irving, attaching today’s featured laundromat. “The Jacaranda festival is an annual event. Grafton has loads of these trees which have purple blooms at this time of year.”
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 Derek Irving and Kit Nicholson 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
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