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
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!
Hello!
Welcome back to Spin Cycle, Escape Collective’s news digest.
The Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift is in full flow and it’s turning into a right belter. This weekend should provide quite the crescendo to the race as it heads up Alpe d’Huez.
Elsewhere, the Vuelta a España is about to begin. We’re really being spoilt for sport this summer, aren’t we? There is no chance to catch your breath, which might be a good thing, as there are dinosaurs at the Vuelta start in Lisbon, and they can probably smell the fear and delight on your breath at the prospect of yet another seamless brand activation.
Hacked off 👨💻
This is a bit of a tricky and weird one so we’re going to try and tread carefully … but it’s something that happened this week of significance.
50,000 documents allegedly from the Polish anti-doping agency (POLADA) were leaked after a hack, some of which allege doping positives from some of Poland’s biggest sporting stars. What we can be sure of is that the hack did happen, the agency’s website went down and POLADA told athletes that their personal data had been stolen.
It feels unfair to name the athletes mentioned, so we’re not going to. Some accusations concern the serious doping of global sports stars, while in terms of cyclists there is an alleged out-of-competition marijuana positive, which is completely legal.
POLADA have come out with a statement saying the huge cache of documents is fake: “Info presented in this post about Polish athletes is a fake. All of these posts are aimed to discredit Polish athletes, who don’t deserve that because they compete clean. None of these athletes were positive and none of the presented dates match doping controls, which were conducted.”
Fair enough. Seeding false information with authentic files is a tactic sometimes seen in nation-state cyberattacks, and while we don’t know who is behind the hack, the files, or any of it really, some suspect Russia. Nothing is confirmed yet, but we’ll keep an eye on this one …
Jim Ratcliffe gossip 🤫
Following our Jim Ratcliffe story on Monday, some fantastic gossip/intel dropped into our email inbox and after checking with the sender, who would rather remain anonymous, we will now share it with you as well.
“Yo, got some good Ratcliffe sauce from a guy I was on a stag do trip with last week. Amid the many pints enjoyed, my inside man told me Ratcliffe is an absolute nightmare (knightmare?) to work for.
“My guy was on one of his yachts until recently, and said the routine when Big Jim was around was this: he would do a daily run or ride, and yachties had to plan and scout three (3) options for him for each day. He was so particular that his whole day would be ruined if a run had too much elevation, for example.
“His other boat (the Sherpa I think) has a combined dining area and bridge, so Jim has his breakfast watching the captain at work. My mate said this so freaked out the captain on the boat she would just hide in her separate office as clients usually never go near the bridge. There was a bit more but I also had 12 pints … but these are the bits that stuck in my head.”
Some interesting insight into the owner of the Ineos Grenadiers, and as chance would have it I have more to add so we can extend our sample size from one to two on what Ratcliffe is like.
Sitting in the barbers the other month, a chap sitting next to me was saying how he was in Manchester United’s offices on a day when both owners of the football club: the American Glazer family (who also own the NFL’s Tampa Bay Buccaneers) and Ratcliffe were stopping in.
Long story short, the Glazers (reviled by United fans for years due to the club’s continued, gradual decline) were in the offices in the morning and were apparently nothing short of delightful. Polite, courteous, and good company.
They left and in the afternoon Ratcliffe stopped by, his first time meeting some of the staff now under his direction. Was he as well-mannered and respectful, looking to engender some loyalty and vigour to the beleaguered organisation? How do we put this in so many words without risking getting sued … ? Erm, no! He apparently was not!
If you have gossip you’d like to share with the group, feel free to hit reply to this email.
💫 Sponsorship activation of the week 💫
You may be thinking “what’s Soudal-Quick Step boss Patrick Lefevere doing hanging around while his riders get interviewed at the Vuelta a España?
But no! This is another dinosaur, one in full service to flogging Soudal’s T-Rex range of sealants and adhesives rather than besmirching his own riders in the media.
We love everything about this: the new T-Rex kit, the movie-quality dinosaur costume, Mikel Landa’s ambivalence towards the person-in-dinosaur costume while he delivers platitudes in the media mixed zone. More! We need more!
Feed Zone 🥖
🇰🇿 Here’s one we didn’t see coming, Alexey Lutsenko is swapping Astana Qazaqstan for Israel-Premier Tech next year.
🌮 After 16 months out with complications from a severe concussion, Taco van der Hoorn (Intermarché-Wanty) made his racing comeback this week in Belgium at the Tour of Leuven and Heusden Koers.
🇵🇱 At the Tour of Poland, Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) is in the overall lead after a strong time trial performance, while Lidl-Trek’s Thibau Nys has won two stages, continuing his streak of winning a stage at all of the five stage races he’s entered this season.
💸 Red Bull-Bora Hansgrohe have continued being busy in the transfer market, signing Finn Fisher-Black from UAE Team Emirates and Laurence Pithie from Groupama-FDJ, while going the other way Lennard Kämna departs for Lidl-Trek and Emanuel Buchmann goes to Cofidis. #FreeEmu indeed.
🔧 Shimano and ASO have extended their neutral service partnership until at least 2028.
🇳🇱 Rotterdam would like to host the Tour de France Hommes 2027 Grand Départ, Wielerflits report.
🇧🇭 Rod Ellingworth is heading back to Bahrain Victorious as part of team management, it was announced this week.
🙏 In the Tour de France Femmes crash that brought down the yellow jersey Demi Vollering (SD Worx-Protime), Pfeiffer Georgi also crashed and suffered fractures to her neck and hand. “Luckily, the neck fractures do not require surgery,” DSM Firmenich-PostNL team doctor Camiel Aldershof said. “It was a bad fall, so we will continue to examine and monitor her on her way home. She will be off the bike for at least four weeks, but we are not rushing.”
🇪🇸 If the Vuelta a España has snuck up on you, Dane Cash has a stage-by-stage preview here.
Cycling on TV 📺
Saturday August 17th
Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift – Stage 7
(07:00-10:15 ET/12:00-15:15 BST/21:00-00:15 AEST) ITV/Eurosport/Discovery+🇬🇧, Peacock🇺🇸, FloBikes🇨🇦, SBS🇦🇺
Vuelta a España – Stage 1 (ITT)
(11:30-15:00 ET/16:30-20:00 BST/01:30-05:00 AEST) Eurosport/Discovery+🇬🇧, Peacock🇺🇸, FloBikes🇨🇦, SBS🇦🇺
Tour of Denmark – Stage 4
(09:45-11:45 ET/14:45-16:45 BST/23:45-01:45 AEST) Eurosport/Discovery+🇬🇧, Max🇺🇸, FloBikes🇨🇦, Staylive🇦🇺
Sunday August 18th
Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift – Stage 8
(10:00-13:30 ET/15:00-18:30 BST/00:00-03:30 AEST) ITV/Eurosport/Discovery+🇬🇧, Peacock🇺🇸, FloBikes🇨🇦, SBS🇦🇺
Vuelta a España – Stage 2
(08:30-12:00 ET/13:30-17:00 BST/22:30-02:00 AEST) Eurosport/Discovery+🇬🇧, Peacock🇺🇸, FloBikes🇨🇦, SBS🇦🇺
Tour of Denmark – Stage 5
(09:45-11:45 ET/14:45-16:45 BST/23:45-01:45 AEST) Eurosport/Discovery+🇬🇧, Max🇺🇸, FloBikes🇨🇦, Staylive🇦🇺
Tour de l’Avenir – Prologue
(11:00-12:50 ET/16:00-17:50 BST/01:00-02:50 AEST) Eurosport/Discovery+🇬🇧, Max🇺🇸, FloBikes🇨🇦, Staylive🇦🇺
Monday August 19th
Vuelta a España – Stage 3
(08:30-12:00 ET/13:30-17:00 BST/22:30-02:00 AEST) Eurosport/Discovery+🇬🇧, Peacock🇺🇸, FloBikes🇨🇦, SBS🇦🇺
Tour de l’Avenir – Stage 1
(08:00-10:10 ET/13:00-15:10 BST/22:00-00:10 AEST) Eurosport/Discovery+🇬🇧, Max🇺🇸, FloBikes🇨🇦, Staylive🇦🇺
💇♂️ Man bun of the week 💇♂️
Sometimes when GC riders experience a bit of a slump they try to shake things up a bit. This could involve changing their training or getting a new coach, but David Gaudu (after taking up fishing and putting his phone away before July’s Tour de France didn’t exactly deliver him back to the upper echelons of the GC) has elected instead to grow a man bun to see if that drives him onto greatness this Vuelta a España.
We think it looks excellent, a great addition to Big Snogger’s vibe. Let’s hope it brings the desired results.
And finally …
Spotted in Sepp Kuss’ hometown of Durango, Colorado, a 500-piece jigsaw of the 2023 Vuelta a España winner and the puzzlemaker’s mother. We would say get them while stocks last but this is a one-off!
In case you missed it 👀
Quite a mad video showing Dan Bigham colliding with someone else on the Paris Olympics track during a training session.
Charlotte Kool in the yellow jersey and her DSM Firmenich-PostNL squad singing Coldplay’s yellow on the bus pre-stage at the Tour de France Femmes.
Corrections corner 😖
Monday’s newsletter featured one of those errors so painful it has haunted us the entire week. We completely forgot Lotte Kopecky isn’t racing the ongoing Tour de France Femmes as she opted to instead completely focus on the recent Olympic Games. Just another regret that will stay with us until our Earthly demise, who’s counting hey … !
🧺 Send us yer laundry pics
“Thought I’d pass along the attached as a potential answer to the question, ‘What’s the most entitled place to find an extremely ordinary looking washing machine?'” writes in Nathaniel Heller, attaching today’s featured laundry photo.
“What you see is the laundry room available to all guests at the Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio Center on the tip of Lake Como and at the foot of the famed Ghisallo climb featured regularly in Il Lombardia. I recently had the privilege of attending a work meeting there and needed to wash kit (naturally, I snuck out for rides during breaks) as well as some laundry I’d brought with me from two days of cycling in Bormio, further northeast in the Italian Alps.
“Funny to deal with disgusting, plebian clothes in the following setting, as described on the Center’s website: ‘The Rockefeller Foundation’s proud history with the Bellagio Center began in 1959, when Ella Holbrook Walker, the American Principessa della Torre e Tasso, offered her Italian villa ‘for purposes connected with the promotion of international understanding’ … Former residents include: Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz, renowned authors Maya Angelou and Michael Ondaatji, and international policy makers such as Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Mary Robinson and Montek Ahluwalia.’
“Did they all wash their laundry in the same Miele machines that take seemingly forever to complete a normal wash and dry cycle?!”
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 Nathaniel Heller, the anonymous Ratcliffe gossip-giver, Caley Fretz, Jase de Puit and Kit Nicholson 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.
Every edition of Spin Cycle is available for free so please share it with your friends and help us enjoy limitless growth. You can give them this link to take them to our most recent edition.
And if you’ve been forwarded this email from someone else and want to receive it straight into your own inbox while it’s still hot, you can sign up by clicking the button.
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!
Did we do a good job with this story?