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Hello!
Welcome back to Spin Cycle, Escape Collective’s news digest.
We’re back in business after a soggy week off in Cornwall and upon our return we’re greeted with wild rumours running amok, wholesome retirement stories, a slightly awkward backpedal, and Tadej Pogačar is up to his old tricks once again. Wahey!
The Poggiest Place On Earth ✨
Tadej Pogačar returns to competition today at the Canadian WorldTour one-day races, but it was nearly not so, as his visa was not in order.
Stopped at the airport in Paris, he was not allowed through customs, watching UAE Team Emirates teammates Tim Wellens and Juan Ayuso go off to duty-free without him to douse themselves in CK IN2U.
Delayed while his paperwork was sorted out, Pogačar had an idea of how to while away the hours: go to Disneyland Paris.
“I thought it would be fun to do. But it turned out to be a bit too complicated,” Pogačar said at his press conference in Quebec after eventually making it to Canada. Of course, Disneyland Paris is actually located outside the very un-Paris city of Lille.
“Luke Maguire [Pogačar’s press officer, who will be known to Tour Daily podcast listeners] wasn’t so happy with the plan to take the train to Disneyland to spend a few hours in the amusement park,” the Slovenian explained. Sounds like Luke’s never been on Space Mountain and doesn’t know what he’s missing out on. Shame!
Transfer whispers 🤫
It’s September again, so you know what that means? Rumours about Remco Evenepoel and Tom Pidcock leaving their respective WorldTour teams.
Let’s talk Remco first. Last year when rumours were abound, it turned out there was some truth to them, with Evenepoel a key part of discussions in the Jumbo-Visma takeover of Soudal-Quick Step. This year, reports are coming out of various outlets that Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe are interested in signing the Belgian double Olympic champion this winter, but Evenepoel has denied this to Sporza, saying he will not be moving for 2025.
But when Red Bull-Bora Hansgrohe boss Ralph Denk finally got cornered by Het Laatste Nieuws, he refused to respond to the rumours rather than flat-out denying them.
“I hear and read the rumours every day in Italian, English and Belgian newspapers, but I have nothing to say about them,” Denk said. “They are gossip and I may not, cannot and will not respond to them. No matter how annoying that is for you journalists.”
Elsewhere, Tom Pidcock, who as well as a concussion (more below on that) is dealing with the headache of riding for the creaking Ineos Grenadiers team, is also being linked with a move to Red Bull.
This is another rumour that has really been doing the rounds for a while now, however even we’ve heard this transfer talked about this week by someone, speaking as if it’s a done deal. It’s going to be very interesting to see what eventually comes out in the wash. Our money is on Pidcock making the move and Evenepoel staying put.
Feed Zone 🥖
🙏 Wout van Aert (Visma-Lease a Bike) was able to leave hospital last Sunday after four days in intensive care for the knee injury he sustained at the Vuelta a España, and will now continue his recovery at home.
🤕 Tom Pidcock (Ineos Grenadiers) will not participate in the two Canadian one-dayers after suffering a concussion in a fall at the Tour of Britain. Soudal-Quick Step’s Paul Magnier also crashed and suffered a concussion severe enough that he was kept in hospital overnight.
✍️ Emīls Liepiņš is leaving DSM Firmenich-PostNL after one season to join Q36.5.
👋 Sven Vanthourenhout will step down as Belgian national coach after the upcoming World Championships, the decision taken in “mutual consultation” with the federation, according to a statement on their website. “Everyone has a vision and that doesn’t always match, that’s only normal,” he told Sporza. “A few things have come together that have led to us stopping on a high.” Vanthourenhout has previously been apparently linked with a job at UAE Team Emirates.
⛽ After Julian Alaphilippe decided to sign for Tudor Pro Cycling, TotalEnergies are worried about their Tour de France wildcard spot. “I hope they don’t forget us,” team manager Jean-René Bernaudeau told Wielerflits.
🤔 Ilkhan Dostiyev (22) of the Astana Qazaqstan Development Team has been provisionally suspended by the UCI after returning a positive test for CERA, a variant of EPO. Dostiyev subsequently confessed to doping and has had his contract terminated with immediate effect by Astana Qazaqstan.
🇸🇮 Having won a fourth Vuelta a España, Primož Roglič (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) still has two main career goals, his coach Marc Lamberts told Het Laatste Nieuws: winning the Tour de France and the Tour de Suisse, the latter in order to have won every major one-week stage race.🤔
🇬🇧 Great Britain are not competing in the ongoing European Road Championships, with the nation’s performance director Stephen Park providing an explanation to Cycling Weekly: “The race calendar is incredibly full this summer. In addition, the responsibilities riders have with their professional teams make it extra complicated, as does the rest and recovery required after major events.”
💸 Oier Lazkano has signed with Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe, moving over from Movistar.
⏱️ Edoardo Affini (Italy) is the new European time trial champion, beating Switzerland’s Stefan Küng by nine seconds with Mattia Cattaneo (Italy) picking up bronze.
🇧🇪 Lotte Kopecky sealed the women’s European time trial title for Belgium, beating Ellen van Dijk (Netherlands) by 43 seconds. Austria’s Christina Schweinberger was third.
🇮🇹 Italy won the mixed-relay time trial event at the European Championships, beating second-place Germany with Belgium in third.
🚀 Mark Cavendish may not retire after all of the week 🚀
A big shout out to the veteran reporter in the Tour de France press room who, purely based off of a working lifetime spent dutifully picking up on Mark Cavendish’s vibes (and Cavendish occasionally pretending to not know or remember who he is), called it on stage 21 that he didn’t believe the 39-year-old was going to retire after all.
Now, another retirement un-doing has not yet been confirmed by the sprinter, who is out of contract at the end of this year with Astana-Qazaqstan. However, while he has said (as much as we can believe him) that he won’t be racing the Tour de France again, but that he will not only race again this season, but also that he doesn’t know if that’s the last time he’ll ever race again.
“I’m not done for this year. I don’t know what happens after that. I do know that I won’t start the Tour de France again. I said that before the Tour and after the Tour,” Cavendish told ITV. “I’m taking care of my family now, I’m chilling and I took some time off before I started riding again. Now I’m training again. I’ve had time to process everything. We’ll see what happens in the future.”
Cycling on TV 📺
Saturday September 14th
European Road Championships – Elite Women’s Road Race
(07:20-11:30 ET/12:20-16:30 BST/21:20-01:30 AEST) Eurosport/Discovery+🇬🇧
Sunday September 15th
European Road Championships – Elite Men’s Road Race
(06:20-12:00 ET/11:20-17:00 BST/20:20-02:00 AEST) Eurosport/Discovery+🇬🇧
GP de Montreal
(10:05-16:55 ET/15:05-21:55 BST/00:05-06:55 AEST) Eurosport/Discovery+🇬🇧, Max🇺🇸, Staylive🇦🇺, TVA Sports🇨🇦 (Quebec only)
Monday September 16th
No live racing …
🤦♂️ Maybe winning the Tour de France is actually quite difficult of the week 🤦♂️
Remember Olympic gold and Ironman-winning triathlete Kristian Blummenfelt saying the other month that he wanted to win the Tour de France in 2028?
Turns out, after a disappointing 12th at the Paris Games, he’s going to re-focus on the 2028 Los Angeles Games instead, his coach Olav Aleksandr Bu told Velo, which is the sort of thing you don’t see yellow jersey contenders doing.
Ah well, who’s next to have a go? One of the ping pong-ers? Track star Noah Lyles maybe? Whoever it is, it’s certainly going to have to be someone coming out of left field to take on Tadej Pogačar and Jonas Vingegaard.
And finally …
40-year-old Luis Ángel Maté (Euskaltel-Euskadi) called time on his long career at the end of the Vuelta a España and will celebrate the end of his professional racing days with a 650 km ride from the end point of the Vuelta in Madrid to his hometown in Marbella, reports CyclingNews.
“It’s partly to get used to the idea that my pro career is behind me. But at the same time I’m trying to make a statement about something that’s really important, which is how we should change the way we travel, to fight climate change and for the planet,” said Ángel Maté, who also rode 1,200 km home from the 2021 Vuelta finish line in Santiago de Compostela.
Nice one, Luis, a great way to cap off a career with a good message to boot. The latest from the Vuelta’s own climate ideals? A start in Italy’s Piedmont region next year, according to La Stampa en Spaziociclismo, 700 km away. Which, come to think of it, is actually a reasonable transfer for La Vuelta.
Clarifications cul de sac 🧐
In reply to our Brailsford doppelganger story last week (we did know it for sure wasn’t the man himself, he’s busy marginal gain-ing Erik Ten Hag into an early payoff), friend of the programme and former Cycling Weekly-er Vern Pitt gets in touch. “That’s Tour of Britain stalwart Steve Joughin sat next to Mr Ellingworth,” Vern writes. “He was something of a domestic racing legend in the 1980s and has been a regular in the cars at the the Tour of Britain for many years since.”
🧺 Send us yer laundry pics
“Here’s a submission from a recent trip to Naxos, Greece,” writes in Chris Buonomo, attaching today’s featured laundromat. “Is the proprietor a big fan of Mr. Bean? Does the process for doing your laundry entail a Mr. Bean-esque comedy of errors? Can’t say for sure since the lone employee yelled at me for taking this picture and shooed me out like a Greek street cat.”
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 Vern Pitt and Chris Buonomo 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
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