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.
As the TV Guide becomes bare, we find ourselves fully ensconced in cycling’s silly season.
Strange things are going on at the Tour du Faso and we don’t have enough time in the intro to go over everything Ineos Grenadiers related so you’ll just have to wait until we get to that part. And yes, we talk about The Giant Belgian Squirrel.
Not so fas(t)o
Here’s a weird one: The Tour du Faso has been stripped of its UCI status due to a Russian team participating in the event.
A ‘CSKA Moscow’ team had appeared on the start list, which has a sister football team of the same name that has close ties to Russia’s military, and appeared at the race in Burkina Faso sporting Russian Army jerseys. We’re going to presume everyone reading this has the context of both the war in Ukraine as well as Russia’s subsequent ban from all UCI events; if not … how.
Russia and Burkina Faso recently discussed expanding military ties, so it’s not too much of a surprise that they would be fine with its cycling team rocking up to their stage race, which has existed since 1987.
“The organizers of the Tour du Faso, a class 2 event on the UCI International Calendar, invited the Russian team CSKA Moscow on their own initiative, without prior notification to the UCI,” the UCI said in a statement on Friday.
“After being informed, the UCI immediately sent the organizers an official letter requesting them to prohibit the team’s participation, in accordance with the UCI Ad Hoc regulations on measures against Russia and Belarus. However, despite this directive, the team started the event this morning.
“Consequently, the UCI has immediately withdrawn the event from the UCI International Calendar and is currently examining the disciplinary consequences relating to the participation of this team. No further comments will be made on this subject at this time.”
Not so secret squirrel 🐿️
Yes, it was Wout van Aert who was the giant squirrel on the Masked Singer after all!
We’re sure watching his performance back and seeing the reaction to it provided some levity for Van Aert, who has endured a torrid year of crashes and injury, and the video of him performing Blur’s Song 2 with his mask off is everything you hoped it would be.
We’re choosing to believe the master of second places chose Song 2 knowingly, and we appreciate the level of commitment to his performance that he’s pretending to hold up a traditional microphone despite having one taped to his cheek. It looks like he had a genuinely good time and we’re very happy for him.
“Thanks for the HOT tip about the Belgian Masked Singer finale,” Liam Brown wrote us on Friday. “I’m watching now. Fired up my VPN, pointed it at Brussels … had to sign up for a free account, and provide a Belgian post code (easy enough, since my son lives in Brussels), endure about three solid minutes of commercials, and now I’m wondering if I’m stoned or if the show is really as weird as it seems …”
We’ve had Quintana as a chameleon and Van Aert as a squirrel: who’s next? I think we need Tom Pidcock dressed up as a sausage dog belting out Celine Dion’s My Heart Will Go On. Feel free to leave your most imaginative fever dream suggestions in the comments.
Gren-oh-dear-oh-dear-oh-dear 💂♀️
So, Ineos owner Jim Wrathcliffe continues his autumn reckoning by sacking Erik ten Hag from Manchester United, and things seem to be continuously going from bad to worse for our favourite chemicals magnate.
The Ineos Grenadier car, which sponsors the cycling team, is no long being Built on Purpose™ as a “critical component shortage” has halted production.
The supplier of this specific part is battling bankruptcy and therefore unable to provide what Ineos Grenadier CEO Lynn Calder admitted to Automotive News Europe is “a trim part but one that we can’t sell the car without.”
In true Ineos PR fashion, they refused to name either the part or the supplier involved in this palaver, but said production of the car may not resume until 2025. Bet Soudal never runs out of Soudal … Although, having sold only 20,000 vehicles since the company’s birth in 2016, we think the motoring public will survive.
Oh, and what’s the latest with Pidcock, you ask? Well, looks like Ineos are giving away his mountain bike in a competition. (Yes, this is probably a spare or replica, but don’t spoil the fun).
And if a free giveaway isn’t your sort of thing, looks like someone on eBay is selling off a bunch of Tom Pidcock kit …
Feed Zone 🥖
🏃♂️ Ex-pro Nacer Bouhanni ran the weekend’s Frankfurt marathon in 2 hours 34 minutes.
🍼 The latest person to dip their beaks into the ketone ad spend trough? It’s Lance Armstrong baby!
🤖 German rider Jason Osborne and Kiwi Mary Kate McCarthy are your new Cycling eSports World Champions after being crowned in Abu Dhabi over the weekend. eCongratulations to both of them.
🐝 Jonas Vingegaard has already started training for next season. “We have to accept that Tadej Pogačar has raised the bar even higher this year,” his coach Tim Heemskerk told Velo.
Cycling on TV 📺
Tuesday October 29th
Tour de France 2025 Route Presentation
(06:00-08:00 ET/10:00-12:00 GMT/23:00-01:00 AEDT) Eurosport/Discovery+🇬🇧, FloBikes🇨🇦
Wednesday October 30th – Thursday October 31st
No live racing …
Friday November 1st
Cyclocross
X20 Trofee Koppenbergcross, Oudenaarde – Women
(08:40-09:35 ET/12:40-13:35 GMT/23:40-00:35 AEDT) Eurosport/Discovery+🇬🇧, Max🇺🇸, FloBikes🇨🇦, Staylive🇦🇺
X20 Trofee Koppenbergcross, Oudenaarde – Men
(09:55-11:20 ET/13:55-15:20 GMT/00:55-02:20 AEDT) Eurosport/Discovery+🇬🇧, Max🇺🇸, FloBikes🇨🇦, Staylive🇦🇺
👏 Growing the game of the week 👏
We know Eritrea goes mad for everything and anything Biniam Girmay, but seeing the impact he’s had getting young people out on bikes and racing is just the tonic for a late October Monday.
And finally …
While Tim Declercq races horses, Mathieu van der Poel has been racing rally cars at a criterium in Spain. The Dutchman briefly interrupted his holiday to turn up to the event (presumably for a big bag of gold – Alejandro Valverde was also in attendance) and won his race against a motor vehicle.
Judging this progression of opponents from Declercq to Van der Poel, maybe we need to pit Tadej Pogačar against a Japanese bullet train in order to make it a fair fight.
🧺 Send us yer laundry pics
“Delighted to see Tadej Pogačar holding up the exact quantity of mortadella that we’ve eaten so far on our trip,” Paul Hallows emailed in the other week, attaching today’s featured laundrette. “Greetings from a particularly information-heavy laundrette in Monte San Savino.”
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 Paul Hallows, Liam Brown and Phil Long 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.
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?