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.
We have our Tour de France routes and they look great. The perfect thing to pin hopes and dreams on just as the darkness of winter draws in (quiet, Aussies, enjoy your summer). Meanwhile, the Giro is mired in confusion as their route presentations have been delayed because of political rumblings.
Elsewhere, we’ve got Tour winners on animal rescue, worrying economic signs for racing, knockout Halloween costumes, and Dave Brailsford is taking selfies! Jealous, I want one.
Demi saves a goat 🐐
While she often races against one particular g.o.a.t (sometimes when they’re on the same team even) that didn’t stop Demi Vollering from taking time out of her holiday in Greece to jump into a hole in the ground to rescue an actual goat that had gotten stuck down there. Is there anything she can’t do?
Cycling: A rich kid’s sport?
We all know cycling has gotten expensive, but Groupama-FDJ boss Marc Madiot believes the cost of the sport is now so prohibitive that for up and comers it is only accessible for “rich kids.”
“Today, if your parents don’t have the money, you can’t really get going in cycling,” Madiot told Velo. “If I was a kid starting now, my parents would not have had the money to get me a good enough racing bike. Cycling has become a rich kid’s sport. It’s got expensive.”
Replying to a tweet of the quote, Michael Tarling, father of Ineos Grenadiers’ Josh Tarling, concurred with the sentiment.
“Agreed,” he said. “One son pro and one son going pro. We begged, borrowed, remortgaged multiple times and loaded credit cards to give our lads the support they needed. Always second/third hand equipment until last year junior when [they were] lucky enough to get sponsors. We’re financially screwed as a result.”
These are worrying things to hear, and further proof, along with both the degradation of the grassroots scene in various places and the wealth gap between even WorldTour squads, that having a solid bank balance is almost as important as how strong your legs are.
Save yourself-ies 🤳
If you were to go back in time to 2012 to tell Dave Brailsford, just after he and Team Sky had won their first Tour de France, that 12 years later he’d be stopping to take selfies with Manchester United fans and letting slip that a deal to sign yet another new manager was done, would he have believed you?
It’s quite a bizarre trajectory for a former cycling team boss, and while things aren’t exactly going to plan at his new gig, there’s always the comfort of spending someone else’s millions firing and hiring new human shields. It’s a different sort of soul-suck, and must certainly offer superior vibes to the imminent Ineos Grenadiers winter training camp.
Feed Zone 🥖
💸 Cryptocurrency is back in cycling sponsorship! As Zondacrypto (a Polish company that claims to be Central and Eastern Europe’s “leading regulated cryptocurrency exchange”) chucks some (hopefully) real money at Canyon-SRAM for co-naming rights.
🙄 Mark Cavendish is still toying with everyone about a possible comeback, saying at the Tour route reveal ceremony: “You finish it and you think, ‘I’m never doing that again,’ and then a couple of days later you miss it and you long for the buzz the year after. We’ll see.” Meanwhile, at the Saitama Criterium, Primož Roglič was jokingly threatening to go all Bruce Lee on the Manxman.
🇦🇱 The Giro d’Italia has pushed back its November 12 route reveal, with no explanation or new reveal date given. Rumours point to political tensions with Albania (due to host the race’s grande partenza) over the deportation of migrants to the Balkan country. Our Caley Fretz has more on the story here.
🎣 Off-season update: Richard Carapaz has gone fishing.
Cycling on TV 📺
Saturday November 2nd
Tour de France Saitama Criterium
(01:45-04:20 ET/05:45-08:20 GMT/16:45-19:20 AEDT) Eurosport/Discovery+🇬🇧, FloBikes🇨🇦
Sunday November 3rd
Cyclocross
UEC Cyclocross European Championships – U23 Women
(04:50-06:00 ET/09:50-11:00 GMT/20:50-22:00 AEDT) Eurosport/Discovery+🇬🇧
UEC Cyclocross European Championships – U23 Men
(06:40-08:00 ET/11:40-13:00 GMT/22:40-00:00 AEDT) Eurosport/Discovery+🇬🇧
UEC Cyclocross European Championships – Elite Women
(08:00-09:20 ET/13:00-14:20 GMT/00:00-01:20 AEDT) Eurosport/Discovery+🇬🇧
UEC Cyclocross European Championships – Elite Men
(09:20-10:50 ET/14:20-15:50 GMT/01:20-02:50 AEDT – Monday) Eurosport/Discovery+🇬🇧
Monday November 4th
No live racing …
🎃 Cycling-themed Halloween outfits of the week 🎃
If you dressed up as anything else for Halloween what were you thinking … not sure on the black-eye cyclist though …
And finally …
Mont Ventoux is back on the menu at the Tour de France Hommes 2025, and a summit finish to boot! Here’s a fun anecdote about the Provence route to the mountain, courtesy of the Cyclingnews forum via Twitter’s ammattipyöräily.
“Just like in 2002 (and perhaps other years, I don’t know) the Mont Ventoux stage will be passing through Châteauneuf du Pape. In 2002 there was an intermediate sprint in that town. One of the soigneurs on Credit Agricole said to Thor Hushovd ‘today you are going in a break and you are winning the intermediate sprint’ because the winner would get something like 14 cases of champagne which the soigneur wanted a piece of. And that’s exactly what happened.”
Now we see where Hushovd gets his love for alternative prizes from.
Masked Singer suggestions 🎤
“Jonas singing as a salmon seems like it needs to happen … after we heard about that part of his career every race day for years.” – Will Bondurant
“Surely the next cyclist appearance on a Masked Singer show belting out Celine Dion should be Julian Alaphilippe? He does have form for this sort of thing.” – Caleb Hayter
“Thibaut Pinot, dressed as a goat, belting out ‘Non, je ne regrette rien’, obviously.” – Al Storer
Corrections/clarifications corner ✏️
“Dangit!” writes *triple-checks this time* Steve Williams. “My one shot at EC fame and it gets misattributed. I was the smart-ass who made the Discord comment [about VPN-ing in to Belgium to watch the Squirrel Extravaganza].”
Apologies for the oversight, Steve, and congrats on the unwanted stolen valour, Liam Brown.
“Regarding the Faso news,” writes Marius Ratkevicius from Lithuania. “CSKA is an abbreviation for Central Sports Club of the Army. It is a giant sports organization, covering numerous sports disciplines in Russia.”
🧺 Send us yer laundry pics
“This laundromat was next door to an AirBnb in Algoma Wisconsin, where I spent three days this week while supporting my husband on his quest to hike to the eastern terminus of the Ice Age Trail,” writes Amy Barr, attaching today’s featured laundromat. “I’m not sure why one machine was labeled ‘Work Clothes’, among other things that make me go hmmmmmm.”
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 Amy Barr, Will Bondurant, Caleb Hayter, Al Storer, Steve Williams and Marius Ratkevicius 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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