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Welcome back to Spin Cycle! Escape Collective’s news digest.
The first Tour de France rest day comes at a welcome time for those who’ve spent a week and a half on the road already. A time to sit still for a moment, to take a break from the chaos, to be able to remember what town you are in for 24 hours.
For Spin Cycle and the rest of the accredited media on the race, it’s a chance to do laundry! A bumper day for laundromat submissions for those who’ve taken their washing into their own hands at the race. Any organisations for whom money is no object, however, can get their laundry done by the Tour’s very own dry cleaning service. We’ll have more on that later in this issue. Wherever you are, enjoy this first rest day. A day to soak in the fact we’re already more than one third of our way through the Tour. Enjoy it while it lasts!
Baby Bardet
Pretty good stuff from Romain Bardet Jnr as he climbs the Puy de Dôme. I don’t want to get into the whys of how he came to be dressed in a Kevin Durant Brooklyn Nets jersey by his otherwise presumed responsible parents, but here we are.
? Spotted at the Tour ?
A different sort of egregious sportswashing
As mentioned in our introduction, the Tour de France has an official concierge laundry service available to those who work on the race. It’s provided by a company called Sodexo, where you can drop off your dirty laundry on a certain stage and then pick it up a couple of days later.
We will now allow you the time and space to balk at the prices per item being offered.
Outrageous. Obviously, most people don’t use this service. Although we have seen certain members of the press room, those who work for big European newspapers and clearly have a good thing going, collecting a big pile of washing with an even bigger smile on their face.
Now, I’ve done the maths of what my entire luggage would cost to clean. In fact, I’ve calculated two figures due to the uncertainty of whether the ‘socks/underwears’ is a total amount for all of your dirty kecks (unlikely) or per piece of underwear and sock (more likely).
So, to get a small suitcase worth’s of laundry done by the Tour de France, it costs … either €105.50 or €141.60!
Thankfully, VAT is included, and we’re not going to even try to figure out why it costs the same to wash a t-shirt as a cap, and why those two specific items have been grouped together. Equally, you can purchase a €5 bottle of shower gel in the ‘pop-up store’, and we dread to think how much the estimate for shipping flowers and gifts somewhere would be, or who exactly you’d be shipping them to …
Just think, instead of getting your laundry done by the Tour, you could get a year’s membership to Escape Collective and still have a chunk of change left over that would allow you to still do your laundry at a regular laundrette!
Calling ballshit
Look, we’re fans of the Tietema boys as much as the next person. They provide a refreshing angle on cycling media and fair play on managing to get the Tour de France organisation to allow them the access for the things they do. That’s no mean feat.
But that doesn’t mean we should fail to hold them to account. This past week, they brought a basketball hoop to the Tour, giving the riders the opportunity to test their arms before another test of their legs.
A nice video, but as can be seen in another clip, almost every man and their dog managed to sink a trois. The backboard is both curved and soft, meaning as long as you get the ball vaguely on target, it’s going through the hoop.
Sure, a nice little pick-me-up for those riders needing some positive reinforcement before the start of another day’s racing, but we’ll be damned before those impish Tietema boys pull the wool over our eyes.
Feed Zone ?
?️ A Middle East Peace Race is being planned, according to CyclingNews, which would include a knockout race in Israel, a criterium in Bahrain and an uphill finish in the United Arab Emirates atop Jebel Hafeet.
? It’s time to overthrow the capitalist system as Tim Declerq might not be offered a new contract at Soudal Quick-Step. If that’s not a sign that you need to start quiet quitting, I don’t know what is.
?? Ben O’Connor has recalibrated his Tour de France goals and will now aim for a stage win rather than a good placing in the general classification.
? 20-year-old Max Poole has signed an improved and extended contract extension with DSM-Firmenich to keep him with the WorldTour team until at least 2027.
A fist-bump to make you want to leave the Tour
You’ve just missed out on a record-breaking Tour de France stage win. It wasn’t your fault, there was a mechanical issue with your bike. The last thing you need in this moment of despair? A fist bump from Alexandre Vinokourov.
But that didn’t stop the Astana-Qazaqstan team boss trying for a wee spud with Mark Cavendish. Vinokourov left his fist dangling there for what felt like an eternity before sensing his chance of salvaging at least a modicum of self-respect by quickly pouncing as Cavendish wearily turned over his gloved paw and accepted the most inappropriate fist bump of all time.
Cycling on TV ?
Tuesday
Tour de France, stage 10
GCN+ (07:45-13:00 ET/12:45-18:00 BST/21:45-03:00 AEST)
Coverage also available for American viewers on Peacock premium
Wednesday
Tour de France, stage 11
GCN+ (07:45-13:00 ET/12:45-18:00 BST/21:45-03:00 AEST)
Coverage also available for American viewers on Peacock premium
Thursday
Tour de France, stage 12
GCN+ (07:45-13:00 ET/12:45-18:00 BST/21:45-03:00 AEST)
Coverage also available for American viewers on Peacock premium
Friday
Tour de France, stage 13
GCN+ (08:35-12:50 ET/13:35-17:50 BST/22:35-02:50 AEST)
Coverage also available for American viewers on Peacock premium
? Weird analogy your dodgy dad might use of the week ?
“I don’t remember seeing such different favourites in the Tour. Tadej is someone who is always laughing and having fun. As soon as he sees a mountain, he wants to attack. Jumbo-Visma is more like an army of German tanks.”
So said Andy Schleck, in conversation with L’Équipe, who went on to say, seemingly unprompted, that Jonas Vingegaard “exudes a certain arrogance, I keep seeing him leave the bus without saying a word. He is invisible.” Seems a bit mean, and that’s coming from us. We also have no idea why the tanks in Schleck’s analogy had to be German?
And finally…
An incident of ‘whose horse is that?’ at the Sibiu Tour, where riders had to circumnavigate a couple of loose horses mid-stage.
? Primes (for helpful members) ?
Thank you to Adam Becket of Cycling Weekly who provided today’s laundromat image freshly baked from an undoubtedly baking hot laundromat in the Tour de France rest day town of Clermont-Ferrand.
As always, we are accepting your own 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 …
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