Spin Cycle is Escape Collective’s news digest, published every Monday and Friday. You can read it on the website (obviously) or click here to have it delivered straight to your inbox.
Hello!
Welcome back to Spin Cycle.
We come to you live from the top of Alpe d'Huez where Tadej Pogačar has claimed his 26th stage win and surely his fifth Tour de France title.
His performance on the climb, to gobble up all the strong riders of the breakaway, was impressive in the sense of how easy he made it look.
But you know what isn't easy, and takes true guts and determination? Partying until 1 am on the mountain the night before the race arrives.
Dancing in the moonlight 🌕
With a double Alpe d'Huez day to finish this year's Tour, it was no surprise The People were up for it, a bit of bang for their buck, even if the GC battle was neutered weeks ago.
The scenes were captured by credentialed people on the Tour still allowed to drive up on Thursday night after the road was shut to public traffic earlier in the day, and the fans who'd already been waiting on the slopes for hours if not days were ready to greet them at 1 am, practicing for the real thing the next day.
The car rocking is crazy, and not for everyone, but there's just something so ridiculous about the fact that this is the sort of thing that accompanies one of the world's biggest sporting competitions.
But given the mass of people, there's always going to be a few sprinkles of bad vibes, such as these two grown men fighting over a caravan trinket.
Violence is rarely the answer, we do not condone it in this instance, but you can't deny that the video is laugh out loud funny when the older gentleman stuffs the trinket in his foe's mouth.
Oh, and if you're looking for an extra reason to sign up before the paywall hits halfway through the next story, be safe in the knowledge that your membership money will not be wasted on frivolities like beds at our accommodation while we cover the Tour de France.
"You can feel the ground, but not that much," Patrick Redford of Defector said, speaking exclusively to Escape Collective who were also lying down about two metres from his head.
Also not included in the penultimate room of our Tour de France journey: bed linen, towels, wifi, space, dignity.
Don't call me Dave 🙂↔️
Despite the beautiful lakeside setting of stage 16's time trial, there were some bad vibes out on course.
Brandon McNulty got hit by a driver, to begin UAE's troublesome week where illness and injury has hampered at least half of the squad. Sadly, McNulty was forced to abandon the race en route to Orcières-Merlette.
Pinarello-Q36.5's Xandro Meurisse was also hit by a driver on the way back from the finish to the start. We obviously drove from the start to the finish and saw multiple riders transiting between the points, and it was quite mad that the riders were riding on open roads full of traffic like that.
The vibes were arguably even worse over at Netcompany-Ineos, however, where Thymen Arensman was 15 seconds late for the start hut in Évian-les-Bains, and then ended up finishing five seconds behind Mattia Cattaneo (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) and had to settle for seventh place.
Obviously, Dutch media wanted to find out what had happened. "Uh … Funny that that is your first question," a grumpy Arensman answered, as if there was anything else more important to talk about.
"It is my own responsibility. I was focused, but neither the team physio nor anyone from the UCI signalled that I had to go," he explained.
After a mid-season upturn last year, we've heard from multiple people that once again the vibes over at Netcompany-Ineos are terrible.
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