Tadej Pogačar believes Monaco is a high-trust society.
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’ve landed in Belgium! After a quick hop across The Channel thanks to the peak of modern civilisation that is the Eurostar, we are ready for the Tour of Flanders on Sunday. No bike boys spotted yet at the time of writing (apart from our very own Alex Hunt sitting across from me, who is wearing shorts despite the feels-like 5°C temperature outside).
But before the madness of Holy Week truly kicks into gear, we have all the big hitters in the news. Filippo Ganna on a horse, Remco Evenepoel being a secret squirrel, Jonas Vingegaard involved in a comical jersey swap and Tadej Pogačar proving he believes Monaco is a high-trust society.
Ganna take my horse to the Vélodrome 🐴
There will be no Tour of Flanders for Ineos Grenadiers’ Filippo Ganna, despite his magnificent overhauling of Wout van Aert at Dwars door Vlaanderen to sneak the win. The Italian will instead focus on next week’s Paris-Roubaix.
Things aren’t so bad for Ganna, though. Look how happy he is with his podium pony. And look how happy Wout van Aert is too!
Oh go on, here’s one more close-up.
The horsin’ around helpfully distracted everyone from the fine Ganna received for a sticky bottle earlier in the race, avoiding a disqualification because the jury decided the infraction wasn’t race-decisive. Not to be a party pooper, but when you win by a margin of less than 100 metres, blowing your nose at an inopportune moment is surely race-decisive.
Anyway, great to see Ganna take a win like that, the Ineos Grenadiers continue to go from strength to strength this season, and we hope to see the Italian in the same sort of form when Roubaix comes around.
Catch me if you Rem-can 🤫
For months, there were small whispers from various corners that Remco Evenepoel may be lining up for his Tour of Flanders debut. Something that was consistently batted back by Red Bull-Bora Hansgrohe.
Even in the days before the announcement became official, the team were sticking to the party line. But then the big reveal video dropped, which had been filmed as far back as late December, when Evenepoel already knew he would actually be lining up at De Ronde.
“I am standing here at the top of the Koppenberg, which means I have to reveal something: I am going to ride the Tour of Flanders this season,” Evenepoel announced to his YouTube audience. “I am doing a secret reconnaissance. I am riding entirely in black, because I cannot wear my Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe kit at the moment. And by the time the video comes out, I won’t be able to ride in the kit from previous years.”
“We deliberately kept it secret to create a special moment for the fans – and to reveal it as a surprise on April 1st,” team boss Ralph Denk added. “The fact that we were able to keep this internal for more than 100 days is a testament to the togetherness and unity within this team.”
But other people were miffed.
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