T-Pid’s penny-pinching is back in a big and fluffy way.
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Welcome back to Spin Cycle.
Happy Halloween to the Americans out there on this, one of your sacrosanct public holidays. To any Brits celebrating All Hallows’ Eve today: grow up, put on a proper suit, do up your tie and sing the national anthem. Although, Kit is now telling me Halloween actually has Celtic roots, so I don’t know what to think.
Australians: I have no idea what your relationship with Halloween is. But now the clocks have changed and you’re 11 hours ahead, just let me know in six months. Good luck.
For our very own trick or treat today, we have the trick of Bradley Wiggins’ latest page-turner, and for the treat Tom Pidcock has something sweet that we’re hoping he’s been willing to share down on the campsite.
Tell-some, but not all 📖
Whoever Bradley Wiggins’ PR agency is, they deserve every penny they’ve earned promoting his new book ‘The Chain’, as the coverage (at least in the UK) has felt wall-to-wall at times, especially for a cyclist.
We are glad and relieved that Wiggins seems to be in a better place now, and this latest book reveals some harrowing details of his life.
While in the above-linked Times interview, Wiggins refuses to be drawn completely on Jiffy bag-gate, the defining scandal of his professional career, he again alludes to nefarious goings on that don’t involve him, insisting in the book that he rode on “bread and water” throughout his career.
“There was something greater going on,” Wiggins told the Times. “They [Team Sky] chucked me under a bus.”
“Yes,” Wiggins then answers as to whether he was thrown under the bus to protect someone else. “Yes. It’ll come out.”
Reporter Nick Harris has delved further into his own notebook and the book, detailing allegations that senior figures within British Cycling and Team Sky (AKA Brailsford & co.) have “closed ranks over years to ensure that malpractice and irregularities around doping and doping products at both organisations were kept quiet” and also alleging that factions within this group have gone on to make veiled threats against each other as recently as the last few weeks, “threatening to ‘go public’ and ‘let the truth come out.'” Apparently, the only thing preventing this is the mutually assured destruction that would result if any of them broke ranks.
Regardless, we still don’t have the silver bullet that will explode this can of worms. Back to waiting patiently for this sorry saga to be revealed so we can consign it to the dustbin of history.
“This time though, *this* time,” tweeted Cillian Kelly, “the actual actual truth will finally be revealed,” attaching the following video.
But don’t worry! Luke Rowe has said on his Watts Occurring podcast that he had a zero-tolerance attitude towards dopers during his racing days.
“You know who I did flick?” Rowe said, remembering his time in the peloton. “People who had been [tested] positive and came back to the sport. I would just ride through them and go out of my way to do it.
“If it’s black and white and you’ve been done for something and they’re next to me, I’m just going to ride through them. I don’t understand why every rider didn’t do this because then it would make their life hell. Because they don’t deserve to come back in my mind.”
Excited to see how this one stands up going forward!
Tom Pidcock’s harshmallows 🏕️
We all remember the anecdote of multi-millionaire Tom Pidcock emailing Dan Lloyd for a free GCN subscription in order to save himself a few quid a month?
Well, our favourite penny pincher/tell-it-like-it-is merchant is back with another example of his overriding philosophy: if you watch the pennies, the pounds will look after themselves.
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