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Welcome back to Spin Cycle.
The 2026 UCI Road World Championships kick off in Montréal this weekend with some time trialling. We’re sad we won’t be there, having come to an agreement that our selection spot was much better suited to Ronan McLaughlin, who has actually raced Worlds himself and so is much better qualified.
Thankfully, this hasn’t created a Tim Wellens-shaped fiasco, or we’d have Philippe Gilbert banging down our door, and you really don’t want that.
But we’ll start with another throwback: Chris Froome, who has quite the story to share.
Froome’s near miss 😳
Chris Froome has revealed a bunch of graphic details (fair warning) about the crash that not only definitively ended his racing career in August 2025 but nearly claimed his life.
“I almost died,” Froome told CyclingNews in an interview. “My pericardium [the fluid-filled sac that surrounds and protects your heart] was open, my heart was exposed. I broke all my ribs, [they] imploded into my chest cavity.
“So I’ve got metal plates on each of my ribs to hold the rib cage open again, because the whole rib cage basically collapsed, and the ribs did a lot of damage to the right lung, and one of the ribs tore open the pericardium.”
Froome described how he was bleeding out and an ambulance thankfully arrived within eight minutes of the crash, which saved his life.
Froome was back riding recreationally in December, but then the metal plates around his ribs got infected so he was back in for surgery again before being able to resume normal life from late January.
“I was literally in hospital, still, through January. I crashed in August. I was in no state to be making announcements or doing PR,” Froome explained about the uncertainty surrounding his retirement. “It was really just trying to sort myself out, to be able to live a normal life again, I almost took it as a given that everyone knew I’d stopped.
“A journalist asked me, ‘do you still have plans of racing?’ And I was just like, ‘listen, this is by no means a retirement announcement, but let me make it absolutely clear: no, no desire whatsoever to be riding my bike anymore. I’m just thankful to be alive right now.'”
Worrying stuff, we’re glad he’s well, and really hope we get some more unhinged sponcon from him soon as it’s been too long since he posted a banger.
What’s eating Gilbert? 🍇
It’s a day ending in ‘y’ in September, so you know what that means? Some sort of drama surrounding the men’s Belgian squad for Worlds!
And today’s serving comes from a slightly left-field source in Gnasher himself, Philippe Gilbert.
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