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.
Today’s newsletter is one containing all of the true Grand Tour heavyweights of recent years. In other words, the spreadsheet boys back at HQ are going to be thrilled when they look at their quarterly graphs. “Look at the numbers,” they’ll say, “look at what happens when you stop messing around with stuff like the shorts Ineos are wearing and cover the guys with name recognition.”
So yes, today it’s all about Tadej Pogačar, Jonas Vingegaard, Remco Evenepoel and even Chris Froome! You win this round, mysterious blob men in the fictional corporate boardroom at Escape Head Office, but you will never defeat us!
The big news of this week was Jonas Vingegaard’s crash during a Monday training session, with the fallen Dane then shouting at an amateur rider that had been following him. The sort of thing to make it the most Monday of Mondays Vingegaard will likely have this year.
“In general, as a team we would like to urge fans on bikes to always put safety first,” Vingegaard’s Visma-Lease a Bike team said in a statement. “For both your own and others’ wellbeing, please allow riders to train and give them as much space and peace as possible.”
While we hope Vingegaard is okay (he seems to be) and can empathise that star riders must get inundated while out on the road (especially when in European winter cycling hotspots), that statement is so classic Visma. Seemingly polite and understanding but ultimately placing the blame on the amateur rider Pedro García Fernández.
We pretty much agree with The Secret Pro’s take, especially the bit about how can a pro get crashed by an amateur riding behind them?
Anyway, a bit of a storm in a teacup. The takes were flying across cycling media and social media, mostly bad ones, which are admittedly kind of our favourite.
UAE, but the E stands for (nearly) Everything has sucked so far in 2026 😳
Right, where to start. This week has been one to forget for UAE Team Emirates. Actually, all of 2026 has so far. Yes, they’ve already stacked up four wins, but it’s come at a great cost. Is this an echo of Visma-Lease a Bike’s horrid 2024 after their dominant 2023? Don’t rule it out.
At the Tour Down Under, UAE left Adelaide with the overall victory but also four injured riders (Vine, Bjerg, Narváez and Laengen), while its sports director was hit with the ignominy of a seven-day suspension after picking up two yellow cards Down Under.
Then, on the opening stage of the AlUla Tour on Monday, the team’s race favourite Jan Christen crashed twice in quick succession and after the finish line received a 20-second time penalty for holding onto the car as he tried to rejoin the peloton. He currently sits 33 seconds down on GC (at time of writing; prior to Friday’s likely sprint finish).
The footage below of Christen picking himself up after the crash doesn’t quite paint him in the best light, roughly grabbing his bike from the floor as a TotalEnergies rider lies motionless, and stepping over another TotalEnergies rider who looks up somewhat incredulously.
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