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.
It’s the … fourth most wonderful time of the year. Tour de France, Paris-Roubaix, Flanders, then Worlds. That’s our ranking, and so we have a bumper edition for you today.
The World Championships elite road races this weekend will hopefully provide some of the most mouthwatering contests of the season, with trade teams eschewed and national team dynamics being figured out in real time. And without a recovering Tadej Pogačar, the men’s race feels much more open than it otherwise would have felt.
But first, we have an odd story regarding a mural visible from the Montreal course and featuring, well, one of Canada’s cycling heroes being painted over.
An odd cover-up? 🎨
“Memories etched on the streets of Montreal,” NSN posted on Instagram last year alongside the photo below. “It’s going to be a special day of racing at GP de Montreal with a prime view of Hugo Houle’s mural on each lap.
“The mural, commissioned by IPT team owners, pays tribute to Hugo’s 2022 Tour de France stage win and honors Hugo’s late brother.”
Hugo Houle on the far right of the photo with Sylvan Adams next to him.
A really nice touch. Cities need more art and more bikes. But then the GP de Montreal returned for the 2026 edition and the mural looked … different.
As reported by local outlet La Presse, the mural has been repainted, and instead of it depicting Houle and the inscription celebrating him becoming the first Québécois to win a stage of the Tour, it now shows Michael Woods from Ottawa winning a stage of the 2024 Vuelta a España in the Canadian national champion’s jersey.
“We are lucky to have people like Sylvan Adams who are so involved in the community,” Houle said at the time. “It’s thanks to him that I have this mural.”
Months later, Premier Tech pulled its sponsorship of Israel-Premier Tech before they rebranded to NSN, Houle followed Canadian sponsor Premier Tech to their new home over at Mathieu van der Poel’s Alpecin-Premier Tech.
We’ve managed to find out that Sylvan Adams owns the building the mural is painted on, so presumably the mural only changed with his say-so. Did he feel so betrayed by Houle’s departure that he changed the mural? We’ve asked the question and are waiting to hear back.
Spotted at Worlds 👀
With umpteen Escape Collective members on the ground in Montreal, we have eyes and ears everywhere. This means we can bring back our favourite irregular segment of spotting things happening that no other media publication would even consider reporting, and thus get it all to our greedy little selves.
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