“Team Circus continues”: Tom Pidcock dropped by Ineos due to risk of bonus payout claims Brian Smith, who says there’s “no fun in numbers-driven cycling anymore” as “gagged” Steve Cummings confirms exit; Everesting on a unicycle + more on the live blog

Just when you thought a week would go by without some Ineos-related drama (in cycling at least), think again.

Last night, after months of speculation about his future at the team, director of racing Steve Cummings confirmed his departure from the Ineos Grenadiers, writing on LinkedIn that he had “reached a decision to step away” from the British team.

Two-time Tour de France stage winner Cummings, who was promoted to a senior management role at Ineos at the end of 2023, was last seen at a race in June at the Critérium du Dauphiné (where he had an infamous and tetchy stand-off with our YouTuber-in-chief Jamie over us capturing footage of the new Pinarello Dogma).

> road.cc CANCELLED by Ineos! What happened when we tried to take pics of the new Pinarello Dogma

He was then left out of the team’s Tour de France DS line-up, amid reports of internal tension, especially with star rider Tom Pidcock, and didn’t appear in the Ineos team car, or in any capacity at any race, for the remainder of this season.

However, until now there has been little official confirmation about Cummings’ position within the team, and he was notably left out of last month’s press release detailing the latest structural and staff changes at the squad, which announced the arrival of his former Sky teammate Kurt-Asle Arvesen as a sport director.

(Ross Cooke/INEOS Grenadiers)

But on Tuesday evening, Cummings decided to finally set the record straight.

“I’m aware there has been some speculation so I just wanted to clarify my situation,” the 43-year-old posted on LinkedIn, which also includes confirmation that he departed Ineos this month, while listing his current position as ‘race coach/sports director’ as “TBC”.

“I’ve reached the decision to step away from Ineos,” he continued. “This may seem like a big move, but I’m now ready to begin a new phase of my career. It’s been a privilege to work with such a talented group of riders and staff for the last four years. I’d really like to take this opportunity to thank them for their support and dedication.

“I’ve always enjoyed and thrived working in a high-performance environment and I will continue to have significant involvement in the sport. My focus is now on a new challenge within professional cycling.”

> “I’ve had a tricky year working with them. And once I was leaving, it was even trickier”: Soudal Quick-Step-bound Ethan Hayter latest to publicly criticise Ineos Grenadiers, claiming British team “could do with a couple of changes”

Cummings’ confirmation marks the culmination of a turbulent year for the Ineos Grenadiers – the least successful in the team’s 15-year history – which saw departing figures such as Dan Bigham and Ethan Hayter publicly criticise the team and the approach of its management, while Tom Pidcock also questioned Cummings’ input at the Tour, before claiming that Ineos “don’t help me to perform at my best” amid a number of internal issues.

(Will Palmer/SWpix.com)

Pidcock was then dramatically dropped at the last minute from their Il Lombardia line-up – a decision the team’s higher ups confirmed was not based on form – kicking off what has become a protracted and complicated transfer saga (which, for the moment at least, appears to have cooled after the Olympic mountain bike champion was spotted with his teammates watching Ineos-run Manchester United’s match with Chelsea at the weekend. The poor fella).

All of these shenanigans – and Cummings’ departure – has prompted two-time British champion Brian Smith to share his concerns with the squad he not so tactfully described as “Team Circus” in a withering Twitter thread this morning.

 (Allan McKenzie/SWpix.com)

In the lengthy post, Eurosport commentator Smith claimed that the 2016 Tour of Britain winner was “gagged” during his time as DS at the squad and that Pidcock was dropped from Il Lombardia over fears Ineos would have to pay him a performance bonus following a good result.

“No real surprise to see Steve Cummings leave Team Ineos,” Smith, who worked with Cummings when the Scot was general manager of MTN-Qhubeka (which has now morphed into Q36.5) during the mid-2010s, wrote.

“Must be hard to do your job when gagged for most of the year. One of their biggest assets with be a major boost for any other team.”

> “People around Tom Pidcock don’t help,” says Geraint Thomas, as 2018 Tour de France winner weighs in on “c*** situation” and “bull****” at Ineos after Il Lombardia deselection drama

Turning to the Pidcock saga, Smith said: “Team Circus continues, after allowing your marquee rider to leave the team while willing to pay 20 per cent of his salary then doing a U-turn to keep him. Not sure this is over.

“Ivan Glasenberg has invested in Q36.5 and owns Pinarello. A match for Pidcock who was keen on the move.

“These decisions were helped by Team Circus pulling Pidcock from Lombardia. Why you may ask? Had the form, thought he could win but did not want to risk paying the high bonus.

“Talking about bonuses. This thwarted the signing of Castrillo from Kern Pharma,” he added, referencing double Vuelta winner Pablo Castrillo’s move to Movistar this winter, after reports he was set to sign a deal with Ineos before his breakthrough ride in Spain.

(Elliot Keen/British Cycling/via SWpix.com)

Moving onto the changes within the sport over the past few years, and its apparent reliance on numbers, former Motorola pro Smith said: “There is no fun in cycling teams anymore. Science has killed this. Robotic riders and robotic sports directors.

“Gone are the GRINTA [Italian for ‘guts’] days. Riders now know what they can achieve, what they are up against and turn up at races in a poor mental health state.

“That’s what numbers do to riders. The mental state of a rider is now being left at the side of the road because of the numbers game.

“Altitude, haemoglobin muscle testing, scientists seem to be the way forward. If a rider is not happy then you are flogging a dead horse.

“This is where a team needs people like Steve Cummings and not more personnel with letters after their name.”

Tom Boonen says he still suffers the after-effects of a horrific crash at the 2015 Abu Dhabi Tour, which left him with brain haemorrhage, concussion, and a six-inch skull fracture, and also led to him losing over half of the hearing in his left ear.

After finishing second in the sprint the day before, the classics legend crashed hard on stage two of the Abu Dhabi Tour in October 2015, forcing him to quit the race.

Despite returning to action at the start of 2016 – and going on to finish an agonising second behind Mat Hayman at a thrilling edition of Paris-Roubaix, and placing third behind Peter Sagan and Mark Cavendish later that year at the worlds in Qatar – Boonen says he suffered from tinnitus in the wake of the crash and that his hearing never fully recovered.

However, despite the ongoing effects of the spill, the four-time Paris-Roubaix winner told Belgian site Humo that he was lucky he wasn’t killed or left with life-changing injuries.

“My hearing turned out to be affected, but that saved me in a way: otherwise I wouldn’t be here anymore,” he said. “I was catapulted off my bike and fell on the side of my head.

“My helmet was knocked off, so the impact landed almost entirely on my temple. I was immediately unconscious and bleeding from my ear. At first, bystanders feared the worst. My Polish teammate Lukasz Wisniowski reportedly cried.

“Theo Bos also burst into tears, convinced that I was lying dead on the asphalt. After a few minutes I regained consciousness twice and started running like crazy – a flight response of my body – and then passed out again.

“The third time I woke up I was strapped into the ambulance. I had a brain haemorrhage, a concussion and a six-inch fracture in my skull. I don’t remember anything from that day, everything was told to me later.”

Boonen winning RideLondon 10 months after his Abu Dhabi crash

Boonen, who then spent two weeks in intensive care, said the skull fracture saved his life, and allowed him to recover quicker than expected, because “it ran through my ear, the blood could escape and no pressure built up on my brain”, preventing him from developing a serious brain injury.

The three-time Tour of Flanders winner, who eventually retired from the sport after the 2017 spring classics campaign, did all he could to get rid of the tinnitus, including seeing several specialists, but decided against undergoing surgical procedure due to the risks involved. This means he still suffers from the condition and has also lost 60 per cent of the hearing in his left ear.

“The sound is still there, but I can often push it into the background,” Boonen said. “In bed too: I usually sleep on my good ear, so that the bad ear is facing outwards, and then it bothers me less.

“Actually, I suffer most from my hearing loss. I like being in noise and commotion, but not in a room with a lot of commotion: then I can’t follow conversations well. I have also learned to sit strategically at the table, always with my good ear directed towards the conversation.”

Yep, it’s that time of the week, I’m hallucinating and seeing Bob Mortimer everywhere again:

(Belgaimage/David Pintens)

‘So you chewed up those cobbles up like an old bag of Coco Pops, and beat Marianne Vos – yuh, the Marianne Vos. I know, I know, I know! Anyway, Lotte, have a campachoochoo on me. You are as always, Flandrienne of the Year. Ciao and bella, oregano, see ya Lotte!’

As I said, it’s a Wednesday afternoon…

> Everything you need to know about cycling shoes — from materials and sole stiffness to closure systems and cleat compatibility, make the right choice when selecting your bike shoes

In another worrying development for the cycling industry, Scottish-based cyclewear manufacturer Endura – which had appeared to be weathering the recent storms more ably than most – has posted a whopping £14m loss, the brand’s first loss since 2019.

The Edinburgh-based company posted its annual accounts yesterday, first reported by Cycling Weekly, detailing a pre-tax loss of £14,119,000 during the 13 months leading up to February 2024.

The latest accounts mark a dramatic fall from Endura’s position the previous year, when they recorded a profit of £759,000 at the end of 2022.

That £14m loss was attributed by company director Andrew Long to the “large reduction in sales” – which dropped from £40.8m the previous year to £28.5m in 2023, while gross profit fell from £18.8m to just £3.7m – filtering into a “significant loss in the year”.

> "Survive until 2025... if we can get to the end of this year, we'll be okay": British bike manufacturers hoping to make it through industry woes

Some of the company’s losses also came, Long says, from “impairment” of inventory, with the value of its stock drawn down in value by £2.8m.

“The movement in the period is due to a reduction in sales, primarily in the United Kingdom region, which reflected challenging market conditions found throughout the cycling industry after unforeseen growth during the Covid pandemic,” Endura’s company director said in the accounts.

“The challenging market is even more evident in the turnover figures given we have an extended year end this year.”

Just as Brian Smith bemoans the new-age, scientific era of professional cycling, a young Czech rider decides to give us all a timely throwback – by testing positive for good ol’ CERA at this year’s road world championships.

20-year-old Daniel Vysočan, who rides for the Pierre Baguette Continental team, which was home to Peter Sagan for a brief spell earlier this year, submitted an out-of-competition positive for the EPO variant on 25 September, two days before racing and failing to finish the U23 world road race in Zurich for the Czech team, the Slovakian squad confirmed yesterday.

In a statement, Pierre Baguette announced that Vysočan had been suspended immediately pending analysis of his B sample.

Vysočan (on the far right) with his Czech teammates before the U23 world road race championships in Zurich (Chris Auld/SWpix.com)

“On November 4, 2024, Pierre Baguette Cycling Team was informed by the UCI that Czech rider Daniel Vysočan has been notified of a potential Anti-Doping Rule Violation for the presence of Methoxy polyethylene glycol-epoetin beta (CERA), a prohibited substance, in his A-Sample, collected during an out-of-competition test on September 25, 2024, in Zurich,” the team said, before proceeding to wash their hands completely of their young rider.

"Daniel Vysočan last participated in Pierre Baguette Cycling Team’s racing calendar on 5-8 September 2024. His entry in the 2024 UCI Worlds in Zurich was managed entirely independently, with no support, involvement, or association with the team. Pierre Baguette Cycling Team unequivocally states that it had no part in Daniel Vysočan's participation in the 2024 UCI Worlds.

“Pierre Baguette Cycling Team enforces an absolute zero-tolerance policy regarding doping. We are fully committed to safeguarding the integrity of cycling, a sport we deeply respect by refusing any involvement in illicit activities, prohibited substances, or any actions that compromise our core values. Every team member is held to the highest standards of integrity and accountability, and any deviation from these standards is not accepted.

“Effective immediately, Daniel Vysočan has been suspended pending the analysis of his B-Sample B. Should the B-Sample confirm the presence of CERA, his contract will be immediately terminated.”

> Is EPO making a comeback? Asia-based Irish cyclist banned for three years as blood booster found in doping sample after Astana development rider’s CERA positive

Earlier this year, Vysočan – in his second season with Pierre Baguette – raced the Tour of Hungary and Tour of Slovakia alongside triple world champion Peter Sagan, who spent the final few months of his pro career before retiring with the Slovakian squad.

The 20-year-old also finished 16th overall at this year’s Tour de l’Avenir, won by Britain’s Joe Blackmore, and came sixth on GC and won the young rider’s classification at the Tour of South Bohemia, just two weeks before his positive test.

Remarkably, Vysočan is the second young pro to test positive for CERA in 2024, after 22-year-old Kazakh rider Ilkhan Dostiyev was sacked by Astana Qazaqstan’s development team for testing positive for the blood booster, an EPO variant responsible for a host of positive tests in the late 2000s.

In 2008, Riccardo Riccò, Emanuele Sella (both of whom lit up that year’s Giro d’Italia), Stefan Schumacher (winner of two Tour de France stages), Bernhard Kohl (third place and the King of the Mountains at the Tour), Tour stage winner Leonardo Piepoli, and classics legend Davide Rebellin all tested positive for CERA.

Who says cycling’s new generation has forgotten its roots?

While the rest of the United States were busy bracing themselves for today’s presidential election results (I promise that’ll be the last time I mention it all day), one student from the University of Virginia decided to distract himself by trying to break an Everesting world record… on a unicycle.

The endurance craze that swept the cycling world during the early stages of the Covid-19 pandemic, Everesting – just in case you forgot – sees cyclists with quite a bit of time on their hands pick any hill they like and ride up it over and over again, with no breaks, until they hit an accumulated elevation of 8,848m, the height of (surprise) Mount Everest.

Despite the sheer difficulty – never mind the mind-numbing tediousness – of such an endeavour, Everesting became popular among some of the best cyclists on the planet in the early part of this decade, with Phil Gaimon, Lachlan Morton, Alberto Contador, and Emma Pooley all holding the men or women’s world records at some point, until Ronan McLaughlin and Illi Gardner came along to smash the record out of the park.

> Can you do an Everesting on no training? Trying to ride 8,848m of elevation in one day

However, while McLaughlin and Gardner’s times (6 hours 41 and 8 hours 3 minutes, respectively) look unbeatable, there’s one Everesting marker that still appeared within reach – the unicycle record.

 (Jack Looney)

Yes, that’s right – back in 2018, before day-long hill repeats became a fad, Austrian cyclist Ben Soja became the only person to complete the Everesting challenge on one wheel, finishing his Los Angeles-based ride in 23 hours.

And until this week, Soja was the only unicycling Everester in history (for good reason, if we’re honest). Until, that is, Mason Allen came along.

A mountain bike racer and road cyclist, University of Virginia student Allen has dabbled in unicycling in recent years, completing the 25-mile MonsterCross unicycle race earlier this year.

 (Jack Looney)

And on Saturday, he added his name to the history books, completing an unthinkable 130 laps of his university’s Observatory Hill Loop Road (which only features about 220ft of elevation, hence the insanely high number of laps) to reach that golden 8,848m marker.

Covering a total of 119.85 miles, Allen finished his one wheeled ride in 21 hours and nine minutes, smashing Soja’s previous record by almost two hours.

 (Jack Looney)

“Honestly still feels surreal at this point,” he wrote on Instagram this week.

“I want to thank everybody who came out, even if just to cheer for a lap or two. It may have seemed small, but the mental boost from having people there cannot be overstated.”

Now that calls for a chapeau.

> Pro cycling team hit out at SRAM “problems”, claim chains “fail” when riders “put a lot of force on the pedals”