Each week, In the Draft serves up a quick hit of cycling news, race recaps, gear updates, offbeat stories, and social media highlights—all in one place. Whether it’s contract shake-ups, wild cyclocross action, or a quirky gear find, we’ve got your fix of fun and fresh cycling updates.
Story of the Week: Mark Cavendish Finally Retires
Just when you thought it would never actually happen, Cav is hanging up his bike shoes. Or at least, his racing shoes, for the moment—it’s still unclear what he plans to do in his twilight years at the grand old age of 39. And in typical Manx Missile fashion, he did it in style with one final race win at the Tour de France Criterium in Singapore, where he outsprinted Alpecin-Deceuninck’s Jasper Philipsen and Lotto-Dstny’s Arnaud de Lie. The whole weekend felt like a tribute, a celebration of the remarkable sprint career that Cavendish has had and his impressive ability to keep up even as the other riders seem to just get younger every year.
Read about why the race was *chef’s kiss* perfection here.
2025 Giro d’Italia and Giro d’Italia Women Route Presentation Postponed
Was the Giro d’Italia route so lackluster that, after seeing the Tour de France and Tour de France Femmes route reveals, the RCS team decided to return to the drawing board? Probably not—but talk about timing.
The organizers announced the postponement of the Italian grand tour on October 31, just days after the Tour de France route reveal, and have gone radio silent on Instagram since then. A November 12 report shared that the new route release won’t be until mid-January 2025. Speculation as to why primarily seems to be in regards to the grand depart in Albania due to political tension in the region. This reporter is just hoping that they hit pause in order to add a time trial to the women’s race since the TDFF won’t have one. Speculation was also rampant that 2025 could be the year Visma-Lease a Bike’s Jonas Vingegaard takes on the Giro, but the team squashed the rumors, saying, “It’s too early.”
The 2025 Volta a la Valenciana May Be Postponed or Canceled due to Floods
The historic flooding in Spain that has continued to wreak havoc on the country, causing huge amounts of damage and a mounting death toll of over 200, may also cause the 2025 Volta a la Valenciana—ranked as a UCI Europe tour race—to be pushed back or canceled altogether. While a bike race cancellation certainly pales in comparison to the devastation across the country, it still is a blow to the early season calendar. Initially scheduled for early February, the rain will hopefully have subsided by then, but the damage to the country’s infrastructure, particularly the area where the race headquarters is located, may take much longer than three months to rebuild and recover.
“We will have to wait until the end of November to see what the situation is in the cities, what the subsidies will be like for next year, and to see what happens,” Race director Angel Casero told local press, adding that their warehouse with all of the race supplies sustained a significant amount of damage.
USAC Lands $2.5M Grant for Women’s Cycling
Last week, USAC announced a $2.5M grant from the Hellman Foundation earmarked to fund women’s cycling programs. The grant is set to fund programs and operations for women’s high performance across the Olympic cycling disciplines of Road, Mountain Bike, Track, BMX Racing, and BMX Freestyle, as well as the Paralympic cycling disciplines of Road and Track.
The $2.5M will be split into two pieces: $1M to support women’s programming heading into the LA Olympic Games and $1.5M to create a long-term Women’s Cycling Fund. This part of the grant required USAC to commit the same amount to the fund, bringing the total to $3M.
Hincapie Fondo Raises $700,000 for Rebuilding Efforts from Hurricane Helene
After Hurricane Helene devasted North and South Carolina, the Gran Fondo Hincapie Greenville took on a more meaningful goal: to raise money for the Polk County Community Foundation, which supports the recovery efforts in the local community. The Gran Fondo raised nearly $700,000 and has continued to work towards raising one million dollars.
The four-day event brought out two ‘Sirs’—Mark Cavendish and Bradley Wiggins—plus Jan Ullrich, Jolanda Neff, Bobby Julich, Christian Vande Velde, and Victor Hugo Pena. Cycling legend and event namesake George Hincapie even auctioned off the bike he rode to second place in the 2006 Tour de France Prologue for a whopping $45,000. “Auctioning it off for $45,000 was a reminder of how hard work and pushing just a little harder has always been key to reaching my goals,” he said.
Old School Zwiftees, Rejoice
In celebration of Zwift’s 10th anniversary, Zwift has brought back Jarvis Island, the original virtual world that Zwift launched in 2015. According to Zwift, early Zwift Beta testers rode 1 million miles on Jarvis before Watopia, Zwift’s virtual world, was unveiled on April 24th, 2015. Aluminum is the traditional tenth-anniversary gift, so maybe pull that old aluminum frame out of the garage rafters to celebrate?
Stay tuned next week for more of the latest news and tidbits from the cycling world.
