Magnus Cort's Instagram hotel reviews are the comedic content you didn't realise you needed

There's something you ought to know about Magnus Cort. He likes to write about doing his business.

We know, it's not pleasant, it's quite gruesome, but, oh boy, it's funny. It's not that he's obsessed with a trip to the bathroom - well, maybe he is, we're not here to judge - but it's more that the toilet situation is quite important in a hotel room.

And hotels are Cort's speciality.

Since February 2019, the Danish rider has been publishing hotel reviews on his Instagram and the posts are as hilariously informative as a stupidly daft idea like this should be.

Take one of his first reviews. Critiquing a three-night stay in a hotel in Valencia, he couldn't fathom the open bathroom design. "Unless you like the sounds/smell of your room-mate taking a dump," he wrote, "or perhaps you like others to smell your s**t, then it is a bad design."

A year later, he fumed at Best Western's offering. "The toilet seat was the most uncomfortable I have ever tried," he revealed. "It was so thin and almost sharp on the inside that I was hurting a lot with longer sessions on it."

A positive situation 12 months down the line, though, thanks to Covid. "The toilet was in its own small room," he described. "Still not a fan, but because I am alone and I can take a s**t with the door open so it doesn't get that claustrophobic."

Enough talk about life's unpleasant necessity. A hotel room has a lot more: a bed, a desk, a chair, a small fridge, a TV, a window, a sofa. Nothing escapes the attention of Cort.

"A hotel room has to be big enough so that you can be in there with two," bike racing's Mr Trip Advisor tells Cycling Weekly at the Tour de France. "For a really good hotel, you have to have a separate living area from the bed so you're not just lying on the bed all day. 

"It's so annoying when there's no space for your suitcase to be laying open and you're tripping over it. Space is key."

Cort, who now rides for EF Education-Nippo, explains the origins of his novel posts. "It started when I was on Astana and they wanted me to be more active on social media.

"Posting training pictures or me on a mountain with sunshine... ah, I don't know, it's a bit fake because you choose what you want to share.

"We can't really be honest about many things because we have to be responsible, so I came up with the idea of reviewing hotels because they're not sponsored.

"I think it offers a different window into cycling, a different view to what people are shown. I hope people enjoy it."

Yes, Magnus, we do. Here's some more.

"The lobby looks a lot like a brothel, so you can only imagine what else this place can be used for," he teased in March 2019. "Wild rumours say that we pay the rooms on hours basis."

Too much information. Take us inside the bathroom again. But not August 2020's stay in Villa Sabolini in Italy. "The shower head was also positioned on what I would call the wrong wall when you have a rectangular space, so I was really standing right up against the glass door."

The cleanliness situation is a big one, he tells CW. "When the shower isn't high enough to stand underneath it and it's in a small closet, that's just bad. We need more than 1.5m height."

Cort is critical where needed, but he isn't like of the internet's angriest and expectant critics. He's actually incredibly grateful in some rooms.

"I managed to have a midnight swim in a heated pool on the roof... I couldn't find anything to complain about," he wrote about a stay in October 2019. "No doubt about it, 7 out of 7 stars."

Wait, seven? Why seven? Ratings are out of five or 10, no? "Seven is a good number as it's a prime number," he reasons. "For example, if it's out of six and you give it three out of six, it's like one out of two and that's a bit rubbish.

"Five is also a prime number, but it's too small, so seven is best because it's a good number, it adds a little more variation and with a four out of seven you know it's better than just average."

He's really put effort into this. "When the sheets are bad, the internet is rubbish or there isn't a proper phone connection, it's a struggle. It's not a good hotel," he explains.

These have caught his ire in the past, especially the quality of the internet. One time he complained to his Instagram followers and when he returned to the same hotel a year later, he was happily surprised with a change.

"And it is good to see," he wrote about a hotel he stayed in before Milan-San Remo, "that now they have got a real duvet cover so they must have seen my review."

Has a hotel ever replied to his posts? "Not to me personally, I've never had a response, but one time I know the team was contacted by a hotel who was a bit angry with my review. I'm just honest."

A professional cyclist spends more time in hotel rooms than their own property, so little touches go along way.

There was the ice cream in a 2019 Tour de France hotel that warranted "an extra one star for that", and "the little cake I found in the room, after a 300km transfer that is a nice present" this spring.

He's sometimes confused by what a hotel possesses though. "We were also lucky to have nothing less than three bibles," he announced to his followers in September 2019. "It's pretty normal having one in the nightstand but three is next level."

Reading material becomes essential company when your life is on the road. In April 2021, he took a lot of pleasure from a hotel in Maastricht. He wrote: "They had a good selection of books in the reception with many nice themes and pictures, but my favourite was the book with the nude pictures."

Cort hasn't been as active on his social media in recent months, blaming Covid restrictions that require riders to room alone. "I can't do any funny photos anymore," he rued.

But he did do a special one in Carcassonne after stage 13 of the Tour. "I had a really great hotel there so I had to review it," he tells us. "It can get a bit repetitive, but that deserved a review."

In all its glory, here it is. If you're ever in the French capital, heed Mr Reviewer's advice.

"Even though I have not done rooms and ratings for the past couple of months here come a recommendation, room 302 in Hotel Chevaliers.

"It is a corner room on the top floor with amazing view of the castle in Carcassonne and a great balcony.

"By far the best room/hotel for this Tour so far. Internet was good, but a split bathroom/ toilet situation and not heavy enough curtains to keep the light out in the morning stops it from a perfect 7. So 6 out of 7 stars."