Tweets of the Week: David Gaudu and Arnaud Démare fight, Cadel Evans the caddy, and snow cycling for some

Social media keeps providing the goods, as we edge slowly into the new season

Tweets of the week
(Image credit: Getty Images)

It is apt that the biggest social media story in cycling this week came from the messaging app Discord, because that is also the name of the mood in the Groupama-FDJ camp this weekend, after David Gaudu used the platform to make his feelings on teammate Arnaud Démare very clear.

"Me, I don't want him to come to the Tour," Gaudu wrote on the messaging app last week, in screenshots that were later leaked to Twitter, adding: "Good Netflix or not, I don't care."

Disharmony among teammates is nothing new in the sport of cycling; just think of Bradley Wiggins vs Chris Froome in the Team Sky years, or going back further, the fight between Greg LeMond and Bernard Hinault at the 1986 Tour de France. What is different about this, however, is that it has been played out in public, in front of a baying mob.

Whatever the real reasons behind the Démare/Gaudu spat, it is out there now, and that can't be put back in the bottle. It will likely dominate the press conferences and media duties that either have to do ahead of this year's Tour, and with FDJ boss Marc Madiot saying that both will ride Paris-Nice in March, they might even have to appear before the cameras together.

Away from internecine squabbling, there have been many other fun things happening on Twitter and Instagram this week, including, but not limited to, Ethan and Leo Hayter's dad having a surfeit of spare kit, people losing their minds at British Cycling buying a wind tunnel for £1, and Zoe Bäckstedt playing with Lego. All in an ordinary week.

If you ever have any suggestions for these, by the way, do message me on Twitter - @adambecket - or ping me an email - adam.becket@futurenet.com. If I deem the content good enough, you might even get a shoutout. 

1. Cycling's equivalent to the Rumble in the Jungle, or the Thriller in Manila, is here. Gaudu vs Démare in the Clash in Pais Basque, if both head to the Tour de France start this July

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2. Estonia's Mihkel Räim was not a fan of the sprint finish at the end of day two of the Challenge Mallorca. The corner was so close to the line that the sprinters looked incredibly surprised to be crossing it

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3. There have been many incredulous reactions to the fact that British Cycling bought a wind tunnel for just £1, but this might be my favourite so far, the idea of 54-year-old Chris Boardman puffing his lungs out to try and help the track team reach peak performance

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4. Just over a decade ago Cadel Evans was one of the best cyclists in the world, world and Tour de France champion. He was so good he had a race in Australia named after him, but now he's been relegated to carrying Jai Hindley's bike

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5. Far be it from me to say that only children should collect football stickers, but come on Barnabas Peák, at least be collecting Panini's cycling collection

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6. Chloe Dygert is prepared to go the extra mile to save some watts, maybe she will be wearing the swimming cap under her helmet soon

7. I wonder what kind of treasure trove of old kit Tim Hayter has? The father of Ineos Grenadiers' Leo and Ethan is looking for ways to dispose of the stuff. Imagine if either son goes onto great things and an old jersey has just been quietly binned...

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8. Sometimes being a professional cyclist seems like the worst thing in the world, and sometimes you're singing "Russian kaioke [sic]" on a beach in Turkey

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9. Zoe Bäckstedt is so young that she probably still has the Lego she played with as an actual child. However, this adorable photoshoot for EF Education-Tibco-SVB shows there is some fun to be had at a training camp

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10. Poor Bryan Coquard. The French Cofidis sprinter won his first WorldTour bike race ever last week at the Tour Down Under... but then was pictured in the team's sister female squad's kit. It was almost perfect.

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11. Tim Declercq here, fiddling with his bike computer at a key stage of a bike race, as you do. I wonder what he was actually doing - trying to get the route page up? Zooming in on how many KMs were left? Trying to reply to a text?

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12. Alison Jackson, the queen of TikTok and Instagram reels, has done it again in this advert for cycling in the snow in Canada. It looks so easy!

13. Meanwhile, in Europe, it has been snowing too. Lorena Wiebes is so committed to getting better than she went out in the cold last weekend for a frosty bike ride

14. Finally, who knew Riche McCaw was into cycling? Geraint Thomas being into rugby was a given, him being Welsh and everything. Are there two more different sports than rugby union and cycling?

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Adam Becket
Senior news and features writer

Adam is Cycling Weekly’s senior news and feature writer – his greatest love is road racing but as long as he is cycling on tarmac, he's happy. Before joining Cycling Weekly he spent two years writing for Procycling, where he interviewed riders and wrote about racing, speaking to people as varied as Demi Vollering to Philippe Gilbert. Before cycling took over his professional life, he covered ecclesiastical matters at the world’s largest Anglican newspaper and politics at Business Insider. Don't ask how that is related to cycling.