We start with an apology. It has been three long, hard weeks without Tweets of the Week. Three weeks in which the men's Tour de France was decided and won by Jonas Vingegaard, in which the whole of the Tour de France Femmes was raced and dominantly won by Demi Vollering, three weeks which have seen a new men's road world champion crowned in Mathieu van der Poel, three weeks which saw Alexandre Vinokourov win a bike race aged 49.
How you have coped without a light hearted social media roundup through these three hard weeks, it's hard to know, but here we are. We are sorry to have let you and the wider world down. For all those TOTW heads out there, we are now back as usual.
Right, with the apologies out of the way, it's now time to talk about the name of this regular feature. Don't worry, we are fully aware that Twitter doesn't exist anymore, and neither do tweets, but we are not calling this X Posts of the Week, and neither are we calling this Threads of the Week yet. It's Tweets of the Week until everyone conclusively leaves Twitter X, which hasn't happened yet.
Thanks to the gap between this and the last edition of TOTW, there is a bit of a backlog, with content from the very end of the men's Tour de France and the Tour de France Femmes, as well as the Glasgow super World Championships.
There's Marc Madiot and his beef with Jumbo-Visma (remember that?), Lotte Kopecky being a general menace to her teammates, Lotto-Dstny pushing their bus, and a biscuit-themed bike. There's also Mathieu van der Poel's missing BOA dial, and Julian Alaphilippe getting a selfie in at the World Championships. Lovely stuff.
1. After a reasonably dull final week at the men's Tour de France, we needed some beef to spice it up. Step forward Groupama-FDJ beef merchant (butcher?) Marc Madiot, who fell out with Jumbo-Visma's Richard Plugge over the latter's criticism of his team drinking alcohol. This ended with Madiot winding up Jumbo on the Champs-Élysées, which I think is beautiful
Comme un lundi. pic.twitter.com/wBzbWV0KFkJuly 24, 2023
2. Alice Barnes achieved a childhood dream by riding the second Tour de France Femmes, and I just think that's sweet.
Little Alice would be pretty mind blown if she knew she would be starting the Tour de France tomorrow.I suppose because it wasn't possible back then. I hope all the girls around the world can be inspired by our racing over the next 8 days and the TDFF will keeping growing. pic.twitter.com/DNn1RihWPbJuly 22, 2023
3. Georgie Howe of Jayco-AlUla has something in common with me: a blonde mullet. Both of our mums disapprove of our haircuts, too...
4. None of the UAE Team Emirates ice pool van secrecy at the Tour de France Femmes, where Demi Vollering and Mischa Bredewold simply got in a paddling pool of ice
5. Part one in a series called Lotte Kopecky being a menace to her teammates. Yellow jersey Demi Vollering probably didn't need this post-stage seven
6. Part two of Lotte Kopecky being a menace, this time to Marlen Reusser. At least this time it was post-race, the perfect time for nonsense. Possibly the best bike rider, nonsense-peddlar, menace, that's Lotte Kopecky
7. Great energy from Ceratizit-WNT and Kathrin Schewinberger there, she absolutely deserved that Leffe.
When you’re one of the first of the team to finish @LeTourFemmes AND win the race back to the camper… Prost, @SchweinbergerK! 🍻#TDFF2023 #WatchTheFemmes pic.twitter.com/hnh5uE0HdaJuly 30, 2023
8. The St Michel-Mavic-Auber93 time trial bike? Unbeatable
Voilà. #TDFF2023 | 📸 @DevaireAuguste pic.twitter.com/W1AOB97CXAJuly 30, 2023
9. That is until we saw Aimi Kenyon's Irn Bru inspired Santa Cruz mountain bike for the World Championship downhill events in Fort William. That's special.
One word: 𝐏𝐞𝐫𝐟𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧May we present to you Aimi Kenyon's @irnbru inspired MTB for Fort William Downhill #GlasgowScotland2023 pic.twitter.com/NiVBESaSKUAugust 1, 2023
10. Lotto-Dstny here, proving that you don't need to spend thousands on an away day to get everyone working together.
Best teambuilding we ever did. Bus got stuck this morning. pic.twitter.com/jB5gUiSHnJJuly 31, 2023
11. Speaking of Irn Bru, Cyclingnews editor Peter Stuart has some solid advice for any inexperienced visitors to Scotland
Welcome to Glasgow 🙌(NB foreign journalists & attendees, do not try this stuff unless you’ve had former exposure)#UCIWorldChampionships pic.twitter.com/hwDNFPjPTnAugust 4, 2023
12. Remco Evenepoel had a good year as world champion - he even got married. There will be some idiots out there who have strong views on his wife, Oumi, wearing the rainbow stripes, though. I cannot be bothered to put any critical thought to that.
It has been an amazing year 🙏🏼🫶🏼Double Trouble 🌈🏆 pic.twitter.com/71OYeuNtsFAugust 4, 2023
13. Mathieu van der Poel showed he was going to be world champion days before the race by performing the most viral training ride around Glasgow. It really is that simple
*Admin cries into sandwich* @mathieuvdpoel making Montrose Street look like the flat...🥴pic.twitter.com/Yrx4RyYwAtAugust 4, 2023
14. By that metric, Lorena Wiebes will win the women's race
We see your @mathieuvdpoel & we raise you a @lorenawiebes 🤯 #GlasgowScotland2023 | #MurDeMontrosepic.twitter.com/28Ls5TyUXEAugust 6, 2023
15. There are so many disciplines at this World Championships that even cows can get in on the rainbow jersey-winning act
We see your @mathieuvdpoel & we raise you a @lorenawiebes 🤯 #GlasgowScotland2023 | #MurDeMontrosepic.twitter.com/28Ls5TyUXEAugust 6, 2023
16. Best kit at the World Championships? That's Nigeria, obviously
Nigeria's kit vibey as always pic.twitter.com/e49cFnWMEkAugust 3, 2023
17. Some took the pause in proceedings at the men's road race - thanks to a protest - to take selfies. Seb Piquet and Julian Alaphilippe just had to document the moment or something. Piquet is the voice of race radio at the Tour de France, but it's rare to see him on camera. What fun.
pic.twitter.com/BGodW32xYXAugust 6, 2023
18. The road race was too much for some - John Degenkolb looks dead on his feet
19. I don't know who, but someone got an insane bit of memorabilia from the men's road race - Mathieu van der Poel's BOA dial that he ripped off his shoe after his crash
Someone did end up with the BOA dial 👀 pic.twitter.com/mhf19hXlD3August 7, 2023
20. Edinburgh is spelt in a stupid way, but you'd hope that more riders would research how to pronounce where they are. Shout out to Michał Kwiatkowski for being nonplussed at the questions. OF COURSE it's Edinboro
21. I'm genuinely scared of Germany's Emma Hinze after this
22. Finally, a happy ending for the GB women's team pursuit squad over the weekend, as they pulled on the rainbow stripes for the first time since 2014. An extra special moment for the Barkers, with both Elinor and Megan getting gold medals.
