“No, wait, wait, wait,” pleads Egan Bernal, the clippers buzzing against the back of his head. It’s Thursday evening in a hotel somewhere near Valladolid, and the Colombian is surrounded by Ineos Grenadiers staff, watching on and laughing as someone shaves his hair off.
A video of the moment appeared on social media. Within minutes, the treatment was over. Bernal is now one of four Ineos riders to visit the makeshift barbershop at this year’s Vuelta a España. Before him, Brandon Rivera and Michał Kwiatkowski bid adieu to their dos, while Filippo Ganna also lost his locks after his stage 18 time trial victory.
The answer can be found in the team’s new motto: “All in for the win, all in for the trim”, which appeared in a now-deleted post on X of a close-cropped Bernal and Ganna.
Kwiatkowsi, the second rider to lose his hair, distilled the idea down into even simpler terms: “Stage win = shaved head,” he wrote on social media. But how does the team decide who loses their hair?
In interviews, the Ineos riders have spoken of a wheel – perhaps a comedically large TV-game-show-style prop, like in Wheel of Fortune, perhaps a more metaphorical one – that contains each of their names. The night before a stage, the person it lands on is obliged to shave their head in the event the team wins the following day. If the selected rider wins the stage himself, he is allowed to nominate a team-mate.
On Monday evening, for example, the pointer fell on Rivera, so when Bernal won his first WorldTour race in four years on Tuesday, Rivera and his hair parted ways. Kwiatkowsi, caught up in all the amusement, said he “volunteered somehow” alongside.
The following day, the wheel chose Bob Jungels, but he was spared by the victory of Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe’s Giulio Pellizzari.
The wheel then landed on Ganna for Thursday’s stage 18 time trial, an omen that shook the team-mates of the two-time world champion. “If he wins, he gets to nominate someone else, so I’m pretty worried, to be honest,” said Ben Turner, as Ganna waited in the hot seat, having already set the best time.
Three hours later, the Italian’s victory was confirmed. The celebrations followed, he waved to the crowds from the podium, and then faced a decision: who would he chose for the barber’s chair? Off went the hair of stage 16’s winner Bernal. Ganna, it seems, shaved his too in solidarity.
With three stages to go, there are three more chances at victory at this year’s Vuelta, and three more potential victims of the clippers. Jungels, Turner, Magnus Sheffield and Victor Langellotti have all escaped the game so far. Look out for the wheel’s next turn should Ineos win again.
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