General racing chitchat

[MrsHJ]

Horrendous crash to day. I hope everyone recovers but I can’t remember a race where 3 main contenders were all out at he same spot ((Remco, Primoz, Jonas). The Basque Itzulia tour seems to have been particularly crash prone.

[foxyrider]

Horrendous crash to day. I hope everyone recovers but I can’t remember a race where 3 main contenders were all out at he same spot ((Remco, Primoz, Jonas). The Basque Itzulia tour seems to have been particularly crash prone.

There do seem to be a lot of bad crashes this year in both mens and womens top flight races affected a lot of the top riders. And some of the injuries have been horrendous. Mark Cavendish recently suggested that the relative inexperience of a lot of the peloton, as he put it, a lack of respect, is possibly a contributory factor. Not sure what could be done to reduce the carnage, controversial thought here, ban disc brakes, you have to learn much more bike control when your stopping distance is longer!

[Jdsk]

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[cycleruk]

Horrendous crash to day. I hope everyone recovers but I can’t remember a race where 3 main contenders were all out at he same spot ((Remco, Primoz, Jonas). The Basque Itzulia tour seems to have been particularly crash prone.

There do seem to be a lot of bad crashes this year in both mens and womens top flight races affected a lot of the top riders. And some of the injuries have been horrendous. Mark Cavendish recently suggested that the relative inexperience of a lot of the peloton, as he put it, a lack of respect, is possibly a contributory factor. Not sure what could be done to reduce the carnage, controversial thought here, ban disc brakes, you have to learn much more bike control when your stopping distance is longer!

Coincidently those were my very thoughts today. Lots of very young riders who don't have the experience and no one with authority to bring them to order.
Although having said that I think it was a bit unlucky today. As it seemed as if one rider slid-out and then carnage followed in trying to avoid him.
14 DNF's today.

[MrsHJ]

Just to say that everyone seems to be « ok » with ok being a relative term- broken vertebrae for Jay Vine who seems to have come off worst and lots of other collar homes (Jonas, remco- who bunny hopped the drainage ditch), ribs etc broken for people. I’ll be interested to see if there any proposals to manage things better. Edit: the update on Stefff Cras says he also has fractured vertebrae plus the punctured lungs and broken ribs

[Pendodave]

Team updates as of 21:50 CEST

UAE: Vine has broken three vertebrae, no other major injuries or head trauma.

Visma: Vingegaard has a broken collarbone and several broken ribs, but he is stable and will remain in hospital for now

Soudal: Evenepoel has a broken collarbone and scapula

Lidl: abrasions but no fractures or concussion for Tesfatsion

Total: Cras has a punctured lung, broken ribs and broken vertebrae

EF: Cepeda and Quinn involved, Quinn abandon

Bora: Roglic involved, no further updates (he was able to walk to team car)

Alpecin: abrasions for Hermans, who finished the stage.

This is awful.
I'm coming round to the view that pro cycling needs to have a long hard look at itself. Now, I'm not a competitive cyclist, so I have no expertise to drop into the discussion, but people who know about these things need to consider the future of the sport imho. Everything is going faster and faster, but the human body is as fragile as ever. This is not sustainable.

It's a shame, as the combination of endurance, skill and tactics makes the sport wonderfully compelling.

[pjclinch]

Not sure what could be done to reduce the carnage, controversial thought here, ban disc brakes, you have to learn much more bike control when your stopping distance is longer!

You can lock the wheels easily enough with good, well maintained rim brakes (i.e., that everyone in the pro peloton had when they were on rims), what hydraulic braking gives you is not so much about absolute power as control, which can be exercised more judiciously with fingertips than fists.
But in a close riding peloton I imagine you have less space to stop than reaction distance in any case.

In this case it seemed that it was a very unfortunate coincidence of a big fall and a concrete ditch

Pete.

[st599_uk]

It seemed odd that they'd put a barrier opposite the apex, where, presumably, the riders would be on the inside of the turn, but had nothing near the exit or the uncovered drain.

[djnotts]

Speeds increase and so too does street furniture, often unprotected. In the powered 2 wheel world the TT is the nearest equivalent to cycle road racing - that had to be removed from mainstream racing series back in 1977. Shielding the worst hazards on a 36 mile course is difficult enough, on a 1 or 3 week tour simply impossible.

Increasing injuries and fatalities seem inevitable. How long pure open-road racing can continue is surely questionable. Two or 3 fatalities in one race would I think cause massive budget Teams to reconsider their business model.

I don't see that the IoM model, privateers, amateurs, semi-pros, can be adapted to the costs, distances and logistics of say the 3 3-week tours.

Perhaps slow/reverse racing bike tech? Raise min weights? Ban discs? Ban electronic shifting? Reduce entrant numbers? Different racing licence categories?

[mattheus]

It seemed odd that they'd put a barrier opposite the apex, where, presumably, the riders would be on the inside of the turn, but had nothing near the exit or the uncovered drain.

You can come off in any part of a corner. Look at motor-racing circuits, where they refine the crash barriers over years of experience.

Thomas G. had a hilarious "straight-on" into a telegraph pole a few years back, IIRC.

EDIT: I do agree that leaving the drain unprotected seems a bit odd! But it's a long race ... :-/

[Mike Sales]

Mo Farah on wheels?

One of Ethiopia’s elite female cyclists will be pedalling at the front of one of London’s biggest bike races next month while living in an asylum seeker hotel on less than £10 a week.

Trhas Teklehaimanot Tesfay, 22, rode a bicycle for the first time when she was 13 years old. She has achieved success in a range of competitions such as the African Continental Championships and the national championships of Ethiopia.

While in her home country, the gold-medal-winning cyclist had been offered opportunities to compete in elite international competitions in countries including Spain and Switzerland, but was not granted visas to attend.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/202 ... ylum-hotel

[Jezrant]

What, no chitchat about Paris-Roubaix? Ok, wasn't the most exciting edition, but blimey vdP was fast. Thought I read somewhere that he did the first 100km on 700 x 28c Vittorias and then switched to 32mm, but now only see 32c mentioned. Anyways, always interesting to see the kit used on P-R and what seems to work well and what doesn't.

[rjb]

I find the bikes are all bland clones. Not like the innovations which made an appearance in previous editions like this laid-back machine made for Steve Bauer.

Nor the suspension forks which were trialled.

[Jezrant]

I was wondering if the new lightweight short-travel suspension forks would be a major feature, but looks like there’s no advantage with the wider lower-pressure tubeless tyres they’re running.

[Pendodave]

What, no chitchat about Paris-Roubaix? Ok, wasn't the most exciting edition, but blimey vdP was fast. Thought I read somewhere that he did the first 100km on 700 x 28c Vittorias and then switched to 32mm, but now only see 32c mentioned. Anyways, always interesting to see the kit used on P-R and what seems to work well and what doesn't.

Tbh, I was more surprised by how fast his number 1 domestique was (Vermeersch?), who pulled for miles at a record pace, shut down all the G2 moves after VdP got away and then finished in the top 10...

I'm very hypocritical about "surprising" performances. I enjoy them when a rider I like does well, or when everyone is equally "surprising" and it leads to a bit of excitement. Not so much when the big spring races are over by halftime...