Tour de France 2021

Good discussion about the riders union on TCP last night. They seem to hold less power or are less prepared than other sporting unions.

At the Giro, it emerged that a bunch of the riders weren’t even reading the emails that were being circulated to share concerns and whip.

They have known about that finish for a while, but the riders don’t seem to have made any attempt to organise and address it themselves ahead of the stage.

Like someone said upthread, everyone knew it would be crashy, and then we just watched them crash.

Yeah, I heard this, but I think leaving it to the riders is a bit odd - they are rightly focused on other stuff - why are the teams themselves not all over this?

In football, it's the manager/team that complains about issues connected to player welfare/fitness/injury. You don't want your mega bucks signing injured due to avoidable circumstances. The teams pour over the route map as soon as it's announced. They should be demanding better for their riders.

PhilGil has a Youtube channel and said the riders and ASO agreed the GC timing should be moved to 5km from the finish as they were worried about the run-in but UCI commissaires refused.

"UCI president David Lappartient, who is from the finishing town of Pontivy, defended the course."

Oh.

Ah.

Good news is G is go for today though.

https://twitter.com/GeraintThomas86/status/1409823784039747584

He's 30 odd seconds behind the GC peeps (if you discount Alan Philips) with Roglic another 30 secs further down.

They don’t need UCI permission to neutralise mid-race. It could have been done, as it was in the Giro last year (before Astana head-butted the road sign).

Jawbreakers. Good luck, G.

Not about neutralising; physically move the timekeeping equipment to 5km line from 3km

I’m not conflating – the neutralising could have happened despite the failed discussions about timekeeping.

Point being, the riders have more power than they realise but don’t wield it much beyond piss breaks.

I can support him more easily when he doesn’t wear the Jawbones.

It’s like when Southgate dresses like an adult rather than a kid at a wedding.

G Instagram saying he starting..

"
Caleb Ewan is the only absent rider

12:40

Only one non-starter among the riders who made the classifications yesterday: Caleb Ewan
"

Well that was a farce. Peloton stops after the neutral zone. Half of them, including Alaphilippe looked pissed it was happening at all and rode off after 2 mins. They now all seem to be having arguments as they cruise along. What a mess.

I thought it was only meant to be a one minute stop, then soft pedal for 10km before hitting the gas?

Perhaps - but if so - not sure what the point was! It certainly didn't convey any massive strength of feeling within the peloton. As the commentators suggested, it needed the big guns to come to the front - all the jerseys, plus ex winners, World Champs, Olympic Champs etc. Instead, it just looked like Greipel was pissed and everyone else did as he told them.

This evenings life drawing class live from the Bumbo Visma Team Hotel.

He didn't finish so I don't see how he wasn't marked DNF yesterday.

The Lotto rider in the break with his helmet straps over the arms of his sunglasses needs to be DQd.

Only if you're think those stupid "Rules" are rules. Fuck the rules. Helmet straps over shades always.

mods pls DQ user hippy from the forum, thank you in advance

Froome chatting about the finish. But riders crashing everywhere except the finish. Boardman said the town spent 55k on making finish improvements and every fucker crashed before it anyway except Caleb which was his own fault. Slow down and/or look where you're going if you don't want to crash.

Come at me, Velowanknati

pls upload a .jpg of you wearing kit to the lfgss portal for the compliance committee's review

He didn't finish so I don't see how he wasn't marked DNF yesterday.

That's the point, he was marked as finished for some reason, which is what caused the oddity.

178th place but same time as the winner as he came through the flamme rouge with the lead group and then crashed (that's the reason for him getting the same time as the lead group, but not the reason for him automatically being marked as a finisher).

At a guess maybe his bike was taken past the finishing line at some point (by someone from the team or the UCI) and so the automatic system marked him as a finisher.

Or maybe the UCI would have allowed him to race on today if he'd been well enough even though he almost certainly didn't cross the line without assistance. (Or maybe he did actually walk up across the finish line before getting in the ambulance. The footage wasn't clear and the commentators were making plenty of assumptions based on the limited footage they had.)