2014 Pro-cycling season thread

Glad to hear there's not been a fatality.

Don't think it is fair to say Vansummeren misjudged anything-looked more to me like the peloton split in two to go around the island and the bunch narrowed, Vansummeren got squeezed out of the right hand split and either tried to make it over to the other side to avoid crashing or due to the speed they were all going at just couldn't avoid the impact, it didn't look like he even had time to brake so don't think he was expecting to be there.

Either way, it's the race organisers job to make sure people are behind barriers or not standing smack bang in the middle of the road, trying to prosecute Garmin or Vansummeren himself is nuts. I just hope the lady makes some kind of recovery.

Bang on Uber. It was a dangerous place to stand, and no one should have been there. It was more dangerous by not having a motorbike whistling and signalling.

Sucks for both parties involved but hope Summer shrugs it off and moves on. Not his fault. And hope this incident will remind spectators how cautious they need to be.

Anyway!! Fab is too good.

PR will be good, I hope G makes the selection. He seems to be on banging form right now. So he should. Wigwam will ride for him for sure. With stannard out G is the man. Sucks for Stannard. But his chance will come.

Only 102 riders finished the race, out of 200.

World's greatest cyclist on water bottle duty during the ladies' Ronde van Vlaanderen

Why didn't Vos race?

She's taken a break from racing after the cyclocross season. She'll be back soon.

she made a 'balanced racing programme' for 2014. next up: sea otter classic MTB race in Monterey, april 11 & 12

^^^^ hell yeah, Sunday smiles.

I think RVV sets it up nicely for Paris Roubaix.

Vanmarcke will be itching to get some revenge and I honestly think Thomas has a shout of a podium place if he a d EBH can come up with a plan.

Am I the only one praying for rain? Would be nice to see the conditions give the great bike handlers like Sagan and Stybar a chance.

I love G, I really do, but at the minute, I have higher expectations of Tyler Farrar finishing a race without faceplanting than G.

Bang on Uber. It was a dangerous place to stand, and no one should have been there. It was more dangerous by not having a motorbike whistling and signalling.

Sucks for both parties involved but hope Summer shrugs it off and moves on. Not his fault. And hope this incident will remind spectators how cautious they need to be.

Anyway!! Fab is too good.

PR will be good, I hope G makes the selection. He seems to be on banging form right now. So he should. Wigwam will ride for him for sure. With stannard out G is the man. Sucks for Stannard. But his chance will come.

Vansummeren crashed into the curb, then crashed into the lady. He crashed like loads of other riders did yesterday, just in his case it was very unfortunate that a spectator was involved as well. He is certainly not to blame, although I think you could make a case for the race organisers being liable. That family should not have been allowed to stand where they were, and there should have been someone one the island alerting the riders to the hazard.

Apparently EBH is the chosen one for P-R next weekend, in the absence of Stannard, but I'm sure G will be in the mix. Good to see Wiggins in the chasing group in the last 20k too

They can't prosecute Vansummeren.

Amazing photo of Vos. Love it.

Also: both Vansummeren and the race organisation might be prosecuted by Belgian court for unintentional GBH (loosely translated, I'm no law expert but that is what it boils down to I think)

If there is an 'unintentional' gbh, then that must contain a big component of negligence. I don't think anyone could argue a rider crashing by mistake is negligent in anyway. But obviously the organisers are responsible for stewarding and safety and may be in the frame a bit.

I am no expert and translation of legal terms is very difficult. Maybe try Google translate:

http://translate.google.nl/translate?sl=nl&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=nl&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.sporza.be%2Fcm%2Fsporza%2Fwielrennen%2F140407_rvv_parket&edit-text=&act=url

there should have been a steward on that traffic island
maybe he should have hit the brakes (the Sporza article says he hopped onto the traffic island - of course he was more or less forced to)
the spectators should have no place there

Lars Boom commented on the many crashes: "no one uses his brakes any more"

I think UCI and race organisers will have their hands full this season to come up with a better safety plan for riders and spectators. and riders will have to be more respectful towards each other, the racers interviewed said that younger riders do not hesitate to push even the bigger names aside.

If he was prosecuted, who would come back and race again?

everyone

You think? I respectfully disagree :)

edit of course, if there's already a precedent for prosecuting riders for crimes whilst racing (doping is obviously a different matter) I of course take it all back. I'm assuming pro cycling & sports bodies, riders, the law all have a brain.

Cippo was handing out bottles in one stage during T-A.

Cool! Bike racers love to watch and be involved in bike racing too! Shock!! ha

I'm assuming pro cycling & sports bodies, riders, the law all have a brain.

now that's going out on a limb ;-)

At the end of the day riders do stupid things, and so do spectators. If Vansummeren is in anyway to blame for the lady conditions, then that goes double for the spectator that took down Popvych. There's always been nasty collisions between spcetactors and cyclists, and everyone from the race organisers, police, riders and spectators need to exercise intelligence and sense to minimise. The basic facts remain that those people should not have been on a traffic island in the middle of a road as the peloton rides by. The liability must be first with the people choosing to watch the race from there, and the organisers/police for allowing people to stand there and failing to place someone on there. And culpability for Vansummeren comes last IMO: he was in a bike race, he was going fast because of this and made a mistake somewhere leading up to that that caused him to be in the wrong part of the road and crashing into a road island. It is both his bad luck and that of the lady that she was there when that happened.

I think it was the1958 Tour when Andre Darrigade crashed into Constant Wouters (the track Director) on the Parc des Princes track. Darrigade was badly injured, Wouters died- the picture of the crash is very famous. The point is, cycling is bloody dangerous for rider and spectator alike, always has been, always will be.

Wiggins came in 32nd, gave a very good account of himself, doing most of the work to get Thomas back after his crash

I love G, I really do, but at the minute, I have higher expectations of Tyler Farrar finishing a race without faceplanting than G.

At least Thomas has the good grace to blame himself when he crashes.

At what km to go did Thomas crash? I missed it and She-Who-Must -Be-Obeyed and I had a pool bet. Does anyone know?

I think UCI and race organisers will have their hands full this season to come up with a better safety plan for riders and spectators. and riders will have to be more respectful towards each other, the racers interviewed said that younger riders do not hesitate to push even the bigger names aside.

I'm not sure if rider behaviour is a distraction. The assessment of the course would have spotted that island as a danger before the race* and a marshal could have asked spectators to stay off the island as well as alerting riders. Why that didn't happen should be the question.

It will be very unfortunate if a case made against Vansummeren gathers.

*if it were in the UK. I guess it's the same?