Pro-cycling thread

Ocelot just finished his last Masters exam today and is straight into the drudgery of 10 hour exhibitions tech work for the next 3 weeks so his creative juices have been as sparse as Valverde's follicles and his physical vitality as sluggish as Carlos Betancur on his way to a WeightWatchers meeting : /

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/vegni-rule-had-to-be-applied-in-porte-case

In light of this, I fully expect all transgressions to be punished for the rest of the race. So any 'sticky bottles', team cars pacing, pushes after changing a wheel and anything else that is punishable will be done so.

Or mechanics hanging out of team car windows to make bike adjustments - the UCI reminded teams earlier this year that that was not allowed. I'd bet you could find a few examples of it from the first week of the Giro though.

Contador removed his helmet briefly yesterday. According to the rules he should've been disqualified.

Which would've been ridiculous, but the inconsistency is the issue here. Porte already lost 47 seconds because of his misfortune, to then punish him further is ridiculous. Even more so when it transpires that the commissaires didn't see the offence, neither did the TV cameras record it, instead one race photographer publishes the photo and that's enough to condemn Porte.

Farcical.

The only other time this has happened was http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/ventoso-wins-hainan-after-penalty-to-shpilevsky

https://twitter.com/ProCyclingStats/status/600738621541474305

I still think it's a weird situation. I don't like the idea of teams helping out other teams because they're "mates." But a fine would have got the message across.

Sky helped out Etixx-QuickStep's Gianni Meersman earlier in the race, and provided him with a new wheel. It happens all the time. As long as no-one is gaining an advantage then it doesn't matter.

Done the unthinkable; made me like Aussies.

It gets better too, the commissaires held back the team cars from getting in the gap to the peloton so Porte couldn't leapfrog back to the bunch.

What absolute crap. Maybe it's time for a raft of rules to be brought in line with reality. Rather like the update to the Hour regs.

I demand justice from the UC....ah fuck it that'll never happen

There's nothing wrong with the rules as such. Applying them in such a risible way is the problem. To preserve the integrity of the race they have mutilated it. Perhaps the commissaires are veterans of Bến Tre.

One of the jury is Wayne Pomario the UCI rep at 2012 Olympics that scrubbed various track results

It was a fucking flat stage. All he was trying to do was catch the peloton to limit losses, not gain an advantage.

It would be a nice gesture of the peloton to let him take the time back but impossible to co-ordinate.

I suppose the irony is it wouldn't be against the rules for the peloton to let him get a 2 minute advantage to take back the time he lost because of another team helping him.

Are riders allowed to share food and drink between teams? That's pretty common in the breakaways... Haven't checked the rules myself, just wondering.

It would be a nice gesture of the peloton to let him take the time back but impossible to co-ordinate.

Or have every other ride swap wheels (before the next stage) with another rider. Then a few minutes into the stage they stop to swap wheels.

Similar fines and time penalties for all riders (except Porte). #fuckwiththegirorules

Or at least Contador and Aru

At the end of the day I think we can all agree who's fault this really is

I'd like to see the six riders in the 100% Italian breakaway punished for helping each other out by riding together. That's racist.

Bloody Aussies...

I'd like to be a fly on the wall on the conversation between Oleg & Bertie on the idea of him swapping wheels with Aru

"Bertzki, I have your family locked in a zellar, but of course, the choice is yours"

https://twitter.com/inrng/status/600899574471991296

So Porte's puncture happened at a roundabout, he'd gone left whilst his team had gone right. He was then stranded on the left hand side of the road, the wrong side when it comes to getting service, and his team mates couldn't get across the road due to race traffic. Hence why he took a wheel from Clarke.

Another one is the Spaniard who kicked Ted King out of the Tour in 2013 for being 7 seconds outside the time limit in the team time trial. King was involved in the same crash that saw Geraint Thomas suffer a micro fracture of his pelvis.

It's good to see that whatever the level you race at, some commissaires are still jumped up little Hitlers with no common sense.