Tour de France 2016

It was the lack of barriers because they were up the mountain plus 7km worth of fans also coming back down the mountain for an epic clusterfuck

The motos were baulked by spectators. What were they meant to do, run them over?

The problem here is fucking idiot spectators, all desperate to get on tv, inserting themselves into the spectacle. Look at the photo someone published earlier today, half of those watching have their phones out taking photos and video. Why? You completely miss the moment if you do that.

The solution will have to be barriers for the final 4 or 5 kms of each climb. I'm sure ASO would've barriered more today, but that was probably low down the list once they had to shift everything else 6 kms down the road. But an incident like this was almost inevitable, as all those people who'd been camped up the 6 kms from Chalet Reynard were going to squeeze into the 2-3 kms before the finish.

@dubtap and I are part of the same hive mind.

Well that was a most pleasant and relaxing afternoon. Let's do it again!

Wednesday next week, 20 Jul. Let's watching biking. Stage 17 - Berne → Finhaut-Emosson at Hex in Shoreditch

https://www.lfgss.com/events/1998/

Hoogerland's race was undeniably altered from that moment on. Whether he retained the jersey for one stage or not doesn't impact the remainder of the tour, nor the contribution his team missed as a result of his injuries.

Ted King rode a TTT with a separated shoulder due to a crash, and there was a considerable timing discrepancy between the Tour's time that they used to disqualify him and other timings. No explanation given, no appeal considered despite the possibility that it the decision had been made in error.

That's just two incidents where the race jury could have made amendments to take into account various factors. Evans getting tacks in his tyres, Gilbert hitting a spectator's dog, riders hitting badly signalled street furniture, there's plenty of bullshit happenstances that impact a myriad of different ways.

Froome got caught up in a crash. This happens to riders all the time; whether they are in contention or not really doesn't matter. It's very rare if not exceptional for anyone to be plopped back to the top of the leader board, non?

I know it's only 2 seconds and it was an awful mess and all, but exactly how, after this, did Quintana get compensated to pass Mollema back into 3rd in the GC? Seems unfair

Geraint kills it with the (on seeing a video of Crash running) "Well he us from Kenya, he should be good at it"

You can't compensate for the rest of a race (unless you give them a motorised bike?), so isn't a lot more they could have done for Hoogerland, and presumably the race jury did decide on Ted King, and decided that he didn't make the cut (regardless of whether that was accurate or not).

Yates should be gutted-freak incidents are part and parcel imhop and
there's been many other occasions where the disadvantaged party has
been left to suck it or simply been injured and unable to continue.
Hoogerland anyone? Ted King? You either play the magnanimous
arbitrator for all people or none at all...

The problem is the organisers are more magnanimous towards some riders than others because all riders are equal but some (the higher profile riders, and the riders who are winning) are more equal than others.

See this tweet from Tom Dumoulin:
https://twitter.com/tom_dumoulin/status/753664299449643008

(He later tweeted "Easy to joke about it in my position of course. But what was going on there in the last kilometers?? Should never have happened!", but your call on whether he meant the original tweet or not).

Thing is though, this isn't simple favouritism. After the Gerrans/Stannard crash the peloton could have chosen to leave Froome behind when he stopped for his felled teammates, but they didn't. Cancellara backed him up, Valverde was persuaded (apparently he wanted to press on) but a truce was called.

The question is, where do you stop? How bad does a pitfall affecting the yellow jersey have to be? It's a grey area. Froome hadn't even crashed when Stannard and Gerrans went down with 33km to go, so why did they wait?

Bet brad is pissing himself

Because Quintana's group were baulked by the incident too, as there wasn't enough room to get through. So the commissaires gave Quintana, Valverde and Van Garderen the same time as the Yates/Bardet group.

Which seems fair to to me.

Ok I said motos but I meant organisation as well, barriers, street furniture, uncontrolled spectators. It shouldn't be influencing race results, yes races can have incidents, but the organisation of that race shouldn't be causing it.

And yes the change in the finish line affected it, but still a clusterfuck that I'm sure Prudhomme is getting plenty shouty over to his subordinates.

Where's Wally?

Oh, everywhere. Too easy. Next!

Apart from all the Froome/yellow jersey stuff, can I just say what a fucking ride from Mollema.

I did not see that coming.

Well that was a most pleasant and relaxing afternoon. Let's do it again!

It looks as if we you picked a rather good stage to make a special occasion of watching

Let's watching biking.

Are you having an attack of the Flechas? :)

As I went to Tempo only to find it closed [down?] I'll come along next weds. Looks like a stonker of a stage.

He rode a fantastic first two weeks in 2013, where he was second overall going into the final week, then slipped away to finish 6th. It'll be interesting to see if he can hold up better this year, what with that tough final week.

Tomorrow's TT should be a good indicator of that, when he's on form he can ride a decent TT but when his form is on the wane, he stinks the place out.

I love Kiriyenka btw, just watching the stage and he's in full terminator mode

Quintana wasn't even in the Yates group. This is a jury mess up

There's a big gap in front of le premier moto in that pic ^^^^^

I'm calling shifty dealings of some sort.

I'm pretty sure he was, then he got detached in the chaos around the crash.

The motos were baulked by spectators. What were they meant to do, run them over?

THIS

The problem here is fucking idiot spectators, all desperate to get on tv, inserting themselves into the spectacle. Look at the photo someone published earlier today, half of those watching have their phones out taking photos and video. Why? You completely miss the moment if you do that.

THIS

The solution will have to be barriers for the final 4 or 5 kms of each climb. I'm sure ASO would've barriered more today, but that was probably low down the list once they had to shift everything else 6 kms down the road. But an incident like this was almost inevitable, as all those people who'd been camped up the 6 kms from Chalet Reynard were going to squeeze into the 2-3 kms before the finish.

AND SO MUCH THIS

Without his puncture Porte would be second now.
Thibaut Pinot, the King Of The Mountains, finished behind Mark Cavendish today. On the Ventoux.