Nothing wrong with the gap. Perfectly legit to attempt to move into that - I'd be pissed off with myself if I didn't attempt to get through that in a 2/3 race. Just a touch of wheels - you hit the wheel in front and it's you that goes down, not the rider you hit. Tiny adjustment on the part of the rider in front (suspect he was trying to move onto the wheel of the rider in front when he got out of the saddle to start his sprint) and it's inevitable.
Three crashes in the last 7km following on from the disasters on Saturday. If it carries on like this there will only be about 50 riders racing on the Champs Elysees.
That's a terrible day all round. Roglic likely to be gone too (even if he does manage to carry on he'll be in no shape to challenge I wouldn't think) and Thomas probably out of serious contention too 😢
That's a terrible day all round. Roglic likely to be gone too (even if he does manage to carry on he'll be in no shape to challenge I wouldn't think) and Thomas probably out of serious contention too 😢
Leaves it wide open for Pogacar... Carapaz won’t match his sprinting/TT ... this is all such a pity so early in the race.
That's a terrible day all round. Roglic likely to be gone too (even if he does manage to carry on he'll be in no shape to challenge I wouldn't think) and Thomas probably out of serious contention too 😢
Bends make it SAFER. The longer the sprint, the more chance there is of a mass pile up as trains/riders run out of gas. It's not bends that make it dangerous - it's stupidity like a downhill run in at 65k/h with two kilometres to go on a road barely wide enough for six shoulder to shoulder
It's a source of immense frustration for me as a rider who's only of any real use as a sprinter or a leadout that every circuit I race on is designed so that there's always a turn between 100 and 300 metres from the finish. The one local road race circuit where we had a flat, straight run in of about 3km was changed a couple of years ago so that the finish line was 500 metres from the last corner instead (still much better than the closed circuits, but not long enough for a big train of fat gits like me to get up to full steam 😁)
I am certainly no expert but what the hell was going on.
I cannot say I studied the route into Pontivy but certainly the one chosen offers a notable descent and once into the town where the roads dating back to the days of Napoleon (Pontivy was once Napoleonville - he built the canal) are very narrow.
I know they cleared away a lot of street furniture (cafe & bar terraces and the like and removed small roundabouts) but the Rue Nationale leading into Rue Charles de Gaulle is a narrow thoroughfare at the best of times. They have done similar for local or regional competitions but for global elite competitors?
That said most people around me were totally bemused/ really upset by all these crashes. (The comments on the German women on Stage 1 were unprintable.)
But today? This is not the first time Breton roads have been used and they know they are not the swiftest to navigate narrowing quite quickly in places. Did teams and riders really not study and prepare for these conditions. From the comments I heard later from those “seemingly in the know” they thought the issues were clarified with GC teams weeks ago.
Months of work both by the teams and by the local prefecture seem to have simply been thrown away on what most thought really should have been a straight forward stage.
Most around here just love the TdF and are immensely proud when it is in the area. I think the last time was 2010. That was a hugely fun day.
So tonight even before the football result there were sadly a lot of Gallic shrugs in play. The local bars will certainly have been animated tonight.
The roads for a race like Paris/Robaix are far worse for road racers.
It's part and parcel of the TdF.
Paris Roubaix is totally different to the tour. There aren't six-eight GC teams trying to protect their main contenders hooning it into corners at 65k/h for the final 15km - the races are far more selective and have been whittled down to a handful of contenders by the time they get to that point. In addition, the one day classics are just that - one day. A grand tour is 21 days where you want the best overall rider to come out on top. Can't do that if they've all been taken out in the first week because the race director decides to send them down streets about five riders wide and they've all crashed...
Crashing is part and parcel of bike racing. Designing routes where there is a greatly increased chance of that right at the beginning of the race is just daft.
Was it really that bad - I didn’t see a good view of the Thomas crash, but that was a straight road. Roglic seemed to be the only one who hit the deck in his crash, and the sprint crash was just a sprint crash. The bad one was on a corner 10k out, but that was nothing like the crashes on day 1. If it hadn’t been Thomas, Roglic, McEwan and Sagan in those crashes everyone would have forgotten them by now. I haven’t heard any teams complaints about the route or roads.
Apparently there is a course safety officer, who checks the course pre race...
Not exactly doing his job eh.
Chris Boardman's old waffle post race was a nonsense, trying compare one day races with the TdF was ridiculous.
Leroy called it right that the downhill luge into the sprint was just off the charts ridiculous and turned it into a chaos like you'd see at Tour of Turkey.
Anyone that has been to Brittany will know the amount of road furniture and the narrowness of the roads was always gonna cause issues. There's barely enough room for the peleton, let alone support staff and media that use the roads also.
Was like the organisers wanted the crashes for publicity whilst the Euros are happening...
Disc brake and rim brake being used in the same race is a factor. Many pro's off record will tell you that.
Don't buy that at all. Had the same said years ago in amateur races - meta analysis shows no difference in the number of crashes since disc brakes were allowed. The only place it might cause a difference is when it's pissing down - rim brake bikes would be more likely to crash into disc brake bikes because they don't stop as quickly in the wet, and riders on disc brakes are able to brake a little later. Other than that, disc and rim brake stopping performance is the same in the dry.
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Looks like a sore one for Roglic too 😕
Three crashes in the last 7km following on from the disasters on Saturday. If it carries on like this there will only be about 50 riders racing on the Champs Elysees.
Feels like Cav is like a moth to a flame when you have accidents like that
Looked a similar kind of incident to the one that his did his collarbone (?) at when they went to Yorkshire
Also the crash a few km out surely that was asking for trouble with that bend and the speeds they were going at?
I cannot say I studied the route into Pontivy but certainly the one chosen offers a notable descent and once into the town where the roads dating back to the days of Napoleon (Pontivy was once Napoleonville - he built the canal) are very narrow.
I know they cleared away a lot of street furniture (cafe & bar terraces and the like and removed small roundabouts) but the Rue Nationale leading into Rue Charles de Gaulle is a narrow thoroughfare at the best of times. They have done similar for local or regional competitions but for global elite competitors?
That said most people around me were totally bemused/ really upset by all these crashes. (The comments on the German women on Stage 1 were unprintable.)
But today? This is not the first time Breton roads have been used and they know they are not the swiftest to navigate narrowing quite quickly in places. Did teams and riders really not study and prepare for these conditions. From the comments I heard later from those “seemingly in the know” they thought the issues were clarified with GC teams weeks ago.
Months of work both by the teams and by the local prefecture seem to have simply been thrown away on what most thought really should have been a straight forward stage.
Most around here just love the TdF and are immensely proud when it is in the area. I think the last time was 2010. That was a hugely fun day.
It's part and parcel of the TdF.
Crashing is part and parcel of bike racing. Designing routes where there is a greatly increased chance of that right at the beginning of the race is just daft.
Not exactly doing his job eh.
Chris Boardman's old waffle post race was a nonsense, trying compare one day races with the TdF was ridiculous.
Leroy called it right that the downhill luge into the sprint was just off the charts ridiculous and turned it into a chaos like you'd see at Tour of Turkey.
Anyone that has been to Brittany will know the amount of road furniture and the narrowness of the roads was always gonna cause issues. There's barely enough room for the peleton, let alone support staff and media that use the roads also.
Was like the organisers wanted the crashes for publicity whilst the Euros are happening...
https://www.cyclingweekly.com/news/mark-cavendish-i-feel-like-a-gc-rider-saying-well-take-it-day-by-day-i-dont-want-to-be-like-that?utm_source=twitter.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=socialflow