Étoile de Bessèges 2025 February 5th - 9th

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Not ensuring that important information in their international race is also communicated in English is definitely something the organisers can be blamed for.

while it's not perfect, this is in accordance with UCI rules, though:

"Information shall be conveyed in French or English and the language of the country in which the event is taking place"

 

[RedheadDane]

while it's not perfect, this is in accordance with UCI rules, though:

"Information shall be conveyed in French or English and the language of the country in which the event is taking place"

Then the UCI needs to update their rules, and understand that it's English that's the Lingua Franca (confusingly enough) these days.

Should be English, and the language of the country required. And if the organisers are feeling fancy, they can add as many other languages as they want.

 

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Kern Pharma is out of the race as well now

https://twitter.com/x/status/1888172882884173828

View: https://x.com/EqKernPharma/status/1888172882884173828

 

[Samamba]

Kern Pharma is out of the race as well now

https://twitter.com/x/status/1888172882884173828

View: https://x.com/EqKernPharma/status/1888172882884173828

Let's be honest here, they saw the weather today...
Absolutely no reason to have continued yesterday otherwise.

 

[Armchair Cyclist]

Seems like the organisers didn't make sure there were more motos.

Your evidence for that being???

No matter how many motorbikes were out there, there would not have been any in the gap between the break and the peloton when that was <20 seconds.
Are you proposing that every time a rider gets just a few seconds clear of the group, a motor should push through from the back to get into the gap? Because that seems to me an awful lot more likely to cause an accident than running the risk that a selfish driver leaves his home precisely in that small gap of time.

 

[Samamba]

Seems like the organisers didn't make sure there were more motos.

As Benjamin Thomas said, the gap between peloton and break was too small for a lot of moto's to be in between them (otherwise people would whine about that) and the car went in the same direction as the race if I understand it correctly so they can't just stop it easily.

You really need to stop assuming things trying to make your points.

 

[Samamba]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1887872730894106949

View: https://x.com/HansenAdam/status/1887872730894106949?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet

Adam Hansen has a good, but somewhat impractical idea: Just organize it like the Tour!

Did anyone ask Adam who's going to pay for that? This isn't an issue of not wanting to or expertise, it's cause smaller races do not have the money to keep te same standards as big WT races. You can say you don't want to compromise on safety but then it's just over & out for these kind of races, and basically every u23 race, a ton of junior races, etc.

And even with money and high standards accidents will keep happening. Why did no one stop Flanders like 5 years ago when a car just drove onto the parcours (out of a parking if I remember correctly) just in front of the riders almost causing a major crash? And that's in flanders, you have to be a complete moron to not realize a race is going on.

 

[RedheadDane]

Your evidence for that being???

They didn't have enough motos to have one stay with the idiot... did they seriously think just going "Hey, there's a bike race coming by. You can see the peloton just down there." Was enough?

As Benjamin Thomas said, the gap between peloton and break was too small for a lot of moto's to be in between them (otherwise people would whine about that) and the car went in the same direction as the race if I understand it correctly so they can't just stop it easily.

I don't think anyone would have complained about a moto standing still in between the break and the peloton.

That's how rolling closures are supposed to work:
Police motos go the a potential entry point, and then stay there until the entire race has passed. And they should definitely stay when some idiot has already tried entering the route.

But you guys just keep refusing to old the organisation responsible.

Did anyone ask Adam who's going to pay for that? This isn't an issue of not wanting to or expertise, it's cause smaller races do not have the money to keep te same standards as big WT races.

The bigger WT races could pay. Isn't that part of "Help share their knowledge."?

Or maybe the organisers could get some help from DCU? According the Mads P, DCU A-leve races are better organised.

 

[pastronef]

if things go on like this (and with One-Cycling knocking on the door...) I see pro cycling divided in 2 series. 2nd tier teams will have their own races in a few years. Marseille, Besseges, Mallorca, Murcia, Coppi Bartali, Burgos, etc will go on without the WT teams. just pro conti and conti teams.

 

[Samamba]

don't think anyone would have complained about a moto standing still in between the break and the peloton.

That's how rolling closures are supposed to work:
Police motos go the a potential entry point, and then stay there until the entire race has passed. And they should definitely stay when some idiot has already tried entering the route.

But you guys just keep refusing to old the organisation responsible.

Sure bud, stop someone at every entry point. So every driveway or private road should be blocked. Here we go again. You just live in some weird world where you think that's possible but it isn't.

No idea why I'm so incredibly dumb to fall into the trap of discussing this with you again.

The bigger WT races could pay. Isn't that part of "Help share their knowledge."?

Or maybe the organisers could get some help from DCU? According the Mads P, DCU A-leve races are better organised.

No way you actually think that bigger races have some spare change laying around to increase safety at every small race in the world? Even if they had some money, they wouldn't want to. Why would they even. It's not their job.

 

[Samu Cuenca]

The One Cycling money could go towards improving safety across all races. Then I'm sure the fans would feel more enthusiastic about it.

 

[pastronef]

The One Cycling money could go towards improving safety across all races. Then I'm sure the fans would feel more enthusiastic about it.

Plugge and his pals don't give a flying bidon about minor races like Besseges/Burgos/CoppiBartali

 

[RedheadDane]

No idea why I'm so incredibly dumb to fall into the trap of discussing this with you again.

Right back at you!

 

[Armchair Cyclist]

They didn't have enough motos to have one stay with the idiot... did they seriously think just going "Hey, there's a bike race coming by. You can see the peloton just down there." Was enough?

He pulled into a gap where there were (quite properly) no 'motos'. If they are not there, how can they stay with him?

I don't think anyone would have complained about a moto standing still in between the break and the peloton.

Standing still in between them???? You are aware that both the break and the peloton are moving??
If you mean travelling between them, that does happen when the gap reaches a size which is determined by UCI rules, not by the organisers of any given event. Moving vehicles forward into a gap while it is still too small would be ridiculous, as the gap might be quickly extinguished, and no-one believes that maximising the number of times vehicles nudge through the peloton enhances safety.

Police motos go the a potential entry point, and then stay there until the entire race has passed. And they should definitely stay when some idiot has already tried entering the route.

How many driveways do you think open on to any route, not necessarily this one? I'd love to see your plan for financing a police moto on every single one of them.

But you guys just keep refusing to old the organisation responsible.

And those who want to criticise them just keep refusing to accept that there is effectively nothing that could have been done short of barricading every driveway, which no race has ever done.

The bigger WT races could pay. Isn't that part of "Help share their knowledge."?

Or maybe the organisers could get some help from DCU? According the Mads P, DCU A-leve races are better organised.

How much profit do you think the organisers of any race that is not the TdF makes?

 

[RedheadDane]

He pulled into a gap where there were (quite properly) no 'motos'. If they are not there, how can they stay with him?

He'd initially been stopped... so clearly there were motos with him at some point.

Standing still in between them???? You are aware that both the break and the peloton are moving??

Stand. Still. Until. The. Entire. Race. Has. Passed.

 

[Devil's Elbow]

Stand. Still. Until. The. ENTIRE. RACE. Has. Passed.

I know you're bad at math, but have you considered it would take literally hundreds of motors to block every driveway when you're going through a town? And that said hundreds of motors would all need to pass the peloton dozens of times per race to block the next driveway? Completely infeasible probably even for the Tour, and even if it wasn't it would create a much, much larger safety hazard than the one it attempts to solve.

 

[Devil's Elbow]

There was a planned circuit of 20k to take in one of the early KOMs, they've taken that out now. Sensible decision.

 

[Berniece]

How would racing on a circuit make it impossible for someone to deliberately ignore a blockade or drive out of their driveway into the peloton, which were the two issues at play in the big incidents here? Only if you completely barricade a circuit with barriers does it become impossible, and that's both way more expensive and labour-intensive for a race organiser and also causes way more headaches for residents/local authorities because the roads will be blocked for a significant time before and after the race too. Aside from that, there are other issues at play - in the Dutch national circuit, where it's either do a circuit race or not do a race at all this year, many organisers are not able/willing to do so for a variety of reasons meaning the calendar is heavily reduced. So that suggests that, if you translated that to the UCI level, forcing smaller races to run on circuits will kill off many of said races.

In addition, we've seen major security issues on circuits too - the 2019 Ster ZLM Tour comes to mind, or if we include time trial routes (which are basically the same story where security is concerned) the utter mess that was the 2022 Bloeizone Fryslân Tour. I'm sure there's more, just going off the top of my head here.

If the organisers had outright failed to apply the relevant measures at side roads it would be a different story, but by all accounts that wasn't the case and they were mostly just unlucky. We should be thankful that part of the peloton recognised this (Benjamin Thomas, the rider representative who voted to continue, even said something similar at the vote) in the heat of the moment. And that's no mean feat - it's completely understandable that tempers were running high at that point in time. But it might very well make the difference between the race running and not running next year.

I said reduce the risk. Less roads to cover, less people, less cars, so lower risk.

 

[Armchair Cyclist]

He'd initially been stopped... so clearly there were motos with him at some point.

I don't know the exact order of events any more than you do, but if this were the case I assume that they either passed the peloton after he had caused a problem, or dropped back from in front of the break when the issue became clear.

Do you accept either the existence of or the rationale behind the UCI rule (not a strategy employed uniquely by the organisers of this event) that if the gap is less than 30 seconds, vehicles should not move forward?

If you consider 30 seconds to be too big a gap, what size gap do you suggest to ensure that it seems permanent enough to respond to, and to avoid unnecessary passes of the peloton by vehicles, and that they can travel in without offering undue drafting?

Stand. Still. Until. The. Entire. Race. Has. Passed.

Please don't shout.

How do you propose that a new vehicle move into the gap every hundred metres or so as the break and peloton pass?

 

[Devil's Elbow]

I said reduce the risk. Less roads to cover, less people, less cars, so lower risk.

More times passing the same place. Less roads to cover yes, less people and less cars in absolute terms possibly yes but each individual person/car has more 'opportunities' (for lack of a better term) to interfere with the race which negates the effect. It doesn't move the needle much, if at all, and as has been pointed out by several people there are non-safety issues with circuit races that don't apply to point-to-point races.

 

[tobydawq]

Can't they just paralyse all the local residents with stun guns? Or puncture the tyres of all vehicles?

 

[Devil's Elbow]

Or puncture the tyres of all vehicles?

Can someone buy off Extinction Rebellion to get this done?

 

[Berniece]

More times passing the same place. Less roads to cover yes, less people and less cars in absolute terms possibly yes but each individual person/car has more 'opportunities' (for lack of a better term) to interfere with the race which negates the effect. It doesn't move the needle much, if at all, and as has been pointed out by several people there are non-safety issues with circuit races that don't apply to point-to-point races.

When a peloton passes multiple times chances are higher that you are aware of it too

 

[AmRacer]

F1 race circuits are a good place for cycling too.

 

[pastronef]

F1 race circuits are a good place for cycling too.

yes maybe for a final sprint stage or a prologue TT