2017 Volta Ciclista a Catalunya, March 20-26, WT

[mariposa]

I don't blame the organizers, most don't. So let's agree to disagree, and be vigilant when certain teams get certain calls. Let's stay on topic, and I'm guilty for opening Pandora's box here. I'm supposed to be the guardian angel after all .

I hope Valverde wins. And I hope that the rule disappears. To me, TTT riders should be able to do whatever they want as long as there's no outside interference.

Yes, that is my main point: I hope that Valverde overcomes this: I don't feel comfortable with the decision and the second decision: it smells like behind the scene intrigues, it smells like...well you know what.

Agree 100%.

 

[Felice Gimondi]

Re:

The question is: the rules must be interpretated, not taken literally, one must know about cycling!!!! the pushes are not allowed to increase the pace or making a derny. Since Rojas touches more than pushes, in order not to collision, there is no gain!

Only if the rule itself suggests such an interpretation.

 

[Alexandre B.]

I don't blame the organizers, most don't. So let's agree to disagree, and be vigilant when certain teams get certain calls. Let's stay on topic, and I'm guilty for opening Pandora's box here. I'm supposed to be the guardian angel after all .

I hope Valverde wins. And I hope that the rule disappears. To me, TTT riders should be able to do whatever they want as long as there's no outside interference.

Yes, that is my main point: I hope that Valverde overcomes this: I don't feel comfortable with the decision and the second decision: it smells like behind the scene intrigues, it smells like...well you know what.

It smells that the very first sanction was catastrophic, and it was. What was the point of sanctioning a behavior in a team event without sanctioning the team itself?

While the judges handled the incident poorly, they decided to take a better sanction.

 

[samhocking]

Rules from different race events/situations really can't be compared when they are not like-for-like incidents or even the same rules.

Froome's 'running' uphill falls under two relatively open rules.

2.2.029 Race Incidents rule allows comms to invoke it in the event of an accident or race incident. It's an open ended rule that can be used when the incident/accident influences the “normal conduct of a race”.

As for running uphill without a bike, it is allowed so long as the reason is not 'wilful deviation' to gain an advantage (cheat).
1.2.109 "You need to cover the course under your own steam and must cross the finish with your bike "
Rule 12.12.14 says "any attempt to be placed without having covered the entire course by bicycle" brings elimination from the race". But the spirit here is more about what the rule calls "wilful deviation" ie taking a short cut, car, train etc. Crashing into the back of a motorbike, breaking your frame, having no replacement bike to ride and jogging instead, is clearly not wilful deviation, when it's faster to ride up Ventoux than to crash on purpose and jog in cycling shoes instead.

By comparison Rojas/Movistar's applicable rule is not open ended and isn't open to any interpretation by race jury or allows any discretion, it's a very basic closed rule:

TTT
44. Pushing amongst riders of the same team
44.2 1’ penalty in stage classification for each rider in the team + 200 per rider involved

There's no room for even 'touching' a rider as Rojas says. Watching the re-run, Rojas is seen pushing a rider drifting back towards him, back into line in front of him and then Rojas accelerating to counteract the negative effect of him pushing that rider which slowed him down two times. If he had only touched the rider, he wouldn't have slowed down or needed to accelerate to close the gap himself to the rider he just 'touched'.

 

[movingtarget]

Re:

the truly question is: if anglo-saxon riders such as Tj and Dennis didn't start whining on Twitter, becoming suddenly polemical in social media, anything of this would have happen. That's the power of Twitter in the post-Truth era. In order to have certain power, the tuit must be in english (that's why I repeat the anglo-saxon thing)

The rules, the jury, oh, they reacted after that, and they ridiculously fall in the trap: we placate this criticism, we put some sanctions but not pennalise Valverde for the overall (until this solution is the trap as the book rules says).

The question is: the rules must be interpretated, not taken literally, one must know about cycling!!!! the pushes are not allowed to increase the pace or making a derny. Since Rojas touches more than pushes, in order not to collision, there is no gain!

If Tejay wins, there will be always a shadow on his victory. But I doubt he will maintain the lead

Oh please, the Anglo Saxon versus the rest nonsense has been active on this forum for years. Do you really think that Dennis and TJVG can bully the race organizers from Twitter ? Hardly high profile riders with a large fan base. it's the lack of consistency across the season that frustrates fans more than anything else. Why would a Spanish race with Spanish organizers do any favors for an American team ? If it was a Spanish team benefiting it would make more sense.

 

[Robert5091]

Can we not just agree that the judges f***d up and move on? Would n't be the first time ...
So who's for the win today? Down hill, no lumpy bits, mass sprint? :Question:

 

[Aguirre]

Re: Re:

the truly question is: if anglo-saxon riders such as Tj and Dennis didn't start whining on Twitter, becoming suddenly polemical in social media, anything of this would have happen. That's the power of Twitter in the post-Truth era. In order to have certain power, the tuit must be in english (that's why I repeat the anglo-saxon thing)

The rules, the jury, oh, they reacted after that, and they ridiculously fall in the trap: we placate this criticism, we put some sanctions but not pennalise Valverde for the overall (until this solution is the trap as the book rules says).

The question is: the rules must be interpretated, not taken literally, one must know about cycling!!!! the pushes are not allowed to increase the pace or making a derny. Since Rojas touches more than pushes, in order not to collision, there is no gain!

If Tejay wins, there will be always a shadow on his victory. But I doubt he will maintain the lead

Oh please, the Anglo Saxon versus the rest nonsense has been active on this forum for years. Do you really think that Dennis and TJVG can bully the race organizers from Twitter ? Hardly high profile riders with a large fan base. it's the lack of consistency across the season that frustrates fans more than anything else. Why would a Spanish race with Spanish organizers do any favors for an American team ? If it was a Spanish team benefiting it would make more sense.

The Jury are not spanish, its the UCI! It's not about to bully the organisers, it's about hegemony in world cycling.
And also about the way, in our days, forums such as this CN or Twitter can affect events in its highest spheres!!
We see in politics, better not to mention examples, do you think the whole social media buzz doesnt play a factor at all?
Anyway, and is true, the problem belongs to UCI, they must be strict, able to interpret law and not falling easily in
such spheres of influence such as Twitter. The problem is theirs. But they don't do their job well

Finishing with anglo-saxon riders and twitter: of course they get a huge fan base only by their language and position, also for riding at World Tour like Sky, BMC, Cannondale, Orica.

 

[SafeBet]

It's astonishing how a race that has produced zero entertainment thus far manages to fuel a 33 page discussion.
Let's keep it going!

 

[RedheadDane]

Oh... I dunno. I'd say it has created plenty of entertainment.

Problem is, it's been off the bikes...

 

[portugal11]

Re: Re:

OMG, when i came here, I was reading posts like "what a performance by valverde" and when i saw the highlights of the stage and saw a boring race with a uphill sprint, I was questioning myself what did valverde so special to someone say "what a performance"?
Valverde won like he wins (almost) all te races he make

Huh, probably its high time to accept that people are entitled to admire valverde spurting to the finish line as much as you admire your riders?

First of all, I prefer way more a exciting race than see my favourite riders win. And of course my favourite riders are guys like contador, sagan, etc who give us a lot of entertainment

Where did you see anybody talking about an exciting race? I think everybody recognises it was a boring stage. But you know what. It was riders like Contador, Froome, Thomas, Bardet, Zakarin, Majka, Kruijswijk, riders who had nothing to lose, those riders were the main reason the stage was boring. Not Valverde. Him, Martin and Yates, they only played to their strength. They were waiting in the bunch to launch their sprint and the challenge from the above mentioned riders never came. So blame them. They should've anticipated with an attack and should've tried to prevent the punchers. I don't by any means want to accuse Contador of being boring lol. Far from that. Everybody knows he is one of the most exciting riders around. But why does he usually attack so early on a climb? Because he knows if he waits there's a very high probability he's beaten. Why does Valverde wait? The same. Because he knows if he waits till the last 300m there's high probability he beats everybody. Does it make Bala less of a legend. No it doesn't. And he is a cycling legend (OK it depends how high your criteria is). Only insecure fans of his rivals would like to diminish his achievements and make fun of him. And I'm not writing this as his fanboy. Valverde, Contador, Froome are all on the same level for me. I like them all.

About the stage. It was a display of superiority from Don Alejandro on this kind of finishes. I hope he takes the race overall after the minute taken away yesterday. Although I wouldn't mind a crazy Contador attack (or from anybody else for that matter).

So you are tell me that contador,bardet,etc should be the guys to attack and valverde only has to sprint. But this is just ridiculous because by your logic if contador and others don't attack, valverde will not win volta a catalunya because his tactic is only "sprinting" and will not gain 45 seconds on TJ.
I don't understand why some valverde fans hate gerrans and when valverde wins by sprinting (99% of his wins) he is so praised. This is my point!

 

[rick james]

Re:

the truly question is: if anglo-saxon riders such as Tj and Dennis didn't start whining on Twitter, becoming suddenly polemical in social media, anything of this would have happen. That's the power of Twitter in the post-Truth era. In order to have certain power, the tuit must be in english (that's why I repeat the anglo-saxon thing)

The rules, the jury, oh, they reacted after that, and they ridiculously fall in the trap: we placate this criticism, we put some sanctions but not pennalise Valverde for the overall (until this solution is the trap as the book rules says).

The question is: the rules must be interpretated, not taken literally, one must know about cycling!!!! the pushes are not allowed to increase the pace or making a derny. Since Rojas touches more than pushes, in order not to collision, there is no gain!

If Tejay wins, there will be always a shadow on his victory. But I doubt he will maintain the lead

can't you drop this Anglo Saxon crap?

I doubt you even know who the Anglo Saxon people were!

 

[Alexandre B.]

Re:

It's astonishing how a race that has produced zero entertainment thus far manages to fuel a 33 page discussion.
Let's keep it going!

Let's push further.

 

[jflemaire]

Ouch.

OTL. Gabriel Machado (Bra) Soul Brasil Pro Cycling Team 0:39:10
OTL. Raphael Pires (Bra) Soul Brasil Pro Cycling Team 0:40:32
OTL. Flavio Cardoso (Bra) Soul Brasil Pro Cycling Team 0:41:09

 

[Poursuivant]

Stage starts at km 58 because of snow.

 

[portugal11]

I have the feeling we won't have the queen stage tomorrow

 

[Angliru]

Re:

I think the forum will crash if TJ wins this race. It will be like when Levi won in Suisse!!!

They will have to shut down the forum for 1 day!!

An unforgettably hilarious moment in cn forum history! Oh the memories!

 

[May0maniac]

The queenstage finishes 1000m above sea level, at least that's reasonable and not a hge risk for a stage race that takes place durning March.
Compared to La Molina and Port Ainé last year that's reasonable, finishing at almost 2000m of altitude in March is always a big amble and even the La Molina stage is rather risky.

 

[Escarabajo]

Re:

Ouch.

OTL. Gabriel Machado (Bra) Soul Brasil Pro Cycling Team 0:39:10
OTL. Raphael Pires (Bra) Soul Brasil Pro Cycling Team 0:40:32
OTL. Flavio Cardoso (Bra) Soul Brasil Pro Cycling Team 0:41:09

Did you see some of those riders? they look like club riders! do they have a rider of importance to get an invite here?

 

[GuyIncognito]

Re: Re:

Ouch.

OTL. Gabriel Machado (Bra) Soul Brasil Pro Cycling Team 0:39:10
OTL. Raphael Pires (Bra) Soul Brasil Pro Cycling Team 0:40:32
OTL. Flavio Cardoso (Bra) Soul Brasil Pro Cycling Team 0:41:09

Did you see some of those riders? they look like club riders! do they have a rider of importance to get an invite here?

They have three decent riders, perhaps not coincidentally the three foreigners in the squad. Only one is at the race, precisely the one who is Catalonian.

 

[May0maniac]

Re: Re:

Ouch.

OTL. Gabriel Machado (Bra) Soul Brasil Pro Cycling Team 0:39:10
OTL. Raphael Pires (Bra) Soul Brasil Pro Cycling Team 0:40:32
OTL. Flavio Cardoso (Bra) Soul Brasil Pro Cycling Team 0:41:09

Did you see some of those riders? they look like club riders! do they have a rider of importance to get an invite here?

They have three decent riders, perhaps not coincidentally the three foreigners in the squad. Only one is at the race, precisely the one who is Catalonian.

Godoy was a pretty decent U23 rider.
The whole team is a bit of a mess after the clinic issues that they had last year, anyone knows why Diniz is no longer a part of the team?

 

[Taxus4a]

Today very difficult stage for the wind, lot of people will lose lot of time

 

[LaFlorecita]

Re:

Today very difficult stage for the wind, lot of people will lose lot of time

Oh dear!

 

[Robert5091]

"Snowflakes!"

 

[rick james]

how bad was the snow?

 

[Robert5091]