• The Cycling News forum is looking to add some volunteer moderators with Red Rick's recent retirement. If you're interested in helping keep our discussions on track, send a direct message to @SHaines here on the forum, or use the Contact Us form to message the Community Team.

    In the meanwhile, please use the Report option if you see a post that doesn't fit within the forum rules.

    Thanks!

Giro d'Italia 2021 Giro d'Italia, Stage 2: Stupinigi - Novara 179km

Page 7 - Get up to date with the latest news, scores & standings from the Cycling News Community.

Which sprinter will start off his Giro the best?

  • Caleb Ewan

    Votes: 35 43.8%
  • Tim Merlier

    Votes: 19 23.8%
  • Dylan Groenewegen

    Votes: 10 12.5%
  • Peter Sagan

    Votes: 3 3.8%
  • Elia Viviani

    Votes: 2 2.5%
  • Fernando Gaviria

    Votes: 1 1.3%
  • Giacomo Nizzolo

    Votes: 6 7.5%
  • David Dekker

    Votes: 2 2.5%
  • Matteo Moschetti

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • None of the above

    Votes: 2 2.5%

  • Total voters
    80
  • Poll closed .
UCI with all their *** safety rules should have made a rule that allows GC riders to drop off at the 3k mark without time loss.

There were far fewer crashes when the rule was no time loss only within the final 1k. Only big one I can remember was stage 1 of the 2003 TDF.

Didn't see these 3km flat out sprint trains. They usually didn't get started until only 1km to go, which resulted in much less time to crash
 
Brian Smith made a reasonable point just now, saying that they should take the stage time at 3km to go as the GC teams are paranoid about splits emerging and then let the sprint teams fight it out

I bet quite a few sprinters would hope the GC standings & particularly the stage time (& cut time) are frozen before a climb finish, i.e. quite a few sprinters are themselves paranoid about missing the cut in the mountain stages.

I half jest because staying on the bike, having a team to protect the leader & surviving nervous, chaotic sprint stage finishes is part of the game. I think it would show favoritism to climbers & undermine the purity of sprinting (& its dangers) as an integral part of a cycling stage race.
 
  • Like
Reactions: jmdirt
More than that it would undermine the integrity of racing in general to take times before the finish line, except under exceptional circumstances imo.

It happened in the Vuelta last year on a stage with really bad weather & the final 3km were on a twisty, dangerous wet sprint road. So they froze the GC standings at the 3km point.

So that scenario should only be "exceptional circumstances". Because otherwise they'd remove all sporting purpose of stages like today's Giro stage altogether if they froze the times, i.e. a procession without risk for the GC all the way through would be unbearable.
 
  • Like
Reactions: jmdirt and spalco
In competition things like that would be better solved with some sort of honor code. Unless the teams and cyclists themselves enforce that GC riders stay back there will always be an incentive to try an be at the front because you might get shafted if others do it and you don't. In essence it has to be seen as not done by the cyclists themselves and its difficult to build up such a culture. Think this was more of a thing in previous eras were the peloton had more implicit rules and leaders.

But as said, a hard rule could very well be deemed to undermine integrity and/or cyclists would still be incentivized to get the most out of what the new rule still allows.

Perhaps, if Evenepoel turns out to be a fantastic GC rider, we might see teams like QS contribute to such a culture but then again they might become a new Sky as well.
 
Disagree. Molano deliberately fell back where he knew sprinters would be coming; if he wanted to not being in the way, he should have gone to the other side of the road.

Yeah, steering into the middle where everyone else where going would have been very safe.

There wasnt any space and Gaviria took a gamble. That it was his teammate was just a coincidence. He dropped back very normally, like one does.

And if sprinters is supposed to come that close to the barrier kind of says it all.
 
  • Like
Reactions: DaLong
tMsY5DS.png


The three other leadout riders dropped back to their left, Molano had space to move wherever he wanted to, and as the road was turning right, you'd expect all sprinters to stay in the right side of the road.
 
Molano stops (or comes close to) pedalling before Merlier launches his sprint. He decided to drop back to his right before he looks over his shoulder.

As such, he is either willingly or unwillingly (but predictably, given the path of the road) obstructing others' sprint.
 
Probably both right, he dropped back to a weird spot but Gaviria chose the wrong lane even if it’s in hindsight. Needless to say it doesn’t matter because Merlier wasn’t going to be caught especially from that far back...no one was really gaining on him.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Salvarani

TRENDING THREADS