Giro d'Italia 2023 Giro d'Italia, Stage 13: Borgofranco d’Ivrea – Crans Montana, 199 km (Friday, May 19th)

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Feb 20, 2012
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I mean in future. The sport is becoming more focussed on rider safety, even if there's a tug of war at the moment, and that's likely to continue. If top riders think they're going to be forced into constantly racing in conditions they deem dangerous, they're going to stop turning up. Without those riders, and maybe their teams, I don't think the Giro would survive.

And clearly there is inbetween ground between 'we don't care if you get hurt/sick' and 'you get to choose if you want to race what we design' that needs to be found, and I think being proactive and cutting the bits people don't care about would be preferable to what's happening now where a raceable stage is chopped because riders are fed up.
They compromised on avoiding rain and riding the dangerous descent anyway.

"Rider safety" is always a convenient excuse to avoid racing the parts you don't wanna race. As a general rule, hard mountain stages favor only a small minority of teams, so a majority will always want to skip it.

I have 0 sympathy for "rider safety" concerns, when they always happen on the morning of or after a stage and when we're still calling every big crash induced by stupid, dangerous behavior a "racing incident"
 
Jul 25, 2012
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They compromised on avoiding rain and riding the dangerous descent anyway.

"Rider safety" is always a convenient excuse to avoid racing the parts you don't wanna race. As a general rule, hard mountain stages favor only a small minority of teams, so a majority will always want to skip it.

I have 0 sympathy for "rider safety" concerns, when they always happen on the morning of or after a stage and when we're still calling every big crash induced by stupid, dangerous behavior a "racing incident"
If they hadn't had the long days in terrible weather (which is the reason they're giving I believe) there wouldn't be an argument for them to skip it. Again, there's a clear middle ground to be found and sacrificing the boring stuff so this doesn't happen would seem a sensible thing to try.

Or they can just continue like this and we'll have the same conversations over and over again.
 
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Jul 13, 2012
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Caruso was in favour of doing the stage as originally planned. Please, higher forces, I beg you, let him win this race.
Interesting the amount of riders saying they should have raced. Wonder is it just a PR thing where they'll all individually say they wanted to race just to avoid blowback
 
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Jun 20, 2015
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The bigger picture is the poor course design of the Giro - Italy has the terrain where you can have a balanced route throughout the 21 stages, instead of back-loading the route and trying to have monster stages - There is no reason why you can not have 2 high mountain stages in week one and week 2 and two or three in week three - The reality is that it's in stage 13 that we have the first high mountain stage - The whole design has been a joke - Weekend which should have exciting stages had 2 ITT's and flat type stages
 
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May 27, 2022
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This is a myth. People thinks we get colds from being cold but that's not true. It's not enough cold to be dangerous. If it was like 10 minus celcius than I'd agree with you lol. They will get more sore throats from the cold and hard breathing but that's not immune systems at work!
They should just've masked up indoors and done it well and those viruses would be less threatening. The heat of the vuelta is much much more dangerous to riders. Apart from injuries from falling due to inability to ride!

Again nothing to do with immune systems.
I'm also talking about all the spray off the road ect. I would also argue that 'making up' and all these procedures don't stop the spread of viruses. It's been fully proven that masks had little to no effect on stopping the spread of Covid. This not me being a 'conspiracy theorist' btw, heck it used to say on pagaging of masks that they don't stop the spread of viruses.
I don't want to get into this too much, but just trying to have a reasoned discussion if that makes sense
 
Jun 30, 2022
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Did you guys know that half of marathon runners would get a better result if the race was shortened to 100 m on the morning of the race? Now imagine putting in more competitors who are not competing for a result on the day and only want to get it over with and you have a cycling peloton.
 
Jul 27, 2009
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They compromised on avoiding rain and riding the dangerous descent anyway.

"Rider safety" is always a convenient excuse to avoid racing the parts you don't wanna race. As a general rule, hard mountain stages favor only a small minority of teams, so a majority will always want to skip it.

I have 0 sympathy for "rider safety" concerns, when they always happen on the morning of or after a stage and when we're still calling every big crash induced by stupid, dangerous behavior a "racing incident"
It's just unfair and ain't got nothing to do with safety.

Bardet could've placed a bid for a podium spot at the 2021 Giro d'Italia (wouldn't have materialized but still) on a Dolomites stage that would have seen Yates being completely out of contention.

They are denying riders to take advantage of their strengths.
 
Apr 13, 2021
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Yesterday there was an article on the matter on a Spanish web site headlined as "Adam Hansen and the dangers of cycling in a bubble"
It starts with "I dont know if Adam Hansen will read this..."
The man himself took his time to reply:

While I can see where Hansen is coming from, most of his response is attacking a straw man. He is not disputing the points that most fans are actually complaining about.
 
Jun 20, 2015
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It's about time race organisers are proactive when the weather is like this and cut down the boring transition stages, rather than letting things get to the point where riders are refusing to ride just as the interesting stages start.

Exactly - The Giro could do much better transitional stages with the available terrain - We don't need 220 flat stages which add little to the race - Have these stages 180kms and they will be ridden harder.
 
Aug 9, 2021
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I'm also talking about all the spray off the road ect. I would also argue that 'making up' and all these procedures don't stop the spread of viruses. It's been fully proven that masks had little to no effect on stopping the spread of Covid. This not me being a 'conspiracy theorist' btw, heck it used to say on pagaging of masks that they don't stop the spread of viruses.
I don't want to get into this too much, but just trying to have a reasoned discussion if that makes sense
I won't agree with you on this topic but let's just move to a cafe covid thread with that disucussion <3 :)
Today though the riders changing this stage means I will not be able to watch it as I'm going to a party. Crap! :tearsofjoy:
 
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Sep 4, 2017
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This is absurd. A shortening of the stage by chopping the first 40km of gentle flat would have actually improved the stage and I actually like the idea of a genuine pre-planned short mountain stage as long as here is very little valley flat roads in between the climbs.

This new route is a ludicrous decision and every rider that voted for it should be ashamed of themselves. If they don’t want to race when things are merely unpleasant rather than highly dangerous then DNF and go home. After all TGH crashed out on an innocuous corner and yesterday was a crash on a flat wide road at the feed zone. Danger is always present in the peloton.

Vegni needs to resign.
 
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Apr 26, 2023
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I'm sure the helicopter was arranged by the organisers for SQS before the race. Lefevere said before the Giro that they would get better hotels and things like that. RCS lured Remco here with extra money. Not surprisingly, they were angry when he left.
The helicopter was offered to all teams, but they had to pay for it. Two other team used it, one was Barhain, the other one i dont'remember. Now i do not know if SQS had maybe a discount or if it was totally free for them, or if they had to pay full price.