86th Tour de Suisse (2.UWT) // June 11th - 18th 2023

[peterfin]

Maybe we see at some point electric bikes with regenerating breaking features so the downhill speed can be limited. The battery charge can be used as booster mode on the flat parts in specific zones like in Formula E. Could be fun. Anyone joins me in starting the e-bike cycling sport?

 

[Elos Anjos]

In other news, a gladiator from Rome says its deadly to fight with real weapons in a duel in the colosseum.

Bottom line is that cycling is a dangerous sport. Somewhere along a descent riders have to decide if they want to keep up and take risks or brake and loose time. Like someone said, descendts are not dangerous, it's the way they are riden that is. That's why banning super tuck was in my view condescending and ultimately censored a skill set that some riders have and others don't. Ban every descent because of a fall, no matter how tragic, and soon you will have a slippery slope towards Zwift, a pure w/kg contest or very conservative route designs.

All my good hopes are with Gino.

 

[KZD]

I agree that this descent is not what is generally considered dangerous. It's wide, with good pavement and without a lot of tecnical corners, except for the hairpins. However, i'm starting to thinck that this kind are as dangerous, if not more, than the really twisty one. I think it's a combination of rider beeing willing to take more risks if they fill the downhill is less dangerous and the consegueces of the crashes beeing more severe due to the high speed. Of course tecnical descends on narrow road can cause a lot of crashes, like the one from Colma di Sormano, but at the same time downhill like those always stir up some controversies, while, if todays crashes were not to happen, i doubt someone would have brought up the feasability of the Albula descent in a race.

While I still think its more likely crashes to happen in the technical narrow road descents, even if they are perceived as dangerous prior to the race, the consequences of the crashes should be worst in the wide road mountain passes like this one. However, in my opinion. these kind of descents belong in races including as stage finishes because descending is part of the sport as the riders that are better at it should be rewarded.

It was a beautiful day of racing in the Swiss mountains, just hope that it doesn't get remembered by the worst possible reason.

 

[staubsauger]

This is the classic queen stage of the Tour de Suisse. Including the descent. It was done in 1995 by Zülle & Tonkov without a helmet.

Mäder must have fallen extremely unlucky at precisely that point and specifically down the ravine into that creek.

I don't think it's the descent being utterly dangerous, but rather him unfortunately falling right into the creek which caused this tragedy!

That said I remember Mäder descending at the 2021 Tour de Suisse. Both at the TT and the queen stage. I hate to say it, but he's prone to take too many risks.

We saw how Ayuso sped down there. So with too much speed or a wrong line taken, you simply fly out of the corner probably. Even though it's not necessarily sharp. It's the ravine that's dangerous of course.

Let's just hope and pray it's not as evil as it sounded. Lying unconscious in a creek just sounds horrible. Hopefully he didn't hit stones. That's what worries me the most about his condition, frankly!

 

[Tim Cahill]

Just saw that the climb record was held by Koldo Gil, a name I haven't heard or thought about in years. Bit of an Iberian Spilak for the warm weather, only ever finished one GT (Vuelta, finishing 61st).

No idea where he vanished to or why nobody signed him as I wasn't really paying as much attention back then, but he beat a doped to the gills Jan and Jaksche that day so I assume he was flying!

 

[Ricco']

Since I've seen Sheffield with a Ineos staff member, and a picture with the Ineos and Bahrain team cars parked in the exit of the turn, I wonder if the apparatus of the Sheffield crash might have had some influence in the other crashes that happened.

Doing a fast descent in high stress levels and suddenly, in a blind corner, seeing a Ineos/organization car or bike parked in the middle of corner, is sufficient to put someone in panic mode and mess up the line.

 

[Ricco']

Just saw that the climb record was held by Koldo Gil, a name I haven't heard or thought about in years. Bit of an Iberian Spilak for the warm weather, only ever finished one GT (Vuelta, finishing 61st).

No idea where he vanished to or why nobody signed him as I wasn't really paying as much attention back then, but he beat a doped to the gills Jan and Jaksche that day so I assume he was flying!

He was one of the Puerto guys. As far as I rememberz after his suspension he came to Portugal to finish his career (same as Eladio Jimenez, Isidro Nozal, Paco Mancebo - well, at this rate Mancebo will have passed through Portugal in the first half of his career, etc.)

 

[Samu Cuenca]

Was Mäder on his own when he crashed or was he with/following other riders?

https://twitter.com/x/status/1669441481872900096

View: https://twitter.com/INEOSGrenadiers/status/1669441481872900096

 

[Devil's Elbow]

That's a fair point, but it does show that not only Evenepoel who is now getting called out by many here and elsewhere, and who also saw the crash or at least the immediate effect as he was only 7s behind Sheffield over the top of the climb, is now voicing the exact same concerns. Regardless whether those concerns are only a result of seeing an other rider crash, or because the descent is actually dangerous. You do have to note that both riders in different groups crashed at the exact same point in the descent.

To those who say he only does so because he can't descend and is saying this just out of opportunism, i'd like to point out he only lost 8s in the descent to Ayuso who was "flying".

Do you have a quote where anyone else says the descent should not have been included in the race? If so, perfectly happy to call out other riders too (I stand by what I said earlier about the descent not being excessively dangerous), but I haven't seen any.

I know you aren't calling me out specifically here, but I also said upthread that Ayuso made a lot of mistakes on the descent too, there's a reason the Skjelmose group clawed back a few seconds there. I wasn't one of the people claiming Evenepoel said what he said because he's a subpar descender either. Don't think it's that relevant to the safety of the descent, in any case.

 

[Logic-is-your-friend]

Do you have a quote where anyone else says the descent should not have been included in the race? If so, perfectly happy to call out other riders too (I stand by what I said earlier about the descent not being excessively dangerous), but I haven't seen any.

I know you aren't calling me out specifically here, but I also said upthread that Ayuso made a lot of mistakes on the descent too, there's a reason the Skjelmose group clawed back a few seconds there. I wasn't one of the people claiming Evenepoel said what he said because he's a subpar descender either. Don't think it's that relevant to the safety of the descent, in any case.

Like i said, and some posters upthread said Gall or Skjelmose said something about the descent being dangerous iirc, but i did not see or read that myself. Bardet didn't say the descent should have been cancelled, just that he was scared... So i would think if he had a choice he would also have prefered not to have done it.

In any case, the descent only made for few seconds in differences. Evenepoel lost 8 seconds to Ayuso, who only lost 11 seconds to the Skjelmose group. When you slow down/break too hard or too often in a high speed descent, differences would be a lot bigger.

The thing is that he wasn't the only one who felt that way about the descent, and 2 different riders crashing at the same spot at different times might show maybe there was something to be said about it. Mäder wasn't even in the GC anymore so there was no reason for him to take risks. And i'm sure it's easy from our couch or behind our laptop to declare the roads safe.

 

[HelloDolly]

I hope Gino Mader is ok and recovers well

The descent today has been used several times in the Tour de Suisse ands is not particularly dangerous esp in comparison to other descents.

I remember in 2013 an inflatable blew down on the descent and caused havoc and yet not one rider complained about the dangerous descent. Also Pinot went down it quite fast well before his down mountain training

Seems some riders want to complain all the time now. Because Mader had a bad crash it doesn't necessarily make it a very dangerous descent . Most of the bad crashes can be in innocuous descents ...Andy Schleck comes to mind
FFS do rider (well some ) want to not descend at all now
Its part of racing ...There are descents that are worse with sheer drops

 

[CTQ]

Since I've seen Sheffield with a Ineos staff member, and a picture with the Ineos and Bahrain team cars parked in the exit of the turn, I wonder if the apparatus of the Sheffield crash might have had some influence in the other crashes that happened.

Doing a fast descent in high stress levels and suddenly, in a blind corner, seeing a Ineos/organization car or bike parked in the middle of corner, is sufficient to put someone in panic mode and mess up the line.

They were in the same group.......

 

[Ricco']

They were in the same group.......

No, they weren't. Mäder was dropped with 15.4 km to go, so he must have lost at least 1 or 2 minutes to the Sheffield group between there and the top.

Apart from Tiberi who was in the break, the Bahrain that crossed the top of Albulapass with the favourites was Bilbao

 

[zlev11]

since Mader was so far behind Sheffield at the top of the climb, Sheffield obviously crashed way before Mader did. maybe there was some vehicle stopped or something else that distracted Mader while Sheffield was being attended to? it's very strange since I can't see why Mader would have even been taking any risks on the descent in the first place.

 

[Devil's Elbow]

since Mader was so far behind Sheffield at the top of the climb, Sheffield obviously crashed way before Mader did. maybe there was some vehicle stopped or something else that distracted Mader while Sheffield was being attended to? it's very strange since I can't see why Mader would have even been taking any risks on the descent in the first place.

There was a really long stretch without any real curves into that corner, so Mäder would have picked up quite a lot of speed even without taking risks. And then, if you aren’t completely focused (which you are more likely not to be when you aren’t taking risks and aren’t really racing for anything anymore), it’s not hard to see how you could get surprised by a curve. It’s not the kind of thing that happens often, but when you have hundreds of curves like this in a season, you have tens of thousands of instances where a rider goes through a curve like this in a single season. The odds of any individual rider in any individual one of these corners not taking risks but going down anyway are very low, but over an entire season the statistics say it’s bound to happen every now and again as long as the chances are over one in 10000. And then, over a series of seasons, one of those crashes is going to be really really bad at some point. For reference, 1 in 10000 is also the approximate chance of being injured while using a toilet according to the CDC. In other words, it’s sadly impossible to eliminate this kind of crash.

Or another way to put it: Mäder had just about the worst luck possible. Even disregarding the above - what are the chances you fall down a 5 metre wide structure that's literally the only vertical drop between the road and the valley floor at any point within 200 metres of that curve?

 

[senna6541]

Isn't this race famous for it's insanely fast descents - smooth, well-designed roads? Just not much room for error/mechs when doing 70mph+ in your underwear. Seems like WT level pro cycling is just flat out dangerous, cutthroat and unhealthy. But so are a lot of the best things in life...

You don't concentrate on risks. You concentrate on results. No risk is too great to prevent the necessary job from getting done.

Chuck Yeager

 

[Devil's Elbow]

In other news, the landslide warning at the bottom of the Albulapass (the side they climbed today and were going to descend tomorrow) has gone from red to blue so it seems they'll have to go for a plan B tomorrow. In addition, the second climb is closed too. Will be a very long detour to what was already a 215k stage if the stage start stays in La Punt.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1669462444148752385

Edit: they can hopefully go via the Flüelapass, that adds only ~14k to the stage. That's the only good alternative because the Julierpass route is another 20k on top of that and I don't see a 250k stage happening. So there should theoretically be no need to move the start, especially because they knew a plan B was necessary a while ago already.

 

[Logic-is-your-friend]

They were in the same group.......

Who were? Sheffield and Mäder? No they weren't. Tiberi was in the break, and Bilbao was with Sheffield, Gall and Skjelmose. Those were the two Bahrein riders that were in the front of the race. To my knowledge there were no other Bahrein riders there so Mäder wasn't.

No, they weren't. Mäder was dropped with 15.4 km to go, so he must have lost at least 1 or 2 minutes to the Sheffield group between there and the top.

Apart from Tiberi who was in the break, the Bahrain that crossed the top of Albulapass with the favourites was Bilbao

Sorry... missed your post.

 

[jaylew]

In any case, the descent only made for few seconds in differences. Evenepoel lost 8 seconds to Ayuso, who only lost 11 seconds to the Skjelmose group.

Is that from the start of the descent all the way to the finish? If so, you'd have to adjust for the difference between Remco, and in particular the Skjemose group sprinting all out to the line and Ayuso sitting up and coasting in.

 

[jonas334455]

In other news, the landslide warning at the bottom of the Albulapass (the side they climbed today and were going to descend tomorrow) has gone from red to blue so it seems they'll have to go for a plan B tomorrow. In addition, the second climb is closed too. Will be a very long detour to what was already a 215k stage if the stage start stays in La Punt.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1669462444148752385

Edit: they can hopefully go via the Flüelapass, that adds only ~14k to the stage. That's the only good alternative because the Julierpass route is another 20k on top of that and I don't see a 250k stage happening. So there should theoretically be no need to move the start, especially because they knew a plan B was necessary a while ago already.

Start very probably in Chur.

TdS-Boss Senn said that Mäder and Sheffield probably crashed together which is unlikely to me. Police was there to check the scene which means a) such stuff will be evaluated and b) it's pretty serious.

 

[jmdirt]

As somebody commented above, it's a blind corner taken at high speed with an early apex, so a rider has little opportunity to change the trajectory of their exit at the last moment, and there is a drop to a ravine out of the corner, without barriers.

In my opinion its dangerous. Whether corners like that are too dangerous to use in races at all, is difficul to say, but in my opinion probably.

There was definitely also rider error involved, but riders are bound to make errors occasionally, and in a corner like that a guy who doesn't know the road can quite easily make an error that has the worst possible consequences, and its not their fault.

Yes. That's a tough apex with a really close/open edge into another apex turn (chicaneish).

 

[Nick2413]

The fact that it’s been around 12 hours and we still know basically nothing other than that he’s in critical condition isn’t great. Hopefully in the AM in Europe they’ll have good news.

 

[Logic-is-your-friend]

Is that from the start of the descent all the way to the finish? If so, you'd have to adjust for the difference between Remco, and in particular the Skjemose group sprinting all out to the line and Ayuso sitting up and coasting in.

I took the climbing time differences at the top of the climb (according to Amitipolarity or whatshisname) assuming the riders i mentioned started the climb together, and used them to calculate the differences with the times at the finish.
When Ayuso was at 3.2k from the finish, the difference between the Kelderman group and the Skjelmose group was less than 4 seconds, and the difference down to the Evenepoel group was only 12 seconds, you could see a fixed camera's footage at a chicane when they all passed by. You can subtract a few seconds from Almeida's time if you want. It's not going to make a real impact on the overall dynamics.

The fact that it’s been around 12 hours and we still know basically nothing other than that he’s in critical condition isn’t great. Hopefully in the AM in Europe they’ll have good news.

Look, i'll take it. In Jakobsen's case the news wasn't any better at this point. In Lambrecht's case, the news came 60 years too early.

 

[Nick2413]

The majority of resources are generally devoted to reducing crashes in less critical settings where broken bones and flesh wound are the main concern. That’s great and the several people they had flagging down a train track crossing the other day was great, but if they could put a few more people on the high mountain descents that are wide open like this, or even more signs, I think that would make a huge difference. This is all low statistical probability of a crash, but better placed resources could make a big difference. Maybe also have some mandatory race briefings, not that that will be top of mind in the heat of the moment, but there are options. Overall it’s part of bike racing and with proper precautions can be handled reasonably.

 

[jmdirt]

I was just watching the race recap, and something occurred to me: is the brake lever placement/angle that many of these guys are using now affecting how quickly they can brake? Disclaimer, I don't remember if Gino or Magnus use this 'new fit'.