Armstrong takes money then spits in the face of the Giro !

[BroDeal]

Can you imagine if they tried to hold a stage like the 1988 Gavia one? Half the peloton would refuse to race for fear they might get the sniffles.

 

[Anonymous]

Third, take a look at this pic:
http://www.pezcyclingnews.com/photos/races09/giro09/giro09st09ed-tracks.jpg

I would not want to be racing that, especially with a possibility of rain in the forecast.

sums it up, two different road surfaces,white lines, no barriers, tramlines, go twenty yards down the road and theres lampposts with no protection, then the back of a car..

one rider goes off in that, into the crowd, and weve got a major incident...

idiotic from start to finish...

gotta say. theres been enough to keep us talking for months, and its only the first week.. it already feels like the longest giro in history..

 

[Bala Verde]

Can you imagine if they tried to hold a stage like the 1988 Gavia one? Half the peloton would refuse to race for fear they might get the sniffles.

Zomegnan would have tried to reconcile the riders by passing out good old woolen scarves...

 

[Escarabajo]

Mario Cipollini's take:
“Milan doesn’t deserve this treatment,” he said. “I don’t understand or share the riders’ decision. If you’re racing on a bicycle you take risks, and whoever does this job knows that.”

And the Emperor said: "Bring the lions out. What? there are no lions to eat the Christians?, but Rome does not deserve this treatment".

 

[BikeCentric]

LOL at Di Luca's response to Cipo, them's fightin' words!

“It’s not very smart for Cipollini to complain,” Di Luca responded, “because he was the first to complain if the stage began with a climb – maybe he’s forgotten what it’s like to be a rider.”

 

[krebs303]

Three riders - Francesco Reda, Markus Fothen and Serafin Martinez Acevedo - fell during the first lap and riders started yelling about the danger. A few laps later, the peleton came to a stop and Di Luca made an announcement to fans with a microphone.

 

[Bala Verde]

ok.. it's a circut.

No, it is/was a criterium The problem is that some of the americans here believe, mistakingly and possibly induced by ignorance or naivete, perhaps even because there is no 'hors d'Etats Unis', the historical roots, in this particular case of cycling, are to be found in the US, and therefore apply a somewhat misguided definition of a criterium, perceived as a 1-mile lap around a block...

 

[BikeCentric]

No, it is/was a criterium The problem is that some of the americans here believe, mistakingly and possibly induced by ignorance or naivete, perhaps even because there is no 'hors d'Etats Unis', the historical roots, in this particular case of cycling, are to be found in the US, and therefore apply a somewhat misguided definition of a criterium, perceived as a 1-mile lap around a block...

Alright alright - that's the US definition yes. The circuit was more like a Belgian Kermis you are correct in that.

 

[Bala Verde]

Alright alright - that's the US definition yes. The circuit was more like a Belgian Kermis you are correct in that.

Just trying to live up to my self-proclaimed role of agitator, amongst forum members complaining or defending the decision of pro riders to halt a race

 

[Anonymous]

LOL at Di Luca's response to Cipo, them's fightin' words!

“It’s not very smart for Cipollini to complain,” Di Luca responded, “because he was the first to complain if the stage began with a climb – maybe he’s forgotten what it’s like to be a rider.”

oh i remember him.. lanky bloke, used to wear yellow shirt, shorts, socks, pants and ride a yellow bike.. used to get off at the bottom of hills and get a taxi home early july..

in the end, the title of this thread is "lance takes money and then spits in the face of the giro".. that in itself is a load of BS...

for a week, at every opportunity the italian producers have been showing lance on tv instead of the race, the press have been more interested in what bog roll lance uses, than who is in pink.. so needless to say when something like this happens, the press are all asking.. "what did lance think" "whos side was lance on".. but lets get real, you can blame him for a lot, but we cant blame yesterday on lance, or at least solely on lance, and the attention grabbing headline for this thread smells of tabliod trash journalism.. (although seeing who started it, why doesnt it surprise me)..

in the end dangerous or not (and it was, and we are not just talking about the security of the fans, or the welfare of the riders from accidents, what was to stop a nutter with a knife stepping out at a rider, a complete lack of security anywhere, any terrorists would have had a field day..) it was a decision the riders made, NOT lance.. its done now anyway..

like i say.. one week in and already it feels like the longest giro in history.. its certainly entertaining..

 

[Anonymous]

Alright alright - that's the US definition yes. The circuit was more like a Belgian Kermis you are correct in that.

in the uk "generally" crits are 1k-2k as well, but i certainly think "crit style" would be a fair description.. it doesnt really matter anyway.. it was a circuit race with adequate protection for riders or fans.. end of...

Three riders - Francesco Reda, Markus Fothen and Serafin Martinez Acevedo - fell during the first lap and riders started yelling about the danger. A few laps later, the peleton came to a stop and Di Luca made an announcement to fans with a microphone.

where did i read that 15 riders broke wheels on lap one.. or was that on this thread...?

 

[trailrunner]

Second, field size doesn't matter a lick, it's how the field races the course.

Of course field size matters. Why do you think cat 5 races limited to 50 riders?

If these guys really thought the course was dangerous than the strong teams should have been at the front stringing the race out into a straight line for all the finishing circuits.

It's not exactly easy to simply string the race out in a straight line when you have the caliber of teams in a GT. What do you think -- that Columbia simply has to say, let's string it out for 150k, and the other teams will just roll over and let them?

 

[slowoldman]

Oh please, you can see in my response I specifically said string it out for the finishing circuits only.

As far as I recall, this was just a circuit race, all the racing that was done yesterday was around this circuit. So the ebb and flow of the race would have caused carnage on a course such as this.

 

[idle eric]

Crazty Giro

In fairness lancalot has attracted huge crowds--We arrived in Milano on sat ready for the circus and were duely rewarded with good cafes-- plenty of talent and warm weather -- --who cares what his motives are --he is born again and preaching his word via twitter --if he wins I will burn my F1 shorts and stick my swiss army knife in my new cuckoo clock--no hiding tomorrow the roads are tough --da lucy lost it yesterday -- pity as pink suits him--his strenght has gone -- his will is in the till --his plums are prunes--ciao

 

[trailrunner]

This wasn't a crit though Jack - it was a finishing CIRCUIT. A crit is classified as a course that is typically less than one mile in distance - we're talking a very short course. This circuit was nothing close to a US style crit.

Technically you're correct, but the stage still had a major characteristic of crits: lots of turns -- 25 in a 15km lap. That's a lot more twisty than many of the official crits I've done. Nobody is calling that stage officially a crit, but it had many of the dangerous features of crits.

Anyway, in crits most crashes happen towards the end of a race when the field bunches up as no one wants to lead out the sprint and then you have tons of guys fighting for a placing in a big pack scrum. This doesn't happen in the upper categories (especially pros) as teams are keen to keep the field strung out to keep the weak stuck on the back of the line and of course lead out their sprinter.

Not sure I agree with this. I saw plenty of crashes happen in mid-race when everyone is bunched up and somebody did something stupid. But I don't remember that many crashes during the finishing sprint -- most amateurs are too pooped at the end to do anything meaningful, including crash, and the field usually gets pretty strung out as the stronger riders break it up. But there are plenty of pro crashes at the finishing sprints as riders (and their leadout trains) fight for position and their glory.

 

[quadsRme]

what a pile of crap.. lance on his own, does no cause the riders to all say they think the stage is unsafe.. more a case of the press asked the riders what lance thought of the whole thing because they cannot live without there daily fix of lance...

complete pile of nonsense.. just another excuse for the lance bashers...

personally i think the course was idiotic.. having been to paris four times and seen the organisation there where you cant even cross the road at 7am before being stopped by police and everything is proffessionally done, the course in milan was a fiasco.. ignore the dodgy corners with tramlines, there where pedestrians freely wandering with virtually no police or stewards, there where cars driving around, it was a mess..

but.. the riders that made a mockery of the whole thing, where the riders who chose to race over the last 15km.. they where the ones who made it look like the rest of the pelaton where being idiots..

on this one i think either, the whole pelaton should have raced together, or the whole pelaton gone on a gentle ride together.. to ride for most of the race, and race for 15k is what made a mockery..

I do think the levels of safety on this giro have been pretty poor.. unmarked street furniture, bollards with no police with flags on them, some horrendous streets, poor downhills and milan was just the culmination...

give the french the credit.. there is reason the tour is the greatest race in the world..

+1 Dim I agree with you, as I stated before, the riders need to stick together and be united when a situation like this arises, which doesn't very often.
You don't see this kind of stuff at the TDF and they don't chorten stages ,etc. a day or two before the tour starts either.

 

[Anonymous]

Can you imagine if they tried to hold a stage like the 1988 Gavia one? Half the peloton would refuse to race for fear they might get the sniffles.

tell me bro.. what puts you in a position to have any credibility on the issue of the courage of these men?

 

[Anonymous]

I hope he doesn't decide to try the Paris-Roubaix next year.

isn't that exactly the point? if you ride paris-roubaix you know exactly what you are in for.
in the grand tours the riders get stuck with whatever the organizers throw at them.
the riders have pushed back.
it's simply a labor management dispute and i think in that context it's not that big of a deal.
i think they made their point.
they will get back to racing.

 

[Anonymous]

isn't that exactly the point? if you ride paris-roubaix you know exactly what you are in for.
in the grand tours the riders get stuck with whatever the organizers throw at them.
the riders have pushed back.
it's simply a labor management dispute and i think in that context it's not that big of a deal.
i think they made their point.
they will get back to racing.

you also go to PR with a bike designed for the course...

yesterdays stage would have involved trials bikes, crash helmets and body armour..

 

[Parrot23]

Armstrong's comments on yesterday (video)

These seem perfectly reasonable to me. Premise is that the riders are getting kicked around a little too much, and don't have fully independent, strong representation.

His LiveStrong video explanation is on Chris Horner's blog site:

http://blog.oregonlive.com/horner/

 

[BikeCentric]

Here's a roundup of quotes on the incident from ProCycling mag:

http://www.bikeradar.com/blogs/article/the-giros-milanese-farce-who-was-to-blame--21659

 

[Anonymous]

These seem perfectly reasonable to me. Premise is that the riders are getting kicked around a little too much, and don't have fully independent, strong representation.

His LiveStrong video explanation is on Chris Horner's blog site:

http://blog.oregonlive.com/horner/

pretty valid interview..

i think what we all need to bear in mind is fridays events.. if somebody we work with had come very close to death.. it would put the wind up us all.. yes they are pros, but they do get scared, or have emotions the same as the rest of us

 

[Parrot23]

It's a minor miracle Horillo is even alive, or not a quadriplegic with a broken back etc. and drinking out of a straw for the rest of his life, paralyzed like the former actor, Christoper Reeve.

These guys aren't supermen or a circus act for our amusement. So, yes, the context matters for them, re Horillo, etc.

 

[franciep10]

I think this is quite obvious the riders frankly knew that the stage was a disater waiting to happen, imagine if most of the GC contenders crashed out of the stage then what would people say well it needs to change then zomengan would say that the race should not have been run in these conditions, and we would've been livid that the top riders got taken out. As for Lance Armstrong of course he's going to complain he's a 37 year old pre madonna he's gonna get scared, but I wouldn't but the blame solely on him. and I agree with dim this is why the tour is the best because they care about the riders safety and comfort.

 

[ElChingon]

Well almost every year at the Tour some GC contender(s) goes down and out of contention if not getting caught behind a crash and loses time due to delays. Now the final 1K buffer zone has been increased to 3K? (accident in that zone to have same time as finisher) What next buffer it out to 50K?

Crud happens and that is part of the whole drama of grand tour racing. If you can't live with it then become a one day racer. There are many one day races and if you win the Belgium races you can be just as much a pompous pain in the rear as a GT winner.

Again, the route was listed many months ago and now its an issue? WTH?