One issue here is cyclist are wearing Lycra or barely anything to protect them. Other sports have more protection. Even baseball players have more protection for legs/arms that are most likely to get hit by a pitch than cyclists have.
It´s hard to imagine how it would be designed... But yeah racing in lycra in 100 km/h is crazy if you think about it.One issue here is cyclist are wearing Lycra or barely anything to protect them. Other sports have more protection. Even baseball players have more protection for legs/arms that are most likely to get hit by a pitch than cyclists have.
How would you classify a flat stage? I don't think simply saying "a stage with no categorised climbs" would work. After all, what if there's a small non-categorised climb - and in some races even rather big-looking climbs can be non-categorised - about 2 Ks from the finish? Shouldn't a rider be allowed to attack, and maybe get a few seconds back?Smaller peloton and don´t count GC on flat stages at all is low hanging fruit I think..
Why?But I don’t want to see a situation where gc riders can just check out of the bunch with 10km to go.
Yeah, I have no clue about design. That's way off of what I can do. But lycra isn't exactly protecting anyone from anything when it comes to road rash let alone more severe injuries.It´s hard to imagine how it would be designed... But yeah racing in lycra in 100 km/h is crazy if you think about it.
Smaller peloton and don´t count GC on flat stages at all is low hanging fruit I think..
Baseball players have 90 mph projectiles being thrown at them, and spend most of the rest of the 3-hour game standing around. It's completely different requirements to cycling, which is 4-5 hours of intense cardio, and only getting something thrown at you if you've really annoyed some temperamental Belgian/Italian sprinter.One issue here is cyclist are wearing Lycra or barely anything to protect them. Other sports have more protection. Even baseball players have more protection for legs/arms that are most likely to get hit by a pitch than cyclists have.
The big crash on stage five happened because of the stress of anticipated crosswinds. But let me remind you once again that no one was seriously injured in that crash! A few riders has had to leave since that, but that's it. As for Bardet losing time: Frankly; who cares? He probably wasn't going to challenge much for the race anyway, and now he can go hunt stages and possibly KoM! Sure, you can be slightly saddened for him, if he was really aiming to go for the GC - seems like he more and more doesn't really want to these days - but in the greater scope of things, it's just not that important.Crosswind reduces a bunch. All in all crosswinds do not have much to do with what we discussed earlier.
A Grand Tour is (in theory at least) all about the accumulated fatigue that the riders will endure during a three week race, and the flat stages and their finales add to that.Why?
To me it's like watching Pacquiao in the ring with Tyson and Joshua. Or Farah running in front of Bolt. It's silly. And most importantly what do we gain that is worthy of risking the GC battle for it?
Where have I ever said that GC related crashing at the end of bunch sprint stages is desirable? I've simply maintained that sometimes it's unavoidable!I see your point but saying something in the lines of a bit of GC related crashing at the end of bunch sprint stages is desirable. IMHO it's not. If some GC contender has a rather poor bike handling skills there are other opportunities where they can lose time. And likely such contender won't be considered as being a GC contender in the first place. As for the excitement. Basically the main reason we watch such stages (end of such stages). It is all about sprinters anyway. If a GC contender crashes then usually the race itself becomes less.
Expecting the amount of crashes to go down each year is not realistic. Maybe its possible to decrease the number of incidents over a longer period of time, but I have really no idea if it's worse or better now than it was 10 years ago for example. But crashes will always happen, just like mistakes will always be made because it's part of human nature.@Samu Cuenca
From more general point of view i am sure that we won't eradicate crashes anytime soon. Like the introduction of VAR didn't eradicate dubious decisions from football. Still cycling on a top level should be more methodical about crashes. And where preventable and not interfering with the sport itself the number of safety related incidents should go down each year. TDF 2021 exposed this aspect of pro cycling is currently a joke.
If we extend this logic shouldn't we just completely separate different forms of road cycling then? Have completely separate races for sprinters and GC riders? In the same way there are weight classifications for Boxing or different distances for Running. We don't make the argument in reverse - it is pretty much universally regarded that sprinters having to make it through multi mountain stages inside the time limit is part of being a world class competitive sprinter. But, really what do we gain from making sprinters do this that is worthy of risking a competitive green jersey battle?To me it's like watching Pacquiao in the ring with Tyson and Joshua. Or Farah running in front of Bolt. It's silly. And most importantly what do we gain that is worthy of risking the GC battle for it?
Will he ever win a GT race by winning bunch sprint stages? And then again he can take the stage win and some time on flat route as GC vise there will always be a point where the differences are measured.Tell that to Wout van Aert, a winner in every category of the TDF.
Why deny him a chance of a win in a race he enters?
What was proved wrong?@Samu Cuenca
I am sure that some people claimed the same in F1. After they took the safety seriously it was proven wrong. That is claims nothing can be done.
What is the exaggeration?No i don't see it like that. You are mostly exaggerating. I see it as a small and more or less meaningless adjustment, where you take the initiative away from GC guys to be there. Just like sprinters are not there on top of the mountains.
I still don't see how this can mitigate against crashes in a better way than having more rigorous stage design parameters, especially as I still think there are some pretty massive downsides to applying it in a blanket fashion. Specifically which crashes would implementing this in the way you specify have stopped in this year's grand tours?I have seen enough sprint stages at their end in my life to know what the reality on such stages is. As for potential to gain a GC advantage on a GC stage. That would still be possible and i don't see any issues there. Hence the meaningless remark.
Wasn't that at 11km to go?Likely the one on stage 5.