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Crashes, what can be done?

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I would suggest people stopped using words like "dangerous", about yesterdays stage - it is far over the top.

It wasn't particularly dangerous, it was on "normal" roads, always with at least 2 car lanes width, and there wasn't any significant road furniture either.

The roads were not that different, from what the riders face the rest of the Tour - or the rest of the year for that matter.

Yes, the 3K limit should have been moved, because it was the first sprinters stage at the Tour, which carries with it special dynamics - but the route in itself, wasn't any better or worse than most.
 
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Read. The. First. Sentence. I. Wrote.

I read the whole reply not just the first sentence. The part where you said you didn't really looked into it is what bothered me and made me to reply. That is you basically assumed riders didn't do anything or did that too late. My point was that is simply not true. Riders did their thing appropriately and at the right time. ASO agreed, UCI refused.

@Broccolidwarf

You can suggest whatever you want but stage 3 was dangerous and over the top. Multiple riders confirmed that.
 
Riders, and teams, don't do themselves any favours by raising these things at the last minute. I'm pretty sure the rules allow them to raise issues with the route before the morning of the race and even if they don't, they can comment and make sure representatives know a long way in advance. The finishes have been known for a long time now. I've not listened to the interview but I think this is what Philipe Gilbert has complained about as a CPA rep.
It’s definitely a 2-way street. Remember Trentin complaining about riders not reading their CPA emails in February;


That was probably the timeline that complaints about Monday’s stage ought to have been raised. The issues look obvious to us now, a day after all the crashes, but some proactive precautions might have made a difference; “don’t descend into the town, approach from a different road”, “don’t put that right hand bend in the finish straight,” or even simple cooperative things like “if it’s raining in 4 months time, neutralize time gaps at 5/8/10km, depending on intensity.”
 
I read the whole reply not just the first sentence. The part where you said you didn't really looked into it is what bothered me and made me to reply. That is you basically assumed riders didn't do anything or did that too late. My point was that is simply not true. Riders did their thing appropriately and at the right time. ASO agreed, UCI refused.

@Broccolidwarf

You can suggest whatever you want but stage 3 was dangerous and over the top. Multiple riders confirmed that.
You clearly didn’t so I’ll repeat. Read the first sentence I wrote.
 
You clearly didn’t so I’ll repeat. Read the first sentence I wrote.

Sorry but no can do. I have put effort in both my replies to you and you feel entitled for asking me to put more effort in it. Why do you feel that?

It is you that has issue with it hence you shoudl do the work. Articulate what is it you are claiming or asking. I am not responding to one liners that don't say anything meaningful, for the third time. How can i respond to gibberish?
 
It’s definitely a 2-way street. Remember Trentin complaining about riders not reading their CPA emails in February;


That was probably the timeline that complaints about Monday’s stage ought to have been raised. The issues look obvious to us now, a day after all the crashes, but some proactive precautions might have made a difference; “don’t descend into the town, approach from a different road”, “don’t put that right hand bend in the finish straight,” or even simple cooperative things like “if it’s raining in 4 months time, neutralize time gaps at 5/8/10km, depending on intensity.”
Yes, that’s exactly my problem with the teams/riders here. Leaving things to the last minute makes it much harder for adjustments to be made and also makes their arguments weaker. If they had addressed this stage when the route was released it would put much more pressure on the UCI.

Yeah, I remember that. Clearly what they have in place at the moment isn‘t working and they need to do something about it. I’ll not defend the UCI ignoring their requests, but they need to put themselves in a position where it’s much harder to ignore them.
 
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You clearly didn’t so I’ll repeat. Read the first sentence I wrote.

Or even better; read the second sentence.

It’s definitely a 2-way street. Remember Trentin complaining about riders not reading their CPA emails in February;

Who was it who'd actually wanted to participate in that meeting back in the fall? But had his request denied.
There was this whole thing about "Oh, it was only Gilbert and Trentin, of the riders, who particated in that meeting. Riders don't really care!" But then it turned out, at least one more rider had actually wanted to participate.
 
Sorry but no can do. I have put effort in both my replies to you and you feel entitled for asking me to put more effort in it. Why do you feel that?

It is you that has issue with it hence you shoudl do the work. Articulate what is it you are claiming or asking. I am not responding to one liners that don't say anything meaningful, for the third time. How can i respond to gibberish?
You implied I thought the riders did nothing, you then outright said that was what you thought. Literally the first sentence in the post you quoted acknowledges that the riders did something but I thought this was too late considering they’ve had months to raise issues with stage design. Your assumptions were wrong because you either didn‘t bother reading what I wrote or jumped into the middle of a discussion without familiarising yourself with the context of the posts.

If you think only raising issues with course design the literal morning of the race is appropriate then theres really no point continuing any discussion.
 
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Or even better; read the second sentence.



Who was it who'd actually wanted to participate in that meeting back in the fall? But had his request denied.
There was this whole thing about "Oh, it was only Gilbert and Trentin, of the riders, who particated in that meeting. Riders don't really care!" But then it turned out, at least one more rider had actually wanted to participate.
That was going to be my second request. And then the next sentence and so on…


was it Geschke? There are clearly issues with the way they operate as a group and this needs addressing. All teams will no doubt have been analysing stages so someone on the staff should have raised this.
 
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I think the "strike" today and the differently worded comments show that there is no unity of the riders. They have different opinions about this and need to have a real organization.
I suppose they need assemblies, best digitally, where they all take part and vote.
But one of the problems will be that the big gun's words will have more weight among the riders, while in a general voting process the majority may consist of domestiques and people who are not fighting for the big wins and they may not always have the same interests (-> supertuck).
If on the other hand you have riders representing them some will always feel they are not represented well, especially when those riders are older ones who may be generally respected but have basically had their career while younger ones are eager to do everything that's necessary to win...
It's really difficult. But all in all I think one cannot really say "the riders", because that suggests a unity that isn't there.
 
Apologies if I'm being redundant. I just read the original post and will keep it brief to avoid what I'm sure has already been said.
F1 has imposed safety measures that do not compare to cycling. I'm sure this has been mentioned, but off the top of my head, the only safety feature I can think of is removing the barriers that stick out on the road on the closing metres of a sprint stage.
It's hard to enclose a 200+ km course to prevent someone from standing on the road to get a selfie. You'd think there would be some element of self policing going on to prevent that from happening.
Other than that, you've got a bunch of super charged athletes whose sole intention is to win a race. Schit is gonna happen.
 
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Riders doesn’t mean they have to agree and have a single voice. While it would be preferable if they organised and at least raised things the majority found concerning, literally no riders raised issues with the course design until the morning of the race. There’s no way none of them were aware of that finish. Even if nothing had come from it, it would add a lot of weight to future arguments that it had be raised and dismissed.
 
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It's hard to enclose a 200+ km course to prevent someone from standing on the road to get a selfie. You'd think there would be some element of self policing going on to prevent that from happening.

I just think it's stupid that riders are punished for whacking people who do stupid *** like that. Of course, with the incident on stage 1, nothing could've been done, but I think in many other cases...
Look! I'm not saying riders should go all "Rumble in the Jungle" on idiot spectators - like Lopez in the Giro a few years ago - but a little punch might make people think twice.
 
You implied I thought the riders did nothing, you then outright said that was what you thought. Literally the first sentence in the post you quoted acknowledges that the riders did something but I thought this was too late considering they’ve had months to raise issues with stage design. Your assumptions were wrong because you either didn‘t bother reading what I wrote or jumped into the middle of a discussion without familiarising yourself with the context of the posts.

If you think only raising issues with course design the literal morning of the race is appropriate then theres really no point continuing any discussion.

Thank you. Now i can get some more context for my reply. We were basically months apart in the debate and not minutes or days.

You are saying riders should do this months in advance. Can they? Do they have such power? If months back they would say this stage is too dangerous would they be heard? I don't know that is why i am asking. Do they have any influence at all?

Anyway, if months back they would all agree and then some bad weather condition would make holes in the narrow road. Is it still a done deal and they still have to do it under the terms they agreed months back? Or can conditions still get decided on the race day?

My point is you were talking about one end of the story and i was talking about the other one. But it is still the same story. And i personally have no issues if riders get a say months back. Do you have issues with riders having a say on the race day? After assessing the conditions?
 

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