Ugh, should have checked the run in to the sprint before I picked Wiebes, not the best bike handler, and that corner was problematic for even the best. hope everone is ok, that looked rough..
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WTH??? The road they turned in at the last left hander was only half the width it could have been. Why on earth wer the barriers on the white line in the middle of the road rather than the margin of road/pavement?
Pure recklessness on the part of the organisers, as was the extremely narrow road on an expected sprint finish that lead into that corner. A bend that cannot accomodate more than 2 riders at a time has no place in a flat race.
Pure recklessness on the part of the organisers, as was the extremely narrow road on an expected sprint finish that lead into that corner. A bend that cannot accomodate more than 2 riders at a time has no place in a flat race.
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It was a sketchy finish and not befitting of a WT race - Depending on how Wiebes recovers it could open up stage two.
I don't think she went down first.
I wouldn't say the crash was caused by the finish as it looked more like a slightly damp road and that could take place on even the widest of corners, but it definitely helped cause it. There are definitely better finish routes:
Some strange gaps in the results, seeing that the last 3km was neutralised and of course taking into account the riders who crashed in the final.
That exact finish was used in the very first Women's Tour, in 2014, and although it was sketchy, everybody got through fine. It was bright sunshine I think, however, and also it was stage 5 so the péloton was smaller and several riders not in contention were not contesting the sprint. Plus with the suspension of racing, everybody got a break to recuperate and recharge the batteries turning it into a high pace 35km shootout, so fewer riders were likely to be tailed off either. Plus, of course, in just 8 years the professionalism of the women's péloton has improved greatly - but at the same time, people like Emma Johansson and Marianne Vos sprinting are likely to be a lot safer than the likes of Wiebes on a technical finish.
In 2016 they had stage 1 finish in Norwich with a finish pretty similar to this if I remember rightly - there was a pinchpoint as they moved from wide open multi-lane tarmac to a cobbled one-lane city centre street at just over 1km to go, and then there was a 90º right and a 90º left within the last 200m, and as the breakaway wasn't caught until the last kilometre, motos and cars were still caught in the gap as there was nowhere to get out of the péloton's way, and it resulted in complete carnage with crashes and splits created by vehicles being in the way and was just a mess that they just annulled all the time gaps from.
Certainly Bury St. Edmunds has better ways of setting up a finish, or maybe they need to set it somewhere else, although I know that as others have said, the tourist photos are usually of paramount importance so they wanted to have the finish outside the picturesque old town rather than on one of the more recent residential roads or an out-of-the-way connecting road. I get that. The other thing is that the race needs the stature to force some flattenings of traffic islands or removal of road furniture in some senses. The Tour of Britain and the Women's Tour both suffer from potentially hazardous finishes, as Britain seems to have an abundance of towns hosting races which are rife with as much road furniture as the Netherlands, but far fewer roads that are straight for long enough within cities, as roundabouts and chicanes seem to be constant. I thought they'd learned from that after the 2016 debacle, using the technical but not dangerous slightly uphill Kettering finish in 2017 (at least in the sprint for 2nd behind Niewiadoma), the seafront in Southwold in 2018 with very few corners late in the stage, and a much longer final straight in Stowmarket in 2019. But clearly not. The second intermediate sprint also seemed a bit sketchy with parked cars on the road inside the last kilometre before the actual sprint.
(Edit: also another problem might be that since the miscalculation in 2017, the péloton has resolutely prevented pretty much anything from happening in these East Anglian stages when they start the race there)
Part of the problem might just be the legacy of the poor use of terrain, though. Even in East Anglia, which has precious little to offer by way of obstacles, there are a few small hills that could be used to try to thin out the bunch and mean that you don't have quite so many riders coming to the line together. Bury St. Edmunds is clearly a supportive town for the sport and for the race. It hosted the men's Tour of Britain in 2010 and the Women's Tour in 2014 and 2015. The men's Tour also went through it in 2017 and the women's in 2019. Certainly it should be rewarded for its continued support. But there has to be a balance between what works for the councils and what works for the riders. If the council want their scenic finish in front of the old town gate and the abbey, then they need the course to be more selective to induce classics-style racing so that that finish can be done safely. Or, they have a safer sprint finish near to but not at their desired location similar to that proposed by Lemon Cheese Cake above, and then have the presentation at the site they want the pictures to show off, similar to how the Vuelta a Burgos runs its Ciudad Romana de Clunia finishes.
Otherwise, it might wind up being a stage racing version of the Scheldeprijs, coming before the Giro and the Tour, and struggle to attract the big GC names who don't want to risk being injured before those bigger events. I mean, going off the current CQ ranking, only 3 of the current top 10 - Wiebes, Reusser and Longo Borghini - are in attendance, and while it's 7 of the top 15 (Chabbey, Moolman-Pasio, van Dijk and Niewiadoma being the others), there's only Grace Brown between 16 and 25 in the rankings).
In 2016 they had stage 1 finish in Norwich with a finish pretty similar to this if I remember rightly - there was a pinchpoint as they moved from wide open multi-lane tarmac to a cobbled one-lane city centre street at just over 1km to go, and then there was a 90º right and a 90º left within the last 200m, and as the breakaway wasn't caught until the last kilometre, motos and cars were still caught in the gap as there was nowhere to get out of the péloton's way, and it resulted in complete carnage with crashes and splits created by vehicles being in the way and was just a mess that they just annulled all the time gaps from.
Certainly Bury St. Edmunds has better ways of setting up a finish, or maybe they need to set it somewhere else, although I know that as others have said, the tourist photos are usually of paramount importance so they wanted to have the finish outside the picturesque old town rather than on one of the more recent residential roads or an out-of-the-way connecting road. I get that. The other thing is that the race needs the stature to force some flattenings of traffic islands or removal of road furniture in some senses. The Tour of Britain and the Women's Tour both suffer from potentially hazardous finishes, as Britain seems to have an abundance of towns hosting races which are rife with as much road furniture as the Netherlands, but far fewer roads that are straight for long enough within cities, as roundabouts and chicanes seem to be constant. I thought they'd learned from that after the 2016 debacle, using the technical but not dangerous slightly uphill Kettering finish in 2017 (at least in the sprint for 2nd behind Niewiadoma), the seafront in Southwold in 2018 with very few corners late in the stage, and a much longer final straight in Stowmarket in 2019. But clearly not. The second intermediate sprint also seemed a bit sketchy with parked cars on the road inside the last kilometre before the actual sprint.
(Edit: also another problem might be that since the miscalculation in 2017, the péloton has resolutely prevented pretty much anything from happening in these East Anglian stages when they start the race there)
Part of the problem might just be the legacy of the poor use of terrain, though. Even in East Anglia, which has precious little to offer by way of obstacles, there are a few small hills that could be used to try to thin out the bunch and mean that you don't have quite so many riders coming to the line together. Bury St. Edmunds is clearly a supportive town for the sport and for the race. It hosted the men's Tour of Britain in 2010 and the Women's Tour in 2014 and 2015. The men's Tour also went through it in 2017 and the women's in 2019. Certainly it should be rewarded for its continued support. But there has to be a balance between what works for the councils and what works for the riders. If the council want their scenic finish in front of the old town gate and the abbey, then they need the course to be more selective to induce classics-style racing so that that finish can be done safely. Or, they have a safer sprint finish near to but not at their desired location similar to that proposed by Lemon Cheese Cake above, and then have the presentation at the site they want the pictures to show off, similar to how the Vuelta a Burgos runs its Ciudad Romana de Clunia finishes.
Otherwise, it might wind up being a stage racing version of the Scheldeprijs, coming before the Giro and the Tour, and struggle to attract the big GC names who don't want to risk being injured before those bigger events. I mean, going off the current CQ ranking, only 3 of the current top 10 - Wiebes, Reusser and Longo Borghini - are in attendance, and while it's 7 of the top 15 (Chabbey, Moolman-Pasio, van Dijk and Niewiadoma being the others), there's only Grace Brown between 16 and 25 in the rankings).
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Looking at the rest of the race the finished look ok apart from maybe a tiny bit of the Welshpool finish, but if they hadn't provided live coverage I think this should have been the nail in the WT coffin.
They did have some signal problems alpng the way, but otherwise it wasn't bad. They just need to sort out the on-screen graphics. The other stages won't be covered from start to finish and will go through some areas where the signal might not be perfect, so let's pray there won't be too many replays and pictures from the finish line to fill the air.
Congratulations to Copponi, who is a very promising sprinter, but she obviously wouldn't have won without the crash. Tactically it migh have been a smart choice not to have hit the front too early, but I doubt that was entirely planned.
its not, its a one way street normally, the place where the barriers were are parking spaces ,if you follow the wider line out of that corner you will have to cut back left hard to then go right at a much narrower angle onto the finish as that wider line runs out of space, which IMO would be a worse solution
but fine you can argue well give them the space to tackle that first corner quicker to let them have the speed, and I dont recall in 2014 that line being barried in the same way, but these are pro riders, arent they supposed to know where the limits are to where they can put their bikes and not just assume every corner is a motorway width ? just occasionally use their experience not to go full gas into every corner.
for me I think they just misjudged the grip levels, it had been drizzling frequently through the stage today, the roads were very slick, there will be lots of oil and surface contamination and even more so because it literally hasnt rained that much in the past couple of months except in the last week around Suffolk.
as far as I remember 2014, it started with rain at Harwich, or at least mizzle, that relented by the time they got to Lavenham, and by Bury with watery sunshine, but it didnt get full sunshiney till maybe an hour or two after the stage had finished, but the roads werent in too dissimilar state to today, in that they werent bone dry, they were slick, so as every rider knows it becomes a bit risky how much you push it, especially on that run in as it does turn from tarmac at the finish into kind of flat cobbles.
I actually think Aldeburgh was the worst in terms of pinchpoints finishes, as Lizzie Deignan found out, Norwich wasnt that bad in comparison the double left turn uphill forced a smaller selection, at Aldeburgh the whole peloton had been chasing the breakway down since before Thorpeness, but the bit from Thorpeness is a dead straight road and its really easy to pick up alot of pace.
but its not that as weve said before Suffolk/Essex doesnt have those climbs that can make selections they literally rode past one of the toughest hill climbs in Suffolk today, but its not on a national cycling route or via a school, so the route pickers ignore it, there are definitely routes that can be way more challenging to a pro tour, still end up in the places the sponsor councils want and get a sprint, but sometimes its also down to luck, today has literally felt to be the only day without a 15mph headwind for the past 6 months.
like literaly when Ive ridden todays stages in chunks, I always had 15mph headwind, and you realise how exposed some of those parts of Essex/Suffolk are to wind and I was almost thinking echelons was going to be the only way to get through today if it was like that as you are just literally constantly fighting the wind, yet you get today in June, stupidly cold damp,wet, but barely a breeze worth even noting.
And Wiebes stomped the others.
It'll be interesting to see who lost time and how much.
It'll be interesting to see who lost time and how much.
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Wiebes is also a master at opening bottles, but that obviously comes with experience.
Good sprint and good road for a sprint after yesterdays farce.
Lecol Wahoo tactics were slightly weird. Perhaps Van 't Geloof is slightly faster than than van Der Duin in a proper bunch sprint, but I'd have set up van der Duin for the finish. She seems pretty quick at the intermediates and with the bonus seconds from them, I think a podium finish would've put her into the leaders jersey. She can gain a maximum of 6s in the intermediates, which probably wouldn't be enough as Capponi will probably be inclined to of for them as well like today and if Wiebes wins tomorrow then she'll probably move ahead of both riders.
Lecol Wahoo tactics were slightly weird. Perhaps Van 't Geloof is slightly faster than than van Der Duin in a proper bunch sprint, but I'd have set up van der Duin for the finish. She seems pretty quick at the intermediates and with the bonus seconds from them, I think a podium finish would've put her into the leaders jersey. She can gain a maximum of 6s in the intermediates, which probably wouldn't be enough as Capponi will probably be inclined to of for them as well like today and if Wiebes wins tomorrow then she'll probably move ahead of both riders.
Le Col Wahoo quite often alternate between their sprinters, and on a short stage like this, Van der Duin might have felt the intermediate sprints in her legs at the end of the stage. It looked like she went all out, at least for the first one. Van 't Geloof also did well in the sprint finishes in last year's race (the sprint field was better than this year), so I wouldn't call it a mistake to have gone with her today.
Van der Duin is clearly a favourite for the sprint jersey though, which wouldn't be a bad achievement for the team, and Verhulst is also in the mix for the QOM after today.
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Women's cycling had very much a "stay in the bunch, then push to create the moves" vibe for a long time. When there was no TV, the value of artificial BOTD action was minimal, so instead you'd get teams go for the aggression to try to establish breaks, but by the time a break was formed it was already time for endgame. Increased professionalism means that it's harder to just burn people off like that so we see less of that type of racing now, but there's still not yet really an established order when it comes to break of the day exploits, at least early in races. You see a lot more of what we'd call conventional BOTD action in the later stages in the Giro.
Also at the Women's Tour, the fact that bonus seconds alone have made the entire GC in a few editions has incentivised keeping the race together for those (hell, in 2018 Coryn Rivera won the intermediate sprints classification and the GC without ever leaving the confines of the péloton), especially since 2017 when all the strongest teams somehow failed to recognise Kasia Niewiadoma as a threat and let her go up the road by enough to settle the GC. Now, the early flat stages, especially in the east where you get a nervy péloton, it seems that the bunch is very keen to make sure nothing too dramatic happens. Essentially stage 1 of the Women's Tour, since the miscalculation in 2017, has always been "bunch rides together until all GPM and intermediate sprints have been doled out. Between the last secondary classification sprint (as the "mountains" in the East of England are more or less sprinted out anyway as they aren't very threatening for pros) and the finish, a small break - usually solo - from a domestic team will go away, gain about a minute, then get chased down comfortably in time for a sprint, which will probably be marred by crashes in the run-in.
A few years ago, these flaws would be overlooked somewhat because the prize pool and support for the race meant you could get away with a duff stage or two, and the gap between what the race presented iteslf as (one of the pre-eminent stage races in world cycling) and what it actually delivered (usually a festival of bonus seconds with few decisive stages) was noticeable but a bit more forgivable. After several years' stagnation and doing little to address them in an increasingly professional and higher level calendar, however, far fewer people are willing to whitewash the Women's Tour's most obvious flaws anymore.
I never experienced a loss of picture, although I was bemused by the number of times the following graphics appeared - This area has a low mobile phone signal.
I was surprised that after the crash with around 8kms to go that split the peleton that Kool and Wiebes got back so quickly, despite BEX and Trek drilling it with multiple riders.
well I dont think its like when BC turned up to the nationals in Norfolk and then realised there just isnt the mobile network coverage there to cover streaming using that method, and even when they had a stable picture it was notably youtube quality, not broadcast HD stuff.
and in the spots it happened I know lots of those areas do have 5g coverage now, it looked more like if the road was tree covered, and with the weather conditions the camera bikes were just losing their transmit RF strength to whatever was picking up their signal Id assumed the helicopter following them all day as they literally said at the start of the stage here comes the helicopter thats beaming the live pictures to all these different ways you can watch the race live but who knows how it really is setup, they are cycling event comperes, not necessarily broadcast techies, neither am I for that matter.
but I do know trees are quite effective blockers of signals and it looked just like auto negotiating the quality down for a more stable signal to return, as opposed to hey the mobile phone signal is bad here because it wouldnt be a momentary glitch if you hit a bad coverage cell, in the past the official accounts would tweet out such detail as their coverage would go through a "not spot" and didnt want you to worry theyd gone quiet, but they seem not to be doing much of that this time.
and if theyd been using say a standard mobile phone signal you wouldnt have seen any of the presentation ceremony live as literally everyone there including the press, teams etc swamped the mobile cell we were all connecting to uploading photos/copy to get the results out, I couldnt see what had happened at the finish but my phone was having none of it trying to connect to find out.
and there werent any obvious outside broadcast tv vans with giant satellite dishes or aerial uplinks filling in, even the Radio Suffolk guy who was broadcasting live at the finish was just using his mobile phone and wasnt at all clear they were receiving him at the other end all that well.
Apparently the incident on Stage 1 was a moto crash from the convoy. Most probably a police moto rider. They ride like absolute nutcases at National races thinking they're all closed roads and on a jolly.
I remember seeing a police moto lying on the grass verge as the riders rolled along after the restart. I did wonder if that was involved in some way.
The Women's Tour did a Gira Donne in stage two - The supposed live coverage was a delayed coverage of the first 30kms, before switching live to the last 20kms.
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