Mavic neutral service

[Armchair cyclist]

On stage 2, the attempts of Mavic to help Porte change a wheel seemed very incompetent. I recall them making an even worse pigs ear of a wheel change for Cadel Evans a few years ago.

On stage 12, we discovered that their spare bikes have pedals with clips that are incompatible with almost all riders' shoes.

Are they any good at all? Are the neutral service vehicles in other races any more competent (when they are not knocking Jesse Sargent off his bike in the Ronde) ?

 

[BigMac]

It's a bit odd that they sport an entire Shimano groupset and then go with their own Zxellium pedals, which means you're pretty much screwed unless you wear Mavic shoes or some other shoe brand with Zxellium cleats and pedals. I understand having different sized bikes with Shimano, Look and Speedplay systems would be impossible, but at least complete the set with SPD pedals since that's what a large portion of the peloton uses anyway, including Sky and Froome.

On the other hand, don't Mavic supply bikes with strap-in pedals anymore? Can't get more universal than that. They should have given him one of these:

 

[StryderHells]

Re:

On the other hand, don't Mavic supply bikes with strap-in pedals anymore? Can't get more universal than that. They should have given him one of these:

The funny thing about that picture of Voigt is that's not a Mavic neutral service bike, that was a fans bike and the reason it's so small is that it's a child's bike with 650 c wheels and all so guess Voigt was just lucky that day that it also had toe straps
I know last year the Mavic neutral service bikes had a combination of mavic clipless pedals (time espresso) and toe straps so I don't see why this year would be any different, from what I've read is that the Mavic guys just grabbed the first bike on the rack just to get the Yellow jersey moving and it happened to be a large not XL which Froome rides and also had the Mavic pedals not toe straps, guess they panicked like Froome in this occasion

 

[StryderHells]

On stage 2, the attempts of Mavic to help Porte change a wheel seemed very incompetent. I recall them making an even worse pigs ear of a wheel change for Cadel Evans a few years ago.

On stage 12, we discovered that their spare bikes have pedals with clips that are incompatible with almost all riders' shoes.

Are they any good at all? Are the neutral service vehicles in other races any more competent (when they are not knocking Jesse Sargent off his bike in the Ronde) ?

The Jesse Sargent incident like the Cudddles one involved Shimano neutral service and not Mavic but that's just nitpicking. The problem is we only see the fumbled efforts on the TV from the neutral service and not all the perfect wheel changes and bike support that they do during races, I think the Ventoux situation was a farce in general and high pressure and the Mavic guys just grabbed the first bike from the rack, the problem really is why they have those pedals on there when in reality the best option is just to run toe straps as it's not ideal but you have a better chance for the rider to get going. Hopefully they will look into this after this incident and fix it but considering this is cycling I wouldn't be holding my breath

 

[ice&fire]

IIRC the Cadel Evans incident was because the neutral service had 10sp Campy wheels, but not the then new 11sp Campy that Evans needed. Now with Froome the problem was with the pedal cleats. Soon we will see quick release vs through axle and... disc vs rim brakes! Welcome to the world of the bike industry standards: the good thing is there are plenty of them to choose from.