Neutralisation

[RedheadDane]

We saw it at the Giro, and we saw it Again from last night's Colorado stage; attempting to - from the organisers side - to enforce a "rolling neutralisation" (the riders stay on there bikes but don't race against each other) is pretty problematic to put it mildly.
I'd say the only way it could possibly Work is if there was a way for all the riders to get the message at the exact same time in the way that could not be misunderstood. Needless to say, there isn't.

Of course if the weather gets so bad they can't actually ride, then the race needs to be stopped (either completely or like they did at MSR last year), but if it's still possible for them to stay on there bikes, why not just let them continue? They're not children. What does "going down at a slow pace" even mean? For one guy that might be going at 40 KpH, while for another it might be going at 20 KpH.

Let's face it; it's not like the riders don't have the ability to neutralise a race on their own, and if it's done as a collective decision then all - or at least a majority - of the riders are in on the action (or lack of same). If some riders decide that "I'm gonna take it slow here." and others go full gas, then those going slowly are gonna lose time. Bad luck!
I can't help but thinking that the reason the organisers go in the make a decision to neutralise "from the top" is because then they will be the ones to have made the decision, making it look like they're in charge, as opposed to if the riders took the decision.

Lastly; one of the Danish Eurosport commentators said that at least part of the reason the Colorado organisers neutralised the stage was because of the lawsuit mentality in the USA; basically the stage was neutralised because the organisers were afraid to get sued if someone was hurt.
Well... that's just bull****! Money shouldn't be an issue. With such a mentality you might as well cancel everything because there's always a risk riders get hurt. If they are afraid of being sued maybe they should have everyone involved sign a document that they won't sue or anything.

(That was a quite long rambly post...)

 

[King Boonen]

It's a very good question. There's no easy answer.


It's also about escalating risks. It's a race, if someone is going to take a risk then others will and the likelihood of someone getting hurt increases.

Yes, they're all adults, but they have huge outside pressures on them from management and sponsors to succeed and it would be very easy for these pressures to force them to do something they are not really comfortable doing but have to or risk losing their livelihood.

I dislike the "They're men, let them race" line. You could make the same argument for changing lines in a sprint for instance.

 

[Roude Leiw]

There are times when you have to protect the riders from themselves and neutralize a race. Cycling with all the problems it has in the general public opinion as a doped up sport cannot have a Wouter Weylandt or Casartelli every now and then. So yes, you have to be able to neutralize if something happens which warrants it. Giro stage, MSR in the snow, even the first stage of Poland this year should have been neutralized.

Where it needs some serious work though is on how to communicate this. I agree on principle with the OP that all riders have to get the information at the same time or at least work sth out which allows this. Why not use a GPS tracking device on each bike which records position for each rider at each moment and take time differences at the moment the decision is taken and then you do some kind of pace car thing with the riders?

 

[IndianCyclist]

The best way to deal with a disaster is to have a plan to deal with it otherwise the efforts are very uncoordinated and unhelpful. There should have been a plan to deal with unprecedented weather with that being communicated to everybody associated with the race so that there are no misconceptions especially with no radios. Also any neutralization has to be before the disaster event otherwise there is no purpose.

 

[RedheadDane]

There are times when you have to protect the riders from themselves and neutralize a race. Cycling with all the problems it has in the general public opinion as a doped up sport cannot have a Wouter Weylandt or Casartelli every now and then. So yes, you have to be able to neutralize if something happens which warrants it. Giro stage, MSR in the snow, even the first stage of Poland this year should have been neutralized.

Where it needs some serious work though is on how to communicate this. I agree on principle with the OP that all riders have to get the information at the same time or at least work sth out which allows this. Why not use a GPS tracking device on each bike which records position for each rider at each moment and take time differences at the moment the decision is taken and then you do some kind of pace car thing with the riders?

Of course you're right. Nobody wants another Weylandt or Casartelli (or even another Soler). This is why I fully supported the riders' decision to cancel stage 1 of California back in 2011 (especially considering what had happened at the Giro), and generally support rider decisions to cancel/neutralise races, even when others scream about how they're pussies. Yesterday, if the riders had decided to neutralise, and stop where they did waiting for... I don't know what it was they waited for yesterday, then I would've agreed. (Sure, this might've meant that Carpenter would've soared away with a rather huge distance - if he hadn't been in on the non-action - so? Then he'd just have one the stage with a bit more, it's not like he's gonna play a role in the GC).
What puzzled me the most last night was the fact that they stopped the riders after they'd already done the dangerous bit.

The GPS device idea is really good, isn't that how they time the riders at the finish line anyway.

The best way to deal with a disaster is to have a plan to deal with it otherwise the efforts are very uncoordinated and unhelpful. There should have been a plan to deal with unprecedented weather with that being communicated to everybody associated with the race so that there are no misconceptions especially with no radios. Also any neutralization has to be before the disaster event otherwise there is no purpose.

Communication is definitely the key, problem is; all situations are Unique, so you can't simply say that "In case of bad weather you should always do X". The rules shouldn't be about what should be done, but about how should it be communicated and how should times be taken.

Just to be clear; I'm not against neutralisations as such, I'm against any situation where the organisers just call the shot like some kind of dictators, while the riders are like clowns in the circus. If it had been the opposite situation; the riders wanting to neutralise and the organisers wanting the race to keep going, then I'd vote for a neutralisation.

As for pressure from management and sponsors: I'd say that's a problem that's quite easily solved; anybody who pressures a rider into doing something he doesn't really feel safe with doing has no place in pro cycling. Of course that means that the riders need somewhere to go with thoughts like that.