Riders Complaints About Long, "Hard" Stages

[Forever The Best]

Today we saw some riders complaining about the length of the stage and the weather and they shortened the stage by ~100 km or so. The route was announced months ago, and some riders suddenly wanted a shortening for todays stage in the last day.
Reminder that this is happening despite a much easier stage 20.

 

[Forever The Best]

Flood on twitter about riders and Vegni's reactions and thoughts:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1319661317742039042

View: https://twitter.com/laflammerouge16/status/1319661317742039042

 

[dicanio_michael]

If the riders do not show up for the race, it is DNS for them. This showed how weak RCS and Vegni was.

 

[Red Rick]

Yeah I no longer really think Van Aert is the whiny bucket in the peloton

 

[hrotha]

No, they were not right, and the covid excuse is laughable and offensive.
There's an extreme weather protocol. Notably, it doesn't say anything about 11-13ºC in the rain being inhumane.

 

[fbjim]

One of the joys of watching cycling is seeing pros suffer in conditions that we all hate riding through.

It's not unusual to protest or call a truce if a course is dangerous, like what sometimes happens on city courses, especially in rain. But the stage was well within weather protocol, and vague appeals to immune systems aren't very convincing.

Fundamentally I think the riders involved went about this exactly the wrong way. This is a flat 250k+ course, not some silly split stage or ridiculous transfer schedule, or a goat track descent next to a cliff edge.

 

[Forever The Best]

I agree with those who say that the riders that wanted a shortening were not right.

 

[Scarponi]

These riders would quit cycling riding the 2010-11 Giros.
Soft pedal it if you can’t handle it.

 

[fbjim]

These riders would quit cycling riding the 2010-11 Giros.
Soft pedal it if you can’t handle it.

That would be the right way to handle it, that, or do the old fashioned "I'm mad" thing of sitting at the neutral start for fifteen minutes or so.

 

[Scarponi]

That would be the right way to handle it, that, or do the old fashioned "I'm mad" thing of sitting at the neutral start for fifteen minutes or so.

Honestly it’s the transfers more than the stages that cause the grief but they have to understand this is not soccer. It’s still not a top 1 tier sport.
Towns pay for the rights to make this happen. Sadly the riders will
Be slightly abused to get there but it’s the nature of the beast. A country who isn’t economically dominating isn’t going to have multiple cities in the country regions paying big cash for a start or finish. Never seen a more entitled bunch

 

[hrotha]

Honestly it’s the transfers more than the stages that cause the grief but they have to understand this is not soccer. It’s still not a top 1 tier sport.

If the long transfers are the issue, saying "this long, cold, rainy stage would weaken our immune systems in the middle of a pandemic" is a weird way to bring up.

 

[fbjim]

Isn't part of the "point" of long flat stages to make for shorter transfers anyway?

 

[Scarponi]

If the long transfers are the issue, saying "this long, cold, rainy stage would weaken our immune systems in the middle of a pandemic" is a weird way to bring up.

100% just mean in general. They have gotten a lot better in the last years with transfers though but from comments
This giro seems to have gone backwards

 

[Eclipse]

I have massive sympathy for riders protesting dangerous routes when road surface, road furniture or general route selection is liable to cause crashes and injury because that can have an outsized effect on you and your colleagues livelihood.

I absolutely don't have much sympathy for riders protesting about riding a long way on a cold rainy day after a tough outing the day before. This is an outdoor endurance sport and grand tours are the pinnacle of that in professional road racing. Yes today was going to be pretty damn boring and it would suck to ride for most , but there was no real reason to curtail it and take out the endurance side of the day

 

[Red Rick]

If the long transfers are the issue, saying "this long, cold, rainy stage would weaken our immune systems in the middle of a pandemic" is a weird way to bring up.

Then they delay stage so much they finish later that they otherwise would've anyway

 

[Devil's Elbow]

Démare: '10 years ago stages were shorter'

Absolute BS, certainly where the Giro is concerned. 10 years ago 250+k stages could be mountainous, like the famous L'Aquila stage. Would have loved to see Zomegnan deal with this.

As for the poll: no, obviously.

 

[fbjim]

I have massive sympathy for riders protesting dangerous routes when road surface, road furniture or general route selection is liable to cause crashes and injury because that has an effect on you and your colleagues livelihood.

I absolutely don't have much sympathy for riders protesting about riding a long way on a cold rainy day after a tough outing the day before. This is an outdoor endurance sport and grand tours are the pinnacle of that in professional road racing. Yes today was going to be pretty damn boring and it would suck to ride for most , but there was no real reason to curtail it and take out the endurance side of the day

Right. Like I didn't mind Jumbo shutting down Stage 1 of the tour under the justification that such a technical descent in the wet which was highly unlikely to have any race or GC impact apart from a rider getting injured wasn't worth it at that stage in the race. But that was a decision among the riders, teams were free to ignore it (WIN4VINO) and the justification wasn't "this is too hard"

 

[Red Rick]

Démare: '10 years ago stages were shorter'

Absolute BS, certainly where the Giro is concerned. 10 years ago 250+k stages could be mountainous, like the famous L'Aquila stage. Would have loved to see Zomegnan deal with this.

As for the poll: no, obviously.

They're clearly just taking the piss cause there's always people who will back them up if they just make up enough *** arguments about safety and especially immune systems and other stuff they actually know *** all about.

 

[hrotha]

0-11 so far, I'm proud of you guys.

 

[BlueRoads]

I feel like this is a result from the things that are going on behind the scenes - the riders do not feel like they have enough influence, like their issues are taken seriously enough, like they are heard. They feel helpless and like they don't have the power to change anything, especially with the increased economic pressure (this season). But they don't dare to say anything because their contracts might be in danger. Then the dynamics lead to small things bringing out a feeling of "we are not going to take this (anymore)", and they end up protesting against minor situations, also too late (and not as one).
At least that's my theory, as that's what happens in other areas quite often as well. The protest then does not look to be taken seriously from the outside.

Edit: Ah, and often that happens when actually something is changing, when people are starting to get more influence, when their issues are heard more. This happening often leads to an even strengthened sense of injustice/not being taken seriously enough, because before nobody talked about it and everybody told themselves that there is no issue, that's just the way it is.

 

[djpbaltimore]

If I am not mistaken, was this not a bigger issue because the organizers tried to lengthen the stage at the last minute? You can highlight bad arguments for just about any issue and the Wilco argument is not great, but there are grounds to be upset as riders if they are not consulted on last minute changes. I agree that a lot of the complaints probably stem from the transfers. But that is how life is sometimes. You gripe about things that set you off because you are already on a hair trigger from something else.

On Thursday evening, RCS Sport had announced an additional 5km would be added to the 253km-long stage due to a bridge collapse in Candia Lomellina, prompting riders to question the logic of such a long stage.

 

[Devil's Elbow]

If I am not mistaken, was this not a bigger issue because the organizers tried to lengthen the stage at the last minute? You can highlight bad arguments for just about any issue and the Wilco argument is not great, but there are grounds to be upset as riders if they are not consulted on last minute changes. I agree that a lot of the complaints probably stem from the transfers. But that is how life is sometimes. You gripe about things that set you off because you are already on a hair trigger from something else.

They had to lengthen the stage by like 5k because a mayor didn't want the race in his town because of Covid concerns. If the riders are going to act like petulant children over something like that, they deserve to be treated as such... which appears to be Vegni's current course of action.

 

[roundabout]

Reading a couple of posts in this thread made me go and check if Crostis was ridden in 2011.

or in a more sprintery example, the fail that was the kermesse in Milano in 2009

people like to worship Zomegnan, but he could cave in to riders with the best of them

 

[fbjim]

They had to lengthen the stage by like 5k because a mayor didn't want the race in his town because of Covid concerns. If the riders are going to act like petulant children over something like that, they deserve to be treated as such... which appears to be Vegni's current course of action.

Like, jeez, if that's the rationale than soft pedal the first 5k in protest or something. Cutting the stage in half for that reason makes that entire rationale seem cynical.

 

[richwallone]

0-11 so far, I'm proud of you guys.

0-17 now... Still perfect score