Spiked.

[mountainrman]

Watching the tin tack incident on the tour made me look hard at spectators.
Every now and then I saw spectators apparently wearing full team kit offering branded bottles to riders.

It made me wonder how hard it would be for a malicious spectator to do one worse than putting tacks on the road and spike bottles with prohibited substances?

Not really wanting to mention specific cases but could a Schleck for example be xipamided that way?

What precautions are there to prevent such happening - a bogus soigneur in replica kit handing bogus bottles collected from discards on earlier stages.

Is access to feeding zones controlled?

A scary thought.

 

[Cyivel]

Terrifying.

 

[hrotha]

Those people in team kits are folks the riders know personally.

 

[blackcat]

this is why riders who take bidons, never drink them.

but they often willingly receive them, and pour them over their head.

 

[Dr. Maserati]

Obviously the only solution is to ban spectators from am, spectating.

 

[mountainrman]

this is why riders who take bidons, never drink them.

but they often willingly receive them, and pour them over their head.

True - but when fails are now measued in picograms it only takes a few drops to trickle down with the sweat to a mouth, or dope traces on a glove to carry in when taking a gel.

It does not take much to ruin a career - and those tin tack spectators prove they are happy to destroy riders and a race for a laugh.

 

[mewmewmew13]

Great thread

 

[doperhopper]

Good point, says FatPat, that's what this "clean cycling" movement should focus on - clean roads and clean spectators. The mighty Truth Comittee will finally have something to investigate.

 

[ferryman]

Great thread

Yep. I'm going to close it before it gets any more ridiculous.