Tour de France Tour de France 2021, Stage 3: Lorient - Pontivy, 183.9 km

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Sorry Tour but if it looks like poop and it smells like poop then it is poop. Not likely to happen but i do hope the riders won't show up on the start tomorrow. Lets just leave it at that. I don't find this race regular anymore and if Roglič or Pogačar or Carapaz ... win this race it doesn't make much difference to me anymore.

I'm out.

Thanks for letting us know dude.

I am certain you will be missed!
 
This would work I think
bicycle-6.jpg

There would just be a lot of fighthing for the front seats resulting in even worse chrashes than those we saw today.
 
But crashes happen in every racing sport that allows physical contact.

When you pay human beings a lot of money, to race faster than their opponents, in an environment where any degree of contact is allowed, crashes are inevitable.

They have also always been part of cycling.

Yup, this is true. But do you think today would have been safer if the finish was on wider roads or GC times were neutralised at 8km (or whatever point)? Cos I do, and I don't see what we lose it that is the case. These mass sprint stages should have a much further cut off point than the usual 3k imo. Get the GC teams out of there.
 
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riders wanted neutralization at 8km...my humble opinion it wouldnt have helped anyway
Yes, the riders complained pre-stage, and asked for GC neutralisation at 8K.
Clearly the ASO should have followed the request.
Two posts from me, the OP and one post with 15k to go right before Lopez was the first to crash:
From Cyclingmole's preview:
As for the finish line, this was from LFR on Twitter this morning.
OK: I hadn't see, or had forgotten, those.

But it would appear that there was no representation from teams to the ASO made long enough in advance to be taken seriously.
 
you can hardly chose, if the finish is in town XY there are only so many options available how to get there, some of them will be twisty and narrow

But you can have a prologue first, a really hilly stage, a very straight bunch sprint, another hilly stage, a mountain stage, a real time trial... and I think then the gaps should be big enough and everyone's calmed down and you can have some great technical, twisty stages.
 
But you can have a prologue first, a really hilly stage, a very straight bunch sprint, another hilly stage, a mountain stage, a real time trial... and I think then the gaps should be big enough and everyone's calmed down and you can have some great technical, twisty stages.
gaps have nothing to do with it, there were gaps after two stages and yet everyone tried to be at the front anyway...tho im all for fewer sprinter stages in favour of hilly ones,basically only have a sprinters stage when absolutely possible on good roads
 
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Yup, this is true. But do you think today would have been safer if the finish was on wider roads or GC times were neutralised at 8km (or whatever point)? Cos I do, and I don't see what we lose it that is the case. These mass sprint stages should have a much further cut off point than the usual 3k imo. Get the GC teams out of there.

I've already said I advocate GC being neutralised further out, on these kinds of stages, please refer to my earlier replies in the thread.

It is the whole "the route is crazy and dangerous" thing I have issue with, because I do not believe that to be the case.

When you have 15 sprinter trains all wanting the front, you need a minimum 15 rider wide road - and only 3-lane motorways are that wide - because otherwise crashes WILL happen.
 
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I've already said I advocate GC being neutralised further out, on these kinds of stages, please refer to my earlier replies in the thread.

It is the whole "the route is crazy and dangerous" thing I have issue with, because I do not believe that to be the case.

When you have 15 sprinter trains all wanting the front, you need a minimum 15 rider wide road - and only 3-lane motorways are that wide - because otherwise crashes WILL happen.

We never really have 15 sprinter trains though. You've 5ish sprint trains and probably 5 GC teams doing it. Getting the GC teams out of it makes this safer. Today's finish never had sufficient for the racing we get in those kms. We all know the racing that will occur there, ASO know what will occur and that road just was not wide enough to cater for that.
 
But you can have a prologue first, a really hilly stage, a very straight bunch sprint, another hilly stage, a mountain stage, a real time trial... and I think then the gaps should be big enough and everyone's calmed down and you can have some great technical, twisty stages.

Makes no difference.

ANY GC team will want to prevent time loss, on every single stage - even if the captain is 10 minutes down.

ANY sprinters team will want the front in the finale, on every sprinters stage.
 
Makes no difference.

ANY GC team will want to prevent time loss, on every single stage - even if the captain is 10 minutes down.

ANY sprinters team will want the front in the finale, on every sprinters stage.

I think some guys who are down 7-15 minutes after the mountains and time trialing would rather go into breaks and not be GC guys anymore. So some teams wouldn't have a GC candidate anymore. As long as they have only lost 1-3 minutes that's different of course.
 
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We never really have 15 sprinter trains though. You've 5ish sprint trains and probably 5 GC teams doing it. Getting the GC teams out of it makes this safer. Today's finish never had sufficient for the racing we get in those kms. We all know the racing that will occur there, ASO know what will occur and that road just was not wide enough to cater for that.

Ewan
Cavendish
Mellier
Demare
Pedersen
Bouhanni
Sagan
Bol
Van Poppel
Greipel
Colbrelli
Coquard
Lapoorte
Matthews
Walscheid

That's 15 - and add to that, that ASO could not know if WvA and Cort would sprint, when planning out the route.
 
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