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

[MartinGT]

But it's a non-problem - it never happens - inside the last 10K. on these types of stages - except in the case of crashes, which is what we are trying to fix.

Your "100K" argument is just ridiculous.

Didn't the Demare group go down at 15km? The race was well and truly on by then anyway.

 

[Volderke]

and Roglic.

why would the bike lag behind if you are holding the bars, makes no sense

That only makes sense if the front wheel is blocked by another wheel.
Like at 3:44 in this video. Play at 0.25x speed.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22KO81dygVo

 

[Escarabajo]

What happened on this stage. I just opened the results and saw the standings. Oh dear. Lopez being Lopez and Thomas being Thomas. The funny thing is that Thomas after that horrible crash he came very close the the head of the race. LOL.

I can't wait for the TT to fix this mess. Or make it worse. I don't know.

 

[zlev11]

I fully understood your position, if any GC rider - ever - had pulled off some tactical masterstroke, on a flat stage with no wind, in the last 10K - and taken significant time on GC.

Otherwise it's like requiring sprinters, to be with the GC group until 3K from the top of every climb, if they want to be in contention for green......

......a pointless exercise.

Also you should note, nothing is stopping GC teams from still taking part in the fun - they just no longer HAVE to.

It's not pointless. These are mass start races, that's how the timing works in mass start races. You have to be able to negotiate the peloton on flat, fast stages just as well as you can climb or time trial to win the Tour. If you neutralize the last 10k or whatever you end up with the same exact fight for position except it's just earlier. At that point you're saying everyone who wants can just sit up and ride to the finish? That would be a complete farce, much more than today.

Look, Roglic is my favorite rider and today he lost his chance to win the Tour. But it was partly his own fault. He had Van Aert doing an absolute perfect job for him to keep him out of trouble at the front and then for some reason he lost his wheel and never found it again. It is not the first time this has happened, in fact it almost always happens. He is not great at positioning and fighting for position. You know who is? Carapaz. He stayed glued to Kwiatkowski's wheel the whole stage and stayed out of trouble and now has a big jump on a bunch of the GC contenders because of it.

 

[Extinction]

The whole problem is that every team wants to be in the front. When you got 180 riders wanting to be in top 20 positions, people will crash because that is not physically possible. The attitude of riders in the bunch is crazy. Pushing and shoving in the last 60km!!! I am surprised anyone manages to finish at all. Some say that crashes are part of the sport... sory, this today (and Saturday) is not sport for me. Sport is people training hard and competing with eachother to see who is the best. Hoping that you will finish each stage without a career threatening injury and feeling relieved, that you only finished with a bruised knee is NOT a part of sport. And those in charge should do something to make it safer - search for the problems and solve them. Sock length and super tuck were not problems. The way riders are afraid to lose every second IS.

People wonder why there is not nearly the same amount of money in cycling that is in football, basketball or tennis... I say watch todays stage. Which big company would be dumb enough to pay large amounts of money to see a team or rider succeed, when the bigest race in the world is basically a lotery. In terms of end results it would be just the same if we lined up all the riders at the team presentation and started kicking their knees in and sending them home. No other sport has this kind of randomness that can hardly be influenced. Imagine if you started a grand slam in tennis with Nadal, Djoković and Federer and you would randomly push two of them down the stairs to the court so they would break their legs and could not even show what they trained for. It would be exactly like cycling has been these last three days.

Chalk it up to the mad corporate world that expects the best on ALL LEVELS, which has thus exaspertated everything and the new gereration obviously can't cope, however talented. We didn't have this pressure on our shoulders before, nor were the speeds so high. Same roads different scenarious, but the deleterious effects are obvious. Today's bunch thinks life is a roulette machine, because those who provide use with "entertainment" only think of their investment.

 

[Broccolidwarf]

It's not pointless. These are mass start races, that's how the timing works in mass start races.

Says who?

Cycling is its own sport, and can make whatever rules it wants, provided it makes sense for the sport.

Also, there is already a 3K cut off, which few seem to have an issue with, so this is really not a debate on principles, but rather a debate on "where?".

 

[Koronin]

After reading/hearing about today's stage, glad I'm not watching it. More horrible crashes and sounds like this time due to bad course layout. Movistar still doesn't know what the heck good tactics is otherwise they'd have had more than 1 rider with Mas and not have most of them with Lopez. Lopez is out of GC contention and only Mas has a chance at it at this point. Valverde hasn't lost enough time to go stage hunting so no one is going to allow him into any break.
It's really bad when auto racing and ice hockey are safer sports than cycling is for athletes.

 

[Leinster]

But it's a non-problem - it never happens - inside the last 10K. on these types of stages - except in the case of crashes, which is what we are trying to fix.

Your "100K" argument is just ridiculous.

Splits with measurable time gaps happen in the last 5km of stages all the time. It's a big reason Sky were always seen at or near the front of even the sprintiest of sprint stages, well past the 3km crash limit, to make sure they didn't get caught behind those gaps and cough up 15, 20 seconds just because somebody in 40th place lost the wheel.

I want to say it had a significant effect on GC in the early stages of a Tour de Suisse one year.

 

[zlev11]

Says who?

Cycling is its own sport, and can make whatever rules it wants, provided it makes sense for the sport.

Also, there is already a 3K cut off, which few seem to have an issue with, so this is really not a debate on principles, but rather a debate on "where?".

go watch a different sport if you dont like the rules then. im so sick of this ***.

 

[gregrowlerson]

no.

6 man teams.

120-132 riders at the start.

there were never these crashes when there were only 120-140 riders at the start.

This.

This. This. This.

 

[Lequack]

Story of today

 

[Leinster]

Story of today

If you eat your PB&J while riding, the jam will go everywhere.

 

[Broccolidwarf]

Splits with measurable time gaps happen in the last 5km of stages all the time. It's a big reason Sky were always seen at or near the front of even the sprintiest of sprint stages, well past the 3km crash limit, to make sure they didn't get caught behind those gaps and cough up 15, 20 seconds just because somebody in 40th place lost the wheel.

I want to say it had a significant effect on GC in the early stages of a Tour de Suisse one year.

Yes, but when people drop time in the last 10K, it's always crashes or technicals - as pointed out before.

I can't think of a single tactical play that worked in the last 10K, and had a significant impact on the overall GC - ever.

The argument that some GC team could pull off a significant time gain, in the last 10K, is entirely unrealistic for that kind of stage.

Also, what I want is to not only extend the current 3K zone to 5K or 10K - I would stop GC time there, on these kinds of stages, so that nobody had to worry about gaps forming, in the run in to the finish.

It would make the last 10K of bunch sprint finishes far less dangerous - and the results would be exactly the same, everything else being equal.

 

[Broccolidwarf]

go watch a different sport if you dont like the rules then. im so sick of this ***.

Temper, temper young man

 

[Zinoviev Letter]

It's not pointless. These are mass start races, that's how the timing works in mass start races. You have to be able to negotiate the peloton on flat, fast stages just as well as you can climb or time trial to win the Tour. If you neutralize the last 10k or whatever you end up with the same exact fight for position except it's just earlier. At that point you're saying everyone who wants can just sit up and ride to the finish? That would be a complete farce, much more than today.

Look, Roglic is my favorite rider and today he lost his chance to win the Tour. But it was partly his own fault. He had Van Aert doing an absolute perfect job for him to keep him out of trouble at the front and then for some reason he lost his wheel and never found it again. It is not the first time this has happened, in fact it almost always happens. He is not great at positioning and fighting for position. You know who is? Carapaz. He stayed glued to Kwiatkowski's wheel the whole stage and stayed out of trouble and now has a big jump on a bunch of the GC contenders because of it.

A very fair minded and well reasoned post.

I have to admit that when I make the mistake of getting emotionally invested in a rider (Pinot for example) I’m not remotely capable of this kind of critical distance.

 

[Leinster]

Yes, but when people drop time in the last 10K, it's always crashes or technicals - as pointed out before.

I can't think of a single tactical play that worked in the last 10K, and had a significant impact on the overall GC - ever.

The argument that some GC team could pull off a significant time gain, in the last 10K, is entirely unrealistic for that kind of stage.

Also, what I want is to not only extend the current 3K zone to 5K or 10K - I would stop GC time there, on these kinds of stages, so that nobody had to worry about gaps forming, in the run in to the finish.

It would make the last 10K of bunch sprint finishes far less dangerous - and the results would be exactly the same, everything else being equal.

I think you've missed my point, but got there in the end..?

I'm saying that gaps in the bunch do happen all the time, by accident, not through crashes, but just by gaps opening up. It rarely happens, and when it does it's rarely in the first 50 or so positions, but the point is that some GC teams consider it worthwhile to stay near the front to a) avoid crashes but also b) not get caught behind those splits (from time to time you'll see tailgunners like Uran or Yates accidentally lose 15s on a fast finishing stage because of it). The safe-zone has been extended to 3km, and the time-gap threshold has been increased to 3s from 1s, but it can still catch riders out.

 

[Northerner]

Yes, but that is the point. The bloated safety zone in fact would have much less crashes because the risk/reward tradeoff would be so elevated that the GC teams would knock off the pace and sit behind the sprint teams.

If you want the GC teams to really back off in the last 3 or 10km the times need to be taken at that point for everyone. The current 3km rule protects against crashes and mechanicals, it doesn't protect against gaps appearing in the bunch. Coasting in at the back of the peloton could still cost a rider the Tour because some random domestique left a gap in 80th place.

Not sure how it would work for echelon stages though - we wouldn't want to neutralise 10km of them, but what if it comes back together in time for a sprint? And a mechanical at 11km to go would a disaster.

 

[hayneplane]

Start the race with at least two stages that separate rider by STRENGHT. And I mean real separation. Like Vuelta last year. We had about 6 contenders left after the first three stages. And then you can have as many flat stages as you want. But the 20 GC contenders who are already out of the game will not try to be in the top 30 positions in the peloton at 5km to go. The problem with the Tour is that the race starts with a flat week - and about 30 riders think that they are good enough to podium the Tour. And they are all determined not to lose a single second on flat stages. Add to that 15 sprinters, who are fresh and gearing up for the first sprint finish - each thinking that they are the fastest. A recipe for disaster on any route, especially bad surfaced narrow downhill one...

Last year the Tour had two mountain stages in the first four stages. And it was far less crashes there. And the aformentioned Vuelta 2020 - basically no huge crashes in the whole race.

I really like your idea and would even love them to go for a mountain top finish 8+km in length on Stage 1 at least twice a decade to properly test the riders preparation and make them need to be good for the full 3 weeks.

The heavily selective start to last year’s Vuelta was fabulous but it has to be remembered that it was not designed that way as flat stages for the Race opening were intended in the Netherlands but scrapped due to Covid.

 

[Broccolidwarf]

I think you've missed my point, but got there in the end..?

I'm saying that gaps in the bunch do happen all the time, by accident, not through crashes, but just by gaps opening up. It rarely happens, and when it does it's rarely in the first 50 or so positions, but the point is that some GC teams consider it worthwhile to stay near the front to a) avoid crashes but also b) not get caught behind those splits (from time to time you'll see tailgunners like Uran or Yates accidentally lose 15s on a fast finishing stage because of it). The safe-zone has been extended to 3km, and the time-gap threshold has been increased to 3s from 1s, but it can still catch riders out.

Yes, I am aware, I got your point.

Here is what you don't get about mine:

First, this is about "bunch sprint" stages only.

Second, I am not extending the current 3K zone, I am changing how it functions, so in the "finale zone", GC time no longer runs - it simply stops at (for instance) the 10K portal.

Third, it makes NO difference to the overall GC, if their "timed finish line" is the 10K portal. They still need to cross the actual finish line, but no longer need to worry about gaps after 10K.

For all the teams there for the stage, they keep racing, but the GC riders start to drop off the back, reducing the peloton in size, and thereby the danger.

So, you BOTH avoid GC riders crashing out in the last 10K, because of all the fight for position, AND you get "cleaner" sprint finishes.

It's win/win.

And sure, until the 10K mark, the GC teams will want to be up there, but sprint trains rarely start that far out, and never with the high degree intensity of multiple trains fighting over position.

 

[Broccolidwarf]

Totally unlike you who is always willing to see the other side and is never hung up on being right.

Agreed.

 

[Valv.Piti]

The opening two states have been challenging.

You know what Im talking about - longer climbs that can shred the peloton and reduce nervousness. The stage in England being the best example

 

[Broccolidwarf]

Broccolifart, my post was not directed at you.
There are no theories, but the truth right in front of your eyes, if you wanna see it.
The gif is self explanatory.

Even Andrea Bocelli agrees with me and the rest of the guys.

I look forward to Roglic making a statement tomorrow, that makes you look entirely stupid

 

[Barnacle Bill]

Well after.... other sporting events tonight, the stage is set for JA to bring joy back to the nation. No pressure!

 

[Broccolidwarf]

Well after.... other sporting events tonight, the stage is set for JA to bring joy back to the nation. No pressure!

Just the craziest day in the football

 

[Volderke]

There are no theories, but the truth right in front of your eyes, if you wanna see it.
The gif is self explanatory.

please provide me with your self-explanatory GIF that contradicts the statement of Colbrellli that he entangled handlebars with Roglic.

Really looking for that "truth" you mentioned. I hope it's kind of a universal truth, and not one that is © victorschipolrijk with double or triple question/exclamation marks