woodie said:
They could have but they didn't. They had the numbers and could've kept riding but decided to stop like everyone else. Yes cancellara and riis made the suggestion but ultimately everyone else agreed so yeah the peloton made a decision.
They were trying to get the point across that safety needs to be considered as they felt it hadnt been in that situation. Just because you don't like the decision doesn't mean it's 'unrespectable'.
At the end of the day all the riders decided to stop racing and whether we like it or not it's happened already so there is no point to keep whining about it and from what I can tell this thread was restarted based on the hatred of a couple of riders instead of the actual event.
Nice to know that I have kick started something.
Though I didn't start it because of any hatred for the Schleck's. I don't mind them and am quite bemused by the many who do on this forum!
But I certainly disliked Fabian for what he did there, plus the thing with Cadel from '09.
The riders were trying to get the point across that their safety needs to be considered: that's fair enough.
But like others have said, this type of course is raced on every year in the classics. And it was included in last years parcours (along with the cobbles) with the view of potentially causing gaps in the GC. Now we know that these gaps were going to be caused by 'unfair' reasons - it was always going to be somewhat of a lottery. The TDF should either have these lotteries - and allow WHATEVER outcomes they throw up - or they should stick to flat stages with only time trials and high mountains to separate GC. You can't be applauded for putting in an interesting parcours only to neautralise it because of crashes - which were the only things that were going to make it really interesting in the first place.
There was no point in the riders neutralising the stage 2 situation after all the carnage had happened, because the dangerous sections of the course had been passed (I'm pretty sure). The only danger that was left was that the TDF GC might have been looking VERY interesting!
I'd forgotten that Menchov and Gessink were up there. There were other strong riders too, such as Rogers and Martin. Pushing on, that group might have gained a minute on the AC group, and at least 3 minutes on the Schleck's (even allowing for FB dropping back to help out in the last 20 kms). I've speculated that Evans could have finished on the podium without his bad luck, but what about Menchov? Could he have won it all last year?
Perhaps after working so hard in stage 2 FB can't push quite as strongly on stage 3, and Menchov doesn't lose as much time (can't remember what he lost). With Andy's yellow jersey dream gone he doesn't race as well and hard on Tourmalet - remember that he did all the work for AC there as he gained 2 minutes on DM. Perhaps he only gains 1 minute on Menchov without Andy's help?
AC wouldn't have stuffed around on Ax3-domaines under different circumstances, but still, it's something to consider.
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