TT course around Montpellier a disgrace

[benpounder]

Well, you are not going to convince me, and sure as heck the rest of us aren't going to convince you.

 

[Snake8]

Dude, get a grip. There were an unusual amount of crashes and more respected commentators than you felt strongly enough to make the point that it was a very tough course for a TTT. The OP may have taken it a bit personally but that doesn't change the underlying fact.

Well, given that the cycling commentators I've heard mostly suck, I am not so offended. I don't speak 20 languages so I dont know if they ALL suck. (Notice the ability not to succumb to inductive reasoning here.)

The underlying FACT is that a bunch of riders crashed.

The THEORY you and Franklin are proposing is that the course was dangerous and that caused the crashes.

Most of us disagree with you. Most of us saw the early teams go too hot into that corner. We also saw none of the later teams crashing.

Now, if we were talking about the Rome TT, the Milan Crit, that stupid stage across the tidal road in the North of France in the TdF several years ago, many of us would agree with you....BUT, its still bike racing, there will be crashes, and aside from Menchov, there was no impact on the results from the course today. If the Skil guy doesn't break his arm do you even care? If you commentator hadn't had his panties in a bunch would you care?

Oh and Franklin, maturity is overrated.

 

[yourwelcome]

"It wasn't a good course for a team time trial" - Cancellara afterwards. Any problems with that statement please take it up with him ;-)

 

[Snake8]

"It wasn't a good course for a team time trial" - Cancellara afterwards. Any problems with that statement please take it up with him ;-)

God you guys won't give up! No one here is saying it was a great COURSE. It was a great race today. I think the course had something to do with that.

Its not all so black and white folks. If i was Cancellara I sure as he[[ would be saying the same thing.

 

[benpounder]

"It wasn't a good course for a team time trial" - Cancellara afterwards. Any problems with that statement please take it up with him ;-)

Cancellera also disliked the long Giro TT - disliked it because he realized it did not suit his riding style. Cav, Zabel, Cipo and all other sprinters dont like mountain timetrials. Heras and Simoni didnt like long flat straight time trials.

Cancellera is hardly objective.

 

[Kazistuta]

Well, I'm sure Cancellara (and other officially involved in TDF complaining) have some reason in the fact that the roads were narrow and couldn't have all riders riding "on the fan". Nevertheless, as Franklin himself pointed out, the infamous corner had been revealed beforehand, so all teams should've been aware. Yes, Badger Corner was difficult - yes, the BBox corner was difficult (Saxo bank were also close to crash in that corner) - but there's going to be obstacles on every course.

I think the route planner found a different type of TTT route this time, but besides all the narrow roads there wasn't much unusual obstacles. That's enough to distract the teams without Recon. As simple is that.

 

[cycutza]

The tt course the route organisers made these riders go out on is a bloody disgrace. Surely the organisers have duty of care to not make the course so dangerous. So many riders crashed. I don't think i would ride my bike on that Course.

auscyclefan I hear ya...and its not too late to make the rest of the tour safer. Maybe have a bus at the top of each mountain so the riders can get down safely before the next climb and don't have to contest any dangerous decents.

 

[benpounder]

Out of curiosity, I took a look back. Since 1995 there were TTT's in 05,04,03,02,01,00, and 1995 (cyclingnews archives dont go back further). In his first four tour wins, Lance's team did not win the TTT: in 02, down to ONCE by 0.16; in 01 USP was fourth, down 1.26 to CA with ONCE and Festina in between; in 00 down 0.26 to ONCE; no TTT in 1999.

What to take from this? Winning the TTT is not imperative, but for any team with high GC aspirations, you had better field a team that can compete.

Every team knew that a TTT was on the slate for this year's TdF - the only ones to blame for poor performance are those teams that did not prepare.

 

[craig1985]

Where were Rabo and S/L when Astana, Saxo Bank, Garmin, and Columba were out doing recce of the course in the fews before the Tour started? The course was fine, it's called bike handling skills, develop some.

 

[amsterdamned]

I wouldn't know because I am stuck with Versus coverage

you can still watch eurosport on http://justin.tv

 

[Bagster]

Cadel will not win the Tour unless he finds a new team and even if he does move to a strong team, he still has no chance.
I am not a fan of the TTT, but the course was fine and it was a very exciting stage to watch.
But in saying that if Lance had crashed then the sh#t would have really hit the fan. Lance and all lance lovers would have blown up deluxe.

Two points:

1. In your first point you totally contradict yourself
2. I'm a Lance fan and happy to admit it, even more of a Cancellara fan. However if either of them had crashed today in that corner I would say the same as I have already said about the teams that crashed...he cocked up, just like they did.

 

[davidg]

The tt course the route organisers made these riders go out on is a bloody disgrace. Surely the organisers have duty of care to not make the course so dangerous. So many riders crashed. I don't think i would ride my bike on that Course.

Right, but it is OK to use similar roads when you have 180 riders in the bunch instead of 9.

None of the teams were forced to use TT bikes, if they felt the course did not suit.

Most of the crashes were caused either by riders going into a corner too hot, or from wheel touching. Would you prefer a course with no corners at all?

The top teams all had minimal incidents. This was mainly because they researched and rode the course before the event.

Not sure the course was any more dangerous than riding down Tourmalet at 90km/hr.

Personally I thought it took some advantage away from the strongest teams and placed more focus on a more rounded squad who could look after each other.

 

[davidg]

auscyclefan I hear ya...and its not too late to make the rest of the tour safer. Maybe have a bus at the top of each mountain so the riders can get down safely before the next climb and don't have to contest any dangerous decents.

and some soft upholstery with scatter cushions for the sprint finishes

 

[karlboss]

Some riders commented on it not being a normal TTT course, it wasn't, thats not so bad. Everyone could recce the course some chose not to, time spent in rehearsal is rarely wasted. I was suprised every team started on full TT rigs, i am a tech geek and I thought there'd be road bikes and then swap after the technical section or something, maybe even deep rears instead of discs.
However some of the roads did appear narrow with inconsistent edges and off cambers, nasty on a TT bike. Organisers need to think about what they want in a stage and set the course accordingly, sometimes even say "we expect some teams to choose road bikes"
I thought it was a great stage, didn't like the crashes, but the compromises to be made, and have been thinking of the best way to go...maybe dump non capable riders straight away, break your team into 2 for the technical section, swap road bikes for TTs halfway (its been done before) if you have a power house, don't even try to share the load.
At the end of the day the strongest team won, they had depth to man 7. If you want to change something and even up the teams...salary cap.

 

[unsheath]

There sure are some biased responses here. To say the course was not dangerous would be just plain blind. The number of incidents is there for everyone to see. I challenge you to name another stage that would have 10+ incidents in the race report. I cant name one from recent memory.

In saying from as a spectator point of view, that was one of the best TTT stages I've ever seen. The parcours had variety - hills, flats, crosswinds - Definitely a change up from the straight line slug fest we've become accustomed to. For me, it was the choice of roads was the crucial factor. 1 lane carriageways are just asking for trouble especially when two lanes are needed for the slipstream formation.

It's just a shame about the loss of real time for the GC hopefuls. This obviously isn't the solution for a 3 week tour as the contenders have been cut in half and all limited to 1 team but having subsidised times is not the answer either. The ASO need to go back to the drawing board. Maybe the TTT stage is neutralised where the only thing on offer is team points, bragging rights and prize money.

 

[Publicus]

There sure are some biased responses here. To say the course was not dangerous would be just plain blind. The number of incidents is there for everyone to see. I challenge you to name another stage that would have 10+ incidents in the race report. I cant name one from recent memory.

In saying from as a spectator point of view, that was one of the best TTT stages I've ever seen. The parcours had variety - hills, flats, crosswinds - Definitely a change up from the straight line slug fest we've become accustomed to. For me, it was the choice of roads was the crucial factor. 1 lane carriageways are just asking for trouble especially when two lanes are needed for the slipstream formation.

It's just a shame about the loss of real time for the GC hopefuls. This obviously isn't the solution for a 3 week tour as the contenders have been cut in half and all limited to 1 team but having subsidised times is not the answer either. The ASO need to go back to the drawing board. Maybe the TTT stage is neutralised where the only thing on offer is team points, bragging rights and prize money.

Or the teams could actually preview the course more than once.

 

[cameron]

ttt course

I think the ttt corse was good....its good to see the pro's handling skills when under the pump...if we wanted a boringTTT then the organiser's should of put them on a velodrome....that would of been safe then.

 

[Buninyong Bunny]

It's very easy to balme to teams for not going over the course more than once, but even so you cannot admit that both Slience-Lotto and Rabobank would still have lost large amount of time in any situation, and that any time that would have been used going over the TTT course is time that would have been used doing other preparations.

It is plain to see in Slience, that Evans was simply being held back by the abilities of his team, and not by lack of prepartion or anything else. While the course was difficult, the only effect it actually had was probably to neturalize the abitilies of Cancellera and give some advantage to Astana in that battle - and even that didn't matter in the end. The issue here isn't the course but the whole idea of an TTT itself.

 

[Snake8]

There sure are some biased responses here. To say the course was not dangerous would be just plain blind. The number of incidents is there for everyone to see. I challenge you to name another stage that would have 10+ incidents in the race report. I cant name one from recent memory.

I can think of about a hundred stages where 10 or more riders were involved in a crash off the top of my head.

In saying from as a spectator point of view, that was one of the best TTT stages I've ever seen. The parcours had variety - hills, flats, crosswinds - Definitely a change up from the straight line slug fest we've become accustomed to. For me, it was the choice of roads was the crucial factor. 1 lane carriageways are just asking for trouble especially when two lanes are needed for the slipstream formation.


It's just a shame about the loss of real time for the GC hopefuls. This obviously isn't the solution for a 3 week tour as the contenders have been cut in half and all limited to 1 team but having subsidised times is not the answer either. The ASO need to go back to the drawing board. Maybe the TTT stage is neutralised where the only thing on offer is team points, bragging rights and prize money.

You are confusing me. You loved the stage, and the course but think it was too dangerous and its too bad that people lost time in a time trial, but we shouldn't subsidize their times, we should instead have a stage that means nothing to anyone? Did I get that right?

 

[Animal]

The tt course the route organisers made these riders go out on is a bloody disgrace. Surely the organisers have duty of care to not make the course so dangerous. So many riders crashed. I don't think i would ride my bike on that Course.

WTF?

It's what I would call a "sporting course". A course which challenges a rider. Which tests speed, strength, bike handling and pacing judgement.

An excellent course which exposed weaknesses exactly as it should.

 

[manmachine]

The tt course the route organisers made these riders go out on is a bloody disgrace. Surely the organisers have duty of care to not make the course so dangerous. So many riders crashed. I don't think i would ride my bike on that Course.

Why? Because so many inept so-called professionals failed to do recon
and are horrible bike handlers? I s e e...

The TTT was fantastic! Finally, a course that rewards bike handling skills
instead of just riding in a straight line that any trained monkey can do.
P l e a s e...give me a break. These primadonna's must give a big belly laugh to mountain bikers and motorcycle racers...

Pampered roadie 1 to pampered roadie 2- "They expect us to go around corners? On TT's bikes???" "Sacre Bleu! This is an outrage!"

It is great to watch some of the supposed pro riders implode when they are challenged by anything else other than a sprint or a climb. I've got some startling news for the whiners- pro cycling is way more than just being able to go fast and have endurance.

The best descenders and handlers are usually former MTB riders, because they actually understand cornering and the three basic tenants- Steering, Turning and Braking. Implementing these skills takes practice- something which is lost on the majority of the pro peloton.

Only a handful of road riders are good at descending and cornering, while the rest are either too scared or cannot be bothered to learn the acquired skills.

Once again the pampred roadie crowd...crying in their latte's about a course that's too hard....whah....whah....sniff....

 

[Franklin]

Once again the pampred roadie crowd...crying in their latte's about a course that's too hard....whah....whah....sniff....

Indeed. Why cry, what happened? No favorite got in the pile up, o favorite was transported to the hospital! The viewers had a great time.. why is there any reason we should care?

No guys, noone likes to see racers blood for their pleasure. Why would anyone remotely think of that?

I mean sure... these top pro's from the little teams they earn like 25k a year.. thats like awesome, two times as much as a bike messenger, They risk live and limb, so why shouldn't pro's? Or how about downhill mountainbiking? You don't do that in a bunch but sure, its also on a bike, so it's exactly the same thing. So if they can do it, why not the pro's ?

You guys crack me up

 

[unsheath]

I can think of about a hundred stages where 10 or more riders were involved in a crash off the top of my head.

You are confusing me. You loved the stage, and the course but think it was too dangerous and its too bad that people lost time in a time trial, but we shouldn't subsidize their times, we should instead have a stage that means nothing to anyone? Did I get that right?

10 separate incidents is not the same as 1 incident with 10 riders. Make sure you've got that distinction in your head.

Stage as a spectacle was amazing it's just too bad the consequences were injured riders and a skewed leaderboard. I was also saying that the TTT in current form is not working. The subsidised time formula they've used in the past is also flawed. The ASO basically need to come up with a different blueprint. The neutralised stage is one of many options worth looking at.

Plain enough for you?

 

[Franklin]

10 separate incidents is not the same as 1 incident with 10 riders. Make sure you've got that distinction in your head.

Stage as a spectacle was amazing it's just too bad the consequences were injured riders and a skewed leaderboard.

Plain enough for you?

You are hitting the nail squarely on the head. And after the "you are an idiot, noone agrees" I will add a few more idiots who obviously have no clue:

Former cyclist and Tour de France winner Laurent Fignon, now a consultant with France Television, did not think so. "I don't understand why this type of course is chosen for a team time trial,” he said. “That's not its philosophy. Whose interest is it to make the riders take so many risks?"

Jens Voigt (Saxo Bank) also had some harsh comments. "It was a very atypical time trial circuit," he told Cyclingnews. "I saw Quick Step crashing already before the way to the start on some slippery stone panels. Then, I saw Denis Menchov crashing in the first corner, somebody from Lampre crashing in the second corner and then on those really narrow country roads, four from Bouygues Telecom literally went out into the field - that's just not what we need. I mean, we got all these rules, we have to wear helmets, more security - so why do they send us on a course that has ‘broken bones’ written all over it? I just don't get it. I'm sure there's a million better roads down here.

Liquigas' Brian Vandborg “We got through without crashing,” he added. “I did take one descent pretty fast and almost went into the ditch. It was definitely too risky for nine people, with the wind."

Definitely idiots

 

[yourwelcome]

Well, given that the cycling commentators I've heard mostly suck, I am not so offended.

Yes, it's very clear that you have a somewhat overinflated opinion of your own expertise.