The Pro Road Cycling Thread

Dan LLoyd suggested on twitter that every rider in the top 50 of the GC apart from Richie should swop a wheel tomorrow in order to make it fair.
 
Nervous Nedum said:
Shands said:
Nervous Nedum said:
According to INRNG on Twitter, the rule is there to stop guys in the break from 'buying' a wheel should they puncture.

However, as you say riders flout the rules regularly and never get penalised. Look at what happened at P-R when they crossed a closed rail-crossing? Absolutely nothing.
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Thanks for the explanation NN, I can kind of see the merit in that. I suppose as well you can make the case that it's a team sport, and therefore any troubles you encounter should be dealt with solely by the team as otherwise it undermines the team classifications relevance. Equally you want to avoid national collusion as that could give some riders an unfair advantage. By that I mean if, for example, we had an instance of tacks on the road again on a mountain stage, and say Contador and Porte both punctured, it'd be very unfair if one of the plethora of Spanish climbers came to Alberto's assistance and sent him on his way, while Porte was stood around for some time waiting for a team mate to arrive. It's just a real shame that on this occasion Porte is being doubly punished for misfortune, but it seems the rule has been enforced previously so they didn't have a great deal of choice once the incident was being so publicly discussed. Bet Ritchie is regretting that tweet, he may have got away with it otherwise.

As for P-R it's ridiculous that no action was taken over that, it's one of the worst things I've ever watched live, so so reckless.
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Pretty sure I read somewhere that the jurors hadn't seen live footage of it, it was only when Graham Watson's photo was presented to them that they were able to take action. Can't even imagine how gutted both Porte and Clarke must feel tonight. Hope Sky still put on a show at least, make a go of it.

I'm fairly certain that Contador had to take his helmet off at some point in the last few days, maybe Stage 7, to take off his cap. I wouldn't bet against that being against the rules either.

EDIT: Couldn't make it up: https://twitter.com/GianniMeersman/status/597829780256460800
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That's fascinating, esp when you see the bottom tweet that it should incur a 2 min fine!
Sky should use that in an appeal!

I'd guess the motivation aspect will be the biggest barrier to this, but I would love to see Porte ride and get within 2 minutes of the eventual winner - aka the moral victor - although any talk of morals in pro cycling is absolutely laughable of course.
 
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It's a real pity Porte got hit by that , there are other teams and other nationalities that the UCI would have overlooked it.

It always happens in cycling , wiggins rode an opponent in cavendish to commonwealth gold, Eisel spent half the Olympic road race protecting Cav, back in the day of Roche and Delgado the peleton split down the middle when German and American riders learnt of an aledged plot among a couple of Spanish and Latin teams to try and box Roche and let Delgado get away on the last day.

It is farcical to stop something so disadvantageous and so good in terms of sportsmanship as a mate helping a mate out
 
EalingBlue2 said:
It's a real pity Porte got hit by that , there are other teams and other nationalities that the UCI would have overlooked it.

It always happens in cycling , wiggins rode an opponent in cavendish to commonwealth gold, Eisel spent half the Olympic road race protecting Cav, back in the day of Roche and Delgado the peleton split down the middle when German and American riders learnt of an aledged plot among a couple of Spanish and Latin teams to try and box Roche and let Delgado get away on the last day.

It is farcical to stop something so disadvantageous and so good in terms of sportsmanship as a mate helping a mate out
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I dunno about that EalingBlue, certainly there seems to be other instances of this rule being enforced, one of which was Frenchman Roman Sicard being docked in a French race while leading the GC. In the case of Meersman it does look to be double standards, but I think the problem is that his tweet is ambiguous, it doesn't actually state he received 'mechanical' assistance (you'd be able to draw a pretty solid inference that he did, but it's not cast iron), where as in Porte's case he spells it out and there's photo evidence provided so that's one they can make stick definitively.

Having seen the rule now, it does seem to state specifically that mechanical assistance is forbidden from other teams or their riders, where as sharing food, drinks, etc is permitted. Riding together for a common goal is also permitted (as it should be because enforcing what was genuine collaboration or not would be a minefield) so, whether we like it or not, none of those other things break a rule, where as Porte and Clarke's action do. Similarly it appears removing your helmet is permitted provided it's only for a short period to adjust clothing/helmet fit.

As Chesterbells intimated on Twitter last night, Porte and his squad need to look at themselves a bit here too. If your GC guy punctures at a crucial stage of the race, he should jump straight on the bike of the nearest team mate of similar build and get back in the bunch, don't wait for a wheel change. Had he done that he probably wouldn't have lost any time at all, certainly not 47 seconds, and he wouldn't have been in this penalisation situation either. It's the same mistake Valverde got crucified for in 2013 when it ended up costing over ten minutes in the crosswinds. As it was some of his team were busy working for Viviani, and that's the risk you take if your split your resources for two jerseys.

I do feel sorry for him, and we're likely to get a different type of race than had it not occurred (the emphasis on who may have needed to attack or not later in the race appears to have changed), but I don't think he been victimised, he's just been unlucky - but then that's bike racing, Uran was unlucky getting sick, Contador was unlucky with his spectator induced crash, and now Porte is unlucky to fall foul of a lesser known rule.

Let's see what today's stage brings anyway, plenty of scope for action!
 
Entertaining stage again today but Astana really are ridiculous. At the back end of the race that leaders group was whittled down to no more than about 40 riders; Sky had 3, Tinkoff had 3, Uran was on his own, yet Astana still had 8! The only team member missing was Rosa...because he was further up the road in the break. You can only shake your head at it. Good though to see Betancur putting in the hard work and improving day by day, it'd be great if he could be rewarded with a stage come the mountains.
 
Shands said:
Entertaining stage again today but Astana really are ridiculous. At the back end of the race that leaders group was whittled down to no more than about 40 riders; Sky had 3, Tinkoff had 3, Uran was on his own, yet Astana still had 8! The only team member missing was Rosa...because he was further up the road in the break. You can only shake your head at it. Good though to see Betancur putting in the hard work and improving day by day, it'd be great if he could be rewarded with a stage come the mountains.
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Hilarious, isn't it. It was also amusing to see Zakarin at the end out-pacing the peleton.

The top 5 is now:
1. Confirmed doper
2. Part of a team with doping culture
3. Same as above
4. Same as above
5. Confirmed doper

Todays stage winner - confirmed doper.

Ah, well. It's still a very entertaining tour. Tomorrow should produce an interesting finish.
 
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