Caretaker

In light of other events yesterday in the South of France this is insignificant. No one died or was seriously injured. I'm sure there will be some acknowledgement at today's TT stage but the best response is to carry on the Tour as normal and hopefully all spectators will be respectful of the event and riders.

Stadjer

I don't have the rule book here but it's an exceptional decision to hand out bonus seconds and who got them for what is also questionable and unprecented.

I guess a decision like this would be much easier to live with if there were clear rules for it and those were applied consistently. Now the jury influences the outcome of the stage and the whole TdF by choosing to 'correct' the times, they could also have chosen not to correct anything, the jury shouldn't have that choice. The rules should describe circumstances in which the jury is obliged to correct times, and forbid the jury to do so if those circumstances aren't met.

Steve C

And Adam Yates almost got pulled off his bike when someone grabbed his left arm.

This after the 1KM banner fiasco.

diphthong

having watched significant parts (or more) of the tdf since 1997, this is a strange one. no abandons the first week. collapsing flamme rouge
marker, stage truncation and froome's triathlon effort the second week. what the bleep will we be watching for the last 9 stages?!

Caretaker

No abandons is a positive. Seem to remember a collapsing finish line in a GT in recent years but may not have been the TdF. Stage truncation is common in the Giro because it's held earlier in the year but this type of weather is unusual in the South of France in mid-July. If the exposed part of the Ventoux stage had gone ahead I believe the crowd would have been massed in the more open areas near the summit and the problem with the moto stopping suddenly wouldn't have happened. I blame the weather.

Hopefully the weather will be more normal from here on and the spectators more respectful.

Homebrew01

Not so easy if your cleats don't match the pedals.

PepeM

Not so easy on an 8% incline (I'm guessing) either.

bikecrate

He took a very convenient nature break.


I'm sorry, but I found Froome running up the mountain and then trying to ride the too small bike quite humorous. I'm not a Froome fan, but I was actually respecting the way he was riding the tour. However, it was time for something to ruffle the inevitable march to victory.

DLBroox

See now that I wondered about. Why would anyone agree to neutralize the race when a man goes down? That to me should not have happened. Too bad, your man went down. But I do think the jury did the right thing when it came to that cluster #*% at the top of the race. The organizers are more to blame then the riders.

Jakedatc

Tho now that ive seen the video of Quintana getting a tow from the Mavic Moto i guess it is balanced out now.

PepeM

Bit windy for Bardet.

PepeM

Game over.

MinnMan

Yeah. That.

DLBroox

Wow that was blatant with Quintana! And Cycling News tries to make an excuse that he was trying not to put his foot down but other riders were passing on the inside even closer to the mess. Who knows how long he hung on, or was even hanging on!

Video shows Nairo Quintana taking a tow from a motorbike on Ventoux - Cycling Weekly

Lazyass

There's some fishy stuff going on.

Yesterday, Quintana got a tow from a motorcycle:

Video shows Nairo Quintana taking a tow from a motorbike on Ventoux - Cycling Weekly


Then today they were showing Tejay apparently bonking and someone helping push him up the hill. Then the camera cut away, he was never shown on television again and his name wasn't mentioned for the rest of the race. Not even when he crossed the line, whenever that was.

gsa103

The yellow bike given to Froome apparently had Mavic pedals.... Are there ANY teams on Mavic pedals? If not why is that bike even on a neutral car.

DLBroox

When I was watching live with the app today the written commentary popped up that Alaphillepe had crashed because of the wind but no one ever mentioned it and there was never a camera showing him out on the course. Thought that was really weird too.

HardyWeinberg

What channel were you watching? They followed him up the last hill and across the line on nbc sports. Watched him plunge down the day's standings as he approached the line, and then get passed some more by people following him.

Lazyass

NBCSN. After it showed him being pushed up the hill I sat right there until Froome crossed the line and they ended the coverage for NASCAR. Liggett even said something before the camera cut away. I purposely sat there and watched until the end just so I could see if they would show Tejay again which they did not.

caloso

It's Mavic Neutral Service. They probably thought it would be a good idea to push product.

GreenAnvil

Ok, so the guy can climb, can descend, can sprint, can time trial...

And not like Sagan who's been strong since he joined the World Tour... this guy just keep getting stronger year after year. He went from ok/good to super in the latter part of his career. If he keeps maturing like this (who knows what his peak is?) he'll turn into a monster!

I don't think he can be beat.

DiabloScott

Pedals with toe straps are impossible to put your foot into.
Yeah... no. It's the only thing that makes sense.
It would be cool of Mavic to invent some kind of universal neutral service pedal that no one would ever buy, just to keep their commitment to neutral service.

Rollfast

I wondered about where to find it, and now I find it's on CABLE.


And now it's completely overshadowed by Nice. Crap.

work4bike

Froome is just an animal. He kicked ass in today's TT -- don't forget that he had a tougher wind by the time he started.

Andy_K 

It's just too bad Quintana wasn't holding on to the service bike that Froome was running next to. That would have been a sight!

The fact that the organizers are tolerating this nonsense tells me that they understand how badly they screwed things up on that stage.