Kind of Blued

I have to say, I just ran the numbers on stages 13-15 and it's just ridiculous. I won't say they've gone too far, yet, but I can't help but take pause. You be the judge.

Stage 13: 105 mile mountain stage. No rest day. Difficult, but typical.

Stage 14: 131 miles, 16,500 feet of climbing. No rest day. That hurts. Bad.

Stage 15: 143 miles, 21,500 feet of climbing, followed by rest day. Uh, what?.

Many of these descents are on single-lane, gravely pavement, no guard rails, with a chance for snow or rain.

Oh yeah, and no doping. Really?!

I know it's a race, and they're pros, but where is the cutoff for "just plain stupid"?! When is it just asking too much for anybody to do this day after day without doping? At what point does a race become an endurance event?

Bacciagalupe

It's going to be a very challenging course. My impression is that the Giro often tries to out-tough the Tour de France. The ToC is usually tougher due to the level of competition and expectations, rather than the actual course itself.

The "cutoff" is usually when the riders actually bother to protest over unnecessary difficulties or a course that's too dangerous, like they did in 2009.

Yes, these guys could do it without doping, they just wouldn't do it as fast and would pick their battles more judiciously on the mountain stages and TT's. The drugs don't reduce the amount of suffering, it just helps them bounce back quicker.

rogwilco

Yes, they are crazy and it's going to be crazy exciting, I can't wait for the Giro to finally start. But call me stupid if you want.

Kind of Blued

No way, I'm pumped too! I just hope nobody eats it really hard on one of those descents (and by "eats it really hard" I mean "dies").

queerpunk

The starting line.

AdelaaR

Prophetic words they were.

Farby

thats scary.

Bacciagalupe

Weylandt crashed on a relatively safe stage, not on one of the insane descents selected by the organizers.

Coincidence != prophesy.

AndyGrow

They used to race on gravel and dirt roads a long time ago...not much different than the ones they'll be riding in this Giro.

Glades2

This was the complaint after the Olympic death - the organizers have pushed the limits too far, and now the athletes are in danger...

True, downhill deaths have happened before, years earlier in fact as the media has mentioned, but in the case of this week's death, even a bicycle helmet was of no help...

At the start of the Giro it was made known that this years course was extreme in many places, with the amount of climbing as mentioned earlier in this thread, and it really shows how much pressure these cyclists are under - if they get dropped repeatedly there's a real chance they will be dropped from the team, but to not get dropped requires them to risk their lives, so while it's fun for us to watch professional cycling you really have to wonder how much they enjoy putting themselves through something like this - I'd have to say they don't, but the organizers seem not to care.

Of course they aren't the one's out there, and this reminds me of the old air shows - the orgainzers would make them as dangerous as they dared - and if someone was killed they knew there'd always be someone else to take that person's place...

It might be 2011 - but in some ways it's still 1921...

Glades2

Marauder9

Inclined to agree with the increase of difficult this year. Maybe OTT. How does this comapre to the TdF?

https://www.steephill.tv/giro-d-italia/

Comparing 2011 to previous years... 2011 2010 2009 2008 2007 2006 2005 Flat Stages 4 7 6 6 8 6 ? Medium Mountain Stages 6 5 6 7 5 4 ? Mountain Stages 8 5 5 4 5 4 5 # of Categorized Climbs (Cat 2, 1 and HC) 26 24 23 23 22 20 24 Mountaintop Finishes 8 6 6 5 4 4 4 Individual Time Trialing 45k 36k 77k 63k 65k 56k 80k Team Time Trialing 21.5k 32.5k 20.5k 28.5k 25.6k 38.0k 0 Overall Distance 3525k 3418k 3396k 3424k 3442k 3526k 3498k

Marauder9

My post didn't turn out as expected but can have a look at the link (about half way down the page)

Bacciagalupe

Uh, no.

This was not a particularly dangerous descent, certainly nothing out of the ordinary (https://velonews.competitor.com/2011/...h-scene_172277), and a doctor was apparently on the scene within 30 seconds.

A crash like this could have happened during almost any pro race in any year.


What, exactly, are the organizers supposed to do? Enforce a speed limit on descents? What qualifies as a safe speed for descending, 60kph? 50, 40, 30? Perhaps they should avoid descents altogether?

Caretaker

Professional road cycling has always been dangerous but I don't think the analogy you draw between it and airshows is valid.

Stage 3 where WW died was very typical of many stages in Grand Tours where you have a long relatively flat lead in of about 200kms then a 3 or 4 category climb followed by a descent before the final run in to the finish in a town where you are assured of a crowd and the resultant publicity. The climb is designed to test the climbing abilities of the riders and it also strings out the peleton so it doesn't arrive in the narrower streets of the finish as one big bunch. If all riders were to arrive together this could in fact be more dangerous than the descent with teams jockeying for position at very high speeds in a confined area.

This years Giro may be more difficult because the organisers feel they need to make it special to mark the 150th anniversary of Italian unity but that doesn't neccessarily mean it's more dangerous. The descent where Weylandt tragically died wasn't particularly dangerous, he was an accomplished descender, the road was dry and visibility good.

If you look at old footage of descents in the TdF long ago where guys without helmets fly down mountain sides through mist on dirt roads you'll realise that cycling is probably safer today than it ever was.

Glades2

True - the stages of long ago were pretty crazy, and the riders were usually on their own and had to carry everything with them...

And it is true the Giro stage wasn't the most dangerous, though the NBC Universal announcers noted just before the accident that the riders were "flying" down the switchbacks (they did to my eye as well), so that always increases the risk of an accident...

Sadly the accident was a "classic" in a sense - a cyclist looking backwards who didn't notice he was too close to a stationary object, and hit it, so in that sense it wasn't out of the ordinary, though even the TdF cyclists have commented on the roads becoming more and more challenging for them each year, as if the organizers want to keep the public interest by making the race more dangerous, and that was my comparison to the old air shows - the public is usually more interested when there's an element of danger involved, unfortunately...

Being a club cyclist since 1977, my take on the entire issue, and it's shared by the old "fast crowd" in my old club, is that cycling has become an extreme sport - the 20 mph fast cyclists of 1977 would now be scoffed at, due to ultra-light bicycles, energy drinks, and the overall mentality of cyclists today, who unlike cyclists in my generation, feel faster is always better - until there's an accident...

A novice cyclist in my office who was (was) training for the Leukemia/Lymphoma Team century in Lake Tahoe crash two Saturdays ago while in a peleton - that didn't call out a cement obstruction in the road - and had arm surgery two days ago. Needless to say her days with the peleton are over - she told me that she'll never ride with them again for not calling out what was ahead!

Again, typical of the 2011 cyclist - our old groups, even the fast ones, always tried our best to call out obstructions, and in fact we always taught novice cyclists to do that, not only for safety but out of being considerate of others...

Anyway - the Giro organizers probably won't be held responsible for the accident, but as the Olympic athletes and professional cyclists have said, professional sports have purposely become more dangerous...

Even US professional skiier Lindsey Vonn said this past February that at least one European course was purposely treated with water (!) to make the resulting ice coating more appealing to the public by allowing the skiiers to go even faster...

There needs to be a line drawn somewhere - before more deaths occur...

Glades2

Caretaker

Don't want to denigrate Universal announcers but, guys, it's a race what are they supposed to do?

Here, I watch British Eurosport with David Harmon and Sean Kelly as announcers/commentators. Sean is a legend in cycling with a professional career stretching from the late 70's to the early 90's.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sean_Kelly_(cyclist)

He clocked a career top race speed of 124km/h in the 1984 TdF descending from Joux-Plane to Morizine.

There's nothing new about fast descending.

Bacciagalupe

How is that even remotely relevant? Every single club ride I've been on instructs riders to call out road hazards. If anything, club rides of the past were probably less safe due to riders not wearing helmets.

Nor is there a lot of evidence of a massive upswing in cycling fatalities, either in the pro ranks or among ordinary cyclists. E.g. cycling fatalities in the US have dropped nearly every year since 1994, despite increases in cycling (fyi, 802 in 1994, down to 630 in 2009).

There really is no need to cry wolf over this.

Keith99

Thanks for the link. That section is flat out easy, it is a straightaway, not a turn at all, not even close to a turn. Especially considering some of the descriptions of the crash it looks like it was the very ease of the section that was the problem, he felt that was the section where he could take a look to determine the race situation. He would not ahve tried that on a truely dangerous section. But he drifted enough to hit a pedal.

ultraman6970

Glades, your friend got bad luck, that's all i have to say. Probably they did and she could not read the signs?, the issue too is that she was a rookie, rookies can't figure it out a single thing while riding in a group and is even worse when the group that is riding with them refuse to teach them, thing i have seen pretty often here in the states for some reason. Some people is too competitive when had not been there, so they won't share even 5 minutes to be nice with rookies also. Thing i have seen here also.

As for the speeds going downhill, you can go talking with somebody while going 60 km/h if the road is pretty steep, and so far speeds going downhill are the same than years ago, in the flats and climbing the thing is totally different now. I saw the pictures of the road and this kid just got bad luck. Sure they were going 55 to 60 km/h in that part of the road, he looked back and hit the little wall. Why he went catapulted?? I can't even imagine how, i can think tho that when he hit the little wall the bike turned over and stopped right away and he just flew and hit the wall at the other side, just like in the movies. Pure and mere bad luck, If he had not looked bad he could be alive right now.

Glades2

Yes, I warned my co-worker several times to take it slow while learning how to cycle within a group, but she being an accomplished runner wanted to learn as quickly as possible - I told her that wasn't a good idea but sometimes we all end up learning the hard way, unfortunately...

Per the other poster, the revelance was just the comment made by someone in our club who used to be part of the "fast group" of the 1980s - that cycling today has gotten so competitive, and with that mindset the accidents that happen, even with paved roads, good-quality helmets and high-tech bikes - has likely and actually gotten worse than decades ago, solely due to speed...

No mention was made about the speed at the time of the Giro accident, other than the NBC announcers mentioning that the peleton was "flying" - the higher the speed, the danger of it exceeding a person's reaction time increases and with that the chance of an accident also increases...