BillyD

That's excessive masochism. The US Supreme Court just recently ruled against cruel & excessive punishment.

patentcad

And yet they have done nothing to relieve us from S. Palin.

guadzilla

It is *extremely* tasteless of you to use that accident to push your distorted agenda. You know as well as anyone else that this could have happened anywhere.

We've gone through the rest of the arguments already.

nycphotography

Apparently so is logic.

If his crash had been caused by multi day exhaustion due to the abusive tour, then you might be able to draw a connection.

But using a stage 3 crash to support your position... that only works if you're claiming there should be no mountain descents and the riders should be ferried down the mountain in buses where they can continue from the bottom.

I didn't watch the entire Giro, but I'm curious about one thing... how were the sprint finishes? It could be logically argued that having the stages be longer, bigger, and tougher overall can go a long way towards breaking apart the peloton so there aren't as many train wrecks in the sprint finishes. I'm not sure how that played out (and the sample size of one Giro is too small to be conclusive) but I'm still curious.

coasting 

how comes when we in BF say HTFU we get a slap on the back?

patentcad

Your inability to grasp the simple point here is astonishing: it is more than dangerous enough as it is. The organizers don't have to make it over the top hard and dangerous to have a good race. That actually diminishes the sport.

But you'll never get the point.

So it goes.

patentcad

Fixed for accuracy.

patentcad

Well that certainly adds to your credibility.

2ndGen

Hey! In WESTCHESTER'S defense... you are one of those guys who LOVE to come here and partake of our beautiful roads!
Let's get together and ride bro! I'm currently residing in Da' Bronx.

patentcad

How can you be so obtuse? Is it deliberate?

Wouter's death simply underscores how dangerous pro bicycle racing is with the typical courses they compete on. In my view adding descents like Mt. Crostis is tantamount to attempted murder on the part of the organizers.

I don't have an 'agenda', and I don't think my views are distorted. I think many of the views here are clueless, and really do exhibit a complete lack of experience with what it's like to actually race a bicycle. It's dangerous in the local park @ 40 mph in a 35+ race. It's very dangerous @ the pro level without the idiot organizers going out of there way to turn it into some death crash waiting to happen. I do consider it both a miracle and a testament to the bike handling skills of the pros that we've only seen a handful of deaths in the last 20 years. I find it rather surprising we don't see somebody buying the farm in this sport on a semi-annual basis.

2ndGen

Penance? Damn...that's Purgatory bro!

patentcad

I really should just excommunicate these jerks for arguing with me in the first place.

Luckily for them I've been riding lately and I'm in a good mood.

neuronal

This argument is the symptom of over-opinionated people who don't have a good grip on facts but still want to defend their egos. There's really no point arguing with these type of people.

Some quotes:

"After the third and longest of those stages — more than eight hours in the saddle for the majority of the field — many riders were angry. French climber Jean Gadret, who’s in the top five overall, said, “That was inhuman.” Italy’s former race winner Danilo Di Luca called it “a monstrosity.” And Australia’s Richie Porte, one of race leader Alberto Contador’s top teammates, wrote on his Twitter account: “That was the hardest day I’ve ever had on a bike. Bloody hurt!”"

"Riders were coming across the finish line in Gardeccia in a daze. Some had been riding more than eight hours. Giro leader Alberto Contador called it “the hardest stage of my life.”"

"Rain started to pelt the peloton on the Fedaia and some wondered if the extreme conditions were really necessary. “It’s too much. You should see the faces of the riders – they’re just dead. Imagine if it had been raining the entire day,” said Garmin-Cervélo sport director Bingen Fernández. “Do we need this? It’s one thing to race eight hours in a classic, but to race eight hours after what we’ve been through in this Giro is too much. A shorter stage would have delivered the same result, probably be more spectacular and it would be more humane.”"

2ndGen

PC, you gotta launch one of these!

surgeonstone

Cause were idiots.

guadzilla

I know what you are trying to say. My point is that Wouter's death doesnt underscore anything. It was a random and extremely unfortunate accident and should be left at that, and NOT be used as ammunition in the "let's make cycling safer" game.

Ok, this is slightly better stated. I disagree with it but I can see your point.

My 2 cents:
- Yes, there is always the risk of crashes in cycling but we'll have to disagree about how we interpret the magnitude of that risk
- Given that more accidents happen in stage finishes and things like cobbles, it is arguable how much more risk mountain stages add - and if 8 (or whatever) is too much, why just stop at 5 or 6? Why not do away with mountain stages altogether?

And for the record, none of the pros are claiming that the stages are too dangerous (except Crostis - more on that in a bit) - they are saying it is too hard and the transfers are too inconvenient (as Commodus pointed out). Hard != dangerous. If the pros all start saying that these stages are too dangerous, then I'll listen.

Even Crostis - has any rider actually said it is too dangerous to ride? The descriptions made it sound pretty bad, but then, the organziers had put in a lot of crash barriers, etc. So it is hard to really separate the polemic from reality, atleast for me sitting here, so I dont really have an opinion.

guadzilla

After you are done congratulating yourself, please note that
(1) I dont think anyone denied that this Giro was very tough and the riders would have preferred an easier race.
(2) The Pope is arguing that these mountain stages are dangerous and deadly - wtf do your quotes have anything to do with that?

clink83

Yes, because one death this year, a rider going over a cliff last year, and multiple protests over the safety of the race from people who are better riders than anyone on here is "*****ification". You should ask the wives and children of the racers if your entertainment is more important than their lives.

gregf83 

The death this year was unfortunate but had nothing to do with a dangerous descent. Deaths are unfortunate but happen in most sports.

guadzilla

Nah, actually I am a fan of His Popeness - except when he is blatantly wrong such as now, of course

Doohickie

Ding. We have a winner. So therefore the biggest idiot title reverts to Pcad.

Nerull

Just how many riders do they need to kill per race before it's "hard enough"?

guadzilla

I dunno - how many have been killed so far b/c the race was too hard?

echappist

it's amazing that a bunch of people who probably haven't even raced in the lowest levels of cycling are calling the pros "*******" for objecting to extreme conditions of this particular Giro.

the mountain stages aren't dangerous? my ass. Anyone who has tried to descend at 80kph in a rain-soaked stage will tell you otherwise. That 8 hour-long stage had two long descents leading up to the final climb. By the time the riders got there, both were rain soaked and dangerous, not to mention that concentration has gotten a lot worse after 5-6 hours of racing. Claiming that the safety barriers put in on the Crotsis climb somehow mitigates the danger is tacitly agreeing to the notion that the descent was too dangerous to begin with. No roads used in a descent should have these things, and this is probably the first time that they were being used.

neuronal

So what you're saying is...you have no idea what the argument is actually about.

Of course the Giro is tough, captain obvious. The argument is on whether it is gratuitously tough, to the point that it is destroying the spirit of the race. Many riders and many viewers think so. You and the race organizer do not. These are facts.

Unless you're a complete idiot (which you very well could be), even you wouldn't make every single stage a difficult climbing stage. So even you realize that races should have limits. Bike races, for the most part, are not and should not be a matter of mere survival. Strategy and smartness should factor significantly into a race. There's a reason no one watches triathlons or ultra-endurance events. They are boring, as was this year's giro after the few half.

So once again, the question is not whether a line should be drawn somewhere, but rather where the line should be drawn. And I think I'm going to go with the pro riders' opinion rather than yours. Unless you think they are lying when they say that this Giro is the hardest race they've ever done.


Hmm. I really don't know why I wasted time reasoning with you just now. Perhaps out of some dwindling hope for humanity? I honestly couldn't care less what you think about this issue. Oh well...