lukasz

Pretty brutal crash. Can't wait to hear/read what Cavendish has to say.

fly:yes/land:no

i tuned in with 3k to go. that looked pretty wicked. there was an ambulance in the road for a while, hopefully no one is too hurt. from my grainy internet feed, it looked like cav took a wheel to the neck while he was on the ground.

fly:yes/land:no

looks like cyclingnews had a better view:

"boonen goes right into the back of Cavendish's neck"

ouch. cyclingnews also seems to think that cav drifted into haussler, but it looked to me like both riders drifted.

lukasz

I saw Cavendish lose traction in the rear, and unfortunately the polka dot jersey dude was right next to his rear wheel at the time and ate it.

Anyone remember the third or fourth place guy yesterday slipping in the same manner as Cavendish did today? Someone's putting oil spots down at the finish, heh.

Velomatic

I don't know, I just watched (link removed, better video below) a few times. Right around 1:17 it looks like Cav drifts heavily left to right (from the camera POV) and right into Haussler while every one else is more or less holding their lines.

Edit: It does look like Haussler had just come around and was moving right to left, though not as big a move as Cav's. All in all, that was a pretty crazy looking sprint.

fly:yes/land:no

the video link isn't working.

Obscene

davesax36

Is versus a day behind in coverage?

bratton

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-RNAYR3KPIg

This video shows the crash very well.
Yeah, neither of them were holding their lines, even though Cav comes around a foot or two more than Haussler did.
What actually caused the crash was Haussler all of a sudden tilting his bike much more than he was doing on any of the previous pedal strokes, colliding his front wheel with Cav's foot.
I don't know who is to blame--Cav for coming around so far even though he was ahead, or Haussler for veering and causing the actual moment of impact. Meh.

Edit: I would've liked to have seen where Haussler ended up after veering like that, assuming there was no crash.

Zanobi

I'm amazed anyone sees it as anyone but Cav's fault.

Head on, because of the way Ciolek gets passed, it looks like neither of them were holding their line all that well (with Cav really swerving).

The overhead shot I saw makes it plain that Cav came swinging around and barged into Haussler.


I've seen some comments that people think Cav's wheel collapsed, but I'm not sure. Regardless, the officials pegged him as the cause.

Zanobi

No, they do an hour wrap up each night.

They had some good angles of the crash, but I'm sick of their commentary.

OrionKhan

Sheesh, there were a couple of other crashes behind the first one as everyone slammed on the brakes or weaved to avoid. Haussler's head bounced like a ball on the road. Pretty amazing how well these lightweight almost flimsy feeling helmets do at protecting the head in a crash like that.

frpax

Holy crap. What a crash! I'm not a big Cav fan, but I hope he's alright.

rogwilco

^^
From what I understand, nobody was too seriously hurt in the crash, except for cuts, bruises and a couple stitches.

prettyshady

I thought this was photoshop, then I rewatched the footage and the wheel goes from round, to flat under hh's wheel then back to round again.

Metzinger

Blimey! That's a collapsed wheel alright. But there's no way it was the cause of the accident. It was a result of it.
Cav penalized 30" for 'irregular sprinting'.

lukasz

That is an awesome photo.

Zanobi

Haussler with stitches to the elbow for a deep wound and a French rider had a broken wrist after going over the barrier.

fly:yes/land:no

all i had to go on was the initial viewing and the replay on a grainy internet feed. after getting a chance to watch it a few times, it certainly looks like cav is at fault. to me, he makes an even more dangerous swing to his right at around 10 seconds. seems like the peleton is angry.

everything

Cav rode into Haussler and Haussler bumped him.
Haussler didn't crash until Cav had already started crashing and got his wheel underneath Hausslers.
Haussler clearly gave Cav a bump but that's the game Cav started playing when he decided to ride into Haussler.

thenomad

In my eyes Cavendish was hammering hard and trying to block the other riders. The center guy got sent back and had to let up, then Cav figured he'd just keep his bearing to the left and "lean on" Haus. Haus had his head down and was more or less sprinting straight, he didn't have good visibility but I feel once he caught Cav coming close in his periferal he had a flinch or slight swerve move anticipating the impact/bump. This is the funky last stroke you see of haus. It's amazing the clarity we can see now with the cameras and slow mo. we can analyze every little twitch and only when we go back to full speed do we appreciate the fact that it all happened withing a second.

kudude

watch the rabobank rider who doesn't crash. awesome bike handling/braking to get stopped that fast.

Sea Green Sky

This.

I can't believe Versus (Paul Sherwin) called it 60% Cav's fault and 40% Haussler's. I assume they're trying to spin it as only partly Cav's fault because he's on an American team. Why else would they do that?

Versus gets less objective and credible with each passing season.

Zanobi

I couldn't agree more.

They're not commentators, they're HTC (particularly Cavendish) fanboys.

I've heard them brag about HTC with a rep from another team part of the conversation/in the booth. They're borderline disrespectful to anyone other than HTC and Lance.

After the call on this one, and the general glossing over of the "protest" by the other teams, I'm really hoping there's another way to watch the TdF next month. I've been watching on Vs the last couple years, but I'll be glad to find another way to watch.

OrionKhan

Unfortunately, Versus has turned Paul and Phil into nothing but a couple of endorsement shills. Its really pronounced when you watch Versus coverage opposed to Universal Sports. I used to value Paul and Phil's entertainment value pretty highly. But they're lack of objectivity has really gotten in the way. They've lost a lot of credibility with me. I know that the Versus producers probably have a lot, if not all, to do with it. But they've gone from very entertaining to very annoying in the past couple of years. To sum it up, Versus coverage is pretty lame. Its overproduced. Sometimes less is more.