Rules to turn a blind eye to

lotus49

I have always taken an interest in bike racing but, until recently, it was fairly superficial. I have watched a fair bit of bike racing over the last few months and there have been some fascinating aspects that have caught my attention.

One that stands out is the fact that everyone turns a complete blind eye to drafting and pulling riders along (eg magic spanner, sticky bottle) if they have dropped off the peloton because of an accident or mechanical issue.

Most sports pretend to apply the rules to the letter even if they do not in reality, but cycling doesn't even try in this situation.

I am also interested in baseball and there is a similar situation there called a "neighborhood play" which involves everyone pretending that the second baseman had his foot on the bag when he clearly didn't.

In both these cases I agree with what happens, not what the rules say but I'd be interested to know what other examples there are of sports allowing culture to override the rules in real life?

englander

I watched a spot of the Giro the other day and they discussed the point about drafting the cars. Basically, they concluded it was ok to draft your way back up to the back of the peloton if you had a mechanical, but otherwise it was a no-no. So if you'd fallen out the pack just because you were struggling up a climb then drafting would be frowned upon/punished or whatever.

ddraver

It comes down to an entirely superficial and often heavily nationalisitc interpretation of one man sitting in a box somewhere. Bascially, if they do not gain an advantage from it, then it's ok. If it was one of the favourites on the final climb then it would be an absolute no no, but if it's a neo-pro domestique then they turn a blind eye

chrisday

I also get the feeling that more often than not, riders will draft back up behind another team's car, rather than their own. Not sure if this is done in a spirit of "proving fairness" (i.e. other team isn't going to help you gain an advantage) or just law of averages meaning you're unlikely to end up next to your own car.

Not the most interesting observation I've made, mind, but it's still early.

TheBigBean

It is sometimes punished. It is just that the punishments are of little concern to the majority: losing points / gaining seconds has little impact on a domestique who would simply prefer the easy ride back.

PBo

lotus49 wrote:

In both these cases I agree with what happens, not what the rules say but I'd be interested to know what other examples there are of sports allowing culture to override the rules in real life?

The concept of "full time", when Man Utd are losing?

mm1

chrisday wrote:

I also get the feeling that more often than not, riders will draft back up behind another team's car, rather than their own.

Like Uran behind the Radoishack amiralia in Naples after he punctured. He looked comfortable 3 -4 inches off the back bumper at what must have been 40mph.

specialgueststar

A WG Grace story. Ground packed out with thousands of admiring fans to see him in an exhibition match

Bowled out first ball! He stands his ground and throws the ball back to the bowler.

They've come to see me bat - not you bowl! Now carry on.

Having a mechanical 100k out with a headwind and a feisty peloton - no one is going to make it back and going to be out of time . It could be up to 20 dnf's a day - so a rapidly dwindling peloton.

We go to watch them race - not disappear!

ianwilliams

Football has a lot of this stuff too:

- You'll get away with fouls and transgressions in the penalty area that would often lead to free-kicks outside the area.
- There are lots of instances where referees' 'even things up' with a yellow card or penalty to both sides, if they feel they've made a dodgy call earlier in the game.

Ultimately its because decisions are being made by individuals interpretation of complex rules in a single instant. People aren't machines. It's what makes sports great! The introduction of goal-line technology in football next year will remove some of that. I think its ultimately the right thing but I will miss those conversions about whether the ball was or wasn't over the line.

knedlicky

lotus49 wrote:

everyone turns a complete blind eye to drafting and pulling riders along (eg magic spanner, sticky bottle) if they have dropped off the peloton because of an accident or mechanical issue.

Most sports pretend to apply the rules to the letter even if they do not in reality, but cycling doesn't even try in this situation.

I’m not sure you’re right in saying everyone turns a blind eye to drafting/pulling riders back after they’ve dropped back because of a mechanical/accident.
After each stage during the TdF, the organisers publish a list of infringements and fines for that stage, and they sometimes include riders being fined for receiving help to get back after a mechanical. Perhaps it depends on how blatant the help is or for how far/how long it was given.

I don’t know if a similar list is published daily during the Giro, but the race does have a so-called ‘fair play’ competition, where teams are effectively given minus points for infringements. The team with the least minus points at the end of the Giro gets a 9000 Euro prize.
Up to now in this Giro, 12 teams are still without any minus points, but the other 11 teams have collected between 5 and 270 points. Sky have 20 minus points.

Drafting/pulling riders back typically incurs a time penalty, and for every second of penalty given to the rider concerned, his team is given 2 minus pts. So in the case of Sky, perhaps one of their riders was adjudged to have unlawfully gained 10 seconds by following a car’s slipstream. That would explain their 20 minus pts.
(Sky got given their minus points during the TTT, in case anyone can recall an incident then. Was one of their riders dropped but then helped back by a team car?)

Mad_Malx

knedlicky wrote:

(Sky got given their minus points during the TTT, in case anyone can recall an incident then. Was one of their riders dropped but then helped back by a team car?)

Surely that would be more serious, unless it was someone who didn't contribute to the finish of the timed riders?

richa

knedlicky wrote:

Sky got given their minus points during the TTT, in case anyone can recall an incident then. Was one of their riders dropped but then helped back by a team car?

Danny Pate had a mechanical and bridged back to an 8-man paceline. I didn't see him draft a team car in the coverage but it may have been him.

lotus49

RichA wrote:

Danny Pate had a mechanical and bridged back to an 8-man paceline. I didn't see him draft a team car in the coverage but it may have been him.

I saw that. After he had dropped off the back of the paceline I didn't think he had a hope of getting back on. It seems very unlikely that he could have got away with drafting in this situation though.

I know riders are sometimes penalised but the only time I have seen that happen is when they were tired and using a draft or sticky bottle to get back. It seems to be perfectly acceptable and indeed commonplace to do it after an accident or a mechanical.

I would much rather not see riders lose out because of an issue that was not their fault so I'm perfectly happy with what happens but it is a flagrant breach of the rules that no-one seems to care about in the least. There was a time when the peloton or a breakaway would wait for a rider who had had a mechanical and I have seen some strong criticism of riders who did not. That seems (like the neighborhood play I referred to in my original post) to be becoming less common.

lotus49

ianwilliams wrote:

Football has a lot of this stuff too:

- You'll get away with fouls and transgressions in the penalty area that would often lead to free-kicks outside the area.
- There are lots of instances where referees' 'even things up' with a yellow card or penalty to both sides, if they feel they've made a dodgy call earlier in the game.

Ultimately its because decisions are being made by individuals interpretation of complex rules in a single instant. People aren't machines. It's what makes sports great! The introduction of goal-line technology in football next year will remove some of that. I think its ultimately the right thing but I will miss those conversions about whether the ball was or wasn't over the line.

I have to confess that I don't follow football and know very little about it but is it quite so blatant in football? The interesting thing about what happens in cycling is that it is there for everyone to see. I presume that the other riders could lodge a complaint but I have never heard of that happening.

I do agree that it's often the human element that makes sport so interesting.

afx237vi

lotus49 wrote:

I have to confess that I don't follow football and know very little about it but is it quite so blatant in football? The interesting thing about what happens in cycling is that it is there for everyone to see. I presume that the other riders could lodge a complaint but I have never heard of that happening.

I do agree that it's often the human element that makes sport so interesting.

Cycling is about making allies, not enemies.

ianwilliams

afx237vi wrote:

lotus49 wrote:

I have to confess that I don't follow football and know very little about it but is it quite so blatant in football?

Cycling is about making allies, not enemies.

Yeah, I think that's the difference. You won't hear a cyclist raise an objection about such a rule-break - probably because making alliances is so important.

But say it were football, one team were breaking into the box and the defending player pulled the shirt of the attacker, that's a foul - and the attacking team would be up in arms and hounding the ref for a penalty. They have no need to get on the 'good side' of their opponents, do they?

Most referees would give a foul and free kick for a shirt pull outside the box, but very few would give a foul and a penalty. The referees, not the players, turn a blind eye in these instances.

tailwindhome

lotus49 wrote:

RichA wrote:

Danny Pate had a mechanical and bridged back to an 8-man paceline. I didn't see him draft a team car in the coverage but it may have been him.

I saw that. After he had dropped off the back of the paceline I didn't think he had a hope of getting back on. It seems very unlikely that he could have got away with drafting in this situation though.

A rider using a team car to pace back onto to a TTT effort should be very heavily penalised (In my view)

Richmond Racer

TailWindHome wrote:

lotus49 wrote:

RichA wrote:

Danny Pate had a mechanical and bridged back to an 8-man paceline. I didn't see him draft a team car in the coverage but it may have been him.

I saw that. After he had dropped off the back of the paceline I didn't think he had a hope of getting back on. It seems very unlikely that he could have got away with drafting in this situation though.

A rider using a team car to pace back onto to a TTT effort should be very heavily penalised (In my view)

20 measly points (in light of some teams already having accumulated up to 250 in just 3 days) would indicate that it was nowt to do with drafting, surely?

Rodrego Hernandez

A daily communique is sent that will have loads of monetary fines for offences such as drafting for too long, littering, not signing on, taking service on the wrong side of the road.

Most commissaires will use discretion so that a rider who has had a flat can regain their place but if they take the pi$$ they will get fined, as will the team managers.

Oddly enough, local riders don't seem to get fined as heavily as outsiders and smaller teams less likely to get loads of fines compared to the bigger teams. It's a funny old game.

rick_chasey

No-one's mentioned the D word yet?

inkyfingers

Rick Chasey wrote:

No-one's mentioned the D word yet?

?

knedlicky

inkyfingers wrote:

Rick Chasey wrote:

No-one's mentioned the D word yet?

?

If it's what I think you mean, your team gets 2000 minus points in one go.

lotus49

afx237vi wrote:

Cycling is about making allies, not enemies.

This is one of the most interesting aspects of cycling. On a cricket or football pitch, the other side is the other side and they are the enemy at all times. Things are very different in cycling. Partly because there are situations where riders have to cooperate to achieve their objectives eg taking turns in a breakaway, but also because the riders need to trust each other in a way that cricketers don't. When 60 riders are riding together centimetres from each other, they need to cooperate if there isn't to be a horrible pile up. It is common to see riders gently pushing each other to avoid contact and of course the lead riders warn the rest of the peloton of obstacles. Soigneurs often give bottles to competing team members as well. It all makes for a very interesting group dynamic.

Rick Chasey wrote:

No-one's mentioned the D word yet?

When I posted this, I had in mind rules that are openly ignored rather than secretly ignored. There is no doubt in my mind that the UCI just wasn't serious about stopping doping but at least it pretended to be. No-one even pretends to care about breaches of the no drafting rule.

confused@BR

What should be remembered is 'what goes round comes round'. You are not likely to complain of lenient treatment for a mishap when the same could happen to you next. The need for a mechanic to 'check' the rear brake after a wheel change is just part of the general pattern of competitive cycling at that level. As was mentioned before it is never wise to make enemies in the peleton.

lotus49

confused@BR wrote:

The need for a mechanic to 'check' the rear brake after a wheel change is just part of the general pattern of competitive cycling at that level. As was mentioned before it is never wise to make enemies in the peloton.

I do think that's funny. I have never seen a mechanic check a front brake but those pesky rear brakes seem to cause lots of problems even when it was the front wheel that was changed .

Daz555

Chris Boardman summarises a few of the rules:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvOWJ1YHq8o

giropaul

As someone who has driven team cars and managed in UK and European races I would observe:

- Commissaires are inconsistent, so you need to get a "feel" for how they will be reacting at the start of a race
- Generally most commissaires are interested in "fair play" - therefore a rider getting back on after a puncture or a crash will be helped as much as their flexibility allows, but a rider who is dropped must not be helped back. It's fair.
- "sticky bottles" are OK in general if it's getting a rider back to where they should be - but not to get a rider back on after being dropped - again, it's about "fairness".
- Team cars pacing their riders back are likely to be fined. Therefore, other team cars will "help", as long as it's a team that hasn't p....ed people off recently. Watch for other team's cars drifting slowly past (helpful) or blasting past (unhelpful). On the road, reams watch out for each other. DS's will also have non-race radio /telephone chats at times! I'll help your rider back, you help mine back tomorrow.
- The Commissaire can help (be close to the back of the peleton), or hinder (leave a big sterile gap). The ~1 team car can do the same.

There's lots more skill involved in the car as well, but that will do for now!

greasedscotsman

How about getting rid of team cars altogether?

http://gerard.cc/2011/05/26/car-solution-1/

thomasmc

ianwilliams wrote:

afx237vi wrote:

lotus49 wrote:

I have to confess that I don't follow football and know very little about it but is it quite so blatant in football?

Cycling is about making allies, not enemies.

Yeah, I think that's the difference. You won't hear a cyclist raise an objection about such a rule-break - probably because making alliances is so important.

But say it were football, one team were breaking into the box and the defending player pulled the shirt of the attacker, that's a foul - and the attacking team would be up in arms and hounding the ref for a penalty. They have no need to get on the 'good side' of their opponents, do they?

Most referees would give a foul and free kick for a shirt pull outside the box, but very few would give a foul and a penalty. The referees, not the players, turn a blind eye in these instances.

Ventoso made some accusations about Cav holding onto team cars climbing Mount Etna in the Giro a few years ago, doesn't happen too often though