Pro cyclists ......

kingstongraham

blazing_saddles said:

TheBigBean said:

On topic, a town that pays to have a race finish there is going to struggle to paint two 500m lines and remove them afterwards?

No.
But towns being what they are, can have nice wide roads and not such nice wide roads.
Or are the towns that bid to be DQF'd by tape measure?

You think a road can be wide enough for a bunch sprint but not wide enough for a bike width to be taken off each side for safety?

rick_chasey

Pross said:

rick_chasey said:

blazing_saddles said:

I am amazed by the response of many fans.
Blame the course, blame the barriers, blame the organizers, blame the UCI, talk about modernisation and rider safety, but don't apportion any blame to the rider because he was "only doing what riders have always done and you can't stop top sprinters from doing it..."

Wrong, you can stop riders doing it and we all know how. As DeVlaeminck has suggested:

"Short bans imposed more consistently will be more effective."

After all, what punishment is "relegation to the back of the group," to a sprinter, who only thinks in terms of coming first?

That's why they do it all the time.

Honest question is what Groenewegen did really that bad?

I see it happen *a lot*. Most sprints in fact. It’s only that Fabio decided to go round rather than squeeze the brakes.

DQ seems reasonable, no?

The head on camera is generous to him. The overhead, slightly rear angle shows he put the elbow in when he realised he was being passed. I think it was worse than the usual veering off his line but the poor infrastructure made the outcome worse.

So, my theory, and it's just that so call me out of it's rubbish ,is that sticking an elbow out when there's a guy on your side and leaning is something most people would instictively do.

Also, it's not against the rules (is it not?) as you're keeping your hands on the handlebars.

Elbows are overrated; I'll experiment when/if I get back on a club run with a friendly participant - I think it's quite hard to 'launch' someone a metre or so away from you just with an elbow.

ddraver

I don't think the elbow is important. As I've hinted upthread, the trouble Gronewegen has is that he is going to get beaten,so the only way to stop that is to squeeze Jakobsen against the barrier expecting him to stop.

No Dylan did not intend to put Fabio into the barriers and break his face, but he did intend to give him a binary choice between taking that risk or losing.

That is why the straight sprint laws exist and Gronewegen deliberately broke them. It's the same type of law as the last man red card rule in kickball...

For the barriers is a separate issue.

blazing_saddles

kingstongraham said:

blazing_saddles said:

TheBigBean said:

On topic, a town that pays to have a race finish there is going to struggle to paint two 500m lines and remove them afterwards?

No.
But towns being what they are, can have nice wide roads and not such nice wide roads.
Or are the towns that bid to be DQF'd by tape measure?

You think a road can be wide enough for a bunch sprint but not wide enough for a bike width to be taken off each side for safety?

That's a whole different argument.
There are normally during the course of a season, a lot of questionable finishes in terms of width. Taking a metre and a half off just isn't viable.

pblakeney

TheBigBean said:

ddraver said:

TheBigBean said:

ddraver said:

We are flipping suckers for a troll in ProRace innit...

I wanted to convert it to the unpopular pro race opinions thread as a guide on how to troll properly.

I want to agree with your hard shoulder idea but I don't want to add to the problem!! 😤

These were independent things. Here's an unpopular opinion:

Strong teams in GTs are overrated. It's nearly always the guy with the best legs that wins.

I've always thought that a strong rider in a weak team need only sit on the back of the Ineos train.
The "strong" has to come before the "only" though. 😉

RichN95.

pblakeney said:

I've always thought that a strong rider in a weak team need only sit on the back of the Ineos train.
The "strong" has to come before the "only" though. 😉

The problem comes when the Ineos leader is the best TTer. As it was with Wiggins and Froome. Bernal though is not better than Roglic or Dumoulin and maybe not Pogacar (I know little of his TT)

pblakeney

RichN95. said:

pblakeney said:

I've always thought that a strong rider in a weak team need only sit on the back of the Ineos train.
The "strong" has to come before the "only" though. 😉

The problem comes when the Ineos leader is the best TTer. As it was with Wiggins and Froome. Bernal though is not better than Roglic or Dumoulin and maybe not Pogacar (I know little of his TT)

You would have to be confident of being a better climber and sprint at the end, or gamble on having a better TT, but the tactic still seems fairly sound.

Pross

zest28 said:

Pross said:

zest28 said:

You also don’t shoot people (which is also illegal) because you see other people doing it?

People who commit such offenses are removed from society often permanently for good reason as they are a danger to others.

You seem to have a problem understanding the difference between something be illegal i.e. a criminal act and something being against the rules of a sport so it's hard to take your opinions seriously.

I guess you never rode 50 mph / 80 kmh on a bike have you? Because if you did, you would know that crashing at those speeds on a road bike can be lethal.

So purposely crashing people into barriers at such speeds is an attempt to kill someone.

a) Yes I have on quite a few occasions

b) Don't be such a d1ck, this is lame trolling even by your usual pathetic standards.

Dorset_Boy

I don't want to underplay the seriousness of the crash, but I think DG should be forced to be the last man on the Jumbo train in the mountains in all the GTs, and no Jumbo rider is allowed to go past him until 2 kms from the finish.

Some interesting ideas regarding the safety ideas and proper barriers in the last 150m have to be a must.

I hope Fabio makes a full recovery, and think that DG should get a short ban from racing, beyond his DQ.

orraloon

Pross said:

zest28 said:

Pross said:

zest28 said:

You also don’t shoot people (which is also illegal) because you see other people doing it?

People who commit such offenses are removed from society often permanently for good reason as they are a danger to others.

You seem to have a problem understanding the difference between something be illegal i.e. a criminal act and something being against the rules of a sport so it's hard to take your opinions seriously.

I guess you never rode 50 mph / 80 kmh on a bike have you? Because if you did, you would know that crashing at those speeds on a road bike can be lethal.

So purposely crashing people into barriers at such speeds is an attempt to kill someone.

a) Yes I have on quite a few occasions

b) Don't be such a d1ck, this is lame trolling even by your usual pathetic standards.

Ach, dinnae bite min.

blazing_saddles

I am assuming this thread is now the place to put this.

Jumbo say that Groenewegen will not race until the outcome of the UCI disciplinary is known.
The team has also made a statement, including saying their rider had broken a sports rule which was 'unacceptable'

https://www.cyclingweekly.com/news/racing/jumbo-visma-announce-groenrwegen-will-not-start-in-a-race-until-uci-disciplinary-outcome-462123

So, given the speed the UCI works at, that's an indefinite ban, before any official ban is potentially added.

takethehighroad

Irrespective of any ban he might get, DG broke his collarbone in the crash so he's likely to be out for a few weeks anyway

zest28

takethehighroad said:

Irrespective of any ban he might get, DG broke his collarbone in the crash so he's likely to be out for a few weeks anyway

It is unfortunetly not enough. If you are so messed up in your head that you are willing to do these types of things, you got to be thrown out of the sport permanently.

People who raced against Dylan when they were younger also said he had mentality issues back then already.

salsiccia1

Sources?

DeadCalm

salsiccia1 said:

Sources?

The voices in his head.

DeVlaeminck

The cote d'azur / sprinters line idea could be trialled - I can see advantages but I can also see arguments about a rider losing a race because he inconsequentially put a wheel on the line or arguments about were they forced over it or not . Perhaps it could work though so maybe try it.

Personally I'd still go with DQs or short bans for riders who contravene the straight sprint rule - just tighten up the enforcement a bit. We are always going to have grey areas where there will be arguments about was that within the rules or not I'd just shift those grey areas a bit further towards the safety first end if the spectrum. What DG did was blatantly an attempt to impede another sprinter - even if he'd stopped and left a metre by the barrier it should still have been a DQ because he started in the middle of the road.