TDF 2020 - Stage 13: Châtel-Guyon - Pas de Peyrol (Le Puy Mary) 191.5km *Spoilers*

davidof

RichN95. said:

andyrac said:

andyp said:

To the surprise of no-one who saw the post crash footage, Bardet has been diagnosed with concussion and won't start tomorrow.

To be honest, he shouldn't have got back on the bike. What were the team and/or doctors thinking?
Whatever concussion protocol is in place needs looking at.

He was back on the bike fairly quickly and only finished 2.5 minutes down on the Slovenians.

If he were a few seconds down on the GC I bet he'd have been riding today. 2.5 minutes, no chance to get back on terms so a good reason to withdraw and fight again another race.

andyrac

He wouldn't; he was concussed. The sport needs a change in culture....it's 2020.

blazing_saddles

andyrac said:

He wouldn't; he was concussed. The sport needs a change in culture....it's 2020.

So, how would you go about it?

I ask, because the entire ITV commentary team had a debate about it and couldn't come up with a viable answer.

Matti66

Have to have a medical van , do the tests , and if okay drive the rider back to the race?

davidof

andyrac said:

He wouldn't; he was concussed. The sport needs a change in culture....it's 2020.

He's probably out on a training ride today.

Pross

No_Ta_Doctor said:

We seem to keep talking about the weakness of Ineos, while at the same time talking up Pogacar, who has lost both Formolo and Aru - two climbers - and only has de la Cruz to offer any support when the road starts to rise (and precious little help there).

Now I'm certain that Pogacar's weak team would be a huge issue for him if he had to defend yellow, but in general it seems like we believe he can get a result if he's got the legs for it. It seems strange to suggest that Bernal's issue is that Ineos is weak, rather than that Roglic and Pogacar just have better legs.

As pointed out above, despite not looking particularly good so far, this is also the first stage where Bernal has lost time to Roglic. I may be wrong but I thought he dropped a few seconds last year on shorter finishes with gradients similar to these. He doesn't seem to like really steep climbs.

Plenty of chance for riders to crack on the long mountains next week and this is still a close race.

blazing_saddles

Matti66 said:

Have to have a medical van , do the tests , and if okay drive the rider back to the race?

That might work in certain respects but wouldn't cover all scenarios.
Here are just a couple.

What if there's 15 minutes or less to the end of a stage and the yellow jersey or main contender crashes?
What happens if it's a pile up and there are several riders who then have to have HIA assessments?

Road racing is so much more difficult to organise than a sport played on a pitch, where substitutes are allowed, for example.

I don't know what the answer is.

Pross

gweeds said:

At some point our sport is going to start taking concussion seriously. No way should Bardet have been back on a bike. Masses of sports would have needed a compulsory HIA, and they're not asking people to then hit an 80kph descent soon after.

The problem is that, unlike football or rugby, you can't really send people for an assessment and simply let them back on the field if they are OK so do you drive them up the road and allow them to rejoin the peloton as it passed, allow them to get back to the group they were in by holding onto the team car, allow them to pace back behind a car or say 'tough luck, you shouldn't have crashed and it's for your own good'?

I agree rider welfare needs to be taken far more seriously and not just concussions. We regularly see riders virtually lifted back onto bikes without any assessment of injuries and most of us are guilty of applauding a gutsy ride by someone with broken bones. The way the sport works makes it impossiy to make the checks that should be carried out and it is also such a traditional sport that it is only recently starting to adopt 21st century methods in many aspects (reluctantly in a lot of cases).

ugo.santalucia

Tremendous, we had 7 full minutes of televised GC action, as opposed to the one minute I had anticipated... I am thrilled...

But still sighing, thinking about Pantani's attack on the Galibier...

Matti66

blazing_saddles said:

Matti66 said:

Have to have a medical van , do the tests , and if okay drive the rider back to the race?

That might work in certain respects but wouldn't cover all scenarios.
Here are just a couple.

What if there's 15 minutes or less to the end of a stage and the yellow jersey or main contender crashes?
What happens if it's a pile up and there are several riders who then have to have HIA assessments?

Road racing is so much more difficult to organise than a sport played on a pitch, where substitutes are allowed, for example.

I don't know what the answer is either ,and as we know the sport is so complex , but some sort of roadside assistance is now required. We don't know that the HIA in rugby isn’t abused , like the ‘blood gate’ saga was. Not suggesting the HIA is abused btw.
We have the 3 km rule , probably time to come up with a plan as imperfect as it will be. Having said this is concussion a big problem ?

Pross

ugo.santalucia said:

Tremendous, we had 7 full minutes of televised GC action, as opposed to the one minute I had anticipated... I am thrilled...

But still sighing, thinking about Pantani's attack on the Galibier...

Much as I loved watching Pantani, by far my favourite rider back then was I was really into cycling, do you really want a return to those days?

ugo.santalucia

Pross said:

ugo.santalucia said:

Tremendous, we had 7 full minutes of televised GC action, as opposed to the one minute I had anticipated... I am thrilled...

But still sighing, thinking about Pantani's attack on the Galibier...

Much as I loved watching Pantani, by far my favourite rider back then was I was really into cycling, do you really want a return to those days?

I don't necessarily think that a certain way of riding the bike has to be fuelled by EPO. Boonen and Cancellara both did 50km attacks at Paris-Roubaix and I don't see why every single mountain stage at the Tour has to follow the same script. We do see long range attacks in other stage races.
So, yes, I do want to see long range GC attacks and stages that are worth following for longer than the last 10 minutes and I think it is entirely possible without going back to blood doping.

mididoctors

This is the greatest era of cycling I have witnessed . And I am old old skool

Pross

ugo.santalucia said:

Pross said:

ugo.santalucia said:

Tremendous, we had 7 full minutes of televised GC action, as opposed to the one minute I had anticipated... I am thrilled...

But still sighing, thinking about Pantani's attack on the Galibier...

Much as I loved watching Pantani, by far my favourite rider back then was I was really into cycling, do you really want a return to those days?

I don't necessarily think that a certain way of riding the bike has to be fuelled by EPO. Boonen and Cancellara both did 50km attacks at Paris-Roubaix and I don't see why every single mountain stage at the Tour has to follow the same script. We do see long range attacks in other stage races.
So, yes, I do want to see long range GC attacks and stages that are worth following for longer than the last 10 minutes and I think it is entirely possible without going back to blood doping.

Classics are a completely different thing. It comes down to tactics, who is willing to chase and probably get mugged etc.

In GTs there are just too many strong riders just below the team leaders who will generally close anything down and who just make it too hard to go long. It still happens occasionally; Schleck, Contador and Froome have all gone long in recent years.

DeadCalm

pblakeney said:

DeadCalm said:

Given how seriously EF take the Team competition, I wonder whether their tactic of getting multiple riders into the break yesterday was done with that in mind as much as a stage victory. Either way, it paid off. They' won the stage and regained the lead in the Team competition .

Well, as I, and 2 others, picked Martinez for the PTP win we could legitimately claim that the stage win was the objective. Also gains points for the win.

A very shrewd pick. I was actually being flippant but just listened to the Move podcast and Bruyneel was suggesting something similar.

ugo.santalucia

Pross said:

ugo.santalucia said:

Pross said:

ugo.santalucia said:

Tremendous, we had 7 full minutes of televised GC action, as opposed to the one minute I had anticipated... I am thrilled...

But still sighing, thinking about Pantani's attack on the Galibier...

Much as I loved watching Pantani, by far my favourite rider back then was I was really into cycling, do you really want a return to those days?

I don't necessarily think that a certain way of riding the bike has to be fuelled by EPO. Boonen and Cancellara both did 50km attacks at Paris-Roubaix and I don't see why every single mountain stage at the Tour has to follow the same script. We do see long range attacks in other stage races.
So, yes, I do want to see long range GC attacks and stages that are worth following for longer than the last 10 minutes and I think it is entirely possible without going back to blood doping.

Classics are a completely different thing. It comes down to tactics, who is willing to chase and probably get mugged etc.

In GTs there are just too many strong riders just below the team leaders who will generally close anything down and who just make it too hard to go long. It still happens occasionally; Schleck, Contador and Froome have all gone long in recent years.

I think that all televised sport have work to do to appeal to the younger generations, with a shorter attention span. Otherwise in 20 years it will be all over.
A recent survey in Italy suggests that among youngsters football is not a thing anymore, as many as 40% don't even check the results of Serie A, they are just not interested, too long, too boring... that's massive, when I was a kid only girls and some weirdos didn't follow football. I expect the same will be for PRO cycling viewings. I don't know what is the recipe to make it more catchy and entertaining, but I find myself being a lot less interested than I was 20 years ago in the Tour de France, chiefly because out of 4 hours of broadcasting, there is very little happening... you hardly ever see the GC men doing anything and unless you are really really into it, into the nitty gritty of the green jersey points and all that nonsense, you only care about the GC men fighting it out for the yellow jersey... which maybe happens 3-4 times in 3 weeks for about 5 minutes.

RichN95.

ugo.santalucia said:

I don't necessarily think that a certain way of riding the bike has to be fuelled by EPO. Boonen and Cancellara both did 50km attacks at Paris-Roubaix and I don't see why every single mountain stage at the Tour has to follow the same script. We do see long range attacks in other stage races.

Paris-Roubaix is a one day race. Boonen and Cancellara didn't have to get up the next day and do it again.

pblakeney

Thoughts on Ineos.
If you want to find out why they are weaker then you have to look deeper than just the riders. If Bernal was up to the job then he could do what Pogacar is doing.

ddraver

I know it's the internet and all, but Egan told us very clearly what " went wrong" in the post-stage interview.

He did some watts (more that he's achieved before), the others did more watts.

Sport innit...

bobmcstuff

ugo.santalucia said:

Pross said:

ugo.santalucia said:

Tremendous, we had 7 full minutes of televised GC action, as opposed to the one minute I had anticipated... I am thrilled...

But still sighing, thinking about Pantani's attack on the Galibier...

Much as I loved watching Pantani, by far my favourite rider back then was I was really into cycling, do you really want a return to those days?

I don't necessarily think that a certain way of riding the bike has to be fuelled by EPO. Boonen and Cancellara both did 50km attacks at Paris-Roubaix and I don't see why every single mountain stage at the Tour has to follow the same script. We do see long range attacks in other stage races.
So, yes, I do want to see long range GC attacks and stages that are worth following for longer than the last 10 minutes and I think it is entirely possible without going back to blood doping.

What did you think about Froome's Giro win?

RichN95.

pblakeney said:

Thoughts on Ineos.
If you want to find out why they are weaker then you have to look deeper than just the riders. If Bernal was up to the job then he could do what Pogacar is doing.

Ineos/Sky's tactics have generally been 'Have the best rider'. Now they don't. Tour tactics aren't complicated. More than any other race, the best man/pre-race favourite wins

Tactics come into getting as high up GC as you can beyond first.

ugo.santalucia

bobmcstuff said:

ugo.santalucia said:

Pross said:

ugo.santalucia said:

Tremendous, we had 7 full minutes of televised GC action, as opposed to the one minute I had anticipated... I am thrilled...

But still sighing, thinking about Pantani's attack on the Galibier...

Much as I loved watching Pantani, by far my favourite rider back then was I was really into cycling, do you really want a return to those days?

I don't necessarily think that a certain way of riding the bike has to be fuelled by EPO. Boonen and Cancellara both did 50km attacks at Paris-Roubaix and I don't see why every single mountain stage at the Tour has to follow the same script. We do see long range attacks in other stage races.
So, yes, I do want to see long range GC attacks and stages that are worth following for longer than the last 10 minutes and I think it is entirely possible without going back to blood doping.

What did you think about Froome's Giro win?

But that's what I am saying... you do get to see more GC action in other stage races. In the all three weeks of the Tour, you probably get around half an hour of GC action in the mountains. Does it really justify switching the TV on?
I've never been a big fan of TTs, but given how it goes, bring them on... I'd like to see more time trials, both flat and hilly, both individual and team... every 3-4 stages there should be a TT

DeVlaeminck

Got to disagree - unless a TT is near the end of the race they are the only stages I literally don't switch the TV over for.

ugo.santalucia

DeVlaeminck said:

Got to disagree - unless a TT is near the end of the race they are the only stages I literally don't switch the TV over for.

The prologue was one of my favourite, not sure why they don't do it anymore... it did showcase some insanely fast riders, like Boardman and Cancellara...
Right now I don't even know who is good at time trialling and who isn't... last I heard was Dumoulin

No_Ta_Doctor

ugo.santalucia said:

DeVlaeminck said:

Got to disagree - unless a TT is near the end of the race they are the only stages I literally don't switch the TV over for.

The prologue was one of my favourite, not sure why they don't do it anymore... it did showcase some insanely fast riders, like Boardman and Cancellara...
Right now I don't even know who is good at time trialling and who isn't... last I heard was Dumoulin

Roglic, unfortunately for the race.

ddraver

DeVlaeminck said:

Got to disagree - unless a TT is near the end of the race they are the only stages I literally don't switch the TV over for.

I'm 100% with you, but I do think they need to happen in a GC race.

One at the start of the race would have opened it up a little

shirley_basso

/ told us the story before we had even started the race. Which for this year would have made it even worse