Ronde van Vlaanderen Sunday 18th October 2020 *Spoilers*

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Comments

  • bobmcstuff
    bobmcstuff Posts: 11,435

    andyrac said:

    The only problem I have between WvA and MvdP is I don't know enough about them to have a favourite to be invested in who wins.

    Blimey - where've you been then? They've been rivals for years.....
    Yeah I am aware of this but in CX and I don't have enough time to follow it and the build up. I know who they are but just don't really care who wins between them.

    Yes you could say 'just enjoy the prodigious talent for what it is' is such a waste when you can have better ups and downs if your 'man' wins - which is a lot of the fun in following sport.

    Even if JA had made it to the finish I probably would have supported him just because I know a bit more about his road history.
    Pick one in PTP or put £2 on one... ready made investment!
  • DeadCalm
    DeadCalm Posts: 4,249
    Pross said:

    In agony there. I called it earlier. CK blaming the motorbike but clearly JA not looking where he was going. Curse of the bands strikes.

    Nonsense. He would have assumed that the guys in front were competent on the road.

    Not sure the moto really did anything wrong there, vdp and wva were trying to use the draft, swung out late

    Exactly. Although WVA was probably more at fault.
    gsk82 said:

    Not sure the moto really did anything wrong there, vdp and wva were trying to use the draft, swung out late

    You don't get draft from a static bike. MvdP caused that
    Indeed. Diabolical riding from the Vans. Ruined the race from my point of view.
  • markwb79
    markwb79 Posts: 937
    DeadCalm said:

    Pross said:

    In agony there. I called it earlier. CK blaming the motorbike but clearly JA not looking where he was going. Curse of the bands strikes.

    Nonsense. He would have assumed that the guys in front were competent on the road.

    Not sure the moto really did anything wrong there, vdp and wva were trying to use the draft, swung out late

    Exactly. Although WVA was probably more at fault.
    gsk82 said:

    Not sure the moto really did anything wrong there, vdp and wva were trying to use the draft, swung out late

    You don't get draft from a static bike. MvdP caused that
    Indeed. Diabolical riding from the Vans. Ruined the race from my point of view.
    Not another example of JA's erratic bike riding?
    If he looked forward as much as the others, instead of swerving left to right, looking back, on the radio.... He might have seen the move in time.
    Scott Addict 2011
    Giant TCR 2012
  • jimmyjams
    jimmyjams Posts: 781
    Pross said:

    In agony there. I called it earlier. CK blaming the motorbike but clearly JA not looking where he was going. Curse of the bands strikes.

    I agree it was ultimately Alaphilippe's fault, but why are two motorbikes dawdling along on the inside of a curve when the riders would therefore be automatically riding close to that road edge?
  • gsk82
    gsk82 Posts: 3,599
    jimmyjams said:

    Pross said:

    In agony there. I called it earlier. CK blaming the motorbike but clearly JA not looking where he was going. Curse of the bands strikes.

    I agree it was ultimately Alaphilippe's fault, but why are two motorbikes dawdling along on the inside of a curve when the riders would therefore be automatically riding close to that road edge?
    Why did MvdP ride right up it's arse then swing out? To cause problems for the guy behind. It's been creeping in this. I've noticed it happen a few times.
    "Unfortunately these days a lot of people don’t understand the real quality of a bike" Ernesto Colnago
  • ddraver
    ddraver Posts: 26,697
    We're in danger of confusing passion with incompetence
    - @ddraver
  • RichN95.
    RichN95. Posts: 27,253
    ddraver said:

    Did we cover this one..?

    It's funny that that when that transfer was announced in early August, Sunweb were seen as a bit failing team and it was almost a step down.
    Twitter: @RichN95
  • ddraver
    ddraver Posts: 26,697
    edited October 2020
    The Church is Empty




    Belgium 🇧🇪 😘
    We're in danger of confusing passion with incompetence
    - @ddraver
  • DeadCalm
    DeadCalm Posts: 4,249
    markwb79 said:

    Not another example of JA's erratic bike riding?
    If he looked forward as much as the others, instead of swerving left to right, looking back, on the radio.... He might have seen the move in time.

    Nope. JA may occasionally be erratic but in this instance he was entitled to believe that the guys in front of him would be competent.
    jimmyjams said:

    I agree it was ultimately Alaphilippe's fault, but why are two motorbikes dawdling along on the inside of a curve when the riders would therefore be automatically riding close to that road edge?

    The motorbikes shouldn't have been there but it was ultimately the dangerous riding of MVDP and more particularly WVA that caused the accident. WVA had plenty of time to see the bike. He shouldn't have been so close to it. Likewise MVDB who is tall enough to see over WVA.
    gsk82 said:



    Why did MvdP ride right up it's censored then swing out? To cause problems for the guy behind. It's been creeping in this. I've noticed it happen a few times.

    Indeed. WVA was equally, if not more, to blame in my view riding as close as he did to the motorbike. I suspect it was more incompetence than maliciousness though.
  • My guess is that the motor bikes didn't pull in of their own accord, but were told to do so by the race commissar accompanying the lead group.
    My guess for the reason would be what we see all the time: because the lead riders were using them to draft.

    I don't favour any of the riders involved as some clearly do, so consequently I don't blame them for what was an unfortunate racing incident.

    As a side note, I thought both Alaphilippe and Bardet made exceptional debuts for such a lightweight riders. Perhaps I should not have been so surprised, given how well both have done at Strade Bianche.
    "Science is a tool for cheaters". An anonymous French PE teacher.
  • Bit dodgy from wva to go that close before swinging out late with them behind, but mvdp managed to avoid the moto because he was looking where he was going.
  • rick_chasey
    rick_chasey Posts: 75,661
    Lads it’s not a club run.

  • andyp
    andyp Posts: 10,549

    Lads it’s not a club run.

    It's De Ronde. I know that you have to concentrate completely in the last hour of the race, and I'm just an armchair DS.
  • bobmcstuff
    bobmcstuff Posts: 11,435
    DeadCalm said:

    markwb79 said:

    Not another example of JA's erratic bike riding?
    If he looked forward as much as the others, instead of swerving left to right, looking back, on the radio.... He might have seen the move in time.

    Nope. JA may occasionally be erratic but in this instance he was entitled to believe that the guys in front of him would be competent.
    jimmyjams said:

    I agree it was ultimately Alaphilippe's fault, but why are two motorbikes dawdling along on the inside of a curve when the riders would therefore be automatically riding close to that road edge?

    The motorbikes shouldn't have been there but it was ultimately the dangerous riding of MVDP and more particularly WVA that caused the accident. WVA had plenty of time to see the bike. He shouldn't have been so close to it. Likewise MVDB who is tall enough to see over WVA.
    gsk82 said:



    Why did MvdP ride right up it's censored then swing out? To cause problems for the guy behind. It's been creeping in this. I've noticed it happen a few times.

    Indeed. WVA was equally, if not more, to blame in my view riding as close as he did to the motorbike. I suspect it was more incompetence than maliciousness though.
    They were all riding very hard weren't they, I doubt they were at their most lucid.
  • ocdupalais
    ocdupalais Posts: 4,317
    The Kwaremont looks like it should be an innocuous irrelevance like this...










  • DeVlaeminck
    DeVlaeminck Posts: 9,104
    You'd think WVA would give a shout of "out" or something but I don't know what etiquette applies in pro racing.

    Pretty sure he's just trying to squeeze every ounce of draft off the vehicles though rather than make it hard for following riders - unlike Sagan at Roubsaix the other year when he kept swerving out from those barriers at the last second.
    [Castle Donington Ladies FC - going up in '22]
  • No_Ta_Doctor
    No_Ta_Doctor Posts: 14,652
    To be honest, I'm still surprised Alaphilippe was anywhere near the main action. I completely wrote him off before the race as too inexperienced on the cobbles, and wouldn't be able to put out the required power while seated.
    Warning No formatter is installed for the format
  • Pross
    Pross Posts: 43,463

    The Kwaremont looks like it should be an innocuous irrelevance like this...










    I thought that when I saw it in the initial post. It really doesn't tell the tale does it? The surface is obviously a major factor on that climb though.
  • Watched it again - nothing dodgy from WVA at all. He's just riding on the right hand side of the road, and moves out to avoid an obstruction. There's no sudden movement from him at all.

  • webboo
    webboo Posts: 6,087
    WvA doesn’t swing out as he doesn’t need to as he is well clear of the motorbike. MVP does swerve and AP who is looking down speaking in to his radio runs in to the back of the motorbike.
  • ddraver
    ddraver Posts: 26,697
    edited October 2020

    My guess is that the motor bikes didn't pull in of their own accord, but were told to do so by the race commissar accompanying the lead group.

    The guy on the back WAS a commissar...

    Bad time/desperately unlucky for JA to take his hands off the bar and look down is all. I slightly struggle to sympathise given his random swerves around nothing at all these past few weeks.

    The killer on the Oude Kwaremont is also the flat cobbled section at the top I think. You can't just suffer up the hill and then catch your breath at the top to close up the gap.

    We're in danger of confusing passion with incompetence
    - @ddraver
  • jimmyjams
    jimmyjams Posts: 781

    You'd think WVA would give a shout of "out" or something but I don't know what etiquette applies in pro racing.

    I don't know what the etiquette is in pro racing, but I was interested/pleased to see during a couple of Tour stages that now and again, at non-critical moments in the race, the odd rider gave the hand-signal warning to those behind him when they had to move slightly out from the road edge for whatever reason.
    Had yesterday been a club run, WVA (and maybe MVDP too) would have surely given the hand signal, however it wasn't a club run and so not to be expected.
  • webboo
    webboo Posts: 6,087
    Riding through and off in a threesome, you don’t really need to be pointing stuff out.
  • gsk82
    gsk82 Posts: 3,599
    jimmyjams said:

    You'd think WVA would give a shout of "out" or something but I don't know what etiquette applies in pro racing.

    I don't know what the etiquette is in pro racing, but I was interested/pleased to see during a couple of Tour stages that now and again, at non-critical moments in the race, the odd rider gave the hand-signal warning to those behind him when they had to move slightly out from the road edge for whatever reason.
    Had yesterday been a club run, WVA (and maybe MVDP too) would have surely given the hand signal, however it wasn't a club run and so not to be expected.
    Another case of rider safety being everyone else's responsibility then?
    "Unfortunately these days a lot of people don’t understand the real quality of a bike" Ernesto Colnago
  • gsk82 said:

    jimmyjams said:

    You'd think WVA would give a shout of "out" or something but I don't know what etiquette applies in pro racing.

    I don't know what the etiquette is in pro racing, but I was interested/pleased to see during a couple of Tour stages that now and again, at non-critical moments in the race, the odd rider gave the hand-signal warning to those behind him when they had to move slightly out from the road edge for whatever reason.
    Had yesterday been a club run, WVA (and maybe MVDP too) would have surely given the hand signal, however it wasn't a club run and so not to be expected.
    Another case of rider safety being everyone else's responsibility then?
    It's just bad luck that Alaphilippe didn't have his hands on the bars at the moment when van der Poel didn't notice until late that van Aert had moved out to avoid the obstruction.
  • Pross
    Pross Posts: 43,463
    JA was taking some fairly unnecessary risks on one of the cobbled descents just beforehand which was why I predicted he was going to crash. He seems to lack concentration a bit at times for some reason. He definitely didn't have his eyes on the road ahead when he crashed.
  • DeadCalm
    DeadCalm Posts: 4,249
    Anyone who reckons that it was Alaphillipe's fault does not (or should not be allowed to) ride in a paceline. The rider at the front has to know that the riders behind will be unsighted and should ride accordingly. Even Wiggins, who is no Alaphilppe fan, suggested that the two Vans were at fault.
  • DeadCalm
    DeadCalm Posts: 4,249

    Lads it’s not a club run.

    So you'd expect a higher level of competence, no?
  • webboo
    webboo Posts: 6,087
    I guess the 2 vans are used to riding fast on a wheel where the rider in front has no time or chance to indicate obstacles.
  • nickice
    nickice Posts: 2,439
    DeadCalm said:

    Anyone who reckons that it was Alaphillipe's fault does not (or should not be allowed to) ride in a paceline. The rider at the front has to know that the riders behind will be unsighted and should ride accordingly. Even Wiggins, who is no Alaphilppe fan, suggested that the two Vans were at fault.

    Don't you think the fact they'd already raced something like 200km might have affected them?