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Race vehicle nonsense (Crossing off the Crostis)

by Gerard Vroomen

July 11, 2011 - Filed under: Company

Comments (6)

In the Giro, the Crostis climb was taken out at the last moment. The reason was not the safety of the riders, as more than 300 trees were cut and barricades were put up to ensure that. Nope, the reason was that the team cars can’t go up that climb and that having just one support motorcycle per team was considered too little. Hence the concept was introduced that “the sporting value of the race was in danger” because a mechanical could have a big impact on the race.

Tell that to the guys who had to weld and forge their own parts back together if something broke in the formative years of cycling. Apparently in retrospect, there is no sporting value in those early races!

When you watch cycling nowadays, there are hundreds of cars driving like crazy to let 200 guys ride around. This is nuts. I see four major problems with all these cars:

It endangers the sporting value of the race (ha!) when you have the sprinters hang on the cars for dear life as they did up Etna.
It endangers the sporting value of the race (ha! ha!) when the combination of team cars, VIP cars, motorcycles and assorted other transportation regularly hinders the riders, especially on the bad roads of the classics and in the mountains. Many a breakaway attempt is foiled not by the other competitors but by a vehicle that is supposed to be a inert part of the race.
It’s plain dangerous as sports directors often drive like idiots. Most countries have passed laws that make it illegal to talk on a cell phone while driving. Many sports directors do that while at the same time talking into the team radio AND watching television. They seem to think they’re such great drivers and invincible, which makes matters only worse.
It kills any notion that cycling is an environmentally conscious sport (and cutting 300 trees for nothing doesn’t help).

Tomorrow I’ll share a proposal to bring some sanity back into the sport and bring it down to a human level.

(Originally posted May 25th, 2011)

6 responses for this Entry

Tona says:

July 14, 2011

especially when those same cars take out riders!! (read Flecha and Hoogerland in stage 9 TdF)

Johnny McGregor says:

July 12, 2011

Vehicles and the classics:

Should you not sit down and have a debate about the use of motorbikes in races like Flanders, Roubaix, Monte Paschi Strande Bianchi, San Remo, etc?

Look at the amount of dirt/dust thrown into the air - fine sand like that can do serious damage to the lungs especially when the riders are maxed out.

Remember in Flanders when the riders got carried off onto a driveway because the motorbike ahead failed to slow down quickly?

What about Gent Wevelgem on the cobbled decent when riders slowed down to allow the motorbikes to turn and thereby causing a bottleneck and crashes?

Don't forget in Amstel Gold most of the crashes are a result of motorbikes going too slowly round the sinuous bends thereby causing a "crack the whip" effect.

We need new technology to cover the races like UAVs and maybe more helicopters that shoot from afar.

Reduce mobile journalists and setup "photo-zones"

This may sound ridiculous but, why not build stonger components?

The S1 was "bombproof" why don't more manufactures do that?

Look at Giant sponsored Team Rabobank, 7 frames into the bin!

sally says:

July 11, 2011

"Race Vehicle Nonsense" says it all. Sure, some are needed, but so many? To the point of being almost deadly? Those guys were lucky indeed. I can see that kind of carnage on the streets here in town, I don't want to see it in the Tour.

msala says:

July 11, 2011

Some very disturbing crashes in stage 9 of the tour. They're lucky no one died really. Had it not been for the fast reactions of the driver behind him, Flecha could have easily been taken out a second time.

There are some obvious measures organizers can take with regards to car and motorbike safety but improving safety on descents is a hard one. Perhaps in wet conditions they could put a pace rider (like a pace car) in front of the peleton to neutralize the descent, while maintaining the time splits from the preceding climb.

RMC says:

July 11, 2011

You are absolutely correct. I understand need for chase vehicles but to have them weaving in and out of the peloton is totally not needed.

RMS says:

July 11, 2011

your post was very prescient. I immediately thought of it when I saw footage of the car taking out Hoogerland and Flecha yesterday.