The Asplosion Heard Around the World??**TdF Spoiler**
 

:eek:

:crash:

I guess he hit a pothole or a stone.

guessing the sun finally came out!

Geez, I've been waiting and waiting on this thread.

http://bikeforums.net/attachment.php...hmentid=393138

Bad food in the middle of a ride??

BOOM :eek:

http://cdn.velonews.competitor.com/f...03-659x440.jpg

Someone might want to post the words possible spoiler in the thread tittle.

It's bound to happen

I keep reading a discussion about how Specialized claims thew bike was run over by a car or something. Another rider said Contador suddenly went down right in front of him so I am thinking the frame failed and not the car that rode over it. This should be an interesting discussion.
Scary looking isnt it. I love steel!!!

I bet he didn't buy that bike from his LBS. Damn counterfeiters.

Looks to me like the front wheel hit something with enough force to snap the downtube and toptube. It doesn't look like a car drove over it.

This came by on the live feed just before the end of the stage:

Questioned by letour.fr, Tinkoff-Saxo's directeur sportif Philippe Mauduit who jumped in the second team car to let a free seat to Alberto Contador after his retirement explained: “Alberto badly crashed. His right knee is seriously injured. The crash has been violent. I have his shoe with me, it's completely destroyed. According to some rumors, his bike has been broken but that's not the case. A bike fell from our racks after we fixed Nicolas Roche's bike. It's obviously too early to establish a diagnostic for Alberto. Once he'll reach the finish, he'll undergo an x-ray examination. Before pulling out, he told us that he was in an awful pain and he couldn't go any further on his bike. It's a pity because everything had gone well since the beginning of the Tour. We had a plan and today's race was unfolding exactly as we wanted. In a fraction of a second, it all fell apart, so we're immensely sad. Tomorrow, it's a rest day. After tomorrow, a new battle will begin. We'll stay united and a new Tour de France will begin for us.”

probably get it on eBay cheap...:roflmao2:

Asian frames are ruining perfectly american names! :crash:

That would be a hell of a hard hit to do that much damage--a pothole or stone wouldn't do that. Besides, if it was a huge pothole, one of the other riders would have seen it.

Sounds like the frame snapped when he hit a pothole or something, but of course they can't come out and say that.

Initial reports on the Tour’s race radio, in French, and by NBC Sports’ Steve Porino, that Contador’s bike was “in pieces,” appear to be correct. “His frame snapped in half. They threw it in a heap in the back of the car,” Porino said, noting that he had arrived shortly after the crash.

Contador’s bike broke in the lower third of his down tube and on the top tube just in front of his seat tube. Both tubes were broken clean through, with just a few fibers holding the two pieces of the frame together.

How those failures occurred, though, is not entirely clear.

Specialized, Tinkoff-Saxo’s bike sponsor, initially denied reports that Contador’s bike had broken at all, either resulting in or as a result of the crash, or via some other externality. The company first stated that a bike had fallen off the roof of a car. That story was then amended — it still involved a car, but instead stated that Nicolas Roche’s bike had been run over earlier in the stage. This broken bike was the start of the rumors, it said.

“We have spoken to Alberto’s brother as well as his personal mechanic (Faustino Muñoz) and the mechanic who was at the scene (Rune Kristensen), and contrary to some early, unconfirmed reports, frame failure was not involved in Alberto’s incident today. Nicolas Roche was involved in a separate incident today and while his bike was laying on the road it was run over by a car causing it to break, potentially giving rise to the initial inaccurate reporting,” the original statement read.

But the photos do not lie. Contador is #31, and his race number is on the broken frame. The Roche incident relayed in this statement may be entirely factual, but it is clear that Contador’s bike broke as well.

Specialized later corrected itself again, stating that Contador’s bike that had been run over. A source within the team who was present at the scene of the crash explained that Contador’s mechanic, Faustino Munoz, grabbed his backup bike off the roof, then, seeing the condition of Contador, rushed to his aid, leaving the bike against the team car. The team car drove off and crushed the bike. Photos were taken, and the broken bike story took off.

The alternative potential explanation, of course, is that Contador’s bike broke on impact with a large pothole.


Read more at Details of Alberto Contador's Tour-ending crash - VeloNews.com

He was descending very fast.

Specialized is doing some serious PR spin on this one.

And look at his kit. Obviously got that from some cheap counterfeiter too, some of the letters are backwards.

Avoid the LBS at your peril kids.

I looks like a bike that has been run over to me.

Could be a backup bike run over. But I would like to see the bike that crashed at 60kph if that isn't it.

Watch what you say. I hear they have some serious lawyers on their side.

Looks like a defective/badly made frame which simply cracked upon impact with something. Specialized will do all they can to cover this up. They don't need this publicity. Do they make custom frames for Contador and not simply give him off-the-shelf ones?

This is so much BS. Nobody knows the true situation, but everybody is spouting off as if they do. Give it a rest until you know what's what. As for me I will believe the official story. Life is too short for stupid conspiracy theories.

Who knows what really happened. However, Specialized changing their story 2 or 3 times after more pictures surfaced isn't doing them any good.
This thread already has the good phrases:
eBay
Chinese
Cheap
coverup
and off course Asplosion. How can you not read a thread with a title like this one?

Relax, turbo.