WEK

Indeed. And good grief is that ever depressing.

SpeshulEd 

What's that, Lebron is going back to Cleveland?

Homebrew01

LeBron who ?


Anyway, it's a fubar TdF if you're on BMC

jyl

Okay, there seem to be a lot of serious injuries already. I mean broken bones, torn ligaments, riders in surgery and out of racing for weeks or months

Froome wrist and hand fractures, out for the season most likely
Cav shoulder ligaments torn, maybe ditto
Hernandez head injury, prognosis unknown (to me)
Burghardt shoulder like Cav, maybe not as bad
Schleck severe knee injuries, maybe career ending
Frank broken leg
Atapuma broken leg

Edit to add:
Voss broken nose and finger

Plus like a hundred crashes with bruises and missing skin.

The first week of this Tour seems worse than most.

I think

lsberrios1 

I wonder if it has to do anything with the peculiar odor of the french...

i think froomes broken hand and wrist show that this tour, as entertaining as it is, has gone a bit too far for the sake of entertainment. No other athlete has to endure 5 hours a day for 21 days on a saddle while having to deal with broken bones and road rash. I understand they have to be tough but there is a reason why paris-roubaix only lasts one day and not 21. Lets keep our athletes safe.

jyl

There may be something to be said for a gradual ramp up in the first week. The riders are nervous and crash prone in the initial stages, so maybe better to have wider roads (and no cobbles) then.

oldskoolwrench

I think the TdF organizers are showing the Pro Peloton a taste of things to come; tougher stages, more hazardous road conditions (pavé) and a return to the "Iron Man" days of racing, where the ones who survived were the ones in the best shape.

Maybe it's time for everyone to HTFU and be better prepared; grow a thicker skin, gain a little weight, and put some REAL food in those Musette bags for once!

Nerull

Almost none of which happened on the stages people are complaining about.

To make a "safe" tour, we've determined we need to remove cobbles, pavement, mountains, flats, and sprints.

DiabloScott

Right! Also rain, and spectators.

The first week of the Tour always has a lot of crashes; frequently in the easy sections.

sprince

And a few barbed-wheel chariots pulled by angry Andalusian horses thrown into the sprint finishes.

sprince

First interesting tour in years.

DLBroox

It's not like the hazards of the tour are a big surprise to the riders. They've all been training for this. How many times has Phil told us the teams came out and rode the pavé before the tour even came to town? It's not as if you've taken a hundred guys off the street and said here go ride a hundred miles a day for a month and see how you do.

What about all the people who die climbing Everest, you think they knew it might be dangerous?

cincipeddler

Don't understand what people have been complaining about, crashes have happened on ordinary roads, just wet ones.
Shall we remove the rain, or shall we just cancel any wet stages?

The real problem is that more bike work is done with science in mind now, crunching numbers, sitting on machines for hours in laboratories..........leaving genuine bike handling skills as less focused on.

This years has been no more dificult than others and the cobbles affected little, just another obstacle to be overcome.

Man up and deal with it.

mprelaw

Yup. Sounds like the perfect Tour for some would consist of 19 ITTs, one TTT, and the parade lap into Paris.

Giacomo 1 

When you look at what the Tour used to be back in the day, the Tour these days is a relatively easy affair.

They used to be very lengthy, up to 3500 miles, done on heavy single speed bikes with wooden wheels. They sometimes rode at night on roads that were often un-paved, muddy, rutted, and plain dangerous. They had no radios, no communications, no true cycling clothing, no health foods, no weather forecasts, no mechanics, no doctors, no nothing, just their immense guts.

I have to believe that Coppi or Bartoli would find todays Tour quite easy.

Bacciagalupe

By their time, bikes already had steel frames, gears, cycling-specific clothing and allowed team support. Roads were not perfect, but better than in the early 20th century.

The modern Tour is much faster than in their day. The 1952 edition (which Coppi won) was 4807km, and his average speed was 31.8kph. The 2013 edition was 3404km, and Froome's average speed was 40.5kph.

It's difficult to compare eras, but I think a top rider from the past would likely still be a top rider today, and would find that the elite level of pro cycling just as difficult as modern riders.

Jakedatc

first week is always full of crashes no matter where they go. 200 guys, fresh legs and tons of ambition. guys get anxious, complacent, unlucky and are all hungry for success. when guys are eating it on pretty straight roads far from the finish that is on them.

so far there have been sprint wins, attack win, breakaway win. pretty good so far.

rick458

The cobble stage had Rain, not the organizers fault.
It is a very interesting Tour. lots of crashes, but there always are.
It is just who is taking the brunt of these crashes that is different this year.

Mike F

Good article about Nibali touching on number crunching vs "adrenaline and sensation".

Favorite son: Vincenzo Nibali is Italy?s latest star - VeloNews.com

hueyhoolihan

i wouldn't mind if the UCI banned radios from team strategists and only allowed race officials use of them for safety purposes. and while they are at it, ban bike computers and any kind of power meters too. unless they provide telemetry info to viewers and real-time radio traffic to and from the racers (not sure how this would be done), i can't see how it would affect the fans. i, for one, find it enjoyable when the peleton is unclear as to what is happening up front.

DLBroox

Wasn't it just a couple of years ago they tried to ban radios on two stages and the riders had a protest?

Yac Zak

Yes, indeed. I think the stages ended up going ahead anyway, but they were real bore-fests, as no one wanted to take any​ risks...

hueyhoolihan

i think, maybe we should take into consideration the 80 years of racing before computers and radio's were ever used, as a yardstick for whether or not racing will suffer without them.

DLBroox

I don't know. Ultimately it's still up to the guy on the bike and what form he is in and what he can physically do. Isn't it sort of like football where you have a coach on the sideline calling the plays?

sprince

And then Contador is out, Nibali dominates the 1st big mountain stage and the gc race seems like it might be over just as quickly as it started. Maybe too interesting too early.