Tour de France 2021

Furryanimal

Furryanimal

Y gath o Gymru
Location
Wales
PDF start list here

https://www.procyclingstats.com/race/tour-de-france/2021/startlist

Stage one

On the maps and profiles of the Tour de France, stage 1 seems like a rolling loop south into the most beautiful parts of Brittany before the first yellow jersey is put up for grabs with a sprint on the outskirts of Landerneau.

Yet as the riders realised when they reconned the final kilometres of the stage after arriving in Brest, the 197.8km stage, and especially the uphill finish on the Côte de la Fosse aux Loup, are far more difficult than expected, heightening the tension of the Tour de France Grand Départ.

The stage finish seems a perfect battleground for Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Fenix), Wout van Aert (Jumbo-Visma), Peter Sagan (Bora-Hansgrohe), Michael Matthews (Team BikeExchange) and Julian Alaphilippe (Deceuninck-QuickStep), but it could also test the mettle of the overall contenders who will be scared of crashes and time gaps on the first day of the Grand Tour battle.

It will be great to watch but terrible to ride.

Live on ITV 4 on the UK and ad free on Eurosport Player( where I will be watching).
 

This is one deal that I have failed to comprehend...folks riding those bikes for day after day after day....chasing each other with changes in team leaders so on and so on....oh well...don't need to understand everything in this world do I ?!!!😬
 

Stage type: Hilly


To an extent, stage 2 is a rehashing of the opening day of the Tour, with six lower-category climbs on the menu and another testing uphill finish that will suit the puncheurs, and perhaps even result in the same winner as 24 hours earlier.


This one starts in a gentler manner, at least as far as the terrain is concerned, as the road follows the beautiful Pink Granite Coast of northern Brittany. Of course, being right on the edge of the Atlantic could make for a very challenging start indeed. What’s more, the route remains within sniffing distance of the coast until beyond the stage’s halfway point, so if the conditions are difficult there’s going to be little escape from them until the riders reach Saint-Brieuc, with two-thirds of the stage complete.


This is where the climbing becomes more challenging, the route bumping its way southwards to Mûr-de-Bretagne Guerlédan, where the fourth categorised climb of the day leads directly onto a finishing circuit that begins with the third-category ascent through the finish line. The route continues northwards for a couple of kilometres, then loops back to the south to return to arrive at the final ascent once again, the climb running for two kilometres at 6.9 per cent
 
French police are hunting a female spectator who is on the run and faces up to a year in prison after causing the injuries of 21 riders in one of the worst-ever crashes in the history of the Tour de France.

Prosecutors in Brittany have launched a criminal inquiry after the unidentified female smiled to a TV camera while waving a cardboard sign with a message written in a mix of French and German to her grandparents during the first stage of the 108th Tour de France on Saturday.

The woman had her back to the peloton with the sign sticking out into the road at handlebar height - causing German Tony Martin and around 50 other riders to crash. The incident caused 21 injuries, and even forced Jasha Suetterlin of Team DSM to abandon the race.

A spokesman for the Finistere Gendarmerie said: 'The spectator who caused this accident left the scene before the arrival of the investigators. Everything is being done to try and find her. She was wearing glasses and dressed in blue jeans, a red and white striped sweater, and a waxed yellow jacket.'

Prosecutors have opened a criminal inquiry for 'deliberately violating safety regulations and so causing injuries that might prevent someone working for up to three months'. This is an indictable offence punishable with up to a year in prison and a fine equivalent to just under £13,000.

44708827-9729833-A_roadside_spectator_caused_a_massive_crash_in_the_Tour_de_Franc-a-219_1624801261965.jpg


44709681-9729833-The_massive_accident_caused_a_massive_blockage_and_saw_more_than-a-220_1624801261967.jpg


https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/s...pectator-faces-year-prison-causing-crash.html
 
Yeah...that crash was avoidable and it’s not the first time a spectator has caused problems but a later one on the stage was equally bad and that had no spectator involvement other than some having to jump out of the way as riders came flying at them!
But a great finish to stage two....no spoilers-
full results here

https://www.procyclingstats.com/race/tour-de-france/2021/stage-2-teams

and I have stood on the side of the ride a couple of times to see the tour of Britain go by.
 
hollydolly said:
Prosecutors in Brittany have launched a criminal inquiry after the unidentified female smiled to a TV camera while waving a cardboard sign with a message
Click to expand...

There's no law against waving a sign.
Many others do the same thing in the TDF and other cycling races all the time.

hollydolly said:
There should be barriers all along the route, same with the TT races.
Click to expand...

I completely agree. The organizers are the ones at fault for not providing barriers between spectators and the cyclists, which is even more of a danger to the spectators than the cyclists. This is a common issue and has been brought up by many people in the past, yet the organizers continue to do nothing about it, preferring to keep the drama and danger as an ongoing attraction.

Additionally, the cyclist who swerved could have just kept going straight through the sign without swerving into the others, which is what actually caused the crash, not the woman. I agree she should not have been there, but again that's the ongoing fault of the organizers, and I seriously doubt she is one of them.

So hold the organizers responsible for the damages, and make sure they do their duty from now on.

hollydolly said:
Prosecutors have opened a criminal inquiry for 'deliberately violating safety regulations and so causing injuries that might prevent someone working for up to three months'. This is an indictable offence punishable with up to a year in prison and a fine equivalent to just under £13,000.
Click to expand...

The woman didn't do anything differently than many others who are encouraged to do the same and similar things year after year in this and many other cycling races. The inquiry should be to hold the organizers responsible for their lack of action into putting a stop to the dangerous conditions they continue to create.
 
Last edited:
John cycling said:
There's no law against waving a sign.
Many others do the same thing in the TDF and other cycling races all the time.

The organizers are the ones at fault, for not providing barriers between spectators and the cyclists, which is just as much and probably more of a danger to the spectators than the cyclists. This is a common issue and has been brought up by many people in the past, yet the organizers continue to do nothing about it, preferring to keep the drama and danger as an ongoing attraction.

Additionally, the cyclist who swerved could have just kept going straight through the sign without swerving into the others, which is what actually caused the crash, not the woman. I agree she should not have been there, but again that's the ongoing fault of the organizers, and I seriously doubt she is one of them.

So hold the organizers responsible for the damages, and make sure they do their duty from now on.



The woman didn't do anything differently than many others who are encouraged to do the same and similar things year after year in this and many other cycling races. The inquiry should be to hold the organizers responsible for their lack of action into putting a stop to the dangerous conditions they continue to create.
Click to expand...
If you look at the post before this you will see I already said they need to provide barriers...
 
hollydolly said:
If you look at the post before this you will see I already said they need to provide barriers...
Click to expand...
Barriers along the entire route would be cost prohibitive.They are provided in places where huge crowds are expected...usually at popular mountain sections where they try to limit numbers but even then idiots jump the barriers.But you can’t legislate for one dozy idiot who was not keeping herself aware of what was happening around her.
And recently the barriers themselves have caused problems.There was an horrendous crash in the finish of last years tour of Poland(stage one) where the barriers disintegrated with the force of the crash and caused life threatening injuries to one rider.
 
Stage 3
The 2021 Tour de France remains in Brittany for Stage 3, with a 183km ride from Lorient to Pontivy that should end with the first bunch sprint of the 2021 Tour. The day begins with a southerly ride down the coast, then heads inland where the narrow, winding roads (and road furniture) that we’ve grown accustomed to over the first two stages return. There are only two Category 4 climbs (the Côte de Cadoudal and the Côte de Pluméliau), but the final two-thirds of the stage are filled with ramps and rollers that could make Stage 3 as leg-breaking as the previous two.

But the day should end differently, with a field sprint expected in Pontivy. The finish is not for the faint of heart: the race descends down into Pontivy then takes two hard right-hand turns as the race heads over a bridge at about 2.5km to-go; an even tighter left-hander follows about 1,000m later. From there it’s a long, straight drag to the finish line, aside from a roundabout at about 700m to-go.
 
Furryanimal said:
Barriers along the entire route would be cost prohibitive.They are provided in places where huge crowds are expected...usually at popular mountain sections where they try to limit numbers but even then idiots jump the barriers.But you can’t legislate for one dozy idiot who was not keeping herself aware of what was happening around her.
And recently the barriers themselves have caused problems.There was an horrendous crash in the finish of last years tour of Poland(stage one) where the barriers disintegrated with the force of the crash and caused life threatening injuries to one rider.
Click to expand...
That's what I was thinking. We can't let one moron ruin it for everyone. Part of the appeal of the race is that spectators can get a few feet from the riders. That's something that's uniquely European. Something like that would never work in the U.S. Too many a**holes here.
 
Irwin said:
That's what I was thinking. We can't let one moron ruin it for everyone. Part of the appeal of the race is that spectators can get a few feet from the riders. That's something that's uniquely European. Something like that would never work in the U.S. Too many a**holes here.
Click to expand...
I’ve seen cycling races from America.There is one guy who wears giant antlers who thinks it is great fun to chase the cyclists up a mountain.He’s a menace.
 
Fantastic win by Mark Cavendish on stage 4.The Manxman is back.31 stage victories in the tour now.
But heartbreak for Van Moer who was caught after a long breakaway only metres from the finish.
Van der Poel still leads.
 
Regarding the idiot who caused the massive crash over the weekend, turns out she's German and she fled France after her act of monumental stupidity. That's not going to serve her well when they catch her. The criminal charges probably won't be too severe, but she's going to get sued for a lot of money—probably millions.
 
I used to enjoy UCI cycling but was so disgusted with the Armstrong scandal that I stopped watching. Yes it was great of him to recover from his terrible illness and his work was very admirable. But in the end his tactics and his eagerness to litigate against his critics (some it is said who went bankrupt over the litigation) is just too difficult to deal with. Perhaps some day I'll go back to watching the Giro, TDF, and Vuelta among others as it is a great sport.
 

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