Tour de France 2020 NO SPOILERS !

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Adam4868

Adam4868

Guru
I had a near miss a few days ago seeing the top of a rider's head in a photo on a news website. I think I know who it was but fortunately they were irrelevant that day!

Ironically, the no spoilers rule makes this one of the few sites it's usually safe to browse on the way home from work, between race and highlights.
Allright you made your point,anymore whining and I'll tell you who wins today...!
 
All over in a flash, blink and you miss it, even on the rollout.
546400

There was only one scumbag not wearing a mask on the whole street, yours truly, it dropped out of my pocket on the descent into town. I wrapped my shirt around my head, not a good look.
 
I was metres from the line in Poitiers on the same side of the road as Sagan and was distracted for one second. I was with a friend, he asked did you see that? I saw it on the ITV highlights, far better view of a man "making progress" even though he utilised his head which appears to be forbidden.
 
On the subject of concussion protocols - which I don't think is a SPOILER to mention in general! - here is a good interview with race doctor:

SPOILER WARNING: contains mention of an injury to a specific rider:
https://www.itv.com/itvcycling/arti...-explains-protocols-around-concussions-at-the

The thrust of this is:
- road racing is NOT like rugby etc
- they do their best to look after the riders
- it's not possible to do a 10-min examination during the race
- AFTER the stage, the riders are VERY well looked after. And withdrawn from the race where required.

Discuss!
 
One of the things I felt that interview made clear was that teams and medical staff DO care about the riders, and ARE doing the right thing.
Riders aren't being pressured to continue, and the teams/staff are stopping riders pretty soon after these incidents. From that Skujins report:
"... and gingerly continued to ride for short distance before his team pulled him out of the race. "

You or I might fall off our bikes tomorrow and get worse care than these guys. A colleague came in last week complaining of concussion; he'd just self-diagnosed TWO WEEKS after banging his head on a low beam!

Riders staggering about like Bambi to get back on the bike looks awful on TV, but really I'm not sure the riders are being failed by the current system. And as many people have said: helmets prevent concussion, don't they??
 
But it's also clear that the nature of bike racing introduces some very specific challenges. I'm glad it's not my job to sort it out. Maybe accelerometers/crash sensors in the helmets? Such things are commercially quite common at the moment. (See Specialised ANGi https://www.specialized.com/us/en/angi ) I dunno. Edit: Here: https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11264856
Clear unambigious rules are vv difficult - because clearly there is huge sporting advantage to riding on; but i can see that those shock sensors MIGHT produce a solution.
A bit like light-meters in cricket, or pit-lane speed traps; no discretion, if you're over the limit you get stopped and checked. Might work ...
 

FrankTheTank

New Member
Spotted this on Landa's TT bike during the rest day yesterday. Anyone know what the flash of pink on the rear derailleur / pulley wheel is?
 

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mjr

Comfy armchair to one person & a plank to the next
And as many people have said: helmets prevent concussion, don't they??
No. They're impact protection. An anti-concussive helmet would look bigger and softer, like this early example: https://helmets.org/concussionhelmet.htm

Some suspect helmets have made riders continuing with concussion more likely because without helmets, skull lacerations or fractures would have been obvious to the doctors and got the rider stopped. Unintended consequences strike again?

Ian Boswell has done some good interviews on concussion but I think he's still expecting an improved helmet to help, which it might not, or it might have some other unintended consequence.
 
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