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Well, we are all staggering this morning: yesterday's stage of the Tour could very nearly have ended in disaster, in several ways, after some demented idiots thought it would be funny to throw carpet tacks onto the road, on the final climb of the day.
This was insanely dangerous for the cyclists, and poor Kiserlovski is now out of the race with a broken collarbone, thanks to these stupid people.
It wasn't even just the cyclists - here's a camerabike tyre with two carpet tacks clearly visible:
[caption id="attachment_1232" align="alignnone" width="600"]
Camera bike tyre with carpet tacks, Tour de France.[/caption]And here are some of the tacks which were removed from tyres:
[caption id="attachment_1233" align="alignnone" width="600"]
Carpet tacks removed from punctured tyres after some idiots threw them onto the road in front of the peloton.[/caption]For the benefit of non-UK viewers, carpet tacks are not nails, they are flat-headed metal tacks, used (as the name suggests) to hold down carpets. They are particularly nasty in this application, as the flat head means that when dropped, a high proportion will stand up on the flat head, with the pointy bit upwards: they not only have very sharp points, but the "shank" is not round, it is flat-sided and these sides are also very sharp.
They are designed to cut a three-cornered slit in stout carpet material, and I think we all know what they did to bicycle tyres.
Latest news so far indicates that they were scattered over the road some 200-300metres before the top of the hill. LLB and I discussed it at length, and I think it's quite clear that it was done by spectators, on foot, standing beside the road, and that they threw the tacks into the road as the race was passing them.
The fact that the break and the first block of the peloton were unaffected supports my view.
If caught, they should at least be done for the French equivalent of GBH (Grievous Bodily Harm) for causing a broken collarbone, and really they should be done for attempted manslaughter.
(Technically, for GBH you have to break the skin and spill blood - no really, this is absolutely true - but I think in this case breaking a collarbone and potentially ruining a career deserves to be punished.)
I mean, it's not just the riders, it's all the motorbikes as well: security bikes, camera bikes, TV bikes, interviewer bikes, Mavik bikes: one of those losing air pressure part-way down the descent could easily have been fatal.
Why would anyone do this? What sort of sick society do they come from, that they think it's ok, or funny, to do this?
My hope is that someone in the crowd will have caught them on their camera-phone, and will post it up on YooToob.
I reckon that if you had them loose in your hand, and started off by leaning both arms over the barrier, it would be quite easy to raise your arms as though just waving them, flinging tacks onto the road. I am sure that with the noise of the camera bikes, you would never hear them hitting the road surface, and as everyone would be watching the race, it's likely that no-one would see them do it.
So my hope is for someone nearly opposite to have unknowingly caught it all, clearly, on film.
I have no idea if these morons were actively targeting any specific riders, or allowing any specific riders to pass before spoiling everyone else's day: or whether they just wanted to spoil the race for everyone, indiscriminately.
I'm not quite sure which is worse: what do you think?
Given the speed at which cyclists ride, and the terrain, this could have all ended in someone getting killed, and I think this should be treated as a crime, rather than a prank. I've read a few interviews with Cadel Evans, and while he didn't explicitly name Spanish or Basque supporters, he did hint that incidents like these is why he eschews the Vuelta generally.
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't impute it to a specific culture, so much as a kind of person. I take a commuter train to Toronto, and it is always under siege by small children on the side of the tracks, throwing bricks at the windows! They do it because it gives them a thrill, never mind if someone loses their eye, so long as they're having fun wreaking havoc, and making chaos. Now if you were to take a glass shard to their eye, I think they would blink.
Has anyone here watched Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight? Michael Cane's character tells a story about a man who was setting fire to forests in Rangoon, apparently with the intention of stealing precious stones. The man was discarding the stones the whole time, so why was he stealing? To quote Cane:
"Well, because he thought it was good sport. Because some men aren't looking for anything logical, like money. They can't be bought, bullied, reasoned, or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn."
I think the people who threw the tacks on the course, are one of those. Just monsters who like to watch the world burn.
And what do we do with monsters?
ReplyDeleteSadly, there's no politically correct answer to that one, but I for one would be happy to see these idiots wearing orange overalls (as they do in America) scraping up roadkill, sweeping streets, painting over graffiti, weeding road edges, while having bad eggs and mouldy cauliflowers (or the rotten fruit/vegetable of your choice) flung at them by passing taxpayers.
So there.
Coug
(In militant mood)
Yesterday's sabotage really shocked me and disgusted me. Seriously, how can someone be such an asshole? (*goes to the naughty corner without protesting*)
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, it isn't the first time something like this happens during the Tour. A few years ago, for example, someone used an air gun to shoot pellets at the riders (http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/other_sports/cycling/8156974.stm). Luckily the criminals who hurt the riders were caught a few hours later and this makes me hope that French police will manage to arrest also the lunatic who caused so many problems during yesterday stage.
In 2009 the people who shot the riders were two boys of 16 and 17 who felt bored and wanted to have fun (I know, that's unbelievable), but I really have no idea about the possible identity of the criminal (or criminals) who ruined yesterday's stage. I know that some enviromentalists didn't approve the Planche des Belles Filles stage, but that was already a week ago. Moreover, the enviromentalists would have probably liked to ruin the race indiscriminately, whereas our criminal scattered tacks just after the first riders arrived.
Given this latter fact, the Fangirl in me suggests that perhaps it was a supporter of the breakaway riders who decided to slow down the peloton by scattering tacks all around. Still, on mur de Peguere the breakaway already had a 14 minutes gap on the peloton. Moreover, no one knows the names of the breakawayers until the stage begins - and I don't think a Sagan's or Gilbert's lover went to buy tacks and scattered them on the road right after discovering that their favourite rider was in the breakaway du jour... At the same time, however, I don't think that the tacks were scattered on the road by someone who wanted to damage a specific GC rider. In fact, given that tacks can cause problems to every single rider in the peloton, that would be a very useless and risky thing to do.
Imo the strangest thing about yesterday sabotage is that tacks were scattered not only on the whole descent, but also in the last part of the climb. Moreover, they were scattered on the road after the breakaway riders rode past that point. Given these two facts, some Italian journalists said that the sabotage might have been caused by someone who was following the breakaway riders on a car or on a motorbike. As for me, I think some crazy morons who don't care at all about cycling scattered tacks all over the road when people weren't paying attention to them - and this probably occurred after the first riders arrived. Does anyone have other ideas?
Hi Fede! *big hug*
ReplyDeleteI don't think there were any tacks on the descent: my understanding was that some tyres didn't deflate straight away, the riders continued with softening tyres until they realised something was wrong.
So I still think it was some idiot spectator(s) on the ascent side of the hill. At this time, it seems more likely that it was someone standing at the roadside.
And how easy it would be to just walk calmly away afterwards.... the swines. (Oh, you can come out of the Naughty Corner, I don't think that "assholes" counts as swearing in this case!)
I really hope that the Gendarmerie catch these people, and that they are severely punished.
I say "Gendarmeri" rather than "organisers", as the organisers didn't do anything about the French TV driver who took out Flecha and Hoogerland, did they? The last I heard, Hoogerland had been offered a pathetically small amount of compensation and was sueing them for more: and poor Flecha had not been offered anything at all, which is a complete disgrace.
Come on, spectators, check your phones! Check your films! Let's find these morons!
Coug
Sad, sad, sad! Tacks, flares, photogs, old men lunching...it's become more dangerous every year. I really do hope the perpetrators are caught! Seems to me that the flats began occurring with riders on the edges of the roadway. Now, if tacks were thrown "into" the riders, it might be likely that someone would feel a prick or sting on arms or legs. If tacks were pitched from both sides of the road at, say, below knee level....and then they just spread on their own (the tacks).
ReplyDeleteSo, I think it was more than 1 person and I think it was planned and I don't think a specific individual or team was a target.
The way Paul & Phil (NBCSN) picked up on it so fast, I had a moment of...I hate to even consider it - was this a ploy to make the race more exciting? NBCSN has been getting hammered about their focus on crashes. After all - hair-raising descents to the finish make it more exciting according to the organizers, equally dangerous for riders and frankly I put nothing past anyone these days It appears the vast majority of organizations, governments and "leaders" are all being shown to be very corrupt, each and every day.
Rejected twisted fans? Political statement? Opportunistic moment to just be a rotten person? Organizational plot? Pick one.
It just makes me sick! It also makes me even more concerned for those in the peloton that I know personally and none of these guys need people who care about them to be even more concerned for their safety.
I hope this mystery gets solved!
"A ploy to make the race more exciting"? I don't think so.
ReplyDeleteI'd go with "Opportunity to be a rotten person" - but not opportunist, as I don't think many people turn up to races and just "happen" to have a box of tacks in their pocket. It was definitely planned, and as such the perpetrators need to be caught and punished.
Come on spectators, where are your camera phones! Where are your videos! Get them out and check them, carefully.
Would the riders feel it if tacks flew through the air? They ride through dirt, dust, road debris etc all the time, thrown up by the guys in front, by passing cars, by the camerabikes: would they even notice it, at the top of an exhausting hill, with the summit nearly in sight? I don't know.
But whether they were thrown into the road, or "bowled" underarm under the wheels, there is a chance that someone saw it, or filmed it.
Fingers crossed.
Coug
Just a horrible business. This had to have been planned because, as you say, it couldn't just happen on the spur of the moment. I don't think it could have been aimed at any one rider, for or against, too haphazard for that. It couldn't have been a protest, as there is no point when no-one knows what, or even that, you are protesting. I think it was some idiot who thought it would be "fun" to cause choas, and didn't think about the possible results.
ReplyDeleteWe had a bomb threat at our local hospital a while ago and the culprit turned out to be a teenage boy who didn't expect the resulting effects. He watched from across the street, wanting the thrill of seeing the emergency vehicles show up and knowing he caused it. He was quite appalled when they actually evacuated the hospital and he watched all the sick and injured patients, many of them elderly, being carried out into the cold night.
emjay