Newbie question about equipment failure/accidents and feed zone

[[email protected]]

This Tour is the first big race I am following so I am trying to
understand how everything works. I figured most of it out via Google
but can't find out two things; can anyone help?

1. It seems that sometimes when there is an accident riders wait for
those involved to recover and get back in the race. It doesn't seem to
be a rule but more of something one does out of fair play. When is this
supposed to apply?

2. How do the feed zones work? Is it a grab and go like the marathon or
do folks actually stop? Is their any etiquette about keeping in order
during the slowdown or do folks take advantage of this too?

Thanks.

Joe

 

[[email protected]]

None of that stuff really applies to US racing, except in some of the
big Pro races. At regional races, some guys have feeds, some do not,
so the guys who don't have no qualms about attacking in a feed zone.
As for crashes, never look back! I have almost never seen anyone sit
up and wait after a crash; there were a few exceptions to the rule, but
even many of the UCI races were no holds barred.

Bottom line, big time pro racing is not a good example to comare to
your local races.

CH
[email protected] wrote:
> This Tour is the first big race I am following so I am trying to
> understand how everything works. I figured most of it out via Google
> but can't find out two things; can anyone help?
>
> 1. It seems that sometimes when there is an accident riders wait for
> those involved to recover and get back in the race. It doesn't seem to
> be a rule but more of something one does out of fair play. When is this
> supposed to apply?
>
> 2. How do the feed zones work? Is it a grab and go like the marathon or
> do folks actually stop? Is their any etiquette about keeping in order
> during the slowdown or do folks take advantage of this too?
>
> Thanks.
>
> Joe

 

[[email protected]]

[email protected] wrote:
> This Tour is the first big race I am following so I am trying to
> understand how everything works. I figured most of it out via Google
> but can't find out two things; can anyone help?
>
> 1. It seems that sometimes when there is an accident riders wait for
> those involved to recover and get back in the race. It doesn't seem to
> be a rule but more of something one does out of fair play. When is this
> supposed to apply?

It is a "fairplay" ideal that is applied most often to the leader and
big names. Note that I wrote "ideal". There have been times where a
leader is taken down by an accident and a team will decide at that
moment to attack. At the end of the stage the team will claim that they
had no knowledge of the crash or who was involved. It all depends on
who in the peloton likes the rider(s) who are involved in the crash.
The same thing applies to pee breaks. In the case where a team leader
is involved in an accident or mechanical his team will usually wait to
tow the rider back to the group.

>
> 2. How do the feed zones work? Is it a grab and go like the marathon or
> do folks actually stop? Is their any etiquette about keeping in order
> during the slowdown or do folks take advantage of this too?
>
Feed zones are areas where team workers hand out bags (in French
musettes) full of goodies to their riders. The team workers stand by
the side of the road and as the team comes by they grab a bag on the
go. These areas are a little like pit areas in motor racing. There is a
high potential for confusion and crashes so everybody slows down a bit
to grab their bag and sort through the contents. Again there have been
times when attacks have occured in feed zones.

These "rules" are subject to the will of the riders.

Andy

 

[Simon Brooke]

in message <[email protected]>,
[email protected] ('[email protected]') wrote:

> This Tour is the first big race I am following so I am trying to
> understand how everything works. I figured most of it out via Google
> but can't find out two things; can anyone help?
>
> 1. It seems that sometimes when there is an accident riders wait for
> those involved to recover and get back in the race. It doesn't seem to
> be a rule but more of something one does out of fair play. When is this
> supposed to apply?

Very rarely, if at all these days. Ullrich waited for Armstrong after he
got hooked off his bike by a spectator's handbag in, I think, 2004.
That's the only recent case I can think of.

> 2. How do the feed zones work? Is it a grab and go like the marathon or
> do folks actually stop? Is their any etiquette about keeping in order
> during the slowdown or do folks take advantage of this too?

No-one stops. Teams have 'soigneurs' - personal assistants - each of whom
is responsible for one or a small group of riders (in amateur races,
your soigneur generally your parent or your long-suffering girlfriend).
The soigneur stands in the feed zone wearing team colours with
individually prepared bags (musettes) for each of his riders, and the
theory of the feed zone is you pick up your musette from your soigneur
as you pass. You definitely don't stop!

Generally the peloton comes through the feed zone relatively slowly and
well strung out and this all works. But like your 'rule' about waiting
when the GC leader (or main contender) goes down, this does not always
happen, and if there's an attack before a feed zone there can be chaos
(and it can be very dangerous).

I /assume/ that on the pro teams soigneurs pack additional 'generic'
musettes in case a rider on the same team misses his own soigneur, but I
don't know this for certain.

In big races like the Tour de France, bidons (bottles), musettes and
other things discarded by the riders tend to be picked up by spectators
and kept as souvenirs, so there isn't that much of a litter problem.

--
[email protected] (Simon Brooke) http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~simon/

Morning had broken, and I found when I looked that we had run out
of copper roove nails.

 

[Geraard Spergen]

[email protected] wrote:
> One time, I was dumb enough to have my friends prepare
> a musette bag and hand it to me in the feed zone. That bungle cost me
> a state championship. My breakaway companion attacked me, and I
> hammered the remaining 25 miles of the race with the bag still hanging
> over my shoulder.
>

Hard to call this a virtual victory - you had 25 miles to catch him. I
suggest he could have attacked you anywhere and stayed away.

 

[Curtis L. Russell]

On Wed, 05 Jul 2006 17:35:40 +0100, Simon Brooke
<[email protected]> wrote:

>Very rarely, if at all these days. Ullrich waited for Armstrong after he
>got hooked off his bike by a spectator's handbag in, I think, 2004.
>That's the only recent case I can think of.

Armstrong waiting for Ullrich when he decided to try downhill a year
or two before that?

Curtis L. Russell
Odenton, MD (USA)
Just someone on two wheels...

 

[Andrew]

Simon Brooke said...
> in message <[email protected]>,
> [email protected] ('[email protected]') wrote:
>
> > This Tour is the first big race I am following so I am trying to
> > understand how everything works. I figured most of it out via Google
> > but can't find out two things; can anyone help?
> >
> > 1. It seems that sometimes when there is an accident riders wait for
> > those involved to recover and get back in the race. It doesn't seem to
> > be a rule but more of something one does out of fair play. When is this
> > supposed to apply?
>
> Very rarely, if at all these days. Ullrich waited for Armstrong after he
> got hooked off his bike by a spectator's handbag in, I think, 2004.
> That's the only recent case I can think of.

The entire bunch slowed and waited when Valverde crashed in the 2004
Vuelta, allowing Zabriskie to get a huge lead and win the stage.

--
Andrew
http://www.cageofmonkeys.co.uk

 

[Stu Fleming]

Geraard Spergen wrote:
> [email protected] wrote:
>
>> One time, I was dumb enough to have my friends prepare
>> a musette bag and hand it to me in the feed zone. That bungle cost me
>> a state championship. My breakaway companion attacked me, and I
>> hammered the remaining 25 miles of the race with the bag still hanging
>> over my shoulder.
>>
>
> Hard to call this a virtual victory - you had 25 miles to catch him. I
> suggest he could have attacked you anywhere and stayed away.

If his friends were still holding on to the other end of the bag, it
would count.