I had Ewan lined up for a swap with Pog after the first week anyway. May as well bring that forward now.
Hoping that Carapaz being ahead brings out the fireworks from Pog once the roads go up. Roglic didn’t look good. And half his team are wrecked. Wonder if they’ll give WVA a crack at GC in his place?
Good season for Alpecin so far. They’ve done well for a new team. (I know these teams go round in circles under different sponsors, so don’t know who they’ used to be’)
Only 3 stages in, what a Tour so far
Ridiculous.
The first rule of group riding is DO NOT OVERLAP WHEELS.
The crashes today were caused by experienced riders. Not upstarts.
“Ooh, I’m Caleb Ewan and I’m quitting the Giro to focus on the Tour”
Karma’s a bitch.
I thought that was a myth, outside of a club group ride with a variety of experience? That’s just clearly not the case day to day in the pro peloton. It’s impossible not to overlap wheels in such a big bunch, they just normally do a better job of not having such disastrous consequences!
Probably, but if you’ve been squeezed into a corner, like Ewan was yesterday, you CANNOT sprint out of it and straight into someone’s wheel, thinking you can ride THROUGH them.
That was akin to a Cat 3/4 racers strategy.
He should’ve backed off and realised he’d picked the wrong line and been beat.
Roglic just wasn’t concentrating and rode straight into the back of someone, then G also tumbled all of his own accord.
It really depends what you mean, rarely when they’re riding along will the front wheel be overlapped, when slowing they will likely take the choice to overlap rather than slow more than necessary, but it’ll be more controlled, but line riding they won’t be overlapping like that the risk is just too high as we saw.
Of course there’ll be line next to you where the wheel seperation won’t be there like the one in front but that’s a bit different.
Too much time on Zwift? You can ride through the other riders there 
Watch this - he has forced a gap whilst in the group, too.
Apparently the peloton is going to neutralise the first 50km of today’s stage as a protest.
The riders federation wanted the GC timing to finish 5km from the finish line to avoid the GC riders and the sprinters battling for the same space on the sprint stages and the ASO agreed but the UCI refused.
Might make it more interesting
Jeez - I don’t know how they ride at those speeds so close. The argy bargy which goes on in the peloton is terrifying.
Meh. Ewan would probably have dropped out before the first mountain Stage anyway; PUZZY.
I think what I’m meaning is that a riders position within the peloton is changing so constantly, it’s not as simple as just “not overlapping the wheel in front” as you would adopt within a breakaway, or on a normal group ride we might do. You aren’t just following a single wheel in front.
As the video above shows, there’s a constant stream of riders moving through the group, and back through it, and they’re all in very close proximity with wheels overlapping as a necessity.
As Cav has said many times, most amateurs would fail to not crash in the first neutralised section of every stage
But he didn’t.
The no half-wheeling rule is for riding in a chain gang. When you are positioning for a sprint, everyone is changing positions so their relative wheel positions are going to as well.
They’d been riding all day for this big moment, race brain kicked in, he made a tiny error with big consequences - that’s sprinting for you.
Both Roglic’s and Thomas’s crashes were when they were just following the wheel in front, they overlapped it and fell, they weren’t moving up, they weren’t changing position at all, and neither was anyone else around them in Thomas’s case, and it was simple inattention, and yes it is pretty much as simple as not overlapping the wheel in front.
Just because other lines are moving alongside you doesn’t mean you’re overlapping their wheels, they are in a different line, it really is about responsibility for that front wheel relative to the wheel in front of you. Other types of accident can happen of course that are different, but these were pure overlap ones, and it’s no different to 100 people in an amateur race all spread across the road in similar lines other than the speed and the skill of the riders.
Most amateurs wouldn’t fail to crash, you mean?
Where’s the Poindexter emoji 
Hmm, yeah, you may be right. An instance where the ordering of the same words does seem to make a difference on re-reading
I’ve said this before but one thing Zwift doesn’t prepare you for is going
through a tight crit corner with someone leaning on your shoulder. Ok for me at 80 odd kilos, bad for the 55kg guys!
I really wonder why ASO (as shitful as they are) need the UCI at all?