About Judi

Bicycles are my salvation. They are my way of life. If you don't like it, then you can go straight to hell. Cincinnati, Ohio, USA

19 Replies to “Stage 9 – the fucking car hits the riders. WTF!”

  1. What the hell! How does that work? Does the team that car is associated with get a DNF or booted from tour?

  2. It wasnt a team car that caused the crash, rather a TV car. I bet the driver will get the boot from the Tour before the sun goes down

  3. That is even worse. That is what has become wrong with everything. “Do whatever for the best shot, sponsor a POS athlete, bury the economy, etc”
    The racers have the right of way. chill out and wait til you can get around. Great footage ” Did you get the shot of me wiping out those riders?”

  4. The driver was passing on the left, as he is supposed to. I’m not convinced there was any attempt to shoot photographs or record video when the accident occurred. I believe that driver failed to anticipate that the row of trees along the roadway narrowed a bit. He made a mistake, he attempted to correct that mistake, and the consequences were pretty damn big. He’ll be out of the Tour tonight.

    As for the riders who went down, Johnny Hoogerland finished and took the climber’s jersey. Whether he can recover on the rest day and continue awaits to be seen. I’d be surprised if he did not retire.

    Juan Antonio Flecha eats nails for breakfast. But even a hard man such as he has his limits. It may be the end of his Tour as well.

    Good pic of Flecha picking up what was left of his bike: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/othersports/article-2013168/TOUR-DE-FRANCE-2011-Juan-Antonio-Flecha-collides-car.html.

    The fence in the background is the one Hooderland went into ass over tea kettle. Grim business, that.

    There has been a whole lot of carnage out there. Alexander Vinokourov, Dave Zabriskie, and Jurgen Van den Broucke all retired today.

  5. The video embedded.

    The white shouldered chap who put a shoulder into Alberto Contador in that video is Vladimir Karpets.

    I really have no idea if it was a bad as it looked. And it looks pretty bad! It could have been quite innocent, just a trick of the lens making it look worse that it was. But, on the other hand, it could well have been Karpets’ shoved the Spaniard clear off the road.

    It is going to get very interesting once this race points itself skyward.

  6. Pingback: Johnny Hoogerland is a hero | Drunkcyclist.com

  7. I’m pretty surprised how little this stuff happens. I remember watching some of (I think) mavic neutral support car footage and thinking how do they keep from killing people driving through that chaos with inches to spare?
    still, bloody hard luck. That image of Hoogerland all wrapped up in barbed wire.. fuck. Cycling isn’t supposed to look like that.

  8. A fitting punishment for the driver would be to turn ’em over to the Badger. He’d fuck him up real proper like

  9. This really sucks. Stupid drivers with no-respect or no driving capacity.
    I hope Johnny will come back on Tuesday.

    Btw Tour director Prudhomme already shouted that the media circus was responsible. What an asshole. About taking responsibility as a tour director. Who invites and manages the circus? Right, Prudhomme himself. He should shut up with this embarrassing crap at this moment and make deep deep apologies to both riders and make the tour safer by taking responsibility!!

  10. “The driver was passing on the left, as he is supposed to.” Except that it sounds like the car had been given specific instructions not to pass.
    http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/43704450/ns/sports-cycling/
    I don’t know how many cars Euro Media had in the caravan, but I’m guessing as of tomorrow that dumb bastard won’t be able to find work driving so much as a taco truck.

    Also, I’ll give Vlad the benefit of the doubt just because nobody has a career as long as his who’s a big enough asshole to cause a crash at the front of the bunch on purpose.

  11. Highlights of this stage on British TV (ITV4) had a scene where they caught up to the car and driver that caused the accident.

    The French TV reporters car was backing into a parking space for press vehicles after the race. All the occupants were shielding their faces. The driver was…wait for it…a young women!

    Maybe there is a reason former pro’s who actually raced the Tour are hired as drivers?

  12. this just magnifies the already existing lack of respect by cars for bicyclists all over the world, this type of accident sadly happens all the time……..