TDF Spectators

Those fools are going to end up destroying somebody's career if the organisers dont do more to keep them well back.
If you watch these idiots closely the vast majority is staring directly at the camera LOOK AT ME :evil: ***Kers and all the screaming is going to do is distract the riders out of their state of mind. During the last 10 k it was ridiculous and i saw a couple of riders forced to strike out to prevent them from being knocked to the ground.
I would love to go but id likely get into an argument with one of these clowns and end up headbutting him. :evil:

I saw a couple of the riders, including the stage winner strike out at the runners, Richie Porte was nearly taken off by a flag and even one of the motorcycle cameramen could be seen easing a 'spectator' off the road and straight into a wall.

It's always happened, and riders (including stage winners) have been taken off before now.

ASO and a bunch of the riders have been using social media to try and reduce it, but those guys we saw yesterday have been up there for days, drinking and partying, so the results are pretty inevitable.

I saw some of this in the Exmoor stage of the ToB last year, there is a great photo somewhere of one of the riders looking across at a fat guy wearing a mankini running alongside him, the look on the riders face is superb.

You can also get really cool situations like this (again from the ToB, but the Welsh stage): http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Vug4ILgr3Hw/U ... 0/epic.jpg

The boxer was Luke Rowe's brother and the rider was Gediminas Bagdonas.

it's been like that for years, ever since I first watched on TV, many years ago ie nothing has been done in a generation, seems it's part of the "tour experience" :roll:

Imagine you were Dutch though and you were coming up through this, what a boost!

unless some tool tripped and you had a nice crash then it wouldn't so much a boost, more just shit.

it's hard enough riding up a mountain (even on a MTB and no pressure) without out some drunken ? slob shouting in your face, never mind the need for concentration etc etc

if Frome docked 20s for bit of food, what about time adjustments for impediments, what with tacks, urine and who knows what else thrown, I suppose at least the women's events aren't ruined by them screaming every time they pedal

The dutch rider would be used to that. Ever tried a bicycle rush hour commute in Amsterdam :shock:

Madness, I got hemmed in coming past Amsterdam Zoo, couldnt go left as I wanted, went right because it was that or a peleton pile up :facepalm:

Yep, tour wallies wanting their 15 seconds on telly. I do remember one a few years ago being grabbed by the head by another spectator and hurled into a ditch in one slick move.

The other fun thing when you are there is to see people fighting over the trinkets thrown by the publicity caravan - seeing two middle-aged blokes fighting over a sample sachet of toilet duck is something to enjoy.

The crowds have always been there, and are a part of the proper thing that is the tour. What has changed is the instant digital experience: for many now, it is not eough to go and experience a thing, they have to have digital confirmation of it that can be played back to themselves and their virtual aquaintances in the instant. That second hand image becomes the real for them.

This leads to more people misjudging the distance as they look through devices, and so getting in the way; but worse, I suspect that it's changing the way people behave: the sort of person that needs the instant digital experience is the sort of person that has or needs no deeper understanding of the thing that they see - they're not cycling fanatics, they're pixel junkies.

Of course this sort of complaint is not new - the excellent Walter Benjamin understood it in the early 20th century. It's just that the phenomenon seems to have reached full maturity in our device-driven days.

Did anyone see the guy mooning on Alpe D'Huez? He probably needs a separate category to be understood properly, but I prefer a mediaeval mooner to a pixel junkie any day.

Here's a view that speaks of a simpler age ....

doctor-bond":241kktxz said:

Did anyone see the guy mooning on Alpe D'Huez?

Click to expand...

Unfortunately yes..also the sex doll just after the Flamme Rouge... :shock: