Lance Armstrong criticizes Tour de France being raced in brutal heat: "I don't care what the UCI says, it's inhumane"
Cycling
Temperatures on the road this Saturday reached as high as 40 degrees in the blazing Italian sun, and many riders felt the difficulties on stage 1. Lance Armstrong is against the race being ran without change in such conditions and have criticized Tour de France organizers for not having implemented changes.
"That's not healthy, it's inhumane. May I remind everyone that the Tour de France is the toughest sporting event in the world? In Saturday's stage, it was almost forty degrees for the first time this season," Armstrong said in The Move podcast. "The riders simply can't drink enough to maintain their fluid balance. You expect two hundred riders to participate in the next three weeks with almost chronic dehydration in - I'll say it again - the toughest sporting event in the world. That's not healthy. I don't care what the UCI says, it's inhumane. There has to be another way.”
Michele Gazzoli, the first rider to abandon the race, suffered from gastrointestinal problems because of a heatstroke. Mark Cavendish looked to be suffering from the same early in the day, and a few riders fell out of contention for the stage or GC in unexpected ways likely due to this situation unfolding. The weather is expected to be just as hot this Sunday, but the stage will not include such long climbs where riders will spend a long time at slow speed in the sun.
Armstrong also believes the dehydration from riders may see the do intravenous therapy, which involves needles, and he shares his opinion on the matter: “I understand that I am now on thin ice when it comes to this subject, but I don’t care. The ‘no needle policy’ means that you are not allowed to use cortisone if you suffer from tendonitis in your knee. Just like you are not allowed to combat dehydration with intravenous therapy, after a scorching hot stage like Saturday’s.”
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And what about simply having them start at 9/10am when it is still fresh? They would still have time to breakfast and digest. Just cut all the pre-stage media theatrics
Absolutely. Starting mid day in a heatwave is madness. Should be starting at 930. Even earlier would be better, but might be hard with all the logistics.
Ah, those TV viewers, if only riders would remember them sitting in their comfortable air-condition auditoriums moaning about the lack of action :-) Do the riders have free choice or are they just slaves for the (money) gods? People always seem to have to blame someone other than the one responsible for their misery.
This is also one of the principle reasons why the TdF became a far bigger event than the other two GCs. Many don’t realise it and it’s hardly discussed but the Giro and Vuelta (that take place at similar hours) cannot get the same viewer figures, the vast majority of the fanbase being at work during those times. The TdF falls during the best part of the holiday season when a great number are free to laze around all day at home before embarking on the traditional vacation trip in August. Radio used to provide a solution to some but except for in Spain or Italy, that has more or less died off as phone technology killed the economics of it even though a lot of jobs aren’t compatible with (probably stealthily) following the race on a screen
Exceptionally starting at 9 or around in the morning in the event of very hot days (we are not speaking about 21 stages here, perhaps 5 at most) would mean arrival between 13:00 and 14:00, quite a perfect time for TV viewers. In France, most people work in July, as in Italy. In any case, I am pretty sure it is what will happen in the near future. You guys all made very good points, but don't disregard the increasing trend towards riders' safety, so we're heading there ineluctably
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- Whatever happens tomorrow... it'll be a hell of a raceslappers6605-04-2025
- Exactly Tadej, the cancer of modern society. Full of good-for-nothing people who gain visibility and importance on social media mocking, humiliating (and worse things) to earn money. But it's the follower's fault, no followers, no "influencers".
maria2024202405-04-2025 - Great commentCaralladas05-04-2025
- i’m such a sucker for those group-hug, happy ending moments between competitors, largely because it’s so WASN’T that way in my younger, stronger days. (on that note, i have this hope that somewhere down the road, maybe fifteen or twenty years, a middle aged wout and mathieu will go for a pleasure ride together in flanders, and reminisce about the days when they were the young, strong monsters that stalked the cobbles.)OCexile05-04-2025
- Just like Dwars door Vlaanderen, the Ronde van Vlaanderen was/is NOT on MAX. Get your facts straight.Ben04-04-2025
- You might bounce more for the same power, but not the same speed. Sending 20 kgs over a jump at 20 kph will fly just as far as 10 kgs at the same speed. Again, Galileo demonstrated this.acem8204-04-2025
- So, you're saying that doing a bunch of small hops on a bike is easier if you're heavier? Why do people buy lighter bikes, then? Why do they generally feel better and faster? An appeal to "rhythm" is not helpful either, as the right "rhythm" might be on the lighter or heavier side of things, and as it varies, it's likely a wash either way. Then we are left with the physics truth that it takes less power to lift lighter things than heavier things.acem8204-04-2025
- No, weight doesn't affect the ability to go into the wind at all. It's all CdA vs power at that point. For example, it's "obvious" that a heavier object falls faster than a lighter one. But, absent wind resistance, it's not true (Galileo demonstrated this). An appeal to "obviousness" doesn't matter when the physics is clear. And yes, you have to be able to hold everything else constant, or you can't determine anything! So, imagine a 300 watt rider at 80 kgs with a CdA of 2.0, then imagine that same rider at 70 kgs with a CdA of 2.0. (Assume ideal tire pressure for both, same bike.) Which one can ride over a bumpy road fastest? The lighter one, as he doesn't have to lift as much. That's also why when they test bikes on 5 star cobbled sectors, the MTB goes faster than even a cobble-build road bike. Even though rolling resistance is higher on a flat road, and the CdA is junk, it smooths out the cobbles, allowing the person to not lift as much as they otherwise would.acem8204-04-2025
- I disagree. If you have lower weight, you will bounce more at the same speed, meaning that you will spend more time in the air and shorter time on the ground, as a consequence, when you are on the ground you have to produce more force for the same speedvappaxbipmv04-04-2025
- That’s not quite true, even steep climbs and sudden gradient changes can be considered as remaining tangential to the wheel whereas the occasional dip between cobbles a wheel drops into cannot, as such riding over cobbles can become like a permanent surmounting of small obstacles that hit back into your wheel slowing you drastically if you don’t have the right rhythm to “fly” on the mounds, here again the greater the momentum the less these obstacles reduce your speed. But, it is but one factor, you cannot decide on this alone. Like with natural surface ripple formation on desert tracks used by vehicles, there is an optimal speed range to efficiently pass over such surfaces, too fast or slow and your car gets shaken to pieces from the “harmonics” in the vibrations caused. Pretty sure the same applies to riding on cobbles.Mistermaumau04-04-2025