So I basically missed the 4:30AM live coverage of the 1st stage and had to wait until the evening coverage to watch the debacle that happened at the finish line.
And what a debacle! The last time I saw a bus get wedged under something was a double-decker tour bus getting stuck under a low / old bridge in Spain while I was on tour. This is why you never sleep in the front bunks on the top floor.
Who's to blame on this one? The bus driver? Orica-Greenedge's management? The tour organizers? I think there's plenty of blame to go around. And all parties are in the wrong.
I'm sure everyone has seen what happened so I won't go into the details, but I will tell you why I think everyone is to blame.
Why is Orica-Greenedge's management to blame? Because someone within their organization made the genius decision that the best place to meet the riders after the race would be at the hotel. THEN that same person, or someone of an equal or higher pay grade decided it would be better to take the bus to the finish line. Thus, the bus was later that the rest of the caravan. The finish line timer was lowered to what I'll call "race height". And smash! Bus gets stuck.
Why is the driver to blame? Because he drives the bus, he should know his vehicle and it's height. Every tour bus driver, every semi truck driver I've ever met, knows the height of their vehicle and what they can and can't get under. How many times has the bus driver on your tour had to let the air out of his shocks to get the bus low enough to enter the Lincoln tunnel to NYC? Usually the Van Hools. Those things ride high.
Even I know the limitations of my Toyota Tacoma and where my biggest blind spot is... rear drivers side. How did I find this out? I've smashed it twice into walls while backing into or out of parking spaces.
The bus driver's spidey senses should have started tingling as he approached the finish line. He should have stopped, gotten out, and looked to see if he was going to clear. If you watch any of the videos of the event, you can see him looking up as he approached. It's obvious to me he doesn't know the height of his bus. And smash! Bus gets stuck.
Why is the tour organizers to blame? Because someone should have known/remembered that they lowered the finish line timer in and ran out and stopped the bus like Tienanmen Square. Someone had to have said, "Okay, all the buses are through, lower the sign." They are also to blame because they should have told Orica-Greenedge, "Sorry too late, you were supposed to be here at this time and you weren't. Go park at the hotel." If that happened then the bus would have working A/C. But it didn't happen. And smash! Bus gets stuck.
They need a site coordinator who's good with details. I wonder if I know someone like that (you know I'm winking in your direction).
So Orica-Greenedge got fined $10,000 Euro's for smashing the sign. Seems a bit unfair. If I was managing the team, I'd send the bill to fix the A/C to ASO sports, the Tour's promoter.
Kudo's to the crew who were fast on their feet and came up with a solution to get the bus unstuck in time. I'm sure it was the guys who everyday set up the barricade, build all the tents and media areas. Those guys are the "roadies" of the tour. And being a roadie (or former roadie) I know they're the ones who came up with the solution. They actually came up with two solutions, when the guy with the industrial forklift came out to help.
And while the guys with the dirty hands were solving the problem, the guys in the white shirts were possibly creating more. Stop the race at 3km to go? But don't tell the riders? Seems like a good case for race radios... But that's another blog.
If I was in a white shirt, here's what I would have done. I would have gotten the red referee's car out in front of the pack and had him weave back and forth like the highway patrol creating a traffic break, and slow the peloton. I'd get on the bull horn and tell the riders the race is being neutralized due to a bus being stuck under the finish line timer. There was no breakaway up the road by the time this happened, so even if I had to come to a complete stop of the peloton to get the bus out I would. Once the bus was clear, I'd give them 1km to get back up to speed, and let the race resume.
This could have saved the crash that sent Tony Martin flying and delaying the sprinters from their destiny.
In any case, I'm sure there's a plan in place in case something like this ever happens again.
....
And now stage 2...
Was anyone else besides me screaming at the TV right at the end? I'm not really a fan of Radioshack (Go BMC!) but anytime I see someone about to succeed with a break away, I can help but root for that person. It was so incredibly close for Jan Bakelants. You could see in the last 50 meter's he had nothing in the tank His legs were just moving by inertia. How can you not stand and scream "ALLEZ!" at your TV? What a perfectly timed move. I don't think he was saying to himself, "Okay, I know I've got 2km of good effort in my legs off I go." It was probably more along the lines of, "Everyone else in the breakaway has given up, may as well give it a go."
And it worked.
By one second, ONE second, it worked.
What must that feel like? You can't go any faster and the pack is barring down on you?
I had a similar experience in my very first race. It was the downtown criterium in Honolulu. 20 laps around Honolulu Hale (the Mayor's office and the rest of the government buildings). Each lap is about a mile long and I was racing in the Cat 5, or "newbie" division. I was able to stick with the pack (about 20 or so) for the first few laps, but by 5 I was off the back. So I rode my lonely tempo for another 13 laps. As a matter of fact, here's a picture of me on one of my lonely laps.
Note the yellow Kiwi helmet, I talked about last year when Giro was test driving their new helmet.
I've got two laps left to go and I'm on the back straight when I look over my shoulder and see the peloton baring down on me. The adreanlin started to pump. I up shifted, stood on my pedals and cranked as hard as I could. I had to get to the finish line for my bell lap before getting passed or I would be disqualified. I was 100 meters from the line when the tank ran out. I hit the wall. My legs were going around, but I wasn't pedaling. I was mouth open gasping for air. I could hear the 50 people who had gathered to watch screaming at me, "Allez! Allez!".
Alright, they weren't screaming that. But it would have been cool if they were.
Somehow I made it across the line before the bunch caught me. I remember the winner, a teammate of mine winning the race and going past me arms up. But I still had one lonely lap to complete and no energy to do it.
Some how I did.
To note, that is my first "race" bike. A 1970's Schwinn Le Tour. I spent so much time fixing that bike and souping it up. That bike does have a history.
It competed in one of the very first Ironman triathlons when they were still held on the island of O'ahu and not in Kona where they are now. My uncle raced the Ironman and then gave me the bike.
I think it's in a box in my dad's attic. Although my dad has been cleaning out the house and throwing things away. He may have put it in the recycling bin...
Happy riding.
