Watched stage 2 today and it was like watching old NASCAR with all the crashes. I’d like to hear from @ambermalika on her thoughts on why so many crashes. We’re the ladies riding at their limit? Crappy road surface? Riders without the skills to ride that fast in the peloton?
I almost turned it off because of all the ladies left in the carnage. Turned out to be a solid finish for the win
Only saw the last 30k and it was mayhem. The one were the Australian rider just went in full speed. Scary stuff.
Possibly they’re feeling very nervous/the pressure is high given all that is being made of the first Tour de France Femme?
Cross winds at 20km/h + had something to do with it. For the rest they didn’t look any more crashy than the men look in early flat stages. The World Champion's ALMOST Perfect Surprise Plan | Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift 2022 Stage 2 - YouTube
Still not nearly as bad as the 2020 TdF imo
Sometimes we look for a reason and it can be just be bad luck. Add that to the normal increased number of crashes the first few stages of the tour and you can end up with a very crashy day.
I caught the last 60k; at some point during the commentary I thought I heard Anthony McCrossen say there had been a brief shower that may have made the roads in the last 20k-30k slippery. Frain’s crash was bonkers; amazing she wasn’t seriously injured and Cavalli’s exit is a huge loss for FDJ.
Cavalli’s crash was horrific…I have no idea what that rider was doing coming up to that situation so fast.
I was paying no attention to the Tour de Femme and now this thread has me totally into it . . .
Google says – Frain (rider who rode into the downed Cavalli at speed) says she was getting towed back into the peloton by teammates after being back in the cars for some reason. They were booking it to get back on. Her teammate whom she was drafting off of pulled off right before they got to the crash and Frain had not seen it so she hit the downed rider at speed. a/k/a “I was not paying attention.”
Couldn’t get the Eurosport video to work here in the US but found this clip that did work. Ouch!
Yikes, that skid mark she left on the road with her back is the stuff of nightmares
Le Tour’s web site has the same videos as for the men - summary of each stage, a short clip for each jersey, an “inside the stage” clip from bike-mounted cameras. Those are also on YouTube under Le Tour’s channel.
I mean, looking at the video there were riders stopped all over the road from the left side to the right side. I cannot believe she didn’t see any of that and if she did, a properly cautious person would slow down to safely navigate through it. I have no idea what she was looking at.
Remembering back to my MSF course, light rains are generally a bad time for riding as the rain brings up any oil to the surface but doesn’t wash it away.
So if that’s the case, combined with strong cross winds, definitely a recipe for crashes.
When I first saw it I was like WTF? I thought maybe she was trying to thread her way through the downed riders but after watching it several times it appeared she plowed straight into the carnage at full speed. And I agree, that skid mark on the road was gruesome.
There is a video from behind that shows she is on her teammate’s wheel, and they are drilling it to catch back on after a previous incident, then the teammate suddenly swings off (and crashes off the road herself) and Frain is faced with a road covered in riders and not much time to react. Some people have been very critical of her based on that video, but even in slow motion there is about 2 seconds between her teammate swinging off and impact. So less than that in real time to try to brake from 40+ km/h to zero.
I’d agree.
Even the aerial shot doesn’t look like she was oblivious. She was looking straight forward.
Come to think of it, I have done the same thing, after drilling it back into the back of a pack, only to see a crash 10m in front of me at 40kph.
In this scenario, braking just means I’m going over the bars for sure, on impact with whoever is on the ground.
Steering means maybe I’ll bounce off someone and stay upright as long as my bars and wheels don’t get hooked.
In my case, I braked a little and then bailed on that strategy mid-crash because I was going to go over the bars while taking someone out. Instead, I bounced off the poor guy and stayed up.
I vote: cut her slack. Things happen ridiculously fast and no one wants to crash.
Uh. What?
Big deal races always have carnage. It’s an amped and dangerous sport, we all know this. Men, women, kids…crashes happen. Your question denotes that women are not skilled enough to ride in the peloton. Which is crazy. Highly recommend you edit.
The crashes were insane on stage 2. Aside from the big pile up with 27km to go (Cavalli’s) there was one earlier of a rider taking a corner too hot and crashing on her chest, sliding a couple of meters, then hitting a curb. I hope these riders’ teams have good medical support. The mountain stages ought to be interesting.
Its a valid point. Even some of the riders have commented that many of the lower category invited teams have brought riders that have never raced in a World Tour peleton