What the heck happened today? Oil on the road?

Awful crash, hopefully nobody is hurt too seriously.

Rain, wet pavement that looked super slick.

https://www.instagram.com/...gsh=M3BxMHc1NDdzdWQ5

Stevie K went down badly and left in an ambulance looking pretty bad. Remco was holding his shoulder at first, but seemed okay on the bike to finish the stage. Rog is part man / part road at this point, but hopefully he's hit his allotment and is done for the year.

Edit: Ayuso has significant bruising and might not start tomorrow. Evenepoel hit his head and shoulder, but thankfully is alright and credits his helmet for not allowing worse damage. Dylan van Baller did his collarbone. Stevie K broke his hip.

Ouchie! Steve K just can't catch any luck.

At first glance, that crash didn't look that bad (people slid), but they were going really fast when the crash occurred. Awful...

Ug, that's one of those where you see the crash way ahead and have what feels like all day to ponder the almost certain likelihood you're going down too. Can't brake. Can't change lines.

are there reports of the severity of the injuries already posted? I kind of thought we'd get updates tomorrow morning as they got ready for the start.
the instagram vid and the reports from the riders i think show the answer to what could the riders have done once one dude slid out on that road at that speed: absolutely nothing.
the kind of raining /kind of not it's starting to get pretty slick mindset in racing (esp in protour racing) is if i take some risks here - others might not.
unless a race organization is ahead of the weather fast enough and ready to neutralize descents and establish the same gaps at the bottom
I don't see how this gets changed.

an observation that maybe is germane (maybe not) - on local group rides we all have people who really know the roads and can give us some warnings on descents/road conditions. would any pro listen if the race broadcast technically tough stretches (esp descents) from local pros? would it just make them go faster?!

If carlos rodriguez didn't crash (or any top climber with a killer team) - i'd bet on a murderous pace early on that final climb tomorrow.
racing must get safer or the MVDP/Pogi/Wout/Vinge/superstars NOT racing will be a real choice.

Man, guess I should amend my comment to I hope not many more than a dozen riders are seriously hurt. Carnage.

It looks like Ayuso DNS today.

https://www.cyclingnews.com/...r-bikes-were-stolen/


There is a special Circle of Hell for Bike Thieves, as I've said before

---

"What's your claim?" - Ben Gravy
"Your best work is the work you're excited about" - Rick Rubin

Agreed. That stuff makes me angry. Those are tools to do a job and earn a living. When I still owned my company, there were numerous occurrences were our field engineers had work vehicles targeted and tools stolen. Insurance can cover something like that and I'm grateful for it, but it offended me on every level. Those tools provided paychecks for people. They feed people.

Here's a funny story from an apprentice we had who was attached to one of the best CNC programmers and robotics engineers I've ever met. Factories and machine tools have a smell of their own based on what they are doing. The metals that are being machined, the coolant, etc. A young apprentice was working with the senior engineer and using some of his tools and commented, "What is that smell?." Dave replied back, "That smell is 30 years worth of paychecks."

Good on the other teams for helping out.

Back to the racing...they let my boy Gregoire off of the front. Here's to hoping that he can hold on to this.

Well that detour from the race route at 30k didn't help things out at all. Some of the cars were even with them.

Gee-Cee and Oier Como Va still climbing well!

Edit: Everyone in the Gee group not working are a bunch of bitches.