Watched it live, that image doesn’t do it justice - he was full on super tuck for a solid 5 seconds. Watching in the US, Chris Horner and Bob Roll immediately noted it wasn’t allowed - it was pretty obvious

OK I missed watching that section so will go back and watch replay. Sounds like a definite violation. I am surprised no one in the team car shouted through his ear piece to not forget about that new rule.

To me it’s absolutely ridiculous to punish riders for it with a DQ. Time penalty more appropriate, as that’s what he gains.

What bothers me more is that they decided to ignore their rules when it comes to littering. Blatant ones like observed in the Classics during last weeks. Just one DQ I know of.
If you toss your food/bidons into nature, you should be asked to go back and retrieve it. Come back without it: DQ
.

Yet astonishingly, by sheer miracle of miracles, nobody died.🤔

I suppose banning the supertuck is an easy distraction from finding all the Nazi gold for those who live in Switzerland.

What....fraudster, dictator and state bad guy money and gold siphoned off to Switzerland...say it ain't so.

OK sorry to my Swiss friends, but its a bit of a standing joke in some circles (undeserved, but its there) . Putting that aside, a time penalty seems OK if you care to make it somewhat fair. Sticky bottles likely have more impact on unfairness than supertucking on a dry open road. Its "almost never" that a pro has lost it in a supertuck (do we know of any instances).

Its a shame because Ineos and Carapaz really animated that final 25km and upped the pace (I can't believe it, I defended Ineos) :-)

Correct, that image just looks like he was resolving an itchy butt with the saddle nose

The angle from the moto a second later showed him confidently tucking onto the top tube, before the "uh-oh!!!" moment and he jumped back off

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If you saw someone on the TV coverage "littering" and they weren't sanctioned for it, you saw them tossing their trash/bidons in a designated drop zone. The UCI has been downright draconian in their enforcement of these regulations.

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I initially read this as, "Sounds like a defiant violation." In that, "I'll see if they really have the balls to DQ me."

It may be a silly rule, but those are the rules. It's been brought up more than once that riders, including Philippe Gilbert and Matteo Trentin, were involved in coming up with this and the other new rules for 2021. An email was sent out back in December 2020, listing this and the other new rules, but apparently very few riders bothered to read the email.

Violate a rule at your own risk.

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Littering rules have not been ignored at all - riders know to only throw bottles in designated areas. Hard to see where they are but usually they are feed zones and then there is another litter zone close to the finish (in the last 10km).

Sure, there are designated dump zones.
Still plenty of unsanctioned littering.

Flèche Wallone last couple k’s, women’s race. Lady dumping her Jersey contents right onto the road in front of camera. Couple beautiful high tosses into the woods from the peloton during the Tour des Alpes....

not sure what you guys were watching.
.

its great to see the UCI finally actually enforcing at least some of their rules. you may not agree with the rule but it seems nobody argued against it when proposed months ago so it is what it is. this rule is not about fairness, it is about safety (rightly or not) so on that basis DQ is appropriate rather than a penalty.

I believe the final dump zone was at the 2K marker. I could be wrong, though.

Imagine having Chris Hornet & Bob Roll call you out for doing something outside the rules!

I have been told the reason for banning supertuck, is some amateurs are copying it, and the don't have the skills, thus some really bad crashes have happend.
With that perspective I think DQ is appropriate.

Yeah, and I do think it's kinda supportable on that basis.

This has been covered here and on BF a lot, but not really. Think of the 1000 idiotic things unskilled Freds do daily on road bikes compared to the supertuck or the IAB. Think of how many Freds trip over cyclocross barriers, ban cyclocross barriers? Freds who can't drink during a rotation without crashing, so ban drinking during events?.......maybe.........ignore the Freds.

DQ is likely because they feel they've made the rule clear and somebody does it anyway. As with any rule that's clear but ignored.

You have to follow it in the meantime despite disagreeing if you want to finish the race. So, follow the rule and lobby your union to act.

Yes, I am supportive of the rule based on that. But it would be easier if UCI just said, "There are certain positions that professionals are completely capable of handling at their level, but can be dangerous for youth and amateurs acquiring cycling skills to get to professional level of control. With that in mind, racing is possible without some of these positions that may be riskier for amateurs, and to ensure that we protect the entire pyramid of the sport and low skill early development riders don't take on risk we are banning this position so that professionals don't set this example"

Protecting pros from themselves the UCI probably can do more important things to police. Protecting amateurs from themselves by getting pros to set a more safe example seems like a good cause.

I understand the frustration regarding the littering rules. enforcement is difficult, and often isn't black/white. however, the backlash about banning the supertuck is, to me, kinda silly. while the idea of its effect on amateur habits is valid, I bet (hope?) that wasn't really on the UCI's mind when making this rule.

if no one racing can do it, there's no reason TO do it. no one can gain that aero/speed advantage so a racer isn't losing anything by not being able to do it. so what's the problem? that the speed of the descent will be 45.2mph versus 48.8mph, or something? this is an inconsequential thing to the experience of watching a bike race, and it increases rider safety. just because someone hasn't died from it YET doesn't mean it's reason to let it continue. we shouldn't need a fabio jakobsen-barrier incident to think about how to make barriers safer. so many things the UCI does is ridiculous, but the supertuck ban I take my hat off to them. they're doing something before something bad happens.

I get the fact that riders say if someone does crash from it, it's on them. as opposed to road furniture or barriers, those things are outside their control to an extent. But, racers are competitors just like other sports and sometimes need to be protected from themselves in terms of the willingness to take unnecessary risks.

For anybody not watching LBL live this post title really took a fair amount of enjoyment out of his breakaway. Yeah I knew he was never going to hold off the bunch but it sucked nonetheless.

Maybe next time try “LBL Spoiler - Discuss Carapaz” or something like that.

Thing is, he wasn’t pulled from the race, just dq in the results post race. He was still racing full on, and the bunch was still working to catch him. If he could of held off the chasers (yeah, wasn’t going to happen) he would have crossed the line first arms aloft.

Would have been interesting to see if the UCI would have dq’d him if that had happened.

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Either way this was a spoiler for anyone checking in on ST ahead of watching the LBL replay and not even opening race related threads:(

it could actually be a worthwhile tactic for a team to send a domestique off the front with instructions to use a supertuck to make it hard for the chasers as a softener for a subsequent attack by a team leader. in a 1-day race nobody really cares if the domestique is DQ'd, half the time they don't finish anyway. hardly in the spirit of the game, i'm sure they all have better morals than that ;)

I was thinking the same thing from the other side; having a domestique supertuck to help pull back a break (the riders in the break might want to win and not be dq'd, while the domestique is totally expendable). I think that's why they added a UCI points penalty, not that that counts for much.

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I agree. Same day posting (before the race was even broadcast in the US) of key results in the headline are not cool.