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Motos and cars at TDF
Watching the TDF today I couldnt believe the amount of motos and cars following the break, I counted 8 motos and could see 5 cars.
Would it make more sense for the team cars to stay back with the main peloton (reducing the amount of team cars) and the break have a neutral car follow with spares, drink etc and only one carmera moto. I know a few more would be needed but it would still reduce the amount of vehicles around them.
If you're new please join in and if you have questions pop them below and the forum regulars will answer as best we can.
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18 comments
I know the Hirscher incident which is only one of many. If that's the worst you've got then that puts drones in a good light.
None of the above is remotely interesting in any case. Drone tech is in its transitional phase and laws are out of date.
When someone comes up with an issue that isn't solved by an algorithm I'll take it seriously. Also I don't think the UCI are stopping anything. I seriously doubt any operator exists yet to put a workable model in front of the UCI.
The point about the UCI is that when it is ready, they'll take ages to adopt it.
Currently it is illegaly to fly drones at low level over crowds, so it is not just the UCI who are stopping this. It needs the CAA/FAA to act. Drones are however used in sports where the competitors and crowds are separated such as skiing. The Marcel Hirscher near miss last winter gives some idea as to why you don't want current drone technology too low overhead. There is a sequence to be followed here: Develop more reliable drones (and if you disagree I suggest you watch the Hirscher incident on youtube), change air law to allow flight over crowds, then the UCI can do something, but not before.
Could not agree less with any of that.
Genuine question - this isn't meant to be antagonistic or anything cos I am interested in this subject.
What do you see drones (quadcopters, octocopters, whatever) doing in a road race like the Tour that goes point to point? How would they replace motos (or if not replace then reduce the number of them)? How would the footage compare to a moto or to a helicopter? Ad what about the safety aspects that srchar ad I have mentioned (compared to the safety aspects of a moto or heli)?
This is really a topic of interest for me as I've looked at filming much smaller scale races in a similar way so I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on it.
Where professional road races are concerned, drones will only ever be used for static overhead shots and, possibly, wide panning shots as the riders climb or descend a mountainside. The chance of having (multiple) drones chasing the peloton around the course, ever, is zero. There's no way of replicating the angles available from a motorbike-mounted camera using a drone with an acceptable margin of safety. It wouldn't even reduce the number of vehicles - at the very least, the drone pilot would need to follow it around and would do so from the back of a motorbike.
Nothing massively complicated or hugely expensive about professional drones at all. And no, they wouldn't be doing the same job as a helicopter, that doesn't even make sense. Drones don't even need operators to takeoff, land, avoid spectators. You'll have your regular guys, in your regular studio choosing which camera gives the best angle at a given time as you do now. They won't even need retrained.
And no, they wouldn't be dangerous, unlike motorbikes, they don't need to stay on the road, they can follow off-track, which is a massive advantage. 100kg of octocopter? Oh that sounds scary, tomorrow's Daily Heil header?
If you want to be critical do so, but not with trite knee jerk myopia.
There are some technical issues to flesh out but you haven't touched on any of them and I don't think you're interested either. You've got some odd ideas about drones, that's for sure.
Actually I'm genuinely interested, I own 3 quads myself and have operated the camera on a DJI Inspire 1 (flown by someone else). For photoshoot work, planned shots etc, they're fantastic, they open up a whole new dimension to film work and Ive seen them used to great success on BMX tracks but that's a very closed evironment.
I can really see their use in things like search & rescue where it's too dangerous for firemen to go in and too close-quarters for heli work.
But for a constantly moving, shifting, evolving race scene, spread out over 200km of road with all the challenges of moving vehicles, logistics and people around, with millions of spectators, usually 5 helicopters; I can't see that a quad (or octo) copter offers anything of an advantage over the current system of motos and cameracrew.
At the moment there's a nice mix of moto work (right up alongside/behind/in front of riders), on-bike cameras and aerial shots from helis. I don't think you can remove a moto and replace it with a quadcopter and get anything like the same shot.
But they're then doing the same job that a helicopter is doing and helis have far bigger better cameras, far more endurance and they can also double up as radio transmitter beacons. If you think you can have a drone flying along level with the riders at moto filming height, that's just insane.
The only thing likely to replace (or reduce) the number of camera motos is on-bike cameras with a live transmitter feed although currently (as with drones) there are battery life issues to overcome.
And you'd still need a car, carrying the drone operator within visual range of the drone (and therefore the riders) at all times anyway to control it so you may as well remove all that complexity and simply use - one motorbike.
Drones just massively overcomplicate the issue. They're hugely expensive, require great skill to operate in such a confined / fast moving environment and much less versatile than motos. Also, if the peloton won't currently accept disc brakes, I can only imagine the protests when you suggest putting 100kg of remote controlled octocopter 30ft above their heads.
It's not just drinks, food and wheels that the team cars have. They will have spare bikes too for a major malfunction.
It would be a logistical mess trying to arrange for everyone in the break to have their bike and a team mechanic put on to, and in to, 1 neutral car.
Danger Dicko Have the team car stay at the peloton but when a break gets a fair way up the road the send the 2nd team car up to them, if theres 8 riders from 8 teams thats 8 cars they could theortically be served by 1 car instead. The teams could even give the neutral car drinks and food for the riders in the break.
No, they really couldn't. What happens if Rider 1 in the break wants food, the lone neutral car comes up, hands over the food (and with 19 teams in the Tour, each with their own specific food requirements, the car would have to be carrying 19 sets of food bags...), meanwhile Rider 2 punctures, Rider 3 wants to hand in some clothing, Rider 4 wants a chat with his DS in the car...
You need the cars. And it adds to the spectacle as well, the whole convoy is part and parcel of the event for the viewers.
No, it wouldn't make more sense to have team cars stay with the peloton.
Next!
Situation will improve when drones get introduced. The tech is there, but the UCI take donkeys to catch up with the times. We're still on a 6.8kg weight limit for no actual reason.
How on earth does having a drone in there mitigate the need for motos and cars? You'd need a car for the drone pilot, the drone would have to be landing every 10 minutes for a change of battery and drones can't deliver food, water and spares to a rider so basically, they'd be pointless. They can't replace helicopters (which have at least 2-3hrs endurance).
Each team will have 2 cars, their position in the convoy sorted out based on GC (one car to cover any of their riders in the break, one car to remain with the peloton). They'll then have a third car up at the feed station. There's also neutral service, officials cars and often a guest/VIP car or 3 as well. Chances are that there's also a few technical cars as well - mobile radio relay stations to bounce the signal around the full length of the convoy in conjunction with one of the helicopters.
Motos: neutral service, officials, police, safety outriders, camera bikes (both film and still) and they've been using that new thermal imaging gear to look for hidden motors as well so that's another motorbike in the mix.
Drones can't replace any of those nor is the tech available for them to do so.
Cringe.
You seem to think that I was suggesting drones will replace all vehicles, which is a rather silly conclusion. Drones will reduce vehicles. You can bleat on about any reason why they won't all you want. But drones are the future of camera work. Great improvements year on year. Film makers using high end drones with fantastic control at the moment and battery life is on the up.
You won't need a drone to follow a whole peloton, that would be a bizarre conlusion again. Drones will cover sections, start and stop. Races only last about 4 hours, so you could even today have 8 drones covering that with current battery life on the big rigs.
The problem isn't any of that. The problem is drone speed with a big rig on. That's the hold up here, not any of the stuff you mentioned. And that will improve over time any way.
So again, how will drones reduce the number of vehicles? And what year would this be introduced?
Oh cringe again..
The camera drones will replace the.. (this is the hard bit you couldn't work out)... motorbikes used for camera work.
Ergo! There will be less vehicles.
Mind blown yet?
As for implementation, as I said earlier, the wait will not be for available tech, it will end up being for UCI testing and regulation. So if your point is that this is a while away, thank you for agreeing with my earlier point.
Pat on the back.
Well for a start, often there isn't just one break- you can have a few groups up the road, especially on the climbs or when they split into echelons in the wind- which one of those groups will you send the solitary neutral car after? Since generally TV coverage only covers the front group and the peloton, it can be a bit of a surprise when watching it to see people come over the finish line ahead of the peloton but after the break who haven't appeared on TV at all that day.