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Team Sky's Peter Kennaugh and Ian Stannard lead the British national championship race up the gutter on Lincoln's Michaelgate (Alex Broadway:SWpix.com)Mark Cavendish hurts shoulder in tangle with too-close fan
Mark Cavendish and Peter Kennaugh have expressed gratitude to the thousands of fans who turned out to cheer them on in the national championships in Lincoln yesterday, but have said some were perhaps a bit too enthusiastic.
The Lincolnshire Echo's John Pakey reports that Cavendish hurt his shoulder when he hit a spectator's camera on Michaelgate, the climb that was to be his nemesis in his bid to win the British champion's jersey.
Fans packed the pavements as riders battled for a spot on the smoother paving slabs in the gutter of the cobbled climb.
That put riders and supporters unusually close.
"I cracked on Michaelgate, it is super hard climb," said Cavendish. "It was great, there were loads of fans, maybe too many.
"I hit my shoulder on someone's camera before the end and I might have to get that checked out before the Tour next week."
Kennaugh, who took the title with help from his Sky team-mates against the unsupported Cavendish, said the crowds had been "incredible" and the Michaelgate climb "intense".
"It is good racing in Lincoln. I remember it well from when I won the Grand Prix previously. The crowds have been incredible," said Kennaugh.
"It can be a bit intense on the climb when they get a bit too over excited and stand in the gutter – that's the one place you are trying to ride because of the cobbles.
"I cannot complain, it has been a great day out. It is a beautiful climb up to the cathedral and the roars from the crowd up there on the last lap were something else."
Cavendish wasn't the only one to have trouble with the close proximity of the fans.
Kristian House tangled with a photographer who stepped into the gutter in front of him, and almost got a closer view of the cobbles than any rider wants.
John has been writing about bikes and cycling for over 30 years since discovering that people were mug enough to pay him for it rather than expecting him to do an honest day's work.
He was heavily involved in the mountain bike boom of the late 1980s as a racer, team manager and race promoter, and that led to writing for Mountain Biking UK magazine shortly after its inception. He got the gig by phoning up the editor and telling him the magazine was rubbish and he could do better. Rather than telling him to get lost, MBUK editor Tym Manley called John’s bluff and the rest is history.
Since then he has worked on MTB Pro magazine and was editor of Maximum Mountain Bike and Australian Mountain Bike magazines, before switching to the web in 2000 to work for CyclingNews.com. Along with road.cc founder Tony Farrelly, John was on the launch team for BikeRadar.com and subsequently became editor in chief of Future Publishing’s group of cycling magazines and websites, including Cycling Plus, MBUK, What Mountain Bike and Procycling.
John has also written for Cyclist magazine, edited the BikeMagic website and was founding editor of TotalWomensCycling.com before handing over to someone far more representative of the site's main audience.
He joined road.cc in 2013. He lives in Cambridge where the lack of hills is more than made up for by the headwinds.
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17 comments
'If only common sense was that common' is the other expression Dan Thomas might have been after.
Last lap super snack that wins you a national jersey in a sprint against Cav??! I'll take two bars of that please...v
From my limited experience of riding in front of a crowd I'm pretty confident in saying that spectators in close proximity to the action are great, both for the riders and spectators but stories of collisions are becoming worrying frequent. I've no idea what the solution is though.
Those aren't cobbles, they're setts.
https://goo.gl/maps/YNslh
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobblestone
And I claim my 'pedant of the day' prize.
Anyone notice Kennaugh take on food on the final lap ,from the team car as the race radio warned that no food was to be taken on the last lap .Hummm.
It wasn't a massively long section of road.
Why not just fence the whole length of the climb, and put the fences far enough in to force the riders onto the cobbles. A similar thing was done in this years Paris-Roubaix, the organisers churned up the mud next to the cobbles.
Around the lower section the road was quite narrow; barely wider than a car and with only a very narrow pavement (about 1 person deep). It would have proved tricky to put fences up without the feet extending a long way into the road, and would have stopped all official vehicles other than motorbikes following. When it got a bit wider a short way further up they did put fences in the gutter.
Not all riders went up the gutter; a good few attacks came by people moving out onto the crest.
They do this at Trouee D'Arenberg, but pretty much nowhere else on route I can recall. They plough one side, but I think more significantly there is a sizeable path on the other side they can safely locate barriers on, and only having to pass it once in the race makes it easier to get official vehicles to skip this section.
Barriers?
You cannot fence/cone/cordon Michaelgate as it is too narrow. Support vehicles would not be able to follow. A mate of mine who was in the safety car said people were stepping out in front of that!
If spectators can't be patient and courteous, we've no chance!!
And as for you should always ride the cobbles.... Has no one watched Paris Roubaix. Look at the lines taken there! Of course riders are gonna take the gutter...marginal gains and all that!
I always thought that the point of the cobbled section was to ride the cobbles.
Cobblers.
It's amazing we get so many fans for UK races these days, but unfortunately many of them do not understand cycle racing - bit like a number of the posters above...
tom veelers was in the crowd.
Cavendish also nearly came to grief after clipping the kerb while trying to avoid the cobbles.
I think fences in the gutter forcing them onto the cobbles would make sense here.
What's the point of including a cobbled climb if no-one is going to ride the actual cobbles!
Put cones or fences in the gutter and force the riders up the cobbles; that way they also keep away from the spectators better too.
Is this the same race they used to have in Beverly? That was always across cobbled sections. It looks a bit ridiculous that there is a whole road to use or a thin strip of smoother gutter. Whoever rides on the cobbles will be at a disadvantage so naturally everyone will choose the gutter but why do the organisers insist on designing courses over cobbles?
Yes, some of the fans were getting too close, but the riders made a conscious decision to trade off the benefit of riding in the smooth gutter against the risk of coming into contact with spectators.
Someone wise once said: "Think of how stupid the average person is and realise half of them are stupider than that"
At what point do you just accept that this is part of the sport, and realistically you can't keep every single mouth-breathing idiot beyond arm's reach from the road? I can't think of a good solution to this other than handing down harsh penalties.