As if hazardous street furniture, fans getting in the way on climbs, and the occassional badly-driven car weren't all enough to contend with, these riders at the Vuelta a Burgos had a TV helicopter get a bit too low.
Video: What happens when a TV helicopter gets a bit too close to a bike race?
This chopper pilot got a bit carried away in pursuit of a great shot
Tue, Aug 13, 2013 13:04
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John wrote 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.
He 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 also wrote 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.
John died from cancer in 2025, changing his name to John Abbott Valentine in the months before his death.
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Latest Comments
tomlew 1 hour ago
Lovely colours on that C:68X.
Rome73 2 hours ago
I worked in outside broadcast (mostly sport) for a quarter of a century, and although I didn’t astutely monitor the situation, one could easily notice the differences in diversity according to sport. Football - very diverse. Boxing, also diverse. Athletics also diverse - especially at international championships. Formula 1 - white. I also covered many ‘minor’ sports like basketball, hockey, swimming. Basket ball was diverse but the latter were white. I never worked at a single cycling event now that I think about it and one thing was certain, the TV crews were exclusively white.
Rendel Harris 12 hours ago
And how are those attracted/paid for? Through bigger audiences. There are 53 million black people in the USA, and around 1.2 billion in Africa. How much extra sponsorship and TV coverage do you think women's racing might get if there were a few black US and African women competing? That's not, in your idiotic phrase, "wokeism", it's good sound commercial common sense.
perce 12 hours ago
@chrisonabike I don't know how they would get confused - one's called Jack and one's called Nigel.
Mr Blackbird 12 hours ago
There is so much depressing deja vu here. The defence factors taken from the usual tick box list : "poor lighting", "dark clothes", "didn't see him" etc. The usual rehabilitation path comments : "full of remorse". The common previous : "drugs, and alcohol", "no licence" etc. Even your comments about the tipper truck industry ring a bell. Look up the 1957 British film "Hell Drivers", if you haven't seen it. It must have have been inspired by events of the time. I did wonder why Renshaw had been on remand. Was he a flight risk?
Midgex 13 hours ago
The cycle path at that point is (part of) the main road, not the side road.
mctrials23 13 hours ago
Its not fucking careless if you drive a vehicle and don't check your mirrors. Its fucking dangerous and its fucking deadly. How on earth are we still dealing with this bollocks. Everything about this is maddening. The fact he tried to weasel out of it and blame the cyclist. The fact hes avoided prison. The fact he was still driving after such a long history of dangerous driving. The fact he is still only banned for 12 months despite killing someone due to his inability to drive safely.
the little onion 13 hours ago
The tipper truck industry is an absolute Wild West. Scandal ridden, partly because of the complete lack of regulatory oversight and the pay-by-the-load system which incentives dodgy driving. I hope there is an investigation into the firm’s recruitment process and a corporate manslaughter charge. We urgently need a HSE investigation into the whole industry
chrisonabike 13 hours ago
Perhaps they're confusing the writer with a certain - ahem - new poster?
ktache 13 hours ago
My deepest condolences to the family and friends of Zinovly Savyulak.
11 thoughts on “Video: What happens when a TV helicopter gets a bit too close to a bike race?”
Helicopter incident at 44.25
Helicopter incident at 44.25 onwards.
it still looked quite high up
it still looked quite high up the draught must bee amazing to blow them off course.
billyman wrote:it still
It’s because the pilot had to change the pitch of the rotor and put more of an angle of attack into the blades to stop and hover. And, since he was right over the cyclists at the time, whoomp, there they go!
Just thought you might like to know…. :B
I’m sure it’s not the first
I’m sure it’s not the first time they’ve been blown off by someone with a big chopper.
ROFL
ROFL
Hahahaha! Awesome
Hahahaha! Awesome
Didn’t Moser use a helicopter
Didn’t Moser use a helicopter to win the Giro 😕
LOL, what an anticlimax of a
LOL, what an anticlimax of a finish.
Anything to win! Hover
Anything to win! Hover helicopters over your competition!
I don’t want to be picky,
I don’t want to be picky, but: The heli covering the race is a Eurocopter and the one being “apprehended” is a Robinson…Two completely different choppers. A Robinson couldn’t cut my grass if it tried….the Eurocopter is gas-turbine and a far more powerful. Just saying. B-)
No fair: a Robinson crashing
No fair: a Robinson crashing and burning would do a fine job of your grass!