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Tour de France Stage 12: Froome runs to keep yellow on craziest of days (+ video)

Chris Froome runs up Ventoux without a bike after crowds cause motorbike to stall

Today has witnessed a stage of the Tour de France that will go down in race history, with overall leader Chris Froome having to run up Mont Ventoux after he was brought down in a crash when a motorbike ahead of him could not find a way through the crowds.

The Team Sky rider and defending champion was eventually able to take a neutral service bike, but its pedals were incompatible with his shoes, and it was only when he was able to take a bike from a team mate that he could complete the stage.

Adam Yates of Orica-BikeExchange, second overall this morning, was the initially given the provisional overall lead, but the race jury subsequently amended the result meaning Froome stretches his lead.

Lotto-Soudal's Thomas De Gendt, a member of a 15-man break that got away early on, had already won the stage when the drama unfolded towards the end of the 178 kilometre stage from Montpellier.

Yesterday evening, race organisers ASO had shortened the stage by 6 kilometres to finish at Chalet Reynard, due to forecast 100 kilometre an hour winds.

As a result, it seems the barrierred section started closer to the finish line than would normally be the case, and that also meant that there were more fans on a shorter section of the climb than would usually be the case.

On the early slopes of the climb, which despite finishing lower down the mountain still required the riders to tackle 9 kilometres at an average gradient of 9 per cent, Movistar's Alejandro Valverde attacked from the overall contenders' group, with team mate Nairo Quintana - second to Froome in 2013 and last year - then trying repeatedly to put the race leader under pressure.

Froome, however, countered, going away with BMC Racing's Richie Porte - the pair were later joined by Trek Segafredo's Bauke Mollema - and Quintana had no response.

The trio looked poised to take significant time from their rivals when a motorbike seemed to stall in front of Porte due to its rider being unable to find a way through the crowds, the Australian crashing into the back of it, Mollema and Froome also coming down.

Froome continued on foot, looking desperately over his shoulder for a spare bike, grabbing one from the Mavic neutral service motorbike, before changing that for one from a team mate.

Yates had been 28 seconds behind Froome this morningand passed him amid the chaos. Initially, it seemed he would be the new race leader, with the Team Sky rider dropping to sixth.

However, after examining what had happened, the race jury gave Porte and Froome the same time as Mollema, the first of the trio to cross the line - meaning Froome extends his lead over Yates to 48 seconds, with Mollema now third overall.

Echelons had formed earlier on in the stage, with Quintana staying close to Froome to avoid a repeat of yesterday when the Team Sky rider got away with stage winner Peter Sagan of Tinkoff to take more seconds from his rivals.

Coming off the penultimate climb, Orica-BikeExchange's Simon Gerrans, leading the GC group, crashed as he overcooked a corner, Team Sky's Ian Stannard having nowhere to go and coming down too, as did another couple of Sky riders.

Froome, on that occasion, stayed upright. But the drama that unfolded on the Ventoux is bound to reignite the debate over how riders can be protected from overenthusiatic fans, while retaining cycling's status as perhaps the most accessible sport to watch in the flesh.

Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.

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19 comments

Avatar
ridein | 8 years ago
0 likes

Run, Forrest, Run 

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Mr Mike | 8 years ago
1 like

Why can't they have a car in front of the riders on the mountains? it will clear a path from the nutters which the motorbikes seem unable to do

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sidesaddle replied to Mr Mike | 8 years ago
3 likes

Mr Mike wrote:

Why can't they have a car in front of the riders on the mountains? it will clear a path from the nutters which the motorbikes seem unable to do

 

Looks to me like nothing short of a snowplough would do the trick.

Avatar
phezzy | 8 years ago
3 likes

Froome's rating  just went up in my book.

If he ends up winning again this year, he'll have done it by being smarter, harder working, faster, and outright more determined than anybody else.

Chapeau

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LaVieEnVelo | 8 years ago
0 likes

We promise that on our Mont Ventoux long weekends we will take every precaution to control the crowds - although there were some vintage tractors going up last time we were there.

http://www.lavieenvelo.com/cycle_france/file/mont_ventoux.php

Avatar
LegalFun | 8 years ago
0 likes

Even if it was someone relatively unknown further down the general classification eg 50th place, they would still have had to sort it out to make it fair.

They need to barrier off the mountain stages ASAP to protect the riders.

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cdamian | 8 years ago
0 likes

Seems like they corrected the result. I think I would be unhappy either way.

I would definitely ask for the 200 CHF back in Froome's place.

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nemysys | 8 years ago
2 likes

official Chris Froome in yellow...

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handlebarcam | 8 years ago
3 likes

Nice to see ITV4 keeping a sense of proportion and yanking their Tour coverage off the air so as not to interrupt the all important ten-year-old repeat of Storage Wars they had scheduled.

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tritecommentbot | 8 years ago
1 like

Fair bit of booing in the last 3km mixed in with the cheers. Made me suspect about the crowding near the end that caused the crash. TdF seems to attract all manner of douche.

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Batchy | 8 years ago
3 likes

T d F need to give Froome and Porte same time as Mollema. This would make the most sense and would be the fairest result. Froome's performances so far have earned him his yellow Jersey status. No ifs and buts!

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wycombewheeler replied to Batchy | 8 years ago
2 likes
Batchy wrote:

T d F need to give Froome and Porte same time as Mollema. This would make the most sense and would be the fairest result. Froome's performances so far have earned him his yellow Jersey status. No ifs and buts!

Even Mollema lost probably 20 seconds to the incident. So no one could say they gained an advantage if they gave that as a result.

If they stick with the timings as published they lose all credibility.

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ooldbaker | 8 years ago
2 likes

Tour de Farce

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nowasps | 8 years ago
0 likes

Complete farce.

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brackley88 | 8 years ago
6 likes

Froome. How awesome that, when faced with adversity, he chose to run up the hill.  

Panache defined...

 

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I love my bike replied to brackley88 | 8 years ago
1 like

brackley88 wrote:

Froome. How awesome that, when faced with adversity, he chose to run up the hill.  

Panache defined...

 

Not quite, as I'm sure it's banned!

Anyway, immediate panic over - he keeps his lead.

How many miles of barriers should the ASO be prepared to errect?

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esnifador replied to I love my bike | 8 years ago
0 likes

I love my bike wrote:

brackley88 wrote:

Froome. How awesome that, when faced with adversity, he chose to run up the hill.  

Panache defined...

 

Not quite, as I'm sure it's banned!

Anyway, immediate panic over - he keeps his lead.

How many miles of barriers should the ASO be prepared to errect?

 

According to an admittedly brief Google search, ASO makes some pretty healthy profits, so they could probably afford to splash out on quite a lot of extra barriers in their flagship event. My finger-in-the-air suggestion would be 1km of barriers before the summit of any 1 or HC climb, with barriers all the way up the final 10k if it's the final climb of the day. Obvious problems with this suggestion are that narrower climbs may not have room for all the fans if barriers are in place (though there usually is if the fans could just keep out of the bloody way), and also whether you can draw the line at cat 1, or whether you need more for all climbs (though it would seem a bit extreme for a cat 4).

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kevinmorice replied to I love my bike | 8 years ago
0 likes

I love my bike wrote:

brackley88 wrote:

Froome. How awesome that, when faced with adversity, he chose to run up the hill.  

Panache defined...

 

Not quite, as I'm sure it's banned!

 

Interestingly enough, it actually isn't. The rules are quite badly worded and the commissaires have no interest in fixing them as it would put them out of a job. Anyway, the wording is that you must "finish" with your bike.

They weren't really designed for races where every rider has multiple bikes so they have never been changed to close the implied loophole that you must have a bike with you at all the intervening points on the course. Otherwise they would have to specify exactly how many steps, or exactly how far can you go during a bike change. Even if Froome was actually  considered to have committed an offence he could just argue that it was an unusually long bike change. 

Interestingly they also weren't designed for finishing on a neutral service bike or a team-mates bike, which would on the very bad wording of the rules, and on the purely technical level of it not being your own bike, be punishable offences. 

 

 

Avatar
LegalFun | 8 years ago
1 like

Clearly they should refund Froome his 200 Swiss Francs now.

I might give up keeping up to date with the TDF if they cant sort it out as the problems are clearly influencing the results. Even druggie armstrong would struggle to win with all these "accidents" involving motobikes,cars and so called fans.

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