Tuesday, July 22, 2008

The Myth of Neutral Support


Augustyn is crawling back up the hill, sans bike. Motos are stopped, something has obviously happened. Yet the friendly neutral support vehicle rolls right on by, and Augustyn has to wait for his team car to show up with a new bike.

Why didn't Mavic stop? Did they not have any bikes on the top of the car?

8 comments:

Unknown said...

I wondered about this.. and you know, race radio had to be all over the crash. Even if they'd stopped a quarter mile up the road they could have still run a bike back to him. LAME.

Unknown said...

Maybe it's like AAA and he wasn't carrying his Mavic card.

BannaOj said...

I wondered too. Also why didn't the race radio announce any of the other downhill crashes?

bobble said...

I have to disagree just a teeny bit.

From ground level driving by the mavic car may not have known exactly where to stop plus the guy driving was trying to stay on the road to, that road looks like the road to the top of Pikes Peak. I don't recall seeing anyone waving their arms or signalling but maybe I missed that on tv.

A buddy and I both thought it was pretty lame the photog and others were standing on the shoulder taking snapshots instead of doing something to help.

Kind of Princess Diana(ish) to me but maybe they figured since he was moving he must be ok!

Anonymous said...

I have to agree with beeble. It is not at all clear that the driver of the car could see Augustyn way over the side of the cliff like that. Tough break!

Unknown said...

Pro photographers are on the race to take pix, not rescue riders. In the 'real world' I'd hope a photographer would help a striken fellow human...but the Tour de France is not the real world. It's a peep show, the world's best.

The guys on bikes are there to be photographed.

I've taken pix - in a photographer's bib - on the Tour de France and other races and I'd have done exactly what the moto-photographer did.

For a start, the kid was climbing back and was OK, and was being helped. The photographers are there to capture just this sort of drama.

Thomas A. Fine said...

MB101,

Wouldn't pictures of him jumping on a new bike been dramatic? I'd call it a missed opportunity.

tom

David said...

NO! I was on the Col that day... the MAVIC car has only wheels, no full bikes on it.