Female Cyclist Forced To Stop When She Nearly Catches Male Racers After Their Head Start

[TheBlackAdder]

.

The men were give a 10 minute head start - a fucking 10 minute head start!

A woman leading the pack of female cyclists in an annual daylong race in Belgium was ordered by competition officials to pull up when she neared the male racers — who had been given a 10-minute head start.

The frustrating near-tangle of the sexes occurred as 27-year-old Swiss cyclist Nicole Hanselmann of the Bigla Pro team came up on the support vehicles for the men 22 miles into the Omloop Het Nieuwsblad race, her team said.

Hanselmann was ordered to stop as the female cyclists were “neutralized,” in race lingo, so that the men could restore an interval ahead of them.

Link to tweet

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/nicole-hanselmann-female-cyclist-belgium_n_5c7c82ace4b0e1f7765348c3


She was in the lead of other women by two minutes, after a restart, she lost her momentum and finished 74th.

.

[bullwinkle428]

1. I'm a pro cycling fan - she got completely hosed by this ridiculous lapse in

judgement by the rules officials. All the momentum she had built up as a breakaway rider was destroyed by her having to sit there in the damp, 50-ish degree conditions. She was given a head start based on her time gap, but that still couldn't hold off a now-refreshed peloton.

[Blue_true]

25. She would have had to be monstrously strong to stay away from the pack.

Many of the ladies in the pack were likely bidding their time. She should have taken several riders out with her, but unfortunately the race neutralization would have allowed the pack to reform around the breakaway.

[DanTex]

42. I agree she got hosed, but what else could the officials have done?

They can't let her catch the men's peloton. If she can join the peloton and draft, or draft behind the support vehicles, its not fair to the other riders. If they force her to ride "next to" the men's peloton to avoid drafting, it's not fair to her.

The mistake was starting the two races so close to each other.

[bullwinkle428]

60. And that's definitely what I meant by the mistake on the part of the race officials.

I've watched more than enough racing over the years to know what a complete clusterfuck it would have been, had she worked her way into the convoy of support vehicles for the men's race.

They had no choice to do what they did, as a result of their poor decision on start times.

[jberryhill]

64. This just in from the Dwars Door Vlaanderen...

https://upload.democraticunderground.com/100211981363

[jberryhill]

2. "The men were give a 10 minute head start - a fucking 10 minute head start!"

Last edited Mon Mar 4, 2019, 03:59 PM - Edit history (1)

The men and women do not share the entire route. The men's course is 209 km long and took almost five hours, so ten minutes is not that big a deal.

The time for the men's race was 4:49 - that's four hours and forty nine minutes.

The women's race finished in 3:20 - that's three hours and twenty minutes.

No, the women were not an hour and twenty minutes faster over the same course.

Those are durations, not times. The women's race was a full hour shorter. Aside from which, someone on a solo break at the start is not going to be anywhere near the winner at the end of it, because a solo break can't be sustained that long.

But, yes, catching people who are paced for a longer race is not that big a deal, so much as poor planning by the commissars.

[pnwmom]

5. You missed the point. By losing her momentum there, and forced to cool her heels

she ended up losing to many of the women who weren't forced to do that. She had been two minutes ahead of the rest of the women before they made her stop. There's no way to know how she would have done if they hadn't interfered with her like that.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

10. Like he said, poor planning by the organizers.

That said, she finished 74th. It’s more likely she blew all her energy to quickly.

[pnwmom]

11. "More likely" won't change the wrong they did to her by their poor planning. Any sport

like this is affected by a racer's mental state -- and hers was no doubt greatly affected.

[jberryhill]

14. This July, watch the Tour De France on NBC

Watch a couple of stages to get the general hang of how a bicycle race works.

It's a team sport with individual winners.

There are only a couple of reasons to get one of your riders into an early breakaway, and none of them have anything to do with that rider winning the race.

It just doesn't work that way.

A rider who is on their own is using 30% more power than a rider who is drafting behind another rider.

I DO watch women's cycling, and this rider was not in a class to sustain 30% higher power output than Chantal Blaak (the eventual winner) over a 150km course. That would be like some junior high school kid beating Usain Bolt in the 100 meters.

A fair-sized break with good rotation "might" manage to stay ahead of the peloton for a while, and usually the peloton is happy to let them hang out there to keep the pace reasonable. But, no, find me an instance in cycling history of a solo breakaway rider in the first 10km winning a 150km race.

It. Does. Not. Happen.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

19. I know you are a biker/racer. But be prepared to be schooled by TEH GOOGLES

your experience is no match

[jberryhill]

20. Oh I know

Yeah....

This rider:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicole_Hanselmann

Was going to beat the pants off of this rider:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chantal_Blaak

Ummmmmmm.... just no.

I know it's an obscure sport followed by few, but, honestly, you had someone out front for the usual purpose of getting their sponsor's name on TV.

That's why the sponsors pay, and that is why there are teams and riders with NO CHANCE OF WINNING THE RACE AT ALL who are usually in the early breaks. It's the ONLY way they can get the sponsors to pay year after year.

They go out there at an unsustainable pace, eventually burn out and are swallowed back up to spend the rest of the race at the tail end of the pack.

The reason these teams are there at all is that they are like the mechanical rabbit in dog racing. Without them, the pros would just dawdle their way to the last couple of kilometers and then have a sprint competition. The smaller, scrappier squads keep the race moving by jumping out front. Sure, they won't win, but the rest of the race has to keep them at a reasonable gap.

That's why - a solo on a two minute break in the first 10km of a 130km route? No, they are not going to win the race. In the men's race, for example, at one point a four person break with good rotation had 12 minutes. None of them even saw the front of the race in the last kilometers.

Bike races are not like foot races. Aerodynamics plays just as big a role as it does in auto racing.

[DanTex]

45. And she sure managed to get her sponsor's name out there...

Come to think of it, this might be the very best outcome the breakaway rider could have hoped for.
1) Hold on for 50km, a few cycling nerds say "that was a valiant effort".
2) Catch up to the men, get the race stopped, make mainstream news, a bunch of people who would never have heard of you or this race are now outraged on your behalf.

[jberryhill]

47. That's usually what the early break is about

During races like the Giro, Le Tour, or La Vuelta, you'll see riders from teams like Wanty Group, Caja Rural, and Nippo-Vini Fantini out in the break all day long, and then it is handshakes and waving at the camera all around when the peloton catches them at 15 km left out of a 100 km stage.

[jberryhill]

12. Nobody is going to win a road race with a two minute solo break in the initial kilometers

I would like to know what the imagined alternative is.

Clearly the organizers didn't have as much gap as they needed.

But I don't know what the alternative would have been.

A bicycle race is not just a bunch of bicycles. In front, there is the rolling roadblock - a squad of motorcycle police who are deployed to intersections up the road to secure and block them off. Then, there are several additional cars and motorcycles in front of the lead group. The rolling roadblock is just that, and it needs to constantly deploy and re-deploy during the race using the same route or by using alternative routes to the next set of intersections.

The normal race situation is that there is a lead group, and then several minutes to the main peloton. In the mens race this past weekend, for example, the lead group got to a twelve minute lead, which was reeled back in before the end as is normal.

Each time has at least two support cars with coaches, mechanics and spare bikes. So, behind the lead group, there is a commissaire, and then one of each of the team cars corresponding to riders in the lead group.

Then there is the main peloton which, in this race, starts at about 150 riders. In an amongst them are neutral support motorcycles, with spare wheels, camera motorcycles, more officials, and still photographers. Immediately behind them is another commissaire, medical vehicles, and then a convoy of the remaining team cars - about twenty to thirty cars long. Then behind that are the parts of the rolling roadblock that are re-deploying up the road.

It is a LOT of vehicular traffic around a LOT of bicycles, and there have been fatalities when not managed properly. Just last year during one of the Belgian spring races, a rider was KILLED by one of the support motorcycles.

These races are conducted on narrow back roads which barely accommodate one car and one cyclist wide for passing.

When the women's race approached this one (I was watching these races, btw), they were nowhere near the main peloton of the men's race, but were starting to get near the tail end of the vehicle convoy.

One of the things about that convoy of cars in a bike race is that it provides an aerodynamic advantage for riders who have had a mechanical or a crash, stopped, and are fighting to get back into the main bunch.

The women's team cars, incidentally, cannot simply swap places with the men's team cars. While there are a few teams that have both mens and womens squads, mens teams and womens teams tend to be two different teams.

So, while there are rules that govern the order of the team cars in a single race, I'd love to know how one is supposed to deal with getting the entire convoy of cars "through" each other, if the idea is that you are going to let one race "play through" another race.

Meanwhile, if you do let a solo breakaway rider from the women's race into the vehicle convoy of the men's race, is the idea that she's going to draft her way behind the team cars to reach the men's race, thus gaining a huge advantage in the women's race, and then turn off at the intersection where the two courses diverge?

Explain me how this was supposed to work.

[pnwmom]

13. The alternative would have been to let her keep racing. She would have been easy enough

for them to track, even if she had moved ahead into the men's race. She wouldn't have given them cooties.

Why would she have had a huge advantage over the other women if she was just allowed to continue at her pace, and to diverge when it was time to?

[jberryhill]

17. Because she would have spent several kilometers drafting behind vehicles

It's actually against the rules to hang behind vehicles for too long, for that very reason.

You are proposing that she be allowed to hopscotch along a line of 30 automobiles, thus gaining a lead over the women's race, and then keep that lead when the races turn onto different courses.

Bicycle racing is about AERODYNAMICS.

Once she gets through the vehicles and is in the men's peloton, then she is using 30% less power than anyone who is on the point trying to catch up to that bunch from behind.

Behind cars, the advantage is even greater.

If you want to get excited about obscure rules in cycling, then you'll love what happens when a train is crossing at grade.

[jberryhill]

22. Please look at this picture

"Why would she have had a huge advantage over the other women if she was just allowed to continue at her pace, and to diverge when it was time to?"

Because of this:



This is a diagram from the UCI (the international cycling governing body) rulebook on how to conduct a road race.

Maybe that will help you to understand why other riders get upset when, for example, a camera motorcycle rides in front of a leading cyclist, so that the cyclist gets a momentary aero advantage, but the convoy provides a ladder to ratchet up the road and expend much less energy than one would otherwise use.

Mind you, the women's race has its own convoy, so how one would propose to order those cars (and there are rules on that) among the other team cars is anybody's guess.

It's like asking why baseball teams are not allowed to put players in the outfield seats to catch home run balls and have the batter called out. It just doesn't work that way.


On edit: It's page 42 here: https://www.uci.org/docs/default-source/rules-and-regulations/part-ii---road-races.pdf?sfvrsn=448068eb_26

[DirtEdonE]

35. Here's a novel idea

Why don't they just run separate races for the men and women consecutively instead of concurrently since the men are obviously no longer up to the task these days?

[jberryhill]

65. Because the spectators, officials, and timing devices at the finish line aren't waiting all day

There's a festival that goes on at the finish line, and the juniors, under-18's, women, and men come in at regular intervals.

These races run several hours long. They aren't running seven races "consecutively".

Incidentally, today's men's race had to be paused for the women's race:

https://upload.democraticunderground.com/100211981363

[Blue_true]

26. Jberryhill is right.

A solo break early on for a race of that distance has almost zero chance of surviving. Now, if a group of 6-10 riders were in the break, then maybe she could stay away to the finish of the race.

The men were likely freewheeling, the race would be an early spring race for them, most use such races to condition to ride the Spring Classics stronger or win it if they are the single day event type of rider, the people aiming to win the Giro or Tour use such races purely for conditioning.

[DanTex]

43. The other women were forced to stop as well.

And when they restarted they gave her the minutes she had previously gained on the restarted. It's a lousy situation, the races should have been spaced out more, but under the circumstances the officials did the best they could.

[DirtEdonE]

6. I don't know

I understand what you're saying but whatever the explanation it looks like today's men just aren't able to keep up their pace long enough to compete with the females.

It's OK. Maybe they can still cuddle.

[sarisataka]

23. As someone who has raced

Against riders of that caliber, your explanations are spot on.

Early breakaways are not intended to win, though I did see it happen very rarely. The women's peloton saw the break as a threat so they persued aggressively, hence the two minute gap. The men's race did not see their break as a threat so maintained a casual pace, saving energy for the more difficult later portions of the race. When the men's peloton roused itself, it was able to eliminate the 12+minute lead their breakaways had reached.

It is not surprising that a fast moving women's group was closing in on the men's field. While it wasn't the best decision by race officials to pause the women, it was neccessary for safety and fairness to the rest of the women's peloton.

[Blue_true]

27. Have you watched the video of Mercxk at a Giro in the fifties.

I think the title in Frence was "Control the race from the front". He would plan to have two of his domestics go off on a breakaway with him. Of course his rivals would follow, but men from the breakaway would slow the rest of the peloton. The Mercxk men would take the lead on the break, setting a hard pace. Slowly they would wear down the break and then wear themselves out, then Mercxk took over and basically destroyed anyone that was left, unless that rider was really strong (in the film, one young guy did beat him on a hard stage after Mercxk had pounded him for miles, I think a famous brand of bike is named after him, he went on to become a noteworthy rider). Interesting stuff to watch, but I would not have wanted to be racing.

[sarisataka]

28. La Course en Tete

A small video store had a copy my friends and I rented. It was dubbed in Swedish with English subtitles.

Merck was incredibly talented and one of the few who could hold off the peloton on his own. It helps however to have teammates disrupting the rhythm of the persuit.

It has been many years since I have seen that movie so it is hard to say who the rider was that won a stage. What is so impressive about Merckx dominance is how many other great riders such as Anquetil, Maertens, Ocana, De Vlaeminck and Zoetelmelk were riding at the same time.

[Blue_true]

57. Wasn't Anguetil a little old at that point?

Thanks for the title, that was the movie that I was thinking about.

[sarisataka]

58. You are correct

I had the years mixed up. Anquetil was in the twilight of his career when Eddy was beginning his

[Blue_true]

59. Thanks.

I watched a couple of the old cycling videos, but my memory could have been off. I have always wondered how people can eat when their bodies are working full bore athletically.

[sarisataka]

61. It is surprisingly easy

A long race will vary tempo quite a bit. The feed zones are set up in areas expected to be at lower tempo allowing the riders to eat some quick high-carb food.

One tactic is to attack immediately after everyone picks up food. The other riders will have to choose between eating, and risking the attack may succeed at escaping or try to store the food in a Jersey pocket to eat later or worst case drop the food in order to react immediately.
Note this tactic is unlikely to make you many friends.

[Blue_true]

62. What do they eat?

Increased blood flow to the stomach and intestines is needed for digestion, but that blood would also be needed by cycling muscles. So, food that is difficult to digest would not work well because it would not clear the stomach well.

[sarisataka]

63. Bananas were always popular

Granola bars and rice cakes too. I liked dried fruit and raisins. A jelly sandwich or a bit of beef jerky is about as heavy as a person would eat during a race. The rule was eat small and often for exactly the reason you mentioned.

[DirtEdonE]

36. I never raced

So I can't get into the weeds of racing but I used to ride a bicycle to work every day for several years. I never owned a car during that time. Twelve months a year on the road 25 miles a day back and forth, in traffic, in all weather. I'd intentionally take a route that took me over one of the Watchung hills - a nice steep climb about a mile or so then an insane race outrunning cars on the way back down (they call them mountains in NJ but I've climbed mountains and these are just hills).

I got to know a bit about riding even though not in the elite sense of racers.

On weekends, I'd wake up early before the family and go out for a fifty or so mile ride. I'd kiss the wife on the cheek and tell her I'd be back in an hour or so. With no traffic in the way it was a breeze.

[sarisataka]

46. I do miss commuting

By bike, I always enjoyed that after giving up competition. Unfortunately it isn't a viable option for now.

If you were completing 50 mile rides in an hour, you missed your calling.

[Blue_Tires]

38. +1

[DanTex]

44. Yup. It's not really as big a deal as it sounds.

The big mistake was only leaving a 10 minute gap. I guess based on previous races, they figured that was enough. Though it doesn't sound like enough to me (based on my zero experience organizing bike races). It doesn't seem all that unlikely that a women's breakaway on a shorter course could make up 10 minutes on the men's peloton, assuming the men's peloton wasn't worried about chasing anyone down and were taking it relatively slow.

Also, once she caught up to the men's peloton or their support vehicles, I don't see that they had any choice but to do what they did. I mean, you can't have two separate bike races intersecting each other.

[ExciteBike66]

3. I recently checked out rules for a local carting track.

During races, you must pull out if you are lapped (can't remember if it was once or twice).

Seems to me that the straggling men should have been forced to withdraw if "lapped" in this fashion by a group that started 10 minutes behind.

[DirtEdonE]

4. Just one more of the reasons I haven't watched sports in over a decade

Blatant sexism.

[robbob]

9. I'm not sure you can call what happened sexism...

As others have pointed out, it was just poor planning by the organizers. They should have left a 20 or even 30 minute gap between the 2 groups to ensure they wouldn’t overlap.

I mean, consider if they had done an adult and teen category; the same thing could have happened. When the group that started 2nd caught up to the first group, and the pace cars which follow the group to ensure their safety, the officials felt they had to halt the 2nd group and allow the gap to increase again.

Poor planning; I can’t see any sexism here...

[Inkfreak]

29. I'm sure you have a long list...

[DirtEdonE]

34. Let's see

Blatant sexism - check (we already discussed this one)
Using taxpayer money to build stadiums for billionaires - check
Colluding with the military by paying for patriotic spectacles that have become a staple of their production - check
Sucking up millions of dollars in higher education funding for sports - check
Promoting a toxic environment where the worst male traits are excused and/or ignored - check
Brain damage - check
Online sports betting (do I really have to say where this is going to lead?) - check
Signs of an unhealthy national addiction to sports that are starving the arts in schools - check

The only good thing about sports that I know if is - if I don't get to bed on time when there's a game on that runs late I can still catch the news.

Otherwise, the vast majority of Americans have been brainwashed by the sports industrial complex to the point where anyone who criticizes any aspect of sports is seen as crazy.

I've read that at the time of the Fall of the Roman Empire, they had 18 coliseums built for their favorite sport. Feeding people to lions, gladiator slaves using various equipment to bludgeon or otherwise murder each other - and the incredibly wealthy owners of the coliseums would throw lavish parties and were instrumental in supporting political candidates.

Sound familiar. That's what happens when you allow grunt sports to become the centerpiece of a society while the arts, literature, science, INTELLIGENCE are all minimized and laughed at by the beer swilling masses at our modern day coliseums.

Sports are fine if you like them but we're at a point now where people who have no interest in sports are being forced to support them financially - there's even a monthly sports fee in my cable TV bill although I watch ZERO sports - and while the important aspects of education, the arts, literature, etc., are all taking a back seat to these increasingly ridiculous spectacles of male pseud-warfare dominance.

Since you asked...

[Inkfreak]

40. Won't you please lead us to your higher plane of existence.

[DirtEdonE]

53. I'm trying but you obviously just won't get it

So all you sports fans can go sit on the 50 yard line and complete your sports education there. LOFL

[Inkfreak]

55. Sorry you got picked last in gym.

[DirtEdonE]

56. That's funny because I was usually among the first

I played all sports well. I used to love sports. Then they got totally out of hand.

They used to say sports built character. Look at what we have today. It's all about the money. And they're using the socialist approach that's so out of fashion these days, taking money from people who don't want anything to do with sports anymore.

[hardluck]

41. I remember when Ike warned us about the Sports Industrial Complex

Boy was he right on that one....

[jberryhill]

48. Fortunately, Belgian bicycle racing doesn't require any of that

[LanternWaste]

52. A longer or shorter list than rationalizations otherwise?

(six of one, half a dozen of the other... and each as petulant in kind..)

[Inkfreak]

54. Oh..it's just you.

[packman]

7. Kinda funny, kinda sad, kinda of a head slapper

[Javaman]

8. WTF? that's awful.

this makes me sad/angry - sangry

[calimary]

16. Agreed.

SOOOO sick and tired of women getting the shaft!

[robbob]

24. Please see my comment above (plus the many comments made by people who know more about bike races th

en I do).

This has NOTHING to do with “women getting the shaft”. This has to do with poor planning by the organizers allowing 2 different races (and they WERE different races; different courses even, I believe) to start too close together, causing the 2nd race to catch up to the tail end of the first race, creating a potentially dangerous situation, resulting in the organizers halting the second group in order to allow the gap to reopen.

Poor planning, not institutionalize sexism.

[Javaman]

33. than I'm angry that the organizers are morons that resulted in this woman being held back nt.

[Inkfreak]

30. It shouldn't.

[Javaman]

32. it shouldn't make me sad and angry?? nt

[jberryhill]

49. How does this make you feel?

The weird shit that happens during bike races is amazing.....

[Javaman]

50. oh jesus...

you enjoy being obtuse.

tootles.

[jberryhill]

51. I forgot my favorite one

Hang on, this one is worth it.

At one kilometer left to go, there is a red pennant hung over the road, so the race leader here knows he's got it in the bag...

[Lucid Dreamer]

15. I can't believe this story got outside the Belgium borders.

It is an obscure bike race. Next year they will do something different. Or not. Meh.

[jberryhill]

18. The Omloop Het Nieuwsblad is actually a big deal in cycling

It's hardly obscure. It's the start of the Classics season.

[happybird]

21. After the blood doping bust the other day

I'm not surprised this is in the news. More cycling drama (even if overinflated) will generate a lot of clicks right now.

[Inkfreak]

31. I saw that video of the kid getting caught.

Then I went down a rabbit hole about blood doping. Interesting stuff. I had no idea.

[Blue_Tires]

37. she's the ringer?