Author Topic: Pro cycle racing explained  (Read 8002 times)

quixoticgeek

  • Mostly Harmless
Pro cycle racing explained
« on: 11 July, 2021, 07:20:18 pm »

Can those of you who understand these things, help a newbie understand pro racing a bit more?

If I understand it right, the person who has the fastest accumulated time for the whole event, gets a fancy jumper (yellow for France, Red for Spain, Pink for Italy?). The first person past the most of certain signs on top of mountains gets to wear the spotty jumper, some of these climbs are marked on the stage drawings with a number, which seems to go from 4 to H. So my first questions.

1) Is the magic jumper for being top of the most hills always spotty? Does it vary based on which country the race is in?

2) How are the 4 to H classifications calculated?

3) Is the H cos they realised that they wanted to go up harder climbs than the 4 to 1 range they started with?

4) Why do some climbs get a number, not but all of them?

5) How are the points per climb calculated?

Next up there is the snotty jumper, that goes to the rider who is first past the most of certain signs that are not on tops of hills. These signs seem to be at least one in the middle of every stage, and one at the end, if the end is not on the top of a mountain?

6) Is this magic jumper always snotty? Does it change based on country of racing?

7) What defines how many points there are for any given special non hilly sign?

Then there is a white jumper for the youngest rider that's doing the best?

8.0) How do they define young?

9) How do they define best?

Finally a jumper for the most aggressive rider?

10) how is this calculated? Elbows furthest out on the sprints?

11) what colour is it?

11 a) Next up, if the person who makes it to the end of the race in the fastest time, is also the first to the top of the hills, the first past the special signs on the flat, the youngest, and the one with their elbows out the furthest (or what ever that criteria is). Do they get to take 5 jumpers home with them?

11 b) In the middle of a race, if the person with the magic jumper is also leading all the other things too, do the 2nd places get to wear the special jumper for that classification?

On any given stage, if you're too slow. You're OTL, which I think is Out something beginning with T of Luck, and then you're not allowed to ride again the next day?

12) how is the time for being too slow calculated? Is it a different sum depending on the type of stage?

People talk of a broom wagon? Is this a vehicle with a big broom on the front that sweeps up drivers that are so slow that not only are they OTL, they are annoying someone, and thus have to get in the broom wagon?

13) What is the broom wagon, and how does it work?

There are lots of vehicles around the pelican. Some of these belong to the teams, and have bikes on top, and inside a shouty man, and a mechanic. Then there are Yellow or Blue cars that belong to either Shimano or Mavic, which have bikes on top and a mechanic? There are red Skoda's that seem to follow the riders, and sometime have an old white guy standing out the top of them. Near the end of each stage there is a man who stands next to the barrier and waves some vehicles through a gap in the barrier.

14) What's with the red skodas? Are these race officials, or just VIP's that want a good view of some riders butt?

15) Why do they sometimes have a white bloke standing up out the top of them?

16) At the end, most of the vehicles are waved the barrier, but there's usually one or two red skodas that pull over the finish line, then stop, so some old white bloke can get out. Why?

There's lots of mopeds, they seem to be full of people with cameras, and function to provide an extra hazard for the riders to

17) Do these have any other purpose?

Having crossed the line, the bloke who did it first is usually surrounded by people, including 4 people dressed in branding of a water company who surround said rider.

18) Do these have a purpose other than getting the water companies branding on the TV while the cameras are pointing at a knackered happy rider?

When a rider is on the podium, there used to be two pretty women who would stand there and clap, now it's a pretty woman and I'm assured a pretty man, who stand there and clap.

19) Why? As much as I enjoy the site of pretty women, it's 2021, what is their purpose?

XX) Why is consistent question numbering hard?

I think that sums up all the things I've not managed to understand while watching this year's ride around France. Can anyone help answering my questions?

J
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Re: Pro cycle racing explained
« Reply #1 on: 11 July, 2021, 07:31:26 pm »
Quote
Can anyone help answering my questions?

Here you go: www.google.com

Or maybe: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

.
.
.

OK, joking apart...

Q8: Under 26 years.

Q9: Lowest aggregate time, same as the general classification leader.

Q10: "Most aggressive" is the for the rider who's done the most to animate the stage, i.e. put in an attack that lasts all stage/until overwhelmed by the sprinters 200m before the finish line.

Q11: There is no jersey , but the rider thus awarded gets their race numbers in red for the next day.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have dinner to prepare...
"He who fights monsters should see to it that he himself does not become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." ~ Freidrich Neitzsche

Mrs Pingu

  • Who ate all the pies? Me
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Re: Pro cycle racing explained
« Reply #2 on: 11 July, 2021, 07:34:40 pm »
Q6) no. In the Giro it's purpoo (maglia ciclamino). Which, as any fule kno, is the best colour.
Q19) we've only *just* got rid of 2x pretty women. Baby steps, apparently.
Do not clench. It only makes it worse.

Kim

  • Timelord
    • Fediverse
Re: Pro cycle racing explained
« Reply #3 on: 11 July, 2021, 07:42:43 pm »
Can those of you who understand these things, help a newbie understand pro racing a bit more?

1) Name tube stations at random.
b) Qibble over fictitious obscure-sounding rules.
iii) Er, that's it.

quixoticgeek

  • Mostly Harmless
Re: Pro cycle racing explained
« Reply #4 on: 11 July, 2021, 07:45:44 pm »
Can those of you who understand these things, help a newbie understand pro racing a bit more?

1) Name tube stations at random.
b) Qibble over fictitious obscure-sounding rules.
iii) Er, that's it.

Covent garden...

J
--
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http://b.42q.eu/

Kim

  • Timelord
    • Fediverse
Re: Pro cycle racing explained
« Reply #5 on: 11 July, 2021, 07:46:31 pm »
Can those of you who understand these things, help a newbie understand pro racing a bit more?

1) Name tube stations at random.
b) Qibble over fictitious obscure-sounding rules.
iii) Er, that's it.

Covent garden...

Mont Ventoux.

quixoticgeek

  • Mostly Harmless
Re: Pro cycle racing explained
« Reply #6 on: 11 July, 2021, 07:51:02 pm »

Mont Ventoux.

Cote de buttertubs...

J
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http://b.42q.eu/

citoyen

  • Occasionally rides a bike
Pro cycle racing explained
« Reply #7 on: 11 July, 2021, 07:52:37 pm »
The spotty jumper is spotty because it matched the original sponsor’s colours (chocolate, iirc). [ETA: Poulain chocolate, jersey first awarded in 1975]

Similarly, the yellow jumper is yellow because the original sponsor was L’Auto newspaper, which was printed on yellow paper.

The classification of climbs is pretty arbitrary, there is no set formula for calculating their difficulty.
"The future's all yours, you lousy bicycles."

Clare

  • Is in NZ
Re: Pro cycle racing explained
« Reply #8 on: 11 July, 2021, 07:52:53 pm »
OTL = over time limit (I think).

Re: Pro cycle racing explained
« Reply #9 on: 11 July, 2021, 07:55:58 pm »

People talk of a broom wagon? Is this a vehicle with a big broom on the front that sweeps up drivers that are so slow that not only are they OTL, they are annoying someone, and thus have to get in the broom wagon?

13) What is the broom wagon, and how does it work?


I know zilch about cycle racing as I don't watch it, but when the Commonwealth Games came near me a few years ago and I therefore bothered to go and have a look, one of the highlights (for me) was that the broom wagon did indeed have an actual broom attached to it. :thumbsup:

This was a race with a few laps of a circuit, IIRC, so the broom wagon swept up those who were about to get lapped. Sadly, they didn't use the broom to do this.

Re: Pro cycle racing explained
« Reply #10 on: 11 July, 2021, 07:57:39 pm »
I believe the numbers on the climbs were originally based on the gear needed to get a car up the hill with the H (hors) category being so steep you needed to go in reverse.
This may well be a myth of course.
"No matter how slow you go, you're still lapping everybody on the couch."

Clare

  • Is in NZ
Re: Pro cycle racing explained
« Reply #11 on: 11 July, 2021, 08:00:09 pm »
Re mountains, H means Hors which is what you get when you don't feed your quadruped enough ravey davey drugs. Or it could be because these climbs are 'out of category' i.e. too hard to be a 1.

Google assures me that Hors (Fr) is Out (Eng).

Re: Pro cycle racing explained
« Reply #12 on: 11 July, 2021, 08:08:29 pm »
The answer to 11a is that they get to be called Eddy Merckx (except for the elbows bit).

Mr Larrington

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Re: Pro cycle racing explained
« Reply #13 on: 11 July, 2021, 08:11:55 pm »
Q1: White with red spots in France, plain blue in Italy, white with blue spots in Spaign-o.
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Beardy

  • Shedist
Re: Pro cycle racing explained
« Reply #14 on: 11 July, 2021, 08:13:02 pm »
Automobiles and motorcycles. Each team has a team car with the course manager and a mechanic. These will normally be liveried in sponsor colours. Typically they follow the pellican which means they can sometimes be a long way from some of their riders. To counter this there are additional sponsored cars for the likes of mavic and the like which have mechanics and spares to suit most bikes. They are often in the gaps between the pelican and the breaks and can offer assistance to any rider. There are also some motorcycles with a limited supply of spares with the same intention and they can be closer to solo breaks and the like. The red cars are the main race commissioners following in amongst the riders to make sure everyone is behaving themselves. That’s are also some commissioners on motorcycles, who can mix it more readily and try to catch out the sneaky cheats. These are I believe most of the three wheeled motorcycles. The other motorcycles tend to be camera bikes and you’ll often see the pillion standing so he can get a clearer view of some rider or others bum.
For every complex problem in the world, there is a simple and easily understood solution that’s wrong.

LittleWheelsandBig

  • Whimsy Rider
Re: Pro cycle racing explained
« Reply #15 on: 11 July, 2021, 08:25:18 pm »
Some random replies:

These races are commercial entities (the grand tours even more so), so sponsorship and publicity for sponsors drives decisions. Sponsorship value is measured in total time and logo size on TV and mentions on radio and in race reporting. Skoda provides the official vehicles (and a wodge of dosh) for the race officials. Similarly for the official drink and almost everything else you can think of.

Most stage starts and finishes pay considerable sums to the TdF and provide the overnight accommodation. The race organisation allocates the accommodation to the teams and the race organisation.

The race director and commissaires (referees/ umpires) watch the head of the race from official vehicles. I expect the old bloke you see get out of the car at the finish line is the race director.

Different races use different jerseys for the various classifications and the colours of some have changed over time (Giro and Vuelta particularly). The Tour casts a big shadow, so many smaller races use similar colours for those classifications.

The myth of the polkadot jersey was that it copies a Poulain chocolate wrapper. Almost certainly not true but it sounds good. Nobody has found a polkadot chocolate wrapper made before the jersey was created. Most likely, the race organiser who created the jersey remembered seeing some track racers decades before who wore easily recognisable polkadot jerseys.

The yellow jersey is yellow because the newspaper published by the race organiser was printed on yellow paper. Similarly, the Giro’s organiser printed a newspaper on pink paper, so the jersey was pink. These races and the myths were literally created to sell newspapers.

The myth of mountain categories was that it was the gear needed for a 2CV to get to the top. If it couldn’t get to the top, it was ‘beyond categorisation’. In reality, the category is defined by the race organiser and the same climb can vary its categorisation from year to year, based on whether it is in a long or short stage, early or late in the stage or early or late in the race. Many times, the first week of the Tour goes through flatlands but the King of the Mountains sponsor (back to talking about filthy lucre) wants his publicity every day, so a meaningless pimple gets a Cat 3 or Cat 4 label and a jersey presentation, even if it would be utterly ignored in the second or third week.
Wheel meet again, don't know where, don't know when...

quixoticgeek

  • Mostly Harmless
Re: Pro cycle racing explained
« Reply #16 on: 11 July, 2021, 08:35:25 pm »
Some random replies:

These races are commercial entities (the grand tours even more so), so sponsorship and publicity for sponsors drives decisions. Sponsorship value is measured in total time and logo size on TV and mentions on radio and in race reporting. Skoda provides the official vehicles (and a wodge of dosh) for the race officials. Similarly for the official drink and almost everything else you can think of.

That kinda makes sense,  capitalism and all that.

Quote

Most stage starts and finishes pay considerable sums to the TdF and provide the overnight accommodation. The race organisation allocates the accommodation to the teams and the race organisation.

Does that mean that a start/finish town needs to have a couple of thousand hotel rooms to be able to do it?

Quote
The race director and commissaires (referees/ umpires) watch the head of the race from official vehicles. I expect the old bloke you see get out of the car at the finish line is the race director.

Can't they can just watch the tv feeds? Wouldn't that give them a better view of all the things going on?

Quote

Different races use different jerseys for the various classifications and the colours of some have changed over time (Giro and Vuelta particularly). The Tour casts a big shadow, so many smaller races use similar colours for those classifications.

Makes sense.

Quote
The myth of the polkadot jersey was that it copies a Poulain chocolate wrapper. Almost certainly not true but it sounds good. Most likely, the race organiser who created the jersey remembered seeing some track racers decades before who wore easily recognisable polkadot jerseys.

The yellow jersey is yellow because the newspaper published by the race organiser was printed on yellow paper. Similarly, the Giro’s organiser printed a newspaper on pink paper, so the jersey was pink.

Logical...

Quote

The myth of mountain categories was that it was the gear needed for a 2CV to get to the top. If it couldn’t get to the top, it was ‘beyond categorisation’. In reality, the category is defined by the race organiser and the same climb can vary from year to year, based on whether it is in a long or short stage, early or late in the stage or early or late in the race. Many times, the first week of the Tour goes through flatlands but the King of the Mountains sponsor (back to talking about filthy lucre) wants his publicity every day, so a meaningless pimple gets a Cat 3 or Cat 4 label and a jersey presentation, even if it would be utterly ignored in the second or third week.

AAAH! that explains a lot.

Thank you for the info.

J
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http://b.42q.eu/

citoyen

  • Occasionally rides a bike
Re: Pro cycle racing explained
« Reply #17 on: 11 July, 2021, 08:38:50 pm »
The myth of the polkadot jersey was that it copies a Poulain chocolate wrapper. Almost certainly not true but it sounds good. Nobody has found a polkadot chocolate wrapper made before the jersey was created. Most likely, the race organiser who created the jersey remembered seeing some track racers decades before who wore easily recognisable polkadot jerseys.

Now you mention it, I remember some time ago searching in vain for evidence that Poulain ever sold its chocolate in polka dot wrappers... you'd think there would be pictures on the internet.

This is quite enlightening - reckons it was Felix Levitan's idea:
https://www.cyclinglegends.co.uk/index.php/races/climbers-jersey
"The future's all yours, you lousy bicycles."

Mr Larrington

  • A bit ov a lyv wyr by slof standirds
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Re: Pro cycle racing explained
« Reply #18 on: 11 July, 2021, 08:44:23 pm »
To add to LWaB's bit on mntns, all mountains were just mountains from 1933 to 1947 when they were split according to severity.  3rd cat dates from 1949, 4th cat was introduced in 1962, dropped a year later and reinstated in 1964, while the class referred to by TV's R Gilmore as “horse category” dates from 1979.  The HC route on Mont Ventoux was used for a (motorised) hillclimb before the TdF even existed, and continued until 1976.
External Transparent Wall Inspection Operative & Mayor of Mortagne-au-Perche
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LittleWheelsandBig

  • Whimsy Rider
Re: Pro cycle racing explained
« Reply #19 on: 11 July, 2021, 08:47:30 pm »
Logistics mean that some phenomenal roads and mountains will never feature in the TdF. Finish lines need to have large areas to park all the team and race vehicles, to set up grandstands for the VIPs, have alternate routes so that team buses aren’t using the race route and so on. Stage towns need all of that plus sufficient accommodation in the surrounding area to accommodate the race and to still sell enough accommodation to the public to justify buying the right to have the TdF or Giro overnight in your region. Part of the reason there are all those photogenic tableaus by the roadside and the reason why the race commentators describe the local attractions and delicacies is because the local government wants tourists to visit the region after the race has gone through. Publicity, again.
Wheel meet again, don't know where, don't know when...

LittleWheelsandBig

  • Whimsy Rider
Re: Pro cycle racing explained
« Reply #20 on: 11 July, 2021, 08:52:59 pm »
TV only shows what the cameraman and director thinks makes good television. The race director needs to see everything possible about the race, including the stuff that isn’t photogenic. The race director and chief commissaire decides whether a stage needs to be neutralised due to weather or road conditions e.g. mud, ice, etc. A TV screen doesn’t necessarily reflect reality.
Wheel meet again, don't know where, don't know when...

Re: Pro cycle racing explained
« Reply #21 on: 11 July, 2021, 08:56:48 pm »
Almost nothing about TdeF reflects reality - which is what makes it consistently the best three weeks of the year!

Good explanations there, LWAB.

Re: Pro cycle racing explained
« Reply #22 on: 11 July, 2021, 09:00:42 pm »
Q11b: Yes.

Q12: The time limit for a stage is a bit of a moving target, because it depends on the difficulty, or "coefficient" of the stage and the average speed of the stage winner, but essentially, the higher the coefficient, the greater the cut-off gets for a given average speed bracket, and the faster the stage has been ridden, the more time is allowed.

https://www.cyclingweekly.com/news/how-do-tour-de-france-time-cuts-work

That, or it's worked out by playing Numberwang via the medium of interpretative dance...
"He who fights monsters should see to it that he himself does not become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." ~ Freidrich Neitzsche

Re: Pro cycle racing explained
« Reply #23 on: 11 July, 2021, 09:03:44 pm »
QXX: Measure Proof-read twice, cut post once. ;)
"He who fights monsters should see to it that he himself does not become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." ~ Freidrich Neitzsche

quixoticgeek

  • Mostly Harmless
Re: Pro cycle racing explained
« Reply #24 on: 11 July, 2021, 09:05:40 pm »
Q11b: Yes.

Q12: The time limit for a stage is a bit of a moving target, because it depends on the difficulty, or "coefficient" of the stage and the average speed of the stage winner, but essentially, the higher the coefficient, the greater the cut-off gets for a given average speed bracket, and the faster the stage has been ridden, the more time is allowed.

https://www.cyclingweekly.com/news/how-do-tour-de-france-time-cuts-work

That, or it's worked out by playing Numberwang via the medium of interpretative dance...

So if a stage is ridden sufficiently slowly, the cut off becomes very close to the finish time?

J
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