If there’s any WorldTour team whose bus driver might be expected to know the roads in Switzerland better than anyone else, it’s IAM Cycling – they are, after all, based in the country.
So you can imagine the driver’s embarrassment yesterday when the vehicle got very firmly stuck on its way to the start of yesterday’s Stage 4 of the Tour de Suisse.
Sports director Rik Verbrugghe tweeted a picture of the vehicle, wondering whether he and the team's riders would make it to the stage start – happily, they did.
The team also posted a video to Twitter that showed a recovery vehicle trying to tow the bus away, with a few members of staff trying (unsuccessfully in this instance) to give the front of the vehicle the old heave-ho to get it moving.
Inevitably, a number of comments alluded to the time the Orica-GreenEdge bus infamously got stuck under the finish line gantry on the opening stage of the 2013 Tour de France in Corsica, with some wondering whether the Australian team’s driver at the time is now with IAM Cycling.
> Tour Tech – On le buses
There was another tight squeeze for the Orica-GreenEdge bus at last month’s Giro d’Italia, as this picture shows.
Of course, it's not the first time we've seen a bus stuck in the Alps ...
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...and so the conversation turned....I thought for a minute I was reading the very rude joke, you know, the one with the rings in the picture, but maybe not.
Always have a good snigger when ordering a pint of Butcombe Gold...
Back In The Day one of the locals who drank it used to regularly bowl into the pub and order "Pint of Felch please !"
I seem to recall one of the mini drivers from the film was running a mini car-track at an out-side adventure place near Butcombe (no sniggering). Fascinating guy, cracking day - guns, arrows, Minis and tanks. Tanks rock.
It's a pitty the italian job ending is just so implausible, if that amount of gold slid any distance towards the rear of the bus it would be imediate curtains for the lot of them.
Ahhh you must be a joy to go to the cinema with my dear..
Sadly I can't deny that. I'm terrible, and if a film doesn't grip me within 30 min I'll leave the cinema.
Ah well, most people think that suiting up in lycra and pedalling a bike for miles and miles, hour upon hour is some form of cruel torture but us idiots do it for fun.
It is a cracking ending however...
..for those interested, i knew the man who wrote the Italian Job....and thats not the proper ending...they ran out of money and the second camera team and cast made the one with the coach up.
Just ask yourself, whatever happened to the Mafia's threats, and what happened to Charlie's america girlfriend who flew to geneva...
...the final line of the script was right though...
I didn't know the man who wrote the Italian Job, but have heard that story. Can't think of a more perfect cliff-hanger (literally!) ending though.