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Video: Nairo Quintana gets a towNairo Quintana gets a tow (taken from Twitter video).jpg

Video: Nairo Quintana gets a tow

The old sticky… bike wheel?
by Alex Bowden
Fri, Jul 15, 2016 11:08
9

Footage has emerged of Nairo Quintana getting a cheeky little tow off a race motorbike in the immediate aftermath of the crash involving Richie Porte, Chris Froome and Bauke Mollema.

In the video, the Colombian can be seen cruising past the camera holding onto a bike wheel which is being carried by a Mavic motorbike.

Quintana will presumably argue that he only caught hold for stability; to avoid falling amid the melee.

It’s not yet known how long he held on for. Race organisers have yet to comment.

The crash involving Porte, Froome and Mollema saw the trio collide with a race motorbike which had been caught up in the crowds. Froome’s bike was damaged in the incident and he was reduced to running for several hundred metres in a panicked attempt to minimise his time losses.

As it turned out, the race jury gave Porte and Froome the same time as Mollema, the first of the trio to cross the line. This meant that Froome actually extended his lead over Yates to 48 seconds, with Mollema rising to third overall.

Nairo Quintana
2016 Tour de France
Alex Bowden

Alex has written for more cricket publications than the rest of the road.cc team combined. Despite the apparent evidence of this picture, he doesn't especially like cake.

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9 comments

Avatar
iso2000 | 8 years ago
0 likes

Give Quintana a break, Froome was still going up that mountain faster than him without a bike.

Avatar
brackley88 | 8 years ago
0 likes

My take is that you can see it is at a point where there is another bottleneck. Rather than stop and put a foot down as some others do he has tried to stay upright and get out of the bottleneck. Another rider gets a push from a fan and as a result also manages to keep moving, albeait at a very slow speed. I doubt footage will emerge showing him hanging on for more than a few moments, to get going again. And I agree with handlebarcam that it's proably a good thing to do at that point. I also agree that MrP olish Flag needs ball tasering. 

Avatar
brackley88 | 8 years ago
2 likes

My take is that you can see it is at a point where there is another bottleneck. Rather than stop and put a foot down as some others do he has tried to stay upright and get out of the bottleneck. Another rider gets a push from a fan and as a result also manages to keep moving, albeait at a very slow speed. I doubt footage will emerge showing him hanging on for more than a few moments, to get going again. And I agree with handlebarcam that it's proably a good thing to do at that point. I also agree that MrP olish Flag needs ball tasering. 

Avatar
bikeandy61 | 8 years ago
2 likes

I think it would be harsh to penalise any riders in the closing metres of yesterdays stage unless it was something REALLY blatant (and in MHO far more blatant than this unless he was towed to the finish, which he clearly wasn't).

Spectators booing Froome because of his actions and the jury's decision to "favour" him (and Porte remember, not that I have a problem with that either) with equal time to Molema. You caused the situation, if you don't like it there are football grounds all over the continent that will welcome you with open arms. Bugger off there!

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PaulBox replied to bikeandy61 | 8 years ago
4 likes
bikeandy61 wrote:

I think it would be harsh to penalise any riders in the closing metres of yesterdays stage unless it was something REALLY blatant (and in MHO far more blatant than this unless he was towed to the finish, which he clearly wasn't).

Just out of interest, what is more "blatant" than what he did? I personally think, from what I can see, that it is cheating. But from that little snippet of film we might not see something that could justify why he did it.

Also, anybody heard anything about Aru following his strange sticky bottle incidents yesterday?

bikeandy61 wrote:

Spectators booing Froome because of his actions and the jury's decision to "favour" him (and Porte remember, not that I have a problem with that either) with equal time to Molema. You caused the situation, if you don't like it there are football grounds all over the continent that will welcome you with open arms. Bugger off there!

I really think that less than 20% of the people there are cycling fans. Absolutely no respect for the riders or the event itself. I would love to go and follow the tour for a week or so, but I know that I would end up chinning somebody. It winds me up enough seeing this shit on TV.

I would give each of the riders a cattle prod and award bonus seconds alng the lines of:

1 second for somebody holding a flag who thinks that they are a matador

5 seconds for anybody who pulls a mooney or is wearing a mankini

10 seconds for a runner

30 seconds for anybody holding a flare

 

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Gourmet Shot replied to PaulBox | 8 years ago
3 likes

[/quote]

I really think that less than 20% of the people there are cycling fans. Absolutely no respect for the riders or the event itself. 

[/quote]

I think that's true...Boardman summed it up for me in saying that essentially there are groups of people drinking alcohol who have been stuck up a mountain for 6 hours and then can't control themselves in the ensuing melee of bikes, riders and crowds.  Same story for most of these sporting situations......drunks not fans.

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handlebarcam | 8 years ago
8 likes

This is another angle on that prick, carrying a sign and a GoPro, wearing a Polish flag. I don't know what message he was trying to get on the TV, but he is as good a candidate for being tased in the balls as I've seen in a while. While he was too far back to have caused the incident, he certainly got in the way of riders coming up afterwards. Like Quintana, whose improvised solution to get through a dangerous melee looks like good racecraft to me.

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arrieredupeleton | 8 years ago
2 likes

Would you really want to hang onto a Moto in that situation for safety!? The Moto's more likely to come a cropper than a rider unfortunately. You don't need a long memory to work that out.

It's clever as he could argue the safety point but he's deliberatly gaining an advantage. 

Avatar
tritecommentbot | 8 years ago
2 likes

He got dropped badly yesterday by a guy who'd put in two big efforts in the previous days. But this takes the humiliation to new heights enlightened

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