Watching stages of the TdF on TV this year, it just appeared that the number of vehicles/transports is going up and up. For what should be a sport trying to get more people to cycle it actually endorses use of the motor car and aircraft.

Surely they should at least be making sure all the cars and bikes are battery driven, and that the route requires no aircraft transfers?

*gives Gallic shrug*

For what should be a sport trying to get more people to cycle it actually endorses use of the motor car and aircraft.

Is that what it is for?

It’s about competition, endurance and spectacle mostly. Getting people on bikes may be a by product but that is never as a way to get them out of cars more as a way to ride and race.

I’m with FunkyDunc – during one stage the Peloton cycled past a field where there were 3 or 4 Helicopters parked!

I can only assume they were TV choppers ‘resting’ yet the image I saw was also from another Helicopter 8)

That’s a lot of fuel and running cost/other expense. I guess it shows how much money you can make from advertising and bike racing 8)

Aaaaaaah now I check I can see that someone runs Helicopter trips over the Tour De France for paying guests HERE

So maybe it was their Helicopters not TV Heli’s.

Surely they should at least be making sure all the cars and bikes are battery driven

Car’s don’t have the range needed unless they all start running about in teslas, and it would be cheating if the bikes were battery driven 🙂

Here you are. Here is about as ‘eco’ as it gets.

http://www.highlandtrail.net

I’m with FunkyDunc – during one stage the Peloton cycled past a field where there were 3 or 4 Helicopters parked!

I can only assume they were TV choppers ‘resting’ yet the image I saw was also from another Helicopter

The TdF has 2 TV helicopters and three crew per helicopter due to the flying hours restrictions. There are then 2 relay helicopters higher up (again working as a pair so one can land and refuel while the other takes up station) and a relay plane at about 10,000ft which has the endurance needed to stooge around the place for 6hrs. There’s a backup relay plane as well in case the first develops a fault (as happened at Tour de Yorkshire where a fault grounded the plane and there were no TV pictures for the Women’s race).

5 moto camera bikes, 2 or 3 relay trucks parked along the route and often at least one fuel dump to allow the motos and helis to refuel.

And then you have the VIP helicopters. Can be anything up to 4 helis above the race at any one time.

It’s not supposed to be environmentally friendly, it’s supposed to be a travelling circus.

Surely it makes no more or less sense than it does with any other sport?

TDF has nothing to do with the sort of everyday utility cycling that would have a significant “eco” impact IMO.

For what should be a sport encouraging people to cycle to places, why do mountain bike trail centres have such big carparks?

Part of the publicity caravan was a company using ancient Citroen 2cv’s one stalled on the 18% finish straight just where I was watching at Peyregudes, the plume of blue smoke as a crowd pushed it up the hill wasn’t the best advert for the eco credentials of the tour. I sometimes wonder how the riders’ health suffers in close proximity to dozens of slow moving cars and motobikes for 3 weeks.

I sometimes wonder how the riders’ health suffers in close proximity to dozens of slow moving cars and motobikes for 3 weeks.

probably why so many pro cyclists have asthma 🙂

I sometimes wonder how the riders’ health suffers in close proximity to dozens of slow moving cars and motobikes for 3 weeks.

This was partly my thinking they are breathing in fumes constantly.

I just think they could make a bit more of an effort.

The TdF is pretty dependent on fossil fuels, I mean how far away was the last stage before Paris?

The bottle lobbing also bothers me, I suspect a lot of food & gel wrappers follow the peloton.

Tour de Destruction Environnementale more like.

I sometimes wonder how the riders’ health suffers in close proximity to dozens of slow moving cars and motobikes for 3 weeks.

A fraction of the exposure any city bike commuter gets for 52 weeks a year.

The purest road race? I’d nominate the Transamerica Race. 4200 miles totally self supported.

Food and gel wrappers might be a problem, but I doubt any bottles get left on the road.

Roadies eh? With their holier than thou attitude to other road users. Turns out they are just a bunch of cheating, polluting, congestion causing, littering scumbags like everyone else.

I make a special point of dropping all my rubbish when I go over bridges, in order to upset those living underneath them.

Tour regulations say

A waste collection area is in place at the start and end of the [Feed] station. Riders are only permitted to throw their rubbish, water bottles and all other waste in this specific area.

In order to respect the environment and with a view to safety, it is strictly forbidden to carelessly jettison food, feeding bags, drink containers or any other accessory outside of the waste collection zone or any other place set aside for this purpose.

Which obviously isn’t true about bottles, though I suspect the majority of those are picked up by fans. As for gels etc, who knows.

But anyway, it’s about putting on a massive show for three weeks. Start trying to cut down on that, and you’re getting rid of race photos, coverage, police motos, team support, and so forth. Few less motos might be a good thing, but no rider is going to give up coverage + neutral/team support.

The tour of Cataluña had a feed station 10km down the road from my house this year. Their musettes contained flapjack and jam butties wrapped in tin foil, a can of coke and a couple of gels. The verge was littered with discarded wrappers and uneaten stuff which stayed there for weeks as none of it was degradable. The race is run by the same organisation as the TDF so I assume the rules are the same but clearly not enforced or tidied up after.

I don’t like the bottle tossing n’that, I’m sure the riders adhere to the ‘chuck your stuff out here’ rules where they can. What happens to all the toys ejected from prams along the route?

I’m sure a lot of the riders being quite young don’t have children. If they don’t have a pet as well I’m sure their eco credentials rocket.

The tour of Cataluña had a feed station 10km down the road from my house this year. Their musettes contained flapjack and jam butties wrapped in tin foil, a can of coke and a couple of gels. The verge was littered with discarded wrappers and uneaten stuff which stayed there for weeks as none of it was degradable. The race is run by the same organisation as the TDF so I assume the rules are the same but clearly not enforced or tidied up after.

Organisers should be responsible for cleaning up the mess.
A bit like Glastonbury Festival.

…For what should be a sport trying to get more people to cycle…

It’s a massive commercial enterprise, like any other professional sport, dependent on sponsorship and TV coverage. It’s not about encouraging people to cycle.
Ironically, the TV coverage of all that environmentally extravagant excess will have inspired a lot more cycling than a low impact event like the Highland Trail!

If they make all the support vehicles electric they are going to have to make them noisier. It’s hard enough to hear all the electric vehicles whilst cycling round London and that is without a crowd cheering me on (or booing).

The bottle lobbing also bothers me, I suspect a lot of food & gel wrappers follow the peloton.

They are supposed to clean up after themselves and after the tour passed here, between the fans taking the bottles and the clean up crews cleaning the verges there was very little mess left that wouldn’t have looked like normal mess in the UK. Even if all 168 riders are doing a couple of bottles an hour and 3 gels or other food things and not dumping ANYTHING in the trash areas (where the musettes are supposed to go) you’re not looking at that much rubbish spread over 170-200km of a stage.

The average sportive, marathon or ironman generates significantly more crap than the average pro race due to the number of competitors and from riding parts of the local ironman bike leg recently, the cleanup is nowhere near as good. For that matter, the same can be said for half of the trail centres and popular gathering areas in the Surrey Alps.

I would imagine the pissed up fans lining the route leave far more rubbish than the riders coming through.

It’s the largest annual sporting event on the planet. It happens to be a bike race. I don’t see the issue.

I suspect most people are unaware of the credentials of other events of similar size.

And the bottles are always collected.

if the pussy’s dealt with their own mechanicals you wouldn’t have any need for the cars

I wonder what the carbon footprint is relative to a football match?

Football match – 50,000 fans have to converge on a stadium

TdF – 50,000(?) fans, but the tour comes to their village or it’s an excuse to cycle to the next village or town to see it as the roads are all closed anyway.

Or the worst must be any event that isn’t served well by public transport. The carbon footprint of driving an F1 car round a track for 2 hours must be miniscule compared to that of the spectators.

if the pussy’s dealt with their own mechanicals you wouldn’t have any need for the cars

Yay! Misogyny!

if the pussy’s dealt with their own mechanicals you wouldn’t have any need for the cars
Yay! Misogyny!

Not necessarily, could be anti cat or just using general genital based slurs (Nobody calls you a man hater if you call someone a nob after all). The main issue surely is that it should be pussies, or cats.

Yay! Misogyny!

no its not

Yay! Misogyny!
no its not

Five pages

I’d love to know how calling male TDF riders
Pussies is mysoginistic.

I’d love to know how calling male TDF riders
Pussies is mysoginistic.

Can’t be assed with the LMGTFY, but here’s a quote that explains it:

Of course, “pussy” has metaphorical meanings too. A cowardly man is called a “pussy.” This use of pussy is obviously misogynistic, as it figuratively connects the vulva with weakness. As Fast Times at Ridgemont High’s Mike Damone puts it in a false but compelling etymology, “You are a wuss: Part wimp, and part pussy.”

https://newrepublic.com/article/140063/problem-pussy
HTH

And I counter with:

There is no relation between a woman’s genitals and a coward. The meaning of “coward” comes from something else.

Many people think that “pussy” is an diminutive of pusillanimous

pusillanimous; showing a lack of courage or determination; timid.

but a wikipedia article suggests that “pussy” is used as an alternate spelling of an obsolete English word “pursy”.

The word pussy can also be used in a derogatory sense to refer to a male who is not considered sufficiently masculine (see Gender role). When used in this sense, it carries the implication of being easily fatigued, weak or cowardly.

According to OED, pussy actually comes from the word puss, a well-used name for cats at that time. It was first used to mean cat.

“cat,” 1726, diminutive of puss (n.1), also used of a rabbit (1715). As a term of endearment for a girl or woman, from 1580s (also used of effeminate men). Pussy willow is from 1869, on notion of “soft and furry.” To play pussy was World War II RAF slang for “to take advantage of cloud cover, jumping from cloud to cloud to shadow a potential victim or avoid recognition.”

Later in the 19th century, it was used as a slang for “female pudenda”

slang for “female pudenda,” 1879, but probably older; perhaps from Old Norse puss “pocket, pouch” (cf. Low German puse “vulva”), but perhaps instead from the cat word (see pussy (n.1)) on notion of “soft, warm, furry thing;” cf. French le chat, which also has a double meaning, feline and genital. Earlier uses are difficult to distinguish from pussy (n.1), e.g.: The word pussie is now used of a woman [Philip Stubbes, “The Anatomie of Abuses,” 1583] But the use of pussy as a term of endearment argues against the vaginal sense being generally known before late 19c., e.g.: “What do you think, pussy?” said her father to Eva. [Harriet Beecher Stowe, “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” 1852] Pussy-whipped first attested 1956.

https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/100990/how-does-pussy-come-to-mean-coward

Of course, “pussy” has metaphorical meanings too. A cowardly man is called a “pussy.” This use of pussy is obviously misogynistic, as it figuratively connects the vulva with weakness. As Fast Times at Ridgemont High’s Mike Damone puts it in a false but compelling etymology, “You are a wuss: Part wimp, and part pussy.”

that is so far between the lines you can’t see the lines anymore. If you really want to get anatomical, pussy refers to the whole of the female genitalia not just the outside e.g she has a tight pussy, referring of course to the vagina.

I asked my wife if using pussy to describe TDF riders and she told me to STFU and stop being stupid. Of course your are entitled to your opinion on this subject and be offended but I should add I don’t care lol

Of course your are entitled to your opinion on this subject and be offended but I should add I don’t care lol

So you ask but don’t care, and also assume some copy-pasta is my opinion, no just copy-pasta. But a fair point, it’s dumb to call TDF riders pussies as they’re obviously not weak nor cowardly, but they might be ****.