Posted By Orange Crush on 08/06/2023 10:33 AM
Was it Bettiol who rode over his own water bottle?
Yes. (I think that malfunctioning equipment should be called out. Best way to raise the standards. WB cages, dropped, broken and jammed chains, ... Those shouldn't be defining races. Yes, F1 racing is often the driver nursing his fine machine around the course, but in bike racing the F1 is the rider. That machine he is sitting on should simply work damn near perfectly damn near all the time except when abused. No,I don't want to see regulations re: reliability but I do want to see those failures tracked and publicized.
Tires are a different matter. Light matters. Light will have issues. Wheel/bike replacement will always be a part of road racing. I do think that tracking and publicizing change times and what is done would be informative and make for improvements. (We need a revolution as big as the quick release to bring disc wheels to the same level of speed and interchangeability. A rider needing two bike swaps because the neutral service bike didn't fit when all he needed was a wheel - come on!)
Edit: Rant! Rant!
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