Spectators at "le tour de france"?

Question

When on mountain stages, you seem to get a lot of spectators, who run alongside the cyclists, shouting at them etc. (which really annoys me), also they do not look where the are going, so in theory could knock one of his bike.

Do the cyclists ever push them away or tell them to "F#$IK OFF".

Answer 1

At times.  There was a great move by Marco Pantani in the 2000 Tour I believe where he shoved some putz in an Indian head dress (Chief Putzorama) while climbing Courchavel. Marco gave the dude a really classic nasty look too.

Answer 2

yes they do. the other day a rider shoved a camera on a motorbike out of his way.

Answer 3

This is part of the mystique of the Tour. Name one other major top end sporting event where the spectators can get within 10 meters of the participants, much less within arm's reach. The Tour riders have trained for this, and the spectators - at least the sober ones - have been read the rules.

No, the cyclists ignore the aggressive spectators. To do otherwise would only encourage them.

Answer 4

for me the fans make it more exciting when they are swamping the whole road so there is only a couple feet from one side of the road to another. as a matter of fact i saw today a specator running in between the riders and on rider yelled and tried to get him off the road. while on a mountain stage the last thing you want to do is tried to push someone out of the way on a bike. im not sure if you have tried it but you are dead tired and your balance can get lost easy.

while thinking about "F#$IK OFF", niki turpstra got sprayed with water in a breakaway and he turned around and flipped the middle finger to him. so yea they do that to.

the fans so close to the action makes the sport and the race special from any other sporting event, and i wouldnt change it.

most riders ignore it though as you have seen. i heard that Lance armstrong got spit on by the german fans while riding the mountains, and you did hear anything about him retaliating.

Answer 5

They annoy me too, but it's part of the Tour.  I've followed it twice and saw a lot of that both times in the mountain stages.

I was there in 2003 in the Pyrenees at the climb up Luz Ardiden when a spectator hooked Lance Armstrong with one of the give-away musset bags, and caused a bad crash.  It was not intentional, but was astoundingly stupid.  Frankly, I'm amazed that things like that don't happen more often.

It doesn't seem to annoy the riders much -- just part of the circus.

If you get a chance, go see the Tour in person.  If you can't travel to Europe, check out the Tour of California or the Tour de Georgia, both of which feature top pros and some real mountains, as close to a real European road racing experience as you can see on this continent.