Greetings
Attended the City Centre Crit last night. This was as a sort of hors
d'heuvres for the start of the Tour of Britain this morning. Although
there was a notice on the website saying that the presentation of the
teams would take place before the race, this was cancelled due to a
forecast of inclement weather!! (Blue sky and sunshine is what we got!).
Anyway on to the racing - exciting stuff, some of the speeds going in to
the right-handers at the end of George Square were impressive. Congrats
to the local boys who were able to stay with the peleton. There were
some painful expressions on those dropped off the back of the peleton.
However, I didn't quite understand a couple of aspects of the race and
hopefully someone here can shed some light on the situations.
Fairly early in the race there was a two man breakaway (rider from
Navigators and one from Recycling). They stretched out a half lap gap
on the peleton and began lapping the slower riders. The commentator
pointed out that once you had been lapped you should retire - which
people were doing. However, they eventually caught the peleton. Should
riders in the peleton not have dropped out as well as they were
caught, or is there a different rule for the peleton?
During the breakaway, the navigators and recycling riders were half a
lap ahead and steaming along. We were positioned near the start/finish
line and the next time around only the Navigator rider came through. We
did not see the recycling rider until the leader came round again with
the recycling rider with him again (but presumably a lap behind).
Unless, of course, he came through with the peleton and jumped the gap
between the lone breakaway and the peleton in the space of (less than) a
lap - unlikely I think. So at the end of the race the peleton raced for
5 laps for the third place honours and then the two that had
(apparently) lapped the peleton raced for an additional two laps to
decide the winner. But if the recycling rider was a lap behind, how was
that allowed?
Puzzled of Lenzie!
Kennedy