I guess the nationalist and racist bull$h!+ is independent of the sport or circumstances

Glad to see you are being even handed winky.  I must be honest i've tried to educate myself and watch a little bit but time zones make this difficult.  Strikes me that it is very similar to a game of chess with Kings, knights, pawns etc.  all playing their part.

FWIW - On the whole Australians are VERY patriotic, which might explain some of the behaviour described.

Jens Voigt got similar abuse when he was supporting his team against Jan Ullrich in 2004.

I think the nutters who seem more keen on being seen on the TV than paying attention to the riders around them need more than a bidon thrown from the peloton to shut them up. It's disgraceful that Wiggins got burnt by a flare, what's that all about?

Big day today, will Nibali or Cuddles derail the Sky Train? My money's on van den Broeck for an upset.

On reading the article and the comments of one of the Australian riders, one can only conclude that these cycling " fans" are hardly the "sharpest tools in the box". Just tools.

In my experience, Australians are very patriotic and knowledgeable about sports their citizens do well in. Most I met and worked with we're fair in defeat, and annoyingly gentleman like in victory. Some were pigs. Outnumbered by their British counterparts? I don't know. 

Tony

Pro Cycling teams.

I'd expect a team full of riders with high tribal instincts to be more successful team full of riders with no tribal instincts.

Porte and Rogers ride for Tribe Sky. The abusive fans obviously see themselves as part of tribe Australia, the fact they turned on members of another tribe was probably down to the consumption of a few too many Tinnies.

Tribal enough to throw carpet tacks on the road? 30 + punctures today.

1 guy has a broken collar bone as a result of crashing after a puncture.

Yeah, I know. It just gets worse.

The sport is organized to use teams because that makes for more interesting and perhaps more logical racing. I don't really count that as tribalism. People are organized and paid to work together. The alternative is for all sorts of private deals to be done. It used to be like that.

It makes more sense to me for teams to be organized on commercial, rather than nationalistic terms. I dislike it when people refer to national teams as if it is a country e.g "England beat Spain". Well, no it didn't. A team selected from those eligible by the accident of birthright or immigration in one country beat another team selected on a similar basis in another country. It isn't one country beating another. That would be the outcome of war.

It is the tribalism of the "supporters" that really pi$$es me off. Why do we think "our" rider is better, and more deserving of support than another? Because he was born in the same country as us? So f&^%ing what? We can take no credit for our place of birth.

What is it with the rise in popularity of cycling?

Tour De France is attracting more and more boorish behaviour so it seems it's not really a spectacle for the purists any longer, rather another excuse for jingoists to hit the road on a beer/wine drinking tour.

Closer to home: since about 5-8 years now, I can no longer blast round the hills on a Sunday morning in my old rear engined German car without coming across hoardes of lycra-clad peddlers riding 6 abreast (behaviour which is illegal and dangerous).

Since you asked, in no particular order...

• It is a really great sport or pastime than can be enjoyed at all levels.
• It doesn't require organised competition in order for it to be enjoyable and meaningful.
• But high-level competition has complex and fascinating strategies, and like every sport, those who are the best in the world are very, very good indeed.
• A hard ride or long climb gives one a tremendous sense of satisfaction,
• It keeps one in good physical condition but isn't hard on the body like jogging can be.
• It is inexpensive if one wants it to be.
• It doesn't burn fossil fuel, expect for the manufacturing of the equipment.
• You can do it out your front door. You don't need to drive anywhere.
• If you ride a lot, you can eat what you want.
• It can be very expensive (but not compared to motorsport, equestrian, aviation, yachting etc) if you want it to be.
• It satisfies middle-aged guys' love of gadgets, engineering and technology.
• It is a practical means of transport that I use every day.
• It can be thrilling in the same way that downhill skiing is. But you don't need a lift pass.
• It is a very social activity as you can easily converse whilst doing it. Most of my friends, I know through cycling.
• It takes you through lovely countryside that you experience in a way that is simply not possible in a car. But it is much faster than walking through the same countryside, enabling you to venture further afield.
• Lycra is a very practical fabric for cycle clothing. Its use is functional, not fashion (obviously).
• It gives you an excuse to shave your legs (don't knock it until you've tried it).
• Riding six-abreast wouldn't be dangerous if there weren't any cars - especially under-braked, poor handling old german cars that are being "blasted" around the hills.

There have always been drunken spectators at the tour. I don't think it is getting worse at a rate that exceeds the general decline into shittiness of pretty-much everything due to ever-increasing numbers of people everywhere.

Nevermind all the gosip and bad tackstics...

we have two Brits actually leading the TdF !!

Still a long way to go mind, anything can happen.

Hope Bradley wins : )

Overall individual time classification after Stage 14 ~

Bad behavior by spectators at the TdF is nothing new and is not limited to TdF, hence Cadel Evans seldom riding races in Spain.

It depends where you live, but cycling has always been popular and used to have a particularly strong tradition in GB until we became a nation of lard arses and it's nice to see it coming back.

Spoken by someone who likes to get on his bike, but still has a little too much lard 

A cycling team doesn't need to be organised on a national basis to display tribalism. In fact, a good team manager will motivate his team by instilling a sense of tribalism.

I agree 100%, logically it makes no sense. But, unfortunately it's human nature.

Is Froome really British.He's as British as Zola Budd

Born in Kenya, brought up in Kenya/South Africa.

Nice one Winky.

I asked for it and you delivered.

BTW, nuthin wrong with my brakes.

I have Maori ABS.

I just love it when these bicyclists blame the cars for there woes, try bloody paying for your road use, applies to caravans too.

Queue  "I paid road tax on the car I wasn't using"

I would happily pay tax as a cyclist for my road usage provided it was proportionate to the amount of wear and tear my bicycle causes to the roads on which I travel.

Bicycles and cars can co-exist beautifully, just ask the Dutch. It is a planning thing.

Bruce

True enough. But that's within the sport and the way that rules are agreed. There is no such excuse for the parochial, nationalistic, repellant and racist behaviour exhibited by some supporters. I also think it is fair to say that supporters more easily and passionately align themselves along nationalistic lines than they would align themselves with a particular trade team. The australian supporters giving Rogers and Porte grief are presumably doing so because Rogers and Porte were born in the same country as Evans but aren't riding for him, not because they ride for Sky, rather than BMC.

I don't have any woes. I love cycling and wouldn't have it any other way.

I also don't pay any road tax. I don't have any need to own a car, thankfully. But I do pay plenty of others taxes. And a lot of those go towards subsidizing motorists, whose so-called road tax goes nowhere near paying for the true cost of their mode of transport.

If you think cyclists are a real problem on the road, try this little test. For a week, carry a little notebook in your car. Every time a car impedes your desired velocity, make a little mark. Every time a bike does the same thing make a different mark. Add them up, then let us know the true extent of the "problem".

When driving we aren't "stuck in traffic", we ARE the traffic.

Winky - things must be very different in Canada. Here, our "so-called" road tax plus fuel duty goes on pretty much everything other than roads. Motorists are colossal net contributors of tax. Which is probably one of the reasons that the roads are in the state they are.

BTW - do you live in a city - your "test" as to whether a cyclist is a problem would not give the result you seem to think out here in the sticks. On a Sunday round here, the roads are thick with cyclists and cars having to wait behind them to pass. It doesn't happen the other way round - ever IME.

If cars have to wait to pass, so what?

Cyclists are allowed to use the roads, and usually have no alternative because cycle paths are generally so few and far between. Drivers also have to wait for trafic lights, pedestrian crossings, delivery vans, railway crossings etc. Driving well, and driving safely is about driving with regard to all road users, bikes included. If you have to slow down to pass a cyclist does it matter? 10 seconds on your journey time? Bikes also have to slow down for cars.

Bruce

In response to BigH, Winki, and Oskarskeepr,

I am speaking as a UK resident.

In my more than forty years of riding a cycle, walking, and driving motor cars and commercials on the public highway, I think it is important to remember a few things. There are dangerous pedestrians, dangerous cyclists, and dangerous motorists. The danger posed by each group is very different. It is conceivable that a cyclist could permanently disable a pedestrian, and the other way round, but it would be something of a black miracle if a cyclist or pedestrian or cyclist could permanently disable or kill a motorist.

It has absolutely nothing to do with rights to expect people to get out of one's way because they don't pay road fund tax, or not.

I don't think anyone doubts that it would greatly benefit general health, quality of life for the majority, and the environment if motoring could be radically reduced in terms of number of vehicles in use and numbers of miles done over time.

These points are not perhaps that easily countered, given a pause for though, but the point I make is that no one is more important than anyone else, and it behoves motorists to treat pedestrians and cyclists with far more care than they might other motor vehicles on the road so as to re-balance the very real risk posed to these relatively vulnerable road users. 

One only has to ride a cycle on the road  to soon realise that perhaps one in twenty motorists is happy to pass a cyclist with inches to spare, which is not only discourteous, but highly dangerous, and contrary to the Highway Code, which though advisory in many instances is there to indicate best practice, and can be quoted in Court as such. Failure to observe its advice will almost certainly be used in evidence, and be the cause of a more severe punishment to any road user who is caught commiting a road traffic offence.

If one in twenty motorists regularly carry out dangerous manouvres with only very rare serious consequence, a much smaller proportion of drivers do not attend tp driving with sufficient attention to even see cyclists or pedestrians, and in these cases the results can be tragic at worst, or deeply unpleasant for the cyclist or pedestrian concerned.

It is my experience that motorists who are prepared to rant against cyclists and pedestrian are the most likely to actually be the most dangerous drivers. Unfortunately they are the ones who think they are the best drivers, when the exact opposite is the case

I am not excusing pedestrians who step into the road without looking or cyclists who use the road at night without the legally required lighting for two examples, but rather to point out that the motorist - if he or she is responsible and is respectful of others - has an even larger responsibility to drive with the greatest possible care at all times than cyclists or pedestrians, because of the danger to others that their mode of transport poses.

ATB from George

Sounds like paradise.

I lived in Bristol until about 5 years ago. I would cycle most weekends through the Cotswolds and Mendips and occasionally into Wales up towards the Forest of Dean. I'd also cycle down to Clevedon and back most evenings during summer. I never saw what you describe, unfortunately. A few cyclists here and there, and some bigger groups including my own club once a week. I never saw more than a car or two held up for a few seconds at most. 

I now live in Vancouver and cycle both in the city and in the country. Again, I have never seen more than a couple of cars held up for just a few seconds here and there. I also do drive. When I do, I cannot honestly say that cyclists hold me up for more than trivial amounts of time. Other cars however always seem to be in front of me preventing my forward progress at the speed I'd otherwise like to go.

Traffic is cars, not bikes.

I hope one day that it is so. Once a capital charge is calculated for the asset value of the road network and parking space is added; and a realistic assessment of the overall environmental damage caused by motoring is also added, the fixed and variable taxes and charges don't come close to covering the true cost. One (green, left-leaning, admittedly) study I saw showed motoring taxes and charges (mostly road tax and fuel excise) covered barely a third. Yes it is very hard to estimate the true capital value of roads, and the true external environmental cost, but simply comparing cash costs is unarguably misleading.

I mostly dislike motoring because I just do. I hate the sloth it engenders in the general population. I hate the time it wastes. I hate the fumes. I hate the noise. I hate the cost. I hate the deaths and injuries. I hate how it looks as roads irrevocably scar the landscape. I hate how it results in people living far from their friends and family.

Cars ruin everything I hold dear.