The Tour

Rider Tony Martin, at left, hits the sign held into the roadway by the fan in yellow,
precipitating a crash that will bring down most of the peloton.

Okay, this has not been a great week in which to try to recruit fans to grand tour cycling. The first several days have had such a storm of horrible crashes as to make the standings largely a lottery on who happened to sustain the least damage and delay.  

The fan above, still being hunted by French police, caused the first one, but many of the others were just products of too many riders seeking advantage on roads that are too narrow, too wet, too twisty and too crowded for any reasonable degree of safe competition. Even amid some glorious scenery and some truly heroic feats of riding, one still feels a bit of a ghoul just to be involved with the slo-mo replays of the carnage. Things will improve as the tour leaves the Brittany terrain, and the peleton sorts out serious contenders from also-ridings.  But too many good riders are being smashed up to excuse the management of this year's competition.