Quote:
Originally Posted by RonW87
Umm, nope:
http://autobus.cyclingnews.com/features/tdu02c40.shtml
"Anyone got a spare C40? Spectator saves Rogers' day
By Gerard Knapp In Adelaide
Adam Pyke came to the Jacob's Creek Tour Down Under to watch the cycling, but ended up saving the day for the new leader of the race on general classification.
Pyke, 29, was standing on the side of the road just half a kilometre into the climb up Mengler's Hill, when only 10 metres away, Michael Rogers came to a screeching halt after a tangle with a motorcycle had ripped his rear derailleur off the back of his bike and pushed it into his rear wheel. Cursing loudly, Rogers dismounted and looked down at his bike to assess the damage and realised he wasn't going any further on that machine, so he threw the blue, Mapei team-issue Colnago C40 onto the ground in disgust.
"So Michael's taken one look at my bike and he's taken off," Pyke said. In an uncanny coincidence, Pyke is the proud owner of a 56cm centre-to-top Colnago C40, which uses the latest Shimano SPD-R pedals. Oddly enough, it was the same size as Rogers' bike - "or close enough" - and also uses the same type of pedals (see picture)." |
Freddy Maertens was famously disqualified from the 1977 Tour of Flanders for taking a bike after the Koppenberg from the side of the road and not from a team car as his fellow breakaway riders did. He was notified of his dq while the race was unfolding and refused to stop. He towed Roger de Vlaeminck to the line, with RDV not taking a single pull in the final 70 km, before sprinting around Maertens to cross the line first.
The Tour Down Under was almost an exibition race at the time when the Rogers switch happened and the Commissars turned a blind eye to help the show and the sport in Australia, imo.