Ok, thanks for your reply. Maybe in contrast to some readers think after reading my text, I really like your reply.
The first time I heard about this rule. And it makes a bit (/partially) sense it is a safety rule. But the distance of 20km is a lot.
According to me this specific subject is debatable, but I will not go into that right now because probably it makes my reply too complicated.
And missing the point I was making with my text :
You bring up money as other penalty and I totally agree with you that this is not effective.
Indeed, they laugh about a money penalty, and sometimes not because they do not even realize they had a penalty.
But I disagree with your statement that any other penalty is not effective, besides seconds.
For most cyclists the seconds penalty is not effective at all, they really don't care that they are 20 seconds more behind.
In fact, in the current situation that penalty of 20 seconds can even be an advantage for a cyclist the next stage,
because now he has more chance to be in the break away group, he is 20 seconds less threat for the GC.
So, for most cyclist this penalty is not effective at all, and for some it is even advantage.
But when 17km before the finishline the GC leader makes this stupid mistake that was not really a hazard to himself or others,
he gets punished by taking away his yellow jersey.
Again ; to me this seems like a too harsh punishment.
More fair and better is a penalty that is for all cyclists a realization that they broke a rule, and for a safety rule it is even more important that a penalty is effective, to prevent it of happening again and even more important, it is clear to everyone not to break this rule.
My penalty sounds funny but is effective to everyone, and yes, it can be a torture for the audience. But more likely the audience will enjoy it in a laughing way if Alaphilippe has to learn a BZN song and sing that on the podium.
But perhaps you are a BZN fan, and you don't think Alaphilippe will experience this as torture.
Anyway, my point is ; he for sure will not brake this rule again after singing that BZN song.
Of course, taking his yellow jersey is also an effective punishment.
But why is the GC leader hard punished, while most cyclists who make the same stupid mistake, are not punished at all by those 20 seconds.
Another creative penalty can be that someone who breaks this rule, has to wear donkey ears on his helmet the next stage.
An effective penalty for all, and not a situation that a penalty is very hash for the GC riders but not at all effective for the majority of cyclists.
And those donkey ears are not good for the aerodynamics, so it takes a little bit more energy for that punished cyclist.
But it is not about the punishment itself, the penalty should be focussed on that everyone realizes not to break this rule.
So maybe you can think of other creative solutions that are effective, time(besides GC riders)- and money penalties are often not effective.
Some want to introduce a yellow-red-cards system, maybe that is a better solution, more fair and more effective penalty.
It is all not so difficult, because a safety rule is in the interest of the cyclists themselves, and with introducing a safety rule, it is important there is a safety awareness. Now it is all about the rule, that is not good, the spirit why the rule excists is more important, also it is more important that everyone understands it / the safety awareness. Safety should be priority 1 and the rule itself priority 2.
And in this specific situation it even seems the penalty of the rule is the priority, what maybe can cause that cyclists might think this safety rule does not really apply to them because they are no GC riders.
A safety rule should also be simple to be effective, and not different in every stage. But this aside.
The awareness of this safety rule is not good because a lot of things went wrong with this dumm mistake of Alaphilippe 17km before the finishline ;
he did not realize he broke a rule, the one of his team who was giving him the drink bottle did not realize it, including hiss boss, and all the colleagues of Alaphilippe did not warn them not to break this rule. Even the Tour de France organisation should warn such a drink bottle giver that he is on the wrong spot and that he could break a safety rule. And before it happens, now there is no prevention (very important with a safety rule), just a repressive too harsh penalty for the GC leader, ánd in my opinion and no problem if you absolutely don't agree. To be clear ; my text shows that it is about the penalty and not about the rule, the only thing I mentioned about the rule is because I never heard of this rule. I was not being sarcastic with my last remark/question. I really wondered why, who and how this rule was invented, to me clear it is invented by people who underestimate a penalty system for a safety rule. Penalties and the Tour de France oragnisation ; the past showed many examples this is not a good combination. Sometimes even the nationality of a cyclist had influence on the penalty that was given, and maybe that improved now because Alaphilippe is French. Although it this case it is obvious, and they had to give this in my opinion weird standard penalty.
And I absoluty disagree that a weird penalty is justified because it is according to you a safety measure that actually work.
This last sentence is of course not a good reply, because in this way I miss the point you make. I think you were missing also a little bit the point I was making with my comment that it seemed to me a too harsh punishment, but I do appreciate your reply a lot.
I just disagree with your conclusion ;
A good rule ? Yes, but would it also be a good rule when in this specific stage the distance was 16km ?
And I think this rule is debatable, for example why invent a rule to maintain a traditional dangerous situation in all other kilometers,
to me it is strange the human factor is still of big influence, and therefore a bigger chance it goes wrong when grabbing a drink bottle.
It seems to me easy to invent something that there is only one human involved (the cyclist) instead of two humans.
And why not a seperate parralel road in order to grab food bags or drink bottles, then no hazard for the peleton.
Very easy to create this.
In CycloCross the changes of bikes is also in a parralel dirtroad and not on the race track, to prevent dangerous situations.
And this subject can be in many more ways debatable and who decides the distance anyway ? The distance is always debatable.
Also unclear to me if a cyclist is allowed to take a water bottle of the public just to cool him down and he is not drinking the bottle.
With 40 degrees and a final 1km climb of 15%, but the rule is 2km, well, only the GC riders get really punished if this is forbidden.
A good penalty ? Here I disagree with you as this long text shows, it seems to me a too harsh punishment for in this case the GC leader, and not a punishment at all for most other cyclists when they also make a dumm mistake 17km before the finish, that was no hazard to himslf or others in a boring stage with a slow pace at that 17km point in the race.
And maybe "ADHD"Alaphillipe was not even thirsty, but saw just an activity he could do with taking that drink bottle.
Ups, there goes his yellow jersey, while for others who make the same dumm mistake, the penalty is not harsh at all.
In short (and again) ; to me this seems like a too harsh punishment.
