On the radio

 

It’s good to talk, said the ad.

RADIO communication between riders and their team cars is now commonplace in pro races. Is this a good or a bad thing?  The controversy simmers on. Radios were banned in the Olympic road races.

Surely it’s bad, if the same rule that applies to using a mobile phone while driving also applies to race radios.

Chris Froome fiddling with his radio ear piece, Tour de France, 2017.

The Transport Road Research Laboratory proved years ago that when using a mobile phone the remote voice in your ear distracts you more than fiddling with any other in-car device, rendering your reaction times slower than if drunk.

Following these findings a law was introduced to ban the use hand held mobiles while driving, but not hands free, even though the danger applies equally to hands free as to hand held. Hands free were allowed, I understand, because the police said it would be difficult to detect if a driver was using one.

So are  some of  those bunch crashes caused by riders being distracted by talking or listening to instructions on their radios?

There have always been crashes in bike racing, always will be, but the riders themselves have said they seem to happen with more regularity.

A few ago a few  riders suggested wearing helmets might be leading to crashes because they are making some riders feel invulnerable and they take more risks.

It's difficult to prove, unless the rider himself owns up. I know for a fact that when I rode the latest design Campagnolo brakes I certainly started taking descents and corners far faster than I would normally have done.

No mishaps, mind.

Radios are good, some riders say.  If the team boss and a rider need to speak better they do so by radio. It’s safer than in the old days when the manager had to drive his car inside the peloton to talk to his rider.

Good point.

But critics say riders have become too reliant on the team boss to decide race tactics for them, instead of using their own initiative.

Such as when to start bringing back a breakaway group. The blackboard with written timings and splits provided by the motorbike is apparently no longer good enough.

Now the team manager in the car has the timings between groups and he can instruct his riders when to chase, or indeed, when to fart or stop for a pee break.

So riders can sit back, close their minds and not think too much.

Here’s an imagined transcript obtained by an eves-dropper drone flying over the Tour.

Miguel (Quickstep rider) to Director Sportif (DS): “Boss, what day is it today?”

DS:  “It’s stage 8. You don't need to know what day it is.”

Mig: “Thanks, how many roundabouts and dodgy right angled turns today?”

DS: “ None for 90 kilometres, then 10 roundabouts in the next 100 kilometres, with three of them in the last five. Two dangerous right handers with 4km and 2km to go."

Mig: “Thanks boss, are they big roundabouts or small ones?”

DS: “Don't you read the manual?  Keep your head up and eyes open.”

Mig: “Ok, boss: speed is going up, can I change up a gear yet?”

DS “Yes, just a couple of notches. Then if the speed drops, go down a notch or several.”

AGHHHHHHH NO... Smash, bash, screech of metal on road, dozen riders down.

Commissaire: chute, chute.

Chorus of radio calls to managers from  teammates of the fallen riding ahead: "Should we wait for them? “What should we do now?”

The truth is in such a situation the riders who more often than not will decide for themselves, and if the race is not fully on and going for the finish, they will often ease off and wait.  Although the other day on the Vuelta, they did this when only 10km from the finish when almost two thirds of the bunch were held up by a stack up. 

But there will be a lot of radio traffic, you can be sure and I can imagine various team bosses wanting to call the shots...."We're all gonna have a chat and decide whether you should slow down and wait or push on. Stand by for further instructions."

Civvies land is also a wash with too many messages crossing the ether.

We have the daily telephone calls from scammers trying to convince us our broadband is about to be disconnected, or an illegal payment is about to be extracted from a bank account. They presumably go on to ask for bank details – but I never let the caller get that far.

I may recite a children’s nursery rhyme to them, such as this one:

Hickory dickory dock

The mouse ran up the clock

The clock struck one

The mouse ran down

Hickory dickory dock.

That usually gets rid of them

Brrrrrrrrrrr. 

The mail tracking system is well-intentioned but do we really need to be kept informed where the package  is every step of the way.

First text: Your package has now left the factory.

Second text: It has now been loaded on to the aircraft.

Third text: your package has now been offloaded from the aircraft by a guy in light blue overalls  who is chewing gum.

Fourth: It is in sorting at the airport.

Fifth: It is now at the local depot for dispatch to you tomorrow………

At 7am next morning text message number six wakes me to say that Royal Mail will deliver a  package between 11.32 and 12.32 this morning. 

An hour later the message is repeated.

Shortly after that a no-reply NHS message informs that the flu season is almost upon us and jabs will be made available.

An hour later Royal Mail repeat their message and 10 minutes after that so do the NHS.

Another text tells me the package is now 100 yards away and closing fast.

Knock on the door.

On the step the package, at 12.05 precisely; postman walking away.

A text message with a photo attached, showing the package at my door, informs me the  package has arrived.

Indeed it has.

And so on. Impressive in a way. But totally unnecessary.

Madness takes many forms. Here’s another version.  The other day I observed a local woman from a nearby shop taking care to, as I thought, dead-head flowers in a flower box on the high street. Local traders take care of the town this way, which shows community spirit.

I watched fascinated as she slowly and methodically cut out every single flower on a bush at the centre of the display, every single one, upwards of 40 perfectly formed white flowers. Chopped from their stems. Dropped into a bucket.

Thankfully she gave the rest of the display only scant attention.

Then she stood back, scissors in gloved hand, to admire the now bare green stems she had robbed of their splendid decoration. 

If that shrub had the power of thought, it would be wondering what the hell it had done to deserve that.

She wouldn't have got away with it with Trifids! Remember them? Scary.