Tour de France Stage X: Limoges – Issoudun (120 miles)

Stage Winner: Mark Cavendish (his 3rd in TDF ‘09)

General Classification Leader: R. Noncentini (39:11:04)

Lance Armstrong: 3rd (+00:00:08)

Albert Contador: 2nd (+00:00:06)

The TDF directors have decided to ban team radios for Stage X and XIII. Directeur Sportiffs, or team directors, or team managers use the radios to communicate with the cyclists. He or she rides in the team car behind the peloton.

Team Directors, like Johann Bruyneel, are responsible for the tactical aspect of the Tour de France, including determining who will lead the team and who will be a domestique (French: servant). Team cars are equipped with TVs with live coverage of the TDF. As such, directors relay important information to the riders like time-splits and course information.

Matt White, the sport director of Team Garmin-Slipstream was asked how he feels about the absence of radios. He claimed he was unconcerned, but was surprised they chose to do it at the biggest bike race of the year.

As for how riders would get help in the event of an accident or mechanical errorr, he said “Well, the same way as we did 10 years ago, you put your hand up and wait for the car to come up.”

Riders competing without the able assistance of their directors will interesting, a nice experiment. Although I’m not sure what the point is, do the tour directors believe the communication devices are giving an unfair advantage or something else?

So how did the absence of radios affect the race? Plenty of riders and directeur sportiffs were disgruntled about it, there was a signed petition by 10 or so teams, Bruyneel was a major proponent of the petition. It was said the race today had a much slower pace, several tweets by riders (e.g. Leipheimer, Armstrong) mentioned the relaxed pace.

The pace was likely an act of civil disobedience.