In addition to drug scandals, the 07 Tour de France has been dogged by dog collisions. Given that it is one of the largest sporting events in the world you would think that people could have kept their dogs tied up, at least for the few minutes it takes for the peloton to ride by. But then again these are people who bring dogs into restaurants so why not also have them on the bike course. Well, here’s why:

Right after impact the two riders on the left went down hard.

And then on a subsequent stage it happened again. This time with a white dog:

In both cases riders went over the dogs, tumbled and took other riders out. In the photo below you can see the point of impact. Look at what happens to this rider’s front carbon fiber wheel which folds in on itself.

The dogs ran off and the commenters said that the dogs looked okay but after getting run over by a bike going 20+ miles an hour I’m not so sure.

If you don’t follow cycling and are confused then let me give you a more American analogy. I’d be like taking your dogs to the NASCAR races and having them jump out and chase the cars.

If you are a dog lover you do two things. You keep them from harm’s way and you do not go to Atlanta Falcons games.

tour de france

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This entry was posted on Monday, July 30th, 2007 at 5:06 pm by Insider and is filed under Cycling, France, We Taunt You. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.