A crazy scene unfolded in the 12th stage of the Tour de France this morning when Australian racer Richie Porte collided with a TV motorbike that came to sudden stop in a narrow passage of the course. Porte went flying right into the back of the bike, Bauke Mollema of the Netherlands went into him, and British racer and owner of the yellow jersey Chris Froome made it a three-bike pileup.Froome's bike was unusable after the collision and his team was nowhere to be found with a replacement so…he just started running, which is technically not the way to go about racing in the Tour de France. It's unclear why, it was a narrow passage so maybe he was trying to get out of the way, or get to a spot where his team could get him a replacement bike, but he just started jogging along the course. Eventually he was given a neutral bike, but it was not sized correctly for him and he couldn't get his shoes buckled in. Finally, his team showed up with a replacement bike and he was able to finish the race, though he lost a considerable amount of time.Thomas de Gendt was the stage winner, but as of right now, there has not been a yellow jersey presentation, likely because no one knows how to handle this whole ordeal.
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Update: After deliberating, a jury decided that Froome will retain the yellow jersey after losing enough time to fall down to sixth place. Richie Porte, the first man to go down, described the scene, laying most of the blame on the spectators:"The crowd was on their own, I had to stop riding because I had nowhere to go and went straight over the motorbike. It's just a mess," Porte said. "He's [Froome] on my wheel and went straight into me. I don't know what they're going to do but they need to do something about it, it's not fair."That can't stand, can't happen like that. A jury has to look at it and use some discretion. If they can't control the crowds what can they control? It's not really about motorbikes, it's about the crowd. They're in your face the whole time, pushing riders. It's just crazy."Awaiting jury decision… @LeTour #TDF
— Chris Froome (@chrisfroome) July 14, 2016