Interesting! I'm equally ignorant of the mores of group/peloton/race riding. But what I find particularly curious is how Flecha's comment is diametrically opposed to all of the tv commentators' observations about V's behavior post-crash. I think in the first moments, Voeckler had no way of knowing just how bad that crash was. But within moments the remaining 3 of the breakaway were riding tightly together and were conferring amongst themselves. The commentators specifically pointed to V as the leader of the breakaway holding them back in order to get more details and to see how to proceed.

I'm not really sure what Flecha would have wanted Voeckler to do under the circumstances--sacrifice the gap? Abandon his plans to capture the yellow jersey? What happened to Flecha and Hoogerland was awful and totally unfair, but the Tour is still a competition, and there can only be so much cooperation amongst competitors. Flecha's comments, to me, sound a bit like sour grapes. Although I'll be the first to concede that I may be missing some of the finer points of strategy.