Martin Lange // Photo credit: CESAR MANSO / AFP
This Thursday, around ten riders fell heavily in a descent on the Tour of the Basque Country, including the double winner of the Tour de France, the Dane Jonas Vingegaard, still hospitalized this Friday. A new fall when the season has only just begun and which raises questions about the safety of professional runners.
Disasters have been coming one after the other in recent weeks in the world of cycling. Jonas Vingegaard and Evenepoel this Thursday, Wout van Aert last week in Flanders. The Tour of the Basque Country is already the fourth race canceled since the start of the season due to a fall and especially a lack of ambulances for the riders. How to explain this nervousness in the pelotons?
Speed, the main cause of falls in the peloton
Each fall has its context. This Thursday, for example, the Basque Peio Bilbao, who knows these roads by heart, pointed out the covering of the asphalt with tree roots. But according to him, the runners knew this and should have adapted their speed. This is also the opinion of Marc Madiot, former rider and boss of the Groupama FDJ team.
“The main problem in cycling today is the speed and the equipment made available to riders to go faster and faster. We are on roads that are increasingly safe for riding with all types of vehicles “And we arrive with bicycles which are small Formula 1 cars. We want to go faster and faster in places where we are supposed to go slower,” explains Marc Madiot.
Is the peloton going faster and faster? In almost all races the average speed record is broken, thanks in particular to increasingly revolutionary equipment. Brakes which allow you to brake later and later, but which lead to gigantic pile-ups. Others point the finger at the earpieces that distract runners. So what solutions can be found to reduce these regulated or regulated speeds?
Sunday, on the Paris-Roubaix, the organizers installed a chicane at the entrance to the terrible Arenberg gap. The objective: to slow down the runners with a simple idea: a fall at 35km/h will do less damage than a fall at 60km/h.