Crashes, what can be done?

[Libertine Seguros]

Modern pro cycling indeed is much more about that, basically full gas racing, like all the time. So much nedded adaptations in the other fronts are in my opinion needed, instead of saying it's the riders fault and that is that.

The problem with that is, if you just say "cycling is just like that now" and absolve the riders of any responsibility for the increased level of unsafe racing, then why can't race organisers just say "the geography of Italy is just like that now" and insist on racing in unsafe conditions?

The péloton has to race more responsibly, or the UCI need to start meting out punishments to riders or teams whose unsafe actions create accidents. Yes, the sport has changed, but while the courses can adapt to some extent, it's still an outdoor sport that takes place on infrastructure that has to deal with public use the rest of the year, it's not a closed circuit like F1, so while there are obligations that can be placed on organisers, there is an upper ceiling on what they are able to do. And maybe some riders have to recognise that if you go 100% all-out all the time paying no heed to the consequences, sometimes there will be consequences, and you can only a absolve yourself of blame and push it onto organisers so far.

Take Jakobsen/Groenewegen. The organiser was negligent in agreeing such a finish, and shoring up the structure with bricks made the accident so much worse than it needed to be. Czesław Lang and his team were rightly punished for their irresponsibility. BUT, it wasn't them that caused the crash, it was Dylan Groenewegen's irresponsibility that caused the crash and he was punished for his part. Lang and co. were punished for the outcome of the crash being worse than it needed to be had they done their job more appropriately.

 

[CyclistAbi]

@Libertine Seguros

Riders in my opinion do already take the largest portion of responsibility, as for riders this is not just a word, instead it involves a couple of months of healing. Per season. Now the idea riders themself will change current affairs in modern pro peloton in regards to safety. How? By refusing to race? Modern pro peloton is what it is, this won't change over night. Other things need to accommodate and take it as is as it won't change to the extent some drastic improvement in regards to rider safety to emerge as a result.

Organisers currently do take some form of responsibility, mostly in the terms of (accumulated) backlash. Some are even willing to be an active participant in improving safety.

UCI in my opinion currently refuses to take any meaningful form of responsibility. For example, when the big 3 crashed, their comment went in the direction we will look into it but before doing that we are almost sure it was riders fault, so the case is closed? This attitude is just so misplaced. And what if it was 120% riders fault? Who cares. Cycling is not a penal correction facility on where you deserve to get injured if it's your fault. So here UCI in my opinion really needs to make some fundamental shift in terms of perception of their role in regards to riders safety in pro peloton. Just like governing bodies did in other sports. Imagine if in F1 a governing body would make such a statement, well, it's the rider fault, to crash, so beyond that it doesn't concern us. Shot on the spot.

Fans and their responsibility. Here we can for sure try and things will improve with things like better education. But focusing too much on the fans in terms of generally taking responsibility and improving safety in pro peloton is likely a bit misplaced.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Here's the thing though... nobody wants to see riders injured, but if a rider takes a risk divebombing a colleague, following somebody too close on a descent, or launching into a blind corner at full speed... they know that the risk is there and what the consequences are if they come off. If they crash because they rode like a reckless lunatic, then I'm not going to hold the organiser responsible. If they crash because the organiser put a hairpin bend on dusty roads 600m from the end of a sprint stage and the riders simply couldn't negotiate it safely, then I'm not going to hold the péloton responsible.

But if they crash because a rider rode like a reckless lunatic, but the impact of the crash is worsened by the organisers' doing, such as the bricks in the Tour de Pologne or the uncovered culvert in the Itzulia... it doesn't miraculously absolve the riders of blame for the incident and lay it all on the organisers' door, because the crash was the riders' fault.

You say the modern pro péloton can't change overnight, but it can change an awful lot faster - and is a lot more realistic - than changing the entire infrastructure of Europe and everywhere else that hosts bike races to make it so that the riders can plunge into any corner they like at any speed they like without there being an inherent risk in doing so.

You are using F1 as the comparative, but you need to use something like rally, the Pikes Peak hill climb or the Isle of Man TT, because cycling doesn't use purpose-built courses, and it has to deal with roads that come with all of the trappings that regular public use entails. They will never be able to make the sport truly 'safe', only 'safer'. There is an upper limit to what the UCI and the race organisers can do, the péloton is not absolved of responsibility for safety just because they want to go 100% all the time and not have to think about the risk. Most of the riders who enter the Isle of Man TT want to go 100% all the time too. For 269 of them, it's been the last thing they've ever wanted to do.

 

[CyclistAbi]

Here's the thing though... nobody wants to see riders injured, but if a rider takes a risk divebombing a colleague, following somebody too close on a descent, or launching into a blind corner at full speed... they know that the risk is there and what the consequences are if they come off. If they crash because they rode like a reckless lunatic, then I'm not going to hold the organiser responsible. If they crash because the organiser put a hairpin bend on dusty roads 600m from the end of a sprint stage and the riders simply couldn't negotiate it safely, then I'm not going to hold the péloton responsible.

But if they crash because a rider rode like a reckless lunatic, but the impact of the crash is worsened by the organisers' doing, such as the bricks in the Tour de Pologne or the uncovered culvert in the Itzulia... it doesn't miraculously absolve the riders of blame for the incident and lay it all on the organisers' door, because the crash was the riders' fault.

Responsibility, from legal point of view, that is something, AFAIK, currently non existent in the sense of clarity. AFAIK you as a rider, or representative, basically signs a piece of paper, for being able to participate at some stage/race, for the organiser not to be responsible in case you injure yourself. And in the end it's not like organiser will have any initiative to care if it's your fault or not. This is something fans are usually caught up with determining, mostly for entertainment purposes. So currently more or less a wild west.

Why?

What you can do, as a riders that got injured, is you can still take legal action in a regular court but i rarely see it happen. For example i read a while back a rider is taking legal action against an organizer and there was or still is an ongoing dispute between riders from that prominent Tour de Pologne crash.

Now on why it took 100 years of road cycling and for legal responsibility to still be so inadequate. It's rather clear i guess, nobody else wants to take any responsibility whatsoever, it's all on riders ATM.

You say the modern pro péloton can't change overnight, but it can change an awful lot faster - and is a lot more realistic - than changing the entire infrastructure of Europe and everywhere else that hosts bike races to make it so that the riders can plunge into any corner they like at any speed they like without there being an inherent risk in doing so.

We discussed this in detail and i feel that the initial idea, on how you need to secure 200km of roads per stage, that turned out to be not as bad. That is it usually comes down to a couple of kilometres per stage. Bridges, corners on dangerous descends, finale ... So all in all no biggie. In terms of setting some inflatable barriers with commercial space available on them and making sure that road sections don't have big holes in the surface. It's like if we at first thought 200km seems a whole lot, it does, but realistically you need to make sure you secured in between 1% to 5% of the exposed sections. For the rest, less exposed sections, you carry a personal airbag anyway. Yeah, i know, not yet. I am talking from the perspective on where a decision will be made to actually do something. Beyond measuring socks and things like that.

You are using F1 as the comparative, but you need to use something like rally, the Pikes Peak hill climb or the Isle of Man TT, because cycling doesn't use purpose-built courses, and it has to deal with roads that come with all of the trappings that regular public use entails. They will never be able to make the sport truly 'safe', only 'safer'. There is an upper limit to what the UCI and the race organisers can do, the péloton is not absolved of responsibility for safety just because they want to go 100% all the time and not have to think about the risk. Most of the riders who enter the Isle of Man TT want to go 100% all the time too. For 269 of them, it's been the last thing they've ever wanted to do.

I used F1 as an example to say FIA, as a governing body, takes riders safety seriously and objectively the number of injuries and deaths decreased dramatically. That is on the same purpose-built course type of race. On where UCI, as a governing body, doesn't take riders safety seriously and objectively the number of injuries and even deaths is high. UCI can do better and we will force them to do better. I am sure that the number of injuries will reduce in the next decade and that UCI will play an important role in achieving that, if they want it or not, better if they take a positive stance on it then to be forced into it. Either way it will happen. For example three to five years back you couldn't unite the riders, now that isn't a problem any more, organisers are as such under more pressure, UCI is next. It's like with doping, UCI was the last stronghold. Safety is now what doping was back then, we are in pre-safe era and that is about to change.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

In what way is F1 on "the same purpose-built courses". Road cycling can't do that, it doesn't have them, hence why I compared it to Pikes Peak or the Isle of Man TT.

And the thing about covering only a couple of particular parts of a course, that is achievable and is something that the organisers can do, but it won't stop accidents happening elsewhere. And then you'll get a bad accident somewhere and people will be like, "how tf could the organisers think THAT part of the course was dangerous and THIS part wasn't?" and so on.

Yes, organisers have to react to the way that the modern péloton behaves in terms of how they set their courses. But at the same time, riders have to bear some responsibility for their own recklessness. They can't just divebomb each other into corners, sweep through entire packs at turbo speed without looking, or ignore the road conditions and then just blame the organisers.

At the same time I honestly think another effect has been the increased professionalism in the péloton and more recently also this push for shorter, more explosive racing. A lot of the time the bunch is much bigger than it would have been in yesteryear, so there is less space to work with, and small time gaps are more important, making being up near the front more crucial. The more recent trend toward Unipuertos and short stages that mean the riders can go flying around at 100% all the time has exacerbated this. More 220-240km stages where riders have to think about dosing their efforts or more domestiques are required to do their job and then drop off giving more space in the péloton might actually improve safety. I know, counter-intuitive and all, but I think it is a factor, that the riders are fresh enough to give that 100% effort and go at the kind of speeds they go nowadays, but now they're doing it in a full péloton of 140 riders rather than a reduced one of 70 - but they're still using the same roads.

 

[AmRacer]

but I think it is a factor, that the riders are fresh enough to give that 100% effort and go at the kind of speeds they go nowadays, but now they're doing it in a full péloton of 140 riders rather than a reduced one of 70 - but they're still using the same roads.

That might be a discussion for the"State of the Peloton" clinic thread.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

That might be a discussion for the"State of the Peloton" clinic thread.

Only to some extent. The part I'm talking about here is the organisers' side.

The proliferation of shorter stages and the trend toward Unipuerto 'youtube cycling' does mean we are seeing far less selectivity.

There's also another factor that the centralisation of the top talent in the sport in the same group of WT teams means that we don't have the talent spread across as many teams as when there were multiple strong ProContis, and by proxy therefore people that might have been leaders across a number of smaller teams that split out the calendar are now filling out spots as domestiques in super-teams, driving the pace up yet further. A pile-up in a péloton of twice the size is likely to create more injuries - and a péloton with a higher % of name value riders is likely to have a higher chance of injuries to big name riders when those pile-ups happen.

Unfortunately, that's just one of the prices that we have to pay for Premier League Cycling with a semi-locked top level of the elites and their concentration into a small number of high quality, high depth teams. But while the organisers have to react in their course design and provisions to reflect the behaviours of the cyclists, the cyclists themselves also have to react to the changes in the péloton's structure increasing the risk attached to their actions.

 

[CyclistAbi]

@Libertine Seguros

The point was when F1 started to take safety seriously, things improved in this regard. Imagine that. I agree on the point that more professionalism is one of the culprits pro peloton has become so fragile. As less professionalism in not something we need, or should push for, what we need is more professional attitude toward improving safety in pro peloton, as this is still ongoing on an amateur level ATM.

As for the responsibility. I feel that we already established that riders are the ones, to take sole responsibility. So solutions that demand more responsibility, for riders, that would further exempt other parties of any responsibility whatsoever. Here it on how it currently works:

• Riders take all responsibility.
• Organisers are lately under some scrutiny, still they can pretty much do anything and get away with it.
• UCI. Takes no responsibility whatsoever, beyond measuring socks and things like that.
• Fans, you got to love the fans, they at least feel responsible to always try to determinate on who's fault it was.

That might be a discussion for the"State of the Peloton" clinic thread.

It doesn't mater, even if they are all doped, road is not a penal correction facility and they don't deserve to get injured because of it.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

@Libertine Seguros

The point was when F1 started to take safety seriously, things improved in this regard. Imagine that. I agree on the point that more professionalism is one of the culprits pro peloton has become so fragile. As less professionalism in not something we need, or should push for, what we need is more professional attitude toward improving safety in pro peloton, as this is still ongoing on an amateur level ATM.

As for the responsibility. I feel that we already established that riders are the ones, to take sole responsibility. So solutions that demand more responsibility, for riders, that would further exempt other parties of any responsibility whatsoever. Here it on how it currently works:

• Riders take all responsibility.
• Organisers are lately under some scrutiny, still they can pretty much do anything and get away with it.
• UCI. Takes no responsibility whatsoever, beyond measuring socks and things like that.
• Fans, you got to love the fans, they at least feel responsible to always try to determinate on who's fault it was.

It doesn't mater, even if they are all doped, road is not a penal correction facility and they don't deserve to get injured because of it.

But do the riders really take all responsibility? You see all the opprobrium directed at race directors for the injuries to major contenders this season, but the crashes in the Classics were not caused by the race directors, they were caused by the péloton. The crash in Itzulia was definitely made worse by errors and omissions on the part of the race directors, but the crash itself was caused by the péloton going way too fast for the roads they were on. You can say what you will about noting various hazards, the fact of the matter is, inconsistent mountain roads in the Basque Country are just a fact of life and you inherently accept that risk the second you enter a race in that part of the world, and you have to adjust your conduct on the bike accordingly to accommodate that.

I'm not saying that riders deserve to get injured, I'm saying that the race organisers don't deserve to get blamed for injuries that they didn't have any contribution to, and saying (paraphrased) "riders go into corners not respecting the road or one another, and it's the fault of the race organisers for not responding to that to ensure that the riders can take any risk they like without fear of consequence" is unfair on the organisers. Crashes caused by reckless moves in sprints or just lack of concentration in the bunch are always going to happen, and often happen on the most innocuous stretches of road.

Race organisers arranging ridiculously complicated run-ins for sprint stages, not placing barriers properly, things like that, that can be clamped down on. But what were the organisers meant to do about the Dwars door Vlaanderen crash where van Aert got injured? That could happen anytime, anywhere.

 

[CyclistAbi]

@Libertine Seguros

Yes, riders in my opinion currently take most if not all of the responsibility. If you will read your reply again, you will notice that you are actually aware of that. That is you mention it would be unfair to organisers if they would need to take more responsibility. You don't mention UCI at all.

Anyway. On why you personally likely don't want for riders to be awarded with more responsibility, to make the peloton a more safe working environment in regard to reducing injuries, as that would lead to another aspect that AFAIK you are against. With awarding even more responsibility to the riders, to improve safety in the peloton and by other parties doing nothing , what would happen is with such responsibility comes the power too. That is riders will start to dictate more and more the terms and conditions of racing on stages and races. Basically they will start doing the job organisers and UCI should be doing, for them. And we all know on how well that is received by the fans, when it happens on some small scale.

And again i will use F1 as an example here. It wasn't the riders that improved safety, beyond being vocal and proactive about it. Other parties did it.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Where do I state riders shouldn't be more responsible for avoiding accidents? It's precisely my point that the riders are causing accidents by riding as though they are unaware of the consequences and then blaming race organisers for accidents that occur. What I'm saying is that race organisers can do something about the things that are their own fault, like the run-in in Naples, but they can't do anything about things like riders pulling reckless moves on one another.

I've already said I don't think F1 is a valid comparison because a lot of what eas done was in respect of the circuits, which were mainly permanent facilities. The FIA were able to strongarm the circuit owners with the threat of losing their GP into making changes that simply wouldn't be possible on an entire road infrastructure that would be necessary to do the same for cycling, which is why I raised public-road Motorsport events like Pikes Peak and the Isle of Man TT as more accurate comparisons for the limitations on what organisers can do in cycling. And I would argue Jackie Stewart had a far greater role in F1's progress on that front than just complaining about safety.

The issue for me is not giving the riders more power when it comes to safety but that, at present, the riders are looking in the wrong place and not being self-reflective enough. The only times they seem to take action is when they don't like the weather, or in 2020 they just think a stage is too long. But making a stage long is actually one of the things organisers can do for safety, because riders will have to manage their efforts better than in a short stage where they can go all guns blazing throughout. The riders used to be a bit better at self-policing riders that took too many risks in close quarters racing, too.

 

[Armchair Cyclist]

"Crashes: What can be done?"
Some meaningful disincentive to dangerous rulebreaking would be a start:

Addy Engels got a 500 CHF penalty for towing Milan back to the field with the Jumbo car

For Milan himself it was a bit cheaper, and probably worth the couple of points he lost due to it.

Sheltering behind or taking advantage of the slipstream of a vehicle.
200 CHF fine, 15 penalty points in the points classification and 15 pts in the UCI rankings

Milan got 130 UCI points, 35 points classification points, and ~5,500 CHF for coming second yesterday.

Can somebody please explain the concept of deterrence here?

 

[CyclistAbi]

@Libertine Seguros

Likely you misunderstood what i said. Indeed what you are arguing all along is it's solely riders fault. You don't even seem to acknowledge organisers and especially UCI could do better. Just like you are trying to misinterpret the F1 comparison, by claiming circuits are not the same as road racing. The point here was that once FIA decided safety is important, after that safety in the caravan improved, before that FIA was neglecting safety and safety was arguably worse.

So you see it wasn't the riders that ultimately improved safety in the caravan, just as it won't be the riders, that will improve safety in the pro peloton. And until that happens, well, until then riders will more and more "strike". Gone are the days, on where riders perceived themself as a dumb livestock and believed it's solely their fault. Now they understand they can stop the circus at any point they desire, until people responsible for their safety start to do better, from time to time they will act on it to make their point. Until ultimately all parties involved take their share of responsibility.

 

[CyclistAbi]

Two areas exposed at Giro still in need of some work.

Fan education. Pogi already started educating fans on stage 20 and if this won't suffice then peloton should protect itself. A fan punching a rider in the ribs is punishable by gruppetto isolating the fan and to educate the fan, or something like that. Or indeed maybe a better option, Eurosport spot on education, as when majority of fans will be educated, fans themself will prevent such things from occurring. As currently you can't blame the fans for being stupid if you have done nothing to educate them.

Sunscreen. No.1 advice and some still seem not to get it. UAE car forgetting to bring sunscreen, that should be punishable by DS losing the spot in the car for remainder of the race. There is just no excuse on when it comes to sunscreen.

 

[Froome]

@Libertine Seguros

Likely you misunderstood what i said. Indeed what you are arguing all along is it's solely riders fault. You don't even seem to acknowledge organisers and especially UCI could do better. Just like you are trying to misinterpret the F1 comparison, by claiming circuits are not the same as road racing. The point here was that once FIA decided safety is important, after that safety in the caravan improved, before that FIA was neglecting safety and safety was arguably worse.

So you see it wasn't the riders that ultimately improved safety in the caravan, just as it won't be the riders, that will improve safety in the pro peloton. And until that happens, well, until then riders will more and more "strike". Gone are the days, on where riders perceived themself as a dumb livestock and believed it's solely their fault. Now they understand they can stop the circus at any point they desire, until people responsible for their safety start to do better, from time to time they will act on it to make their point. Until ultimately all parties involved take their share of responsibility.

Organisers and UCI have some part of responsability in crashes, but the main responsability is on the riders.

Just look at some crashes that happened in final sprints, because the sprinters are crazy guys, or look at the crash on Itzulia. Yes, there were some minor bumps in the road, but why the riders did the descent so fast, taking so many risks? It doesn't make any sense, especially when they did the previous climb in a slow pace. There's also riders who need to improve his bike handling, because they put others riders in risk because of that.

Who was the fault in the crash of Van aert in March? It was all on the riders again.

Sometimes there's some responsability by UCI and organisers, but the main responsability is on the riders.

 

[CyclistAbi]

@Froome

It's like with doping, until UCI took responsibility, EPO and Co. was a thing. And let me remind you UCI was the last stronghold, on when it comes to supporting doping.

The exact same thing is now happening in regards to safety in the pro peloton. UCI is the one major party against it, improving safety, they are keeping the system as is.

Organisers i am sure will follow the lead, long term.

Fans, well i can't really blame the fans, for fans blaming the riders. That is just a cultural thing, as after all fans had about 100 years to improve on their craft, determining and blaming on which rider fault it is. Fans in reality couldn't care less about riders safety in the pro peloton. For fans this is pure entertainment, has been for millenniums.

 

[Froome]

@Froome

It's like with doping, until UCI took responsibility, EPO and Co. was a thing. And let me remind you UCI was the last stronghold, on when it comes to supporting doping.

The exact same thing is now happening in regards to safety in the pro peloton. UCI is the one major party against it, improving safety, they are keeping the system as is.

Organisers i am sure will follow the lead, long term.

Fans, well i can't really blame the fans, for fans blaming the riders. That is just a cultural thing, as after all fans had about 100 years to improve on their craft, determining and blaming on which rider fault it is. Fans in reality couldn't care less about riders safety in the pro peloton. For fans this is pure entertainment, has been for millenniums.

The only thing UCI and organisers can do is trying to use better and safe roads sometimes, but the majority of the crashes are not due to that.

The riders are the ones who can really change that, not UCI or organisers. What you think UCI and organisers can do to not let the riders take less and unnecessary risks?

They always want to be in good position in the front of the peloton, but there's no space for everybody. It's not UCI fault.


This has nothing to do with doping, different matter.

 

[CyclistAbi]

@Froome

Far from it and rest assured that UCI will do a much much better job in this regard in the future.

 

[Froome]

@Froome

Far from it and rest assured that UCI will do a much much better job in this regard in the future.

In your opinion what you think UCI can do?

 

[CyclistAbi]

In your opinion what you think UCI can do?

Best if you read this thread. There is a long list already, of the things they aren't doing and should be doing. For starters.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Best if you read this thread. There is a long list already, of the things they aren't doing and should be doing. For starters.

Maybe regulating rider behaviours could be a start, since the riders divebombing each other and sprinting on the crab seems to be a recurring problem.

Again: FIA could have more control of safety in F1 because the circuits are enclosed, and they own the land they are using, they can modify the circuits. Just look at the shape changes over time of long-time courses like Silverstone or Monza. Cycling not only makes less money than F1, but it uses public roads a far greater % of the time. They can't, say, instruct ASO to construct a 20m tarmac run-off at a hairpin on a mountain road or a sharp corner in an inner-city sprint run-in the way FIA can instruct circuit owners for F1. ASO can maybe get some kerbs dropped or a traffic island flattened to make things more passable, but for most organisers, just getting local councils to fill in potholes in the road is probably the sum of the influence they can have. Smaller races can't afford to shut down large metropoles or use major highways and thoroughfares, so they have to use smaller roads which are by definition going to be less busy and less well maintained. While the organisers may occasionally need to be brought to rights for taking too many risks with their choice of roads, the riders have to adjust their behaviours to the roads they face. You can't descend a mountain road in the Basque country, with its inconsistent goat tracks and sharp faces, in the same way as you would descend a mountain road in, say, Colorado, built with much more modern machinery with much better road surface, wider and better signposted. It's not because Basque race organisers are trying to injure riders, but because that's what cycling in the Basque country entails. Cycling in Belgium has poor concrete and pavé road surfaces. Cycling in the Netherlands has road furniture everywhere. Cycling in Brétagne has repechos and tight corners on narrow farm tracks. Cycling in País Vasco has inconsistent, twisty mountain roads. That's just how it is, and I'm not going to be all that sympathetic if you're riding flat-out like you're on some sweeping bends on a highway with tarmac to make Bavarianrider swoon and then blaming race organisers for any accidents because you didn't know that they had twisty steep roads in the Basque country.

They can maybe put clearer rules on what is allowable in a sprint approach to try to minimise those stages with crazy amounts of road furniture, pinch points or sharp corners that increase the risk of crashes; they can maybe do more to enforce rules in the leadout and the sprint in order to punish those who ride recklessly - but the problem with that is that historically they've policed the outcome, not the offence, and the first time they policed the offence and relegated Peter Sagan in a TDF sprint stage contentiously, everybody yelled at them for ruining a good battle for the maillot vert.

But the Wout van Aert injury crash was caused on a perfectly flat, three-lane-wide piece of road. That's the kind of crash you simply can't avoid, because cycling is an outdoor sport. It is susceptible to weather - a bit of cross-wind can cause a touch of wheels or a loss of control temporarily that results in a crash. Marta Cavalli's terrible injuries a couple of years ago were caused because another rider had had a crash or mechanical and were riding head down as hard as they could to get back on to the bunch, and didn't react to another crash in front of them - both on a perfectly straight and innocuous piece of road. The Itzulia crash may have had worse effects because the organisers didn't put haybales or catch fencing on the outside of the corner... but it was the riders going too fast for the road that caused the crash to happen in the first place, and the way the riders had soft-pedalled the climb before charging headlong into the descent meant the péloton was far bigger than it would have been otherwise so more riders ended up becoming involved.

It's not that UCI or race organisers can't or shouldn't be held responsible, it's that they can - and should - only be held responsible for the outcomes they have any level of control over. Van Aert's and Cavalli's injuries are things that are entirely outside of organisers' responsibility. Things like Jakobsen's injuries or the Itzulia crash, we can blame the organisers for the outcomes of the crashes being worse than they should have been had the organisers done their job more responsibly, but we can't blame them for causing the crashes themselves, because Jakobsen didn't crash thanks to an unsafe finish, he crashed because of Dylan Groenewegen's unsafe riding - that was made worse by an unsafe finish.

Throughout this thread you've seemed to hang on to some idealised possibility where the riders can continue to throw themselves around with reckless abandon at 100% power at all times, taking every risk in the world, as the UCI and the race organisers will have the responsibility to guarantee their safety; but I'm afraid that's simply not possible. Cycling will never be made 'safe', only 'safer' - to think that real progress can be achieved with only one party taking action is naïve.

One problem is that the péloton used to self-police a lot more vocally and self-evidently. Riders who took too many risks in sprints and leadouts, like Graeme Brown or Romain Feillu, or who caused a particularly bad crash that ruined their reputation, like Roberto Ferrari or Theo Bos, had the bunch to answer to, and there were enforcer types in the bunch who would let the péloton's dissatisfaction with a rider be known, such as a Mark Renshaw. This self-policing meant the UCI didn't need to get involved all that often unless somebody did something so egregious it merited a standout punishment (such as Theo Bos literally wrestling Daryl Impey off his bike).

 

[CyclistAbi]

@Libertine Seguros

Thanks for trying to acknowledge a different point view. That is although more then 2/3 of your reply was again about all being it riders fault, you at least mentioned other parties involved this time. Although arguing things like other parties involved are too poor to do anything to improve safety in pro peloton, that at least opens up possibility to say OK, with more money involved in the future, things can finally improve.

So all in all i support an effort on where in general some portion of money involved is secured for the purpose of improving riders safety. So the money not to be sole excuse any more, on how nothing can be done, due to lack of money.

As we discussed this already in length, better apparel and barriers on exposed sections on descends. If that would be enforced already, financially rather negligible measures, big three would not end up in hospital and van Aert likely to still do the Giro. Both of the things mentioned are outside of riders influence or control. So in the end and from this point of view it doesn't really matter, if the big 3 crashed, if van Aert crashed ... What does matter is UCI didn't do anything about it, to prevent an injury, on where the crash does occur. This is their responsibility and we will make them take it.

 

[CyclistAbi]

@Froome

So in short, in regards to your question, responsibility division and a plausible way forward. There is much more to it but saying:

• Riders main responsibility is to try to avoid a crash.
• UCI main responsibility is injury prevention in case of a crash.

Now that doesn't in any way exempt UCI of responsibility to be pro-active in regards to reducing the number of crashes in the first place. As for injury prevention, this is currently a sci-fi topic for UCI and they are doing mostly nothing about it, this hence will need to change in foreseeable future. UCI will need to take more responsibility in regards to not only reduce number of crashes but especially in regards to injury prevention on where a crash occurs. Barriers, apparel ... you name it. Like FIA did, mostly with technical measures. Although predictable rule enforcement in regards to racing helps too, that doesn't help in a case of a crash, to reduce a number of injuries. For that appropriate technical measures need to be taken into consideration and to be applied beforehand the crash occurs.

 

[Froome]

@Froome

So in short, in regards to your question, responsibility division and a plausible way forward. There is much more to it but saying:

• Riders main responsibility is to try to avoid a crash.
• UCI main responsibility is injury prevention in case of a crash.

Now that doesn't in any way exempt UCI of responsibility to be pro-active in regards to reducing the number of crashes in the first place. As for injury prevention, this is currently a sci-fi topic for UCI and they are doing mostly nothing about it, this hence will need to change in foreseeable future. UCI will need to take more responsibility in regards to not only reduce number of crashes but especially in regards to injury prevention on where a crash occurs. Barriers, apparel ... you name it. Like FIA did, mostly with technical measures. Although predictable rule enforcement in regards to racing helps too, that doesn't help in a case of a crash, to reduce a number of injuries. For that appropriate technical measures need to be taken into consideration and to be applied beforehand the crash occurs.

I don't think airbag bib shorts are the solution.....it would turn cycling into a circus.

 

[CyclistAbi]

I don't think airbag bib shorts are the solution.....it would turn cycling into a circus.

It's already a circus.

P.S. As for enforcing one solution or another, it doesn't really matter, as long as number of (crashes) injuries gets reduced. So first things first, UCI to claim responsibility, being helped into it, then it's all more or less measurable. The results. And we all know on how UCI is good at measuring things.