Crashes, what can be done?

[Bolder]

We don't know the exact circumstances here but maybe some kind of instantly inflatable helmet bladder could be required. They're in use in various applications in other sports. We've seen a number of helmets that have cracked and done their job but I think it's time for a higher level of protection.

 

[Bolder]

I mean, it's just dumb to primarily blame the descent here when I can name at least 2 other elephants in the room

Do tell. This is a safe space.

 

[Peyroteo94]

We can't blame them for the crash.
We sure as hell can blame them for not realising earlier that there had been a crash.

We don't know if it's true.
I love races without radios however when we see radios can probably save a rider's life, I'm all in for radios.
I think the only way to avoid death on the road is by making all stages/classics a TT (without dangerous descents). Of course this is not gonna happen.

 

[Red Rick]

Do tell. This is a safe space.

Firstly there's the obvious issue that a rider with severe injury effectively went missing and wasn't found until hours later. There's a lot of injuries where that's the difference between a full recovery and dying.

Secondly is the general theme where nothing is done about crashes because nobody is ever proactive and the whole debate about crashes is mostly just ragebait and angry reactions when something does go wrong. There's criticisms about the route every single heavy crash, yet I never hear complaints about a route more than a day or two in advance because riders, teams or the legendary rider's union actually went out and did the *** work to scout for safety issues.

Finally there's the fact that people get into complete denial about riders' own agency and responsibility. That's shown in the silk glove treatment when riders cause each other to crash, as well as in the complete denial that sometimes a rider gets critically injured because of their own mistake and risk managment.

 

[RedheadDane]

We don't know if it's true.
I live races without radios however when we see radios can probably save a rider's life, I'm all in for radios.

As we're discussing above, in this case some sort of automatic sender would probably have been more useful.
Or just... more people keeping an eye on what was going on.

 

[QueenStagiaire]

I don‘t think this one was about the route. I didn‘t see many dangerous spots.

 

[Unchained]

This had me thinking...

In this case, a radio likely wouldn't have made a difference in terms of getting help to her in time, if nobody saw her crash, and she was unconscious, she couldn't have called for help.
Maybe what's needed is some sort of sender, that could send a signal if the rider stops moving.

Lots of Apple and phones running Android have a shock sensor that does exactly this, double duty, asks if you have been involved in an accident, no response treats the signal as a distress call.
Second rider this year that crashed and was discovered post accident, almost randomly. Because we see many pro races with TV and multiple support vehicles, sort of assumed that if you crash someone will be aware immediately, which is not the case. Super sad situation

 

[awavey]

I don‘t think this one was about the route. I didn‘t see many dangerous spots.

I've not seen any of the coverage or route of races this week, so can't comment personally or from experience. I just know in Imogen Wolfs crash in the race she said she ended falling down into a ravine.

Now I appreciate that ravines and mountainous rocky areas are par for the course in the terrain they're riding it, but that you can have a fairly standard innocuous crash for a bike race, but end up falling into a ravine as a result, at which point its arguably down to luck what happens next.

I know you can't crash protect an entire course, but that feels like a danger spot that wasn't identified or mitigated properly.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

The transponders are on the bikes because they're not restrictive to the rider that way, and I get that. We see plenty of occasions where a rider doesn't appear in the results or appears incorrectly in the results because the transponder was knocked loose or off in a crash, or they swap bikes during the stage and the organisers didn't pick up on camera to know that domestique Y's bike that crossed the line in the main bunch was in fact being ridden by team leader X. However, transponders are also used in sports like biathlon, cross-country skiing etc. where they are usually strapped around an athlete's wrist or ankle in order to record their position on the course, and while we see tracking errors sometimes when the technology plays up, it doesn't take long for those to be resolved.

Hell, old-time forumers may remember that back in the early 2017 season, there was a very active thread following the Indian-Pacific Wheel Race, an over 5000km ultra-cycling event, where we were following GPS dots marking the locations of riders over the self-supporting event. The event was cancelled after over 90% distance run when Mike Hall, second on the road, was killed in a collision with a car on the road just before dawn outside Canberra. When it was advised to the public a couple of hours later that they were suspending the race and collecting the riders following the death of a participant, followers of the race had been able to deduce that it was Hall that had been killed in a matter of minutes from the transponder data (because the race was being followed almost solely from the transponder data).

Now the India-Pacific Wheel Race was a super-endurance race, with riders extremely fatigued and fending for themselves riding across an entire continent on open roads, riding all hours of the day and night and carrying their own equipment for survival. If a rider's GPS dot stops moving there, they could have stopped to sleep, they could have been stocking up at a cafe, they could have simply needed to rest for a couple of hours. Mike Hall being hit by a vehicle meant that the incident was reported and he was found immediately, but if a rider had crashed on isolated roadway on their own or fallen into the undergrowth or into a ravine or similar, I can understand why it might have taken a long time for the alarm bells to sound. It is unfathomable to me that such an issue would arise at the UCI Road World Championships with its budget, its prominence, a closed course (much of which being a circuit).

Regards the point on the Itzulia and scouting descents though, it is worth noting that the Worlds course here in Switzerland was approved well before the Itzulia incident took place, and for this type of event it's probably a year or two before those changes are likely to see genuine effect.

 

[Red Rick]

I don‘t think this one was about the route. I didn‘t see many dangerous spots.

Problem is everyone sort of has different definitions of dangerous and a lot of people tend to decide something is dangerous after something happened.

A lot of routes are very dangerous if you make a particularly bad mistake without even being too technical. Many fast descends on wide roads are deemed pretty safe but when *** goes wrong it goes horrendously wrong. Meanwhile some narrow, twisty descends with bad road surfaces the peloton didn't even want to do went by without a hitch cause it turns otu if it's really technical the speed is actually low.

For me the one clear danger part though is off camber corners. That *** scares me.

 

[search]

Furrer lived less than 10km away, so you would assume she knew the descend pretty well - hopefully the investigations will give a better idea of what happened. It feels particularly bad if someone this young comes to death.

 

[Danskebjerge]

Or just... more people keeping an eye on what was going on.

You've said that a couple of times now. What is it exactly you mean was done wrong? To my knowledge, there is no surveillance regarding the entirety of a race course.

 

[jmdirt]

Firstly there's the obvious issue that a rider with severe injury effectively went missing and wasn't found until hours later. There's a lot of injuries where that's the difference between a full recovery and dying.

Secondly is the general theme where nothing is done about crashes because nobody is ever proactive and the whole debate about crashes is mostly just ragebait and angry reactions when something does go wrong. There's criticisms about the route every single heavy crash, yet I never hear complaints about a route more than a day or two in advance because riders, teams or the legendary rider's union actually went out and did the *** work to scout for safety issues.

Finally there's the fact that people get into complete denial about riders' own agency and responsibility. That's shown in the silk glove treatment when riders cause each other to crash, as well as in the complete denial that sometimes a rider gets critically injured because of their own mistake and risk managment.

Look at how much crap Adam Hansen gets just in thisforum alone, even (many) fans don't really want safety.

 

[ashhutch1997]

Problem is everyone sort of has different definitions of dangerous and a lot of people tend to decide something is dangerous after something happened.

A lot of routes are very dangerous if you make a particularly bad mistake without even being too technical. Many fast descends on wide roads are deemed pretty safe but when *** goes wrong it goes horrendously wrong. Meanwhile some narrow, twisty descends with bad road surfaces the peloton didn't even want to do went by without a hitch cause it turns otu if it's really technical the speed is actually low.

For me the one clear danger part though is off camber corners. That *** scares me.

This is true, big wide roads are often where the worse crashes happen as the whole peloton think they can be at front, for example Huy in the 2015 TDF

 

[Danskebjerge]

Finally there's the fact that people get into complete denial about riders' own agency and responsibility. That's shown in the silk glove treatment when riders cause each other to crash, as well as in the complete denial that sometimes a rider gets critically injured because of their own mistake and risk managment.

I noticed that a commentator here (a former cycling star) praised one of the male U 23 riders for taking a downhill turn very quickly despite the wet conditions.

Although the timing was a bit awkward, the comment followed the logic of cycling in the sense that when we're in the "watching a bike race" mode, we don't regard the risk of crashing as an important factor. It's the remarkable fighting spirit of the riders we're interested in. The two things - the risk of severe injury and our fascination of athletes going all in - are somehow living their own separate lives. So in one race, you'll praise Mohoric for going down a mountain at an incredible speed, making spectacular saves as his bike at multiple occasions is about to skid off the road. And in the next race, you'll be shocked to see Mohoric crash and fall into a ravine, and you'll name all the things that the organizers should have thought of in order to have prevented the crash from happening.

 

[Red Rick]

Look at how much crap Adam Hansen gets just in thisforum alone, even (many) fans don't really want safety.

Lol.

It's because Adam Hansen does nothing for safety, and only mouths off when riders don't wanna do the Giro queen stage in the rain.

There's not a single useful thing that he has brought to cycling that has improved safety. The guy is just a publicity merchant who comes on every time something bad happens blaming organisers.

 

[Peyroteo94]

Lol.

It's because Adam Hansen does nothing for safety, and only mouths off when riders don't wanna do the Giro queen stage in the rain.

There's not a single useful thing that he has brought to cycling that has improved safety. The guy is just a publicity merchant who comes on every time something bad happens blaming organisers.

This. People are still ignoring riders accountability and trying to blame everything else. Adam is a disaster to this sport. He just wants to be relevant. Like Redrick said, he demands organizers to cancel a stage because it is raining. Never heard a word from him about how reckless some riders are on the bike.

 

[Red Rick]

This. People are still ignoring riders accountability and trying to blame everything else. Adam is a disaster to this sport. He just wants to be relevant. Like Redrick said, he demands organizers to cancel a stage because it is raining. Never heard a word from him about how reckless some riders are on the bike.

Thing that pisses me off about it most is the obvious emotional manipulation that comes with it. "If you don't agree with me, you must not care about the riders". That sort of crap

 

[search]

As I brought up in the ITT thread, the German Federation also contacted the CPA in advance because they regarded one of the descents (not this one) as potentially dangerous.

Nothing changed. So I guess this means this course was was enough by CPA standards.

 

[Red Rick]

As I brought up in the ITT thread, the German Federation also contacted the CPA in advance because they regarded one of the descents (not this one) as potentially dangerous.

Nothing changed. So I guess this means this course was was enough by CPA standards.

It was the downhill in the ITT right? That one did get a few complaints beforehand but nobody really had any trouble.

 

[Netserk]

As I brought up in the ITT thread, the German Federation also contacted the CPA in advance because they regarded one of the descents (not this one) as potentially dangerous.

Nothing changed. So I guess this means this course was was enough by CPA standards.

Well, this time the race organiser is the UCI. Not an easy target.

 

[Stubb]

Look at how much crap Adam Hansen gets just in thisforum alone, even (many) fans don't really want safety.

Maybe not the best example, the guy is pretty confrontational and has chosen a counterproductive "the cyclist have voted" way of resolving any issue with organizers; all the "objective" prtocols are ignored -heat protocol?, let's ask arensman- and dangerous gts like pologne see injuries after injuries (broken spine this year) and I don't remeber any "mauro vegni of poland is a moron" 2 a.m tweet from hansen.
Plus, the rhetoric "cyclists are workers like you and vegni is the pig master who exploit them" is a bit thin if you consider half of them live in monaco or andorra for the view and the cuisine...

 

[search]

It was the downhill in the ITT right? That one did get a few complaints beforehand but nobody really had any trouble.

yeah, but I'd think they would have a general look at the course, especially if there are complaints?! It's all taking place next to each other anyway.

 

[RedheadDane]

You've said that a couple of times now. What is it exactly you mean was done wrong? To my knowledge, there is no surveillance regarding the entirety of a race course.

Pretty sure that was the first time I simply mentioned more people keeping track of the riders.
And not even knowing where everyone was the whole time, simply someone realising earlier that she hadn't finished.

 

[bNator]

So is this now the most dangerous professional sport when looking at death and serious injuries count per athlete? And in the last couple of years, almost nothing was done to improve safety. Supertuck was banned and that was it. I think at this rate they will reach a breaking point sooner rather than later…

There’s a lot of ideas and nothing ever gets done. It’s amazing, really. Teenagers dying regularly is now the new standard in the sport. Just prescribe stiffer frames, stiffness tests and wider tires. Neutralise wet descends or wet stages in general. Start with something and don’t say nothing can be done.