Crashes, what can be done?

[Pozzovivo]

everything will be marginal until you ban pro cycling

Reductio ad absurdum. Nobody is arguing for zero risk or banning the sport. The question is whether we can materially reduce severe crashes while keeping cycling recognisable. If you think only a ban counts as “non marginal,” then you’re defining “meaningful” in a way that makes discussion impossible. Someone wrote the exact same type of response a year ago in this thread - why even do this when people are clearly trying to have a serious conversation about the topic.

 

[Netserk]

who said anything about meaningful

 

[Armchair Cyclist]

As to suggestions of marginalising sprint finishes:
I wonder to what extent sprint finish towns subsidise MTFs in stage races. Basic geographical/historical requirements for a human settlement mean they are more likely to be in major valleys or coastal plains. The venues of sprint finishes can afford more, because of their populations. They also have more accessible hotels and other facilities, so for all but the biggest "must-attend" events, will draw the teams that can afford to be fussy. Race organisers with a few big budget, big city finishes can afford to run MTFs as loss leaders to attract viewers and a different group of riders.

Suggesting that sprint stages do not belong in road racing means, I suspect, a very different landscape for race organisers.

 

[Divergence]

As to suggestions of marginalising sprint finishes:
I wonder to what extent sprint finish towns subsidise MTFs in stage races. Basic geographical/historical requirements for a human settlement mean they are more likely to be in major valleys or coastal plains. The venues of sprint finishes can afford more, because of their populations. They also have more accessible hotels and other facilities, so for all but the biggest "must-attend" events, will draw the teams that can afford to be fussy. Race organisers with a few big budget, big city finishes can afford to run MTFs as loss leaders to attract viewers and a different group of riders.

Suggesting that sprint stages do not belong in road racing means, I suspect, a very different landscape for race organisers.

Well, things constantly change and I see no reason why the traditional city finishes cannot go the way of the Dodo bird. You can still start in a city and possibly have the caravan sleep over in a city, just do everything to reduce the risk of mass crashes. And pancake flat sprint stages with a finish in the city center are the single biggest mass crash cause.

 

[AmRacer]

Well, things constantly change and I see no reason why the traditional city finishes cannot go the way of the Dodo bird. You can still start in a city and possibly have the caravan sleep over in a city, just do everything to reduce the risk of mass crashes. And pancake flat sprint stages with a finish in the city center are the single biggest mass crash cause.

Maybe a heavier body can sustain the cobbles better.

 

[Cookster15]

Nobody serious is saying “halve the number of teams to 11” or “keep 22 teams but slash them to 4 riders.” Of course those are awkward.
The obvious middle ground is what many people are actually advocating: a modest reduction that keeps the sport recognizable while lowering the crash pressure. Something like 14 to 16 teams with 6 riders for the biggest events. That preserves team tactics, leadership protection, and race identity, while materially reducing the number of bodies involved in the same fight for space.

Yes. I only gave two extremes to help frame discussion. 16 teams of 6 riders (96) might achieve the safety gains yet preserve the race dynamics and marketing aspects.

The main thing I wanted was an alternative to passive safety measures being discussed. As in road safety it is always better to avoid crashing than soften the injury once you do.

You mentioned the other day that you analyzed a correlation between peloton size and incidence of crashes ( number of crashed riders and impact of crashes)? I only briefly looked at the Tour de France to gauge an idea (Google AI search). Since I missed that if you could share or link to that it would be helpful?

But we can also talk about this here, but I hope the UCI is seriously looking into similar.

 

[CyclistAbi]

I don't feel that the number of riders in peloton is all that safety related discussion. IMHO if you can't improve the situation for 180 riders you won't improve situation for 90 riders either. The only relevant positive statistical indicator to be expected is hence reduction of occurrences simply due to less participants. I feel that more should be done than that and that this really isn't a solution. Simply reducing the number of participants and saying stats dropped and not doing anything else.

https://cyclinguptodate.com/cycling/the-same-stupid-mistakes-keep-being-made-it-feels-like-a-lost-cause-matteo-trentin-blasts-cyclings-repeated-safety-failings

Here for example i read:

“And then people drag in the issue of race radios, which, in my opinion, is only talked about to hide from the real problems.”

I tend to agree.

 

[elguapo]

Crashes would be minimize if, BIG IF, discourage sprinters' train or prohibit drafting similar to the cycling portion of triathlon. However, this is a "wasteful" thinking.

 

[proffate]

And multiple teams would not have 4 rouleurs each just to pull and position on flatter courses. More breaks would win and teams would select different type of riders.

And limits the advantage of well funded teams.

I guess versatile doms like wout, wellens, kwia would be even more valuable. And even a dom can be fun to watch when they put in an epic individual performance.

I have no problem with sprints but surely fewer stages go to sprints if the teams are less powerful.

Honestly can't think of many downsides to reducing team size, except some guys will be left home so sucks for them I guess.

 

[Pozzovivo]

And limits the advantage of well funded teams.

Exactly. Considerably harder for the best teams to control a race, and much more would be possible for the rest. Would drastically improve the chances of dual leader strategy also.

It's much more risky for UAE to bring Almeida or similar to ride for his own result, but only negatively to get top 5, if they have 6 riders at the start.

It would be much more effective of reducing the "unfair" playing field enabled by unequal funding. Much more realistic suggestion than salary/budget cap.

 

[SHAD0W93]

With decreased riders at each race you just cut multiple riders from a job since there’s no more space for them. Not to mention auxiliary staff. That then potentially cripples the sport more because less want to get into it.

 

[Unchained]

With decreased riders at each race you just cut multiple riders from a job since there’s no more space for them. Not to mention auxiliary staff. That then potentially cripples the sport more because less want to get into it.

Your points are absolutely true. A thing that seems to be overlooked, pro racing is all about the spectacle.. It's a traveling circus. People love the largesse of it all, teams, team buses, cars, caravan including sponsors tossing out swag merchandise and often celebrity sightings. Pro racing, especially grand tours need to be grand. Race organizations can reliably predict some danger given race route, if it's easy, it's going to be thick at the end and many riders will be in contention for a result. Big fat field sprints are dangerous at every level of racing.
To reduce the number of employment opportunities, reduce number of teams, reduce sponsorship opportunities and make the sport smaller might get a higher level of safety, certainly not guaranteed. Guaranteed is dramatically reducing revenue streams, even union membership would go down if fewer riders are holding a license.
Really, really troubling is recent Adam Hansen interview. Sick to my stomach knowing cycling has spent over @€ 300,000+ suing itself. In some strange safety trajectory, SRAM is being taken to court. Teams, riders are spending money to litigate against their own sponsor. Teams suing themselves in the name of safety.
Common sense, which apparently is not common, there are only two viable component manufacturers currently, Shimano and SRAM. It's not hard to imagine what would happen if either or both were damaged maybe to the point of failure.
Maybe a major factor in racing crashes is SRAM specific, I don't know, but I think it's BS personally.
And all the talk about safety is pretty fuzzy at best. 2025..what was the number of race crashes per capita, per kilometer? What percentage of crashes involved Campy, SRAM, Shimano..is there data who has it? How does 2025 compare to 2015, 2005, 1995, 1985, etc. Where is that data? Who is doing the collection? Were is it?
Who is tracking safety data? Or is most of this just emotions and hypothesis about what people think they see.

 

[Pozzovivo]

You mentioned the other day that you analyzed a correlation between peloton size and incidence of crashes ( number of crashed riders and impact of crashes)? I only briefly looked at the Tour de France to gauge an idea (Google AI search). Since I missed that if you could share or link to that it would be helpful?

Yes, I have spent more than two years collecting and analysing data on this. I have not forgotten your important questions, and I do intend to answer them properly. But because this topic matters a lot to me, I want that answer to be clear, rigorous, and comprehensive.

I cannot provide that yet, because even the most basic questions involve at least 20 relevant factors that need to be considered and adjusted for. And arguments for or against must be layed out. Cycling race data is extremely noisy and very time consuming to work through. On top of that, crashes that bring down multiple riders are actually quite rare relative to the number of kilometres ridden by any given bunch.

To give just the simplest example, when I review Grand Tour stages in replay, I manually pause the footage and record things like the number of riders in each bunch when a crash happens (I literally count up to 160), how many riders go down, how many abandon, how many never make it back to the same group, where in the bunch the crash occurs, the approximate speed, when in the race it happens, the weather conditions, the type of finale, the severity of injuries based on medical reports, and many other variables. I originally tried to do this for all WorldTour races, but quickly realised that was not realistic.

As we all know, cycling races are long, so this takes a great deal of time.

I have made it a deliberate goal to present the case in two separate ways: one report built around the arguments, and one built around the data. I think that is the cleanest approach.

What I can say for now is that the raw correlation appears fairly weak (because crashing is not that common per 20 km ridden in a bunch), but it can look much stronger depending on how the data is broken down. As I often point out, when large breakaways, even groups of 20 to 40 riders, are riding for the win, they almost never crash, and they essentially never have mass crashes involving five or more riders. If I consider those stages, relative to big bunch stages, the effect is very significant. To me, the natural experiments created by different stage types are a more informative indicator. But that, too, can certainly be debated.

Lst word on this for now: Some of you mainly seem to be talking about crashes in sprints. These few kms depending on how you break it down are BY FAR the most dangerous in terms of frequency and to some degree also severity. Bunch sprinting in general need to be looked at with a different set of variables in mind, in addition to peloton size. I completely agree with that.