False Bravado and Rider Safety

[Clancy]

I strongly believe the recent conversations surrounding the spat of crashes shows that as long as riders, directors, sponsors and fans have the attitude that crashes are just part of racing, riders will continue to suffer needless and often career and even life threatening injuries.

In the interview in VeloNews Philip Gilbet, in talking about the recent crashes in the Daufine, states “Unfortunately, it is part of it.” Other recent articles contain similar statements from other riders and directors.

First let me state that I believe Philip Gilbert is one of the greatest riders of his generation. I have tremendous respect for what he’s accomplished. I only used his quote as an example. But his attitude is typical and is what’s holding back the UCI, organizers, and manufacturers from investing the time and money to make bike racing safer. And as in auto racing, making bike racing safer will ultimately make all cycling safer.

I believe it can be argued that the sport has done very little to promote rider safety. Helmets were largely resisted by the sport and only became the norm when legally required. And yes, disc brakes offer a safety advantage but if they didn’t offer a performance advantage I guarantee they wouldn’t exist.

Money needs to be invested into looking at all cause of accidents and data complied and analyzed. Routes must be carefully designed with safety as the priority, not traditions or TV ratings. Road surfaces should be properly prepared or at least chosen based on conditions. How is it ok to have broken pavement and potholes on a decent where riders hit 45+ m.p.h.? Unbelievable

And last, I cannot understand why, other than helmets, manufacturers have not put any effort into creating safer clothing. Other than skin suits, clothing has not changed in 25+ years. Skin suits are all about performance, not protection. With all the technology surrounding fabrics, I have not seen any innovation in designing cloths that are more abrasion resistant or have key materials in certain areas. This type of kit does not exist but only because there has never been the demand nor the money invested.

In the 60’s and 70’s Formula 1 was considered one of the deadliest sports. Drivers were regularly severely injured and killed with all of it accepted as “unfortunately, it is part of it”. Cars literally exploded upon impact, burning the driver alive. Only after the drivers organized and protested did the sport put money where it needed. Today it is rare that a driver receives even a minor injury from a race ending accident.

If a great decender is pushing the pace and a less skilled rider falls trying to keep up, that’s racing. Coming around a bend at 55 m.p.h. And hitting gravel and falling? That’s not racing, that’s negligence.

It’s past time for the sport to wake up.

[carpediemracing]

And last, I cannot understand why, other than helmets, manufacturers have not put any effort into creating safer clothing. Other than skin suits, clothing has not changed in 25+ years. Skin suits are all about performance, not protection. With all the technology surrounding fabrics, I have not seen any innovation in designing cloths that are more abrasion resistant or have key materials in certain areas. This type of kit does not exist but only because there has never been the demand nor the money invested.

In the 80s or 90s a company came out with two layer clothing to resist abrasions. It consisted of a tougher outer layer and a very thin inner layer - the two were meant to slide against each other, reducing road rash. Winning Magazine had a short blurb about them. I don't remember the name of the company. I do know that some of my teammates was used to map scars to shape the outer layer. I had a set but it wasn't very good as a pair of shorts. I can't remember if it was the padding, the cut/fit, etc, but it was definitely unimpressive.

I think if a Rapha or Assos came out with one it might gain some traction.

The whole concept of "wear a base layer even in the summer" aligns with the two layer concept. The outer layer is the abraded layer, the inner layer is the stationary one. It's like MIPS for your body.

Later, I think 2010-ish, a product named "Road Rash Guard" came out. I know of that because it was a local rider again, and their example video was of one of my former teammates (actually I knew him back in the days of the other two layer clothing days). I think it wasn't optimal so it didn't take off, but it's similar to adding some body armor to your regular clothing. Done a little differently it might help reduce road rash.

The issue with both of them is that when you start wearing body armor you start thinking that crashing is both expected and normal. Consider the cycling disciplines that wear body armor all the time - downhill mountain biking and keirin. In both disciplines the riders expect to hit the deck regularly, and I mean regularly. In both also the events last a few minutes or so, therefore overheating and such is less of a concern.

[carpediemracing]

I think the road rash protection thoughts are a red herring though. Road rash is painful but it's not very serious, usually. It's more important to consider how to reduce the horrific incidents, not just road rash.

THere's two problems to that. First, anything can happen. I had a racer die due to a crash at my race. The field had sat up, we weren't going more than about 22-24 mph on a very slight downhill (1%?), and one rider basically toppled over. He had a good helmet on, strapped on well, he didn't flip over the bars, yet he never regained consciousness. That kind of incident could happen any time, anywhere, to anyone. It could be a group ride, a solo training ride, or the final 200m of a sprint stage in the Tour.

Second, it would cost a lot of money to put into place substantive safety measures. And that's huge; it could wipe out the sport.

The problem is that of cost. If you go to any grassroots event, you're looking at a promoter that isn't making much money, if at all, and you'll see a course that's usually fraught with dangers (mailboxes, signs, poles, potholes, etc). Most promoters will take care of the most obvious things (sewer grates, for example) but it's virtually impossible to sanitize a road based course. I don't know how much money I spent/lost promoting races but I made money (I'll call it more than $1000 total for a 6 week Series) maybe 3-4 years of the 22 years I promoted. I broke even maybe 7-8 years (the first ones - a lot of them were +/- $200 total profit/loss for a 6-7 week series). And I lost substantial money for maybe 10 years of promoting, I think typically $4-5k a year. Obviously I didn't do it for the money but I stopped mainly because I had no more money and costs were rising due to liability etc. My loss rate would have quickly climbed into the $10k/year range.

Now consider some of the big races, the pro races. It'll be nigh impossible to barrier up every pole, patch every pothole, etc, without some substantial help. As far as I know the UCI is not a very wealthy entity, nor are any cycling teams or even promoting entities. It's not like the football or baseball teams in the US, for example, who can pay individuals tens of millions of dollars a year.

(For sanitizing courses, I'm not talking about the super obvious things like avoiding those metal poles in the middle of the road etc; I'm talking about the more commonly found but still dangerous things like that 8" thick tree 5 feet off the pavement, or the wrought iron fence around someone's yard, the frost heave cracks on 10 or 20 miles of road, the sign for some random plaza next to the sidewalk, traffic signs, ditches lined with barb wire, etc).

Ultimately it's a choice between the sport and risk. People now are making the risk choice - anyone who races in this COVID-19 era is significantly increasing risk of spreading or contracting the virus.

Any time you have wheeled competition you're going to have crashes. It can be sanitized and made more safe, but it's going to happen. F1 is much safer now as before but you still have crashes pretty regularly, just without as much obvious consequence. Same with NASCAR, which probably has the most sanitized courses of any motorsports, and I'd argue that their crashes are worse and more common because it's relatively safe to crash. Yes, the restrictor plates contribute by bunching up the group, but it seems like everyone's waiting for the Big One on most of the huge speedway races; it's part of the spectacle.

[FlashUNC]

Nothing will change for the riders until they demand change themselves through collective bargaining and action.

The fact they lined up at MSR right after what happened at Tour of Poland is appalling. And yes, I know, different race organizers and whatnot, but change is only going to take place when the riders demand it.

Also Q36.5 has been doing some shorts with Dyneema panels for abrasion resistance.

[fiamme red]

Frightening article about a woman who lost a leg after being hit by a car while crossing a four-lane highway in an untramarathon race: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/18/sports/ultramarathon-accidents.html. Safety should always be a race organizer's highest priority.