A new racing season may be upon us with kit fresh, ambitions renewed and new heroes about to come to the fore, but one thing hasn’t changed: riders are still furious with several aspects of race safety.
The topic has been a constant one in the past few years, more so since the horrendous accident suffered by Fabio Jakobsen at the Tour of Poland in 2020.
Super-tucks and ‘puppy paws’ positions have been banned and there have been amendments to feed zones amongst many other changes, measures all brought in to make racing safer.
But incidents that appear avoidable keep happening, including a corner 50 metres from the finish during a sprint at the recent Challenge Mallorca, something Tosh Van der Sande of Jumbo Visma described to Cycling Weekly as “unacceptable. If you drove the race route before, you would have noticed it. They are small but easy things to fix.”
The biggest grievance that Van der Sande has, however, is with musettes – small bags of food and water that are handed out to riders during the day. According to him, they should be banned if the race distance is less than 140km.
“For me, this needs to change. Almost every time [riders collect musettes] a crash happens, 99% of the time. Or if they don’t crash, they are close,” he said.
“Under 140km, you do not need a musette. You take your stuff [before the race] and go back to the car – that’s more safer than musettes. In a long stage you […]
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