BILBAO, Spain (Velo) — The UCI and other key stakeholders promised safer racing conditions, but refused to say that iconic descents and downhills will be removed from the Tour de France.
There’s growing pressure on Tour organizers and the international cycling body to enhance rider safety in the aftermath of the tragic death of Gino Mäder at the Tour de Suisse in June, but UCI president David Lappartient pushed back against suggestions that downhill finales are too dangerous for modern racing.
“We are not going to ban the final descent in stages,” Lappartient said Friday in a press conference. “If we ban the last descent, why not ban the descent in the middle of the race? This is not racing.”
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Instead, Tour de France director Christian Prudhomme said ski padding used in the skiing World Cup will be deployed on sectors of the Col de la Loz in stage 17.
“We will install Alpine skiing padding in the descent from the Col de la Loze, on the trickiest part,” Prudhomme told a news conference Friday. “Cycling is a magnificent but cruel sport.”
The UCI and other key stakeholders presented a unified front Friday in vowing to improve rider safety, but the Tour starts Saturday with increased scrutiny on safety after the 26-year-old Mãder crashed while descending off a high Swiss mountain pass toward a finish line at the valley floor with speeds topping 100kph.
The 2023 Tour route sees several stages that are under the microscope with similar finishing dynamic.
Saturday’s opening stage into Bilbao that tops out with the Côte de Pike with 10km to go on technical, urban roads. Once into the Alps, stage 14 features HC Joux-Plane and ends after a harrowing, 2,000-foot descent in Morzine. A few days later, stage 17 tackles the HC Col de la Loze before finishing in Courchevel about 1,000 feet lower.
Some voices on social media have questioned why downhill finishes are even allowed at all, but officials serving on the UCI’s safety panel said descending Europe’s steepest mountain roads will remain part of the racing landscape.
Finding balance between safety and spectacle
A new commission dubbed SafeR, which features support from teams, race organizers, the UCI, and a rider’s group, promises new safety measures across men’s and women’s racing.
The challenge for race organizers is to find the balance between enhanced safety without watering down the essence of racing on open roads.
“We do not want to end up having bike races in parking lots of big supermarkets,” said the UCI’s Peter Van Den Abeele.
“An accident like Gino Mäder may not be prevented in the future. We still race on the roads,” said Jaap van Hulten, a member of the safety commission. “We still want to have descents on the parcours. We are not going to take out the Poggio or the Cipressa out of Milan-San Remo.
“Racing takes place on the roads, with the crowds, close to each other. That’s what we have to understand.”
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On this day in 2021…
The largest crash pile-up in Tour de France history caused by a spectator with a sign and later arrested. #CWS #CardiB #Superman #DamianLillard pic.twitter.com/8gAT586XWd— Gabe Santana (@gabe_santana) June 26, 2023
Officials insisted that this year’s Tour will be safer.
Tour director Prudhomme said several new safety measures will be rolled out, including enhanced signing, banners, lighted signs, and even alarms with horns to alert rider to the most dangerous sections of a course.
“We have used the Joux-Plane since the 1970s,” Prudhomme said. “Crews are working on repaving sections of the Joux-Plane and Col de la Loz. We will have padding on the Loz descent. We are here to act, and we all agree that safety is a paramount issue.”
Race organizers have identified 5,000 “danger points” along the Tour’s 3400km route, and promise to provide improved safety measures along the way.
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The latest moves come in the aftermath of the high-profile Mäder death, but officials say work on the safety project began three years ago.
Speeds are increasing and road conditions are becoming more complicated due to increasing usage of “traffic furniture” designed to slow down car traffic.
“We see the roads are more comfortable for cyclists and pedestrians and they are designed to reduce the speed of cars, which is a good thing, but for bike races, it’s more and more difficult,” Lappartient said. “The roads are designed for 30kph, but our riders are going 60kph or more. We can have some problems.”
Data reveals 25 percent spike this year
If there’s a sense that crashes are on the uptick, data backs it up.
UCI officials cited statistics that confirm that crashes and incidents are increasing year over year, including a 24 percent spike in crashes year-to-date this year compared to 2022.
Michael Rogers, the UCI’s head of innovation, said most of the crashes are packed into the last hour of racing when nerves and speeds ratchet up as the peloton barrels toward the finish line.
“The number of incidents and crashes are increasing,” Rogers said. “There is a very clear progression in the amount of injuries and the incidents are increasing. Most crashes happen in the last 40km of a race.”
Officials estimate that half of the crashes are caused by they called “behavior,” such as rider errors or aggressive racing. The other half was designated as “procedural,” such as road conditions, traffic furniture, vehicles on the roadway, weather, and other causes.
No matter what the causes, officials say they’re committed to making racing safer.
Lappartient said the “goal is to reduce clearly the number of crashes,” he said. “What happened to Gino Mäder was sad. This is something we do not want to see anymore.”