I couldn’t think of a more fitting time to post this than now.
After yesterdays death of Wouter Weylandt on stage 3 of the Giro D’Italia it has brought an unnerving feeling to the world of cycling. It should serve as a wake up call to many of us just how dangerous and how high the risks are in our beloved sport.
If a seasoned pro cyclist such as Wouter Wedlandt can lose his life on a relatively straight forward and not overly technical decent such as the Passo del Bocco then the risks must certainly be higher for us mere amateurs on open roads.
It is surprising just how deep a tragedy of this magnitude can hit. I didn’t know Wouter, barely even knew of him as a pro cyclist. Yet because of his death on Monday the last two rides I have been on my eyes have been glued to the side of the road, the road surface, the rider next to me and every thing that moves or makes a noise any where near me. Next time your out on the bike check for yourself – the obstacles on the road verge are deadly – Barbed wire fences, trees, street signs, kangaroos… the list goes on.
I believe Wouter was just unlucky. As a pro cyclist he would have crashed a handful of times per season and as a sprinter he would have hit the deck at high speeds a number of times but gotten up to walk or ride away. On the 9th May 2011 he wasn’t so lucky and what could have been a nasty crash turned into tragedy, no one expects a crash to turn into a fatality. We see so many stacks and pile ups in the pro races that we just assume everyone will get up dust themselves off and be on there way, a broken collar bone here or there but you never hear of many crashes being more serious than that.
As an amateur club grade general population cyclist – some of the descents I encountered today shot me to speeds of a mere 60 km/hr, some of the better descent around the Gold Coast will set you up for speeds over 90km/hr. With little protection other than a foam helmet and thin layer of Lycra (actually there were nearly 4 layers today – bloody cold outside at 5.00am!) hitting the road surface at those speeds is going to hurt and you ARE going to be injured no two ways about it. These are risks we are all aware of and risks we are willing to take every day we throw a leg over the bike.
We are all involved in a dangerous and what can at times be deadly sport. Each time we head out the door we all know the inherent risks yet I never expect to not make it home, if I thought that way I would never leave the indoor trainer.
I was within 1km of the end of my two and a half hour ride finishing in Kingscliff this morning when I was missed by literally millimeters by a Surf Side bus (local bus company) who was quite happy to try and run me off the side of the road. 18 months ago when I first started riding this would have scared the bejesus out of me and I would have chased the driver down and thrown a water bottle at him.
Today I shrugged it off as “just another dickhead bus driver” yet had the bus actually ran me off the road into a pole or tree then I might not have been here right nowto write this post. I’m not going to start on the cars vs cyclist debate but I want this to show how frequent the dangers of being seriously injured are when we are out on the roads. It is literally EVERY RIDE!
Everyone who has ridden a bike has fallen off a bike and we all now it hurts, you lose skin you break bones and at the far end of the scale – it can kill you!
The odds of this actually happening are quite small, thankfully! It is because of that fact that we choose to take those risks head out morning after morning week after week to enjoy the sport we love.
Please, please, please take care out there, tell your friends, tell your work mates, tell everyone you know that rides a bike – BE CAREFUL! RIDE CAREFULLY and make sure you get home to your family and friends in one piece.
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