“I could not wipe my ass" - Mads Pedersens recalls his injuries with humour and provides recovery update into classics

The cobbled classics have officially begun, but without one of its main protagonists last year: Mads Pedersen. The Lidl-Trek rider is nursing the injuries suffered in a high-speed crash suffered at the Volta a Comunitat Valenciana; which not only posed a serious issue to his spring campaign, but to his life at home as well.

“We were going 70, 75 kilometers per hour. In a gentle left hander some guys touched, so they went straight on. I had no choice and had to go over the edge," Pedersen said in Lidl-Trek's podcast. "I saw a lot of bushes and hoped for a soft landing, but I dropped about a meter onto the stones.”

The results was a fractured wrist and a fractured collarbone. Away from the TV cameras, the Dane had to withdraw from the race and start off his 2026 season in the worst possible way. “Then you think 'fuck, if my back is broken...' You are not thinking about returning to the bike, you are thinking about how bad it can be.” The diagnosis pointed towards several weeks off the bike and an uncertain amount of time until returning to competition.

In his traditional humour, Pedersen highlighted an unlikely problem that emerged from his fractures: “I could not wipe my ass, mate. My left wrist was broken and I was in a cast up to above my elbow. And my right collarbone was broken so it was in a sling," he explains. "I could not poop for five days. It was a tough birth when it finally happened.”

Ever since, the Dane is back to training on the road, weeks ahead of the initial plan, which is great news for the German team. However, Pedersen is cautious on what he can do, and is not yet putting in the hours on the road that he would ideally do: “Those guys spend six hours a day together on the bike, I do a bit less". However, he is keen on returning to racing within the next month. "If we did not believe in it, I would not be killing myself on the home trainer.”

There are five weeks to the Tour of Flanders, which does still allow for some improvement. The Dane is currently in Mallorca training with several teammates, however it is not clear when he will be able to return to competition or if dangerous and bone-rattling races such as Flanders and specially Paris-Roubaix are doable right out of a wrist fracture.

“That is why we should not get too excited. We are stretching the limits of what is possible,” he warns. “We do not know how my body will react. If I make the classics, those will be my first races. Without racing before, it is a big question mark what my legs will be like.”