“It’s on the riders most to be safe. Don’t do stupid things" - Tadej Pogacar weighs in on how to improve safety in the peloton
Cycling
Rider safety is a hot topic in the peloton in 2024. Some of the biggest names in the sport are split as to how best solve the issues presented though. Now, world champion Tadej Pogacar has evaluated both sides of the debate.
Previously, race director at the Tour de France Christian Prudhomme put the onus on the riders to make a change. “Beyond the behaviour of the athletes and the work of the organisers, it is absolutely necessary to reduce speed by appropriate measures: the riders are going too fast," Prudhomme told the annual general assembly of the association of race organisers (AIOCC) in Italy. “The faster they go, the greater the risk and the more they endanger themselves and others."
The likes of EF Education - EasyPost boss Jonathan Vaughters and Groupama - FDJ boss Marc Madiot came out strongly against these comments from Prudhomme, insisting riders are not the main problem. Whilst Pogacar doesn't fully agree, the Slovenian clearly can see both sides of the argument.
“Everybody wants to go faster all the time,” the UAE Team Emirates leader tells Escape Collective. “The whole cycling world is developing like any other sport, breaking records every year and going faster and faster. Technology moves ahead, and in one way I totally understand that we cannot be stuck on a steel bike that goes 10kph slower. Marketing doesn’t go so well selling the bikes, the jersey, the helmets. Everything needs to improve.”
"When you go faster there is more risk, but I don’t think there were no crashes a hundred years ago, or no risk even if they were going 20kph average speed in a race and now we go almost 45,” Pogacar continues. “There’s also the weather protocol. It’s getting used more and more, especially when there’s snow or rain, or super cold, they’re starting to apply it sometimes in the bigger races. In smaller races, they are still using it too [little]. Thinking of the opposite side, it’s 45 degrees in some races, and people don’t care because in the car it’s air conditioned. I think it’s super dangerous. It’s even more dangerous riding 45 degrees full gas than five degrees, because when you get heat stroke it’s super dangerous.”
Pogacar also doesn't fully disagree with the argument made by Prudhomme though. “It’s on the riders most to be safe,” he concludes. “Don’t do stupid things in the bunch. You need to respect all the riders. It doesn’t matter who it is. Respect the road and you also need to think about your abilities on the bike. Everybody is trying their best, I think.”
Tadej Pogacar's 2025 skinsuit. 🌈👀
— NBC Sports Cycling (@NBCSCycling) December 12, 2024
(📷: @TeamEmiratesUAE) pic.twitter.com/m6O8ltXTwy
Bravo Tadej. I over-cooked a corner a long time ago, crashed, broke a collar bone; under my control. I took a corner in front of my house and hit some ice, cracked my fat rear; my fault. Really sick of whinging from these people about how they can't compete going down a hill. You suck. Deal with it. You don't whine, whinge, moan, and yap about how it is unfair Tadej or Jonas go up the hill faster. They don't cry like a baby about how Jasper Philipsen sprints and they can't. Geezus. Temperature - no race should be held under 5C or above 35C. This is about frostbite or heat stroke and the rider cannot control that. Speed, especially down a hill - don't be a moron and over-cook the corners past your skills. THAT is in rider control. You gotta grab the brakes because you suck comparatively, TOO BAD. Speed, down a hill in rain - DITTO. Thanks for coming to my TedTalk. DO not expect me to reply; I just rant...discussing anything with you twats is pointless.
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- Exactly Tadej, the cancer of modern society. Full of good-for-nothing people who gain visibility and importance on social media mocking, humiliating (and worse things) to earn money. But it's the follower's fault, no followers, no "influencers".
maria2024202405-04-2025 - Great commentCaralladas05-04-2025
- i’m such a sucker for those group-hug, happy ending moments between competitors, largely because it’s so WASN’T that way in my younger, stronger days. (on that note, i have this hope that somewhere down the road, maybe fifteen or twenty years, a middle aged wout and mathieu will go for a pleasure ride together in flanders, and reminisce about the days when they were the young, strong monsters that stalked the cobbles.)OCexile05-04-2025
- Just like Dwars door Vlaanderen, the Ronde van Vlaanderen was/is NOT on MAX. Get your facts straight.Ben04-04-2025
- You might bounce more for the same power, but not the same speed. Sending 20 kgs over a jump at 20 kph will fly just as far as 10 kgs at the same speed. Again, Galileo demonstrated this.acem8204-04-2025
- So, you're saying that doing a bunch of small hops on a bike is easier if you're heavier? Why do people buy lighter bikes, then? Why do they generally feel better and faster? An appeal to "rhythm" is not helpful either, as the right "rhythm" might be on the lighter or heavier side of things, and as it varies, it's likely a wash either way. Then we are left with the physics truth that it takes less power to lift lighter things than heavier things.acem8204-04-2025
- No, weight doesn't affect the ability to go into the wind at all. It's all CdA vs power at that point. For example, it's "obvious" that a heavier object falls faster than a lighter one. But, absent wind resistance, it's not true (Galileo demonstrated this). An appeal to "obviousness" doesn't matter when the physics is clear. And yes, you have to be able to hold everything else constant, or you can't determine anything! So, imagine a 300 watt rider at 80 kgs with a CdA of 2.0, then imagine that same rider at 70 kgs with a CdA of 2.0. (Assume ideal tire pressure for both, same bike.) Which one can ride over a bumpy road fastest? The lighter one, as he doesn't have to lift as much. That's also why when they test bikes on 5 star cobbled sectors, the MTB goes faster than even a cobble-build road bike. Even though rolling resistance is higher on a flat road, and the CdA is junk, it smooths out the cobbles, allowing the person to not lift as much as they otherwise would.acem8204-04-2025
- I disagree. If you have lower weight, you will bounce more at the same speed, meaning that you will spend more time in the air and shorter time on the ground, as a consequence, when you are on the ground you have to produce more force for the same speedvappaxbipmv04-04-2025
- That’s not quite true, even steep climbs and sudden gradient changes can be considered as remaining tangential to the wheel whereas the occasional dip between cobbles a wheel drops into cannot, as such riding over cobbles can become like a permanent surmounting of small obstacles that hit back into your wheel slowing you drastically if you don’t have the right rhythm to “fly” on the mounds, here again the greater the momentum the less these obstacles reduce your speed. But, it is but one factor, you cannot decide on this alone. Like with natural surface ripple formation on desert tracks used by vehicles, there is an optimal speed range to efficiently pass over such surfaces, too fast or slow and your car gets shaken to pieces from the “harmonics” in the vibrations caused. Pretty sure the same applies to riding on cobbles.Mistermaumau04-04-2025
- I am saying I have an open mind at the moment for your cobbles theory but cannot agree with your wind statement (and by extrapolation sprinting since that implies speeds where wind is by far the limiting factor). Had you argued all things not being equal I could have agreed with you but if we thus assume 2 objets of the same size and speed but with differing weights, it is completely obvious that the lighter one will suffer faster in the wind. Extrapolate to the extreme, drop stuff off cliffs or just remember your momentum equations to verify. Now, obviously in real life we have to assume riders of different weights won’t have the same wind hitting surface but you cannot generalise at all then as you can have very unaerodynamic light riders and very aerodynamic heavy ones because it isn’t weight that defines CdA, Teslas have an incredible CdA and are ridiculously heavy, and someone like Harry Levreyssen is a Tesla in cycling.Mistermaumau04-04-2025