"When you fall, there are physical injuries but there are also and above all mental scars" - Pierre Rolland on the scary side of cycling

The big cycling year, with Olympic as a cherry on the top, is slowly turning into a nightmare for many riders and even some of the biggest stars of the peloton. Winner of two Tour de France stages Pierre Rolland returns to the topic of riders' safety in a thread on X.

"When you fall, there are physical injuries but there are also and above all mental scars," Rolland points out. "I have experienced many massive falls, or sometimes even solitary ones, on both wet and dry surfaces... And honestly, I'm not ashamed to say that after my last big fall on the TdF in 2016, the rest of my career was synonymous with apprehension and anxiety."

"Cycling is a wonderful sport but it remains a dangerous activity in a peloton on public roads. I have now been on the other side of the screen for a year and unfortunately I have already experienced a tragedy as a consultant: the death of Gino Mäder. And it’s still a difficult ordeal to accept..."

"We must find viable solutions all together, but we will never be able to 100% avoid pileups in pelotons. We must try to make the routes as safe as possible and improve the equipment to mitigate the risks."