“You’ll have no races anymore” – Deutschland Tour director warns organisers cannot afford tougher safety rules after rider protests
Cycling
Deutschland Tour director Fabian Wegmann has warned that tougher safety requirements could leave organisers unable to afford to stage their races. He supports minimum standards throughout cycling, but says events already struggling financially face substantial costs while police support is declining.
“If you put the [safety] standard that high then you’ll have no races anymore,” Wegmann told road.cc. By his estimate, “90% of races are not making money”.
His comments follow rider protests at Il Lombardia and Paris-Tours after repeated incidents involving vehicles on race routes. Finlay Tarling’s death at the Volta a Portugal in August was followed by a delivery van entering the Coppa Bernocchi course and an oncoming police motorcycle striking two of Tom Pidcock’s teammates at Tre Valli Varesine.
Riders protest 🪧 Il Lombardia begins with riders taking a stand over safety concerns following incidents throughout the season 🚴 https://t.co/T3imCRCZe8
— Cycling on TNT Sports (@cyclingontnt) October 10, 2026
From 40 police motorbikes to “maybe 20”
“In the past at the Deutschland Tour, we had 40 police motorbikes, and now we have maybe 20,” Wegmann said, without specifying when the reduction occurred. “It’s getting less and less because the police said ‘it’s not our job to save races’. It’s their job to be there if something happens.”
Wegmann also works on the Munsterland Giro, where he says 1,200 people are paid to help secure the event. “So you can imagine how expensive it is to secure a race, and 100% we need a standard for the races. But I’ve always said we don’t need it just for the pros. We need a standard for every race.”
He cautioned against expecting identical arrangements across national borders. “It also depends on the rights of the countries where you are,” he said. “Even if the UCI said ‘we need it, want it like this’, the countries are the owner of the streets.”
Discussing cars entering the closed time trial circuit at the Sauerlandrundfahrt, Wegmann calculated that fencing both sides of a 14-kilometre route would require 28 kilometres of barriers.
“It’s not possible. It’s not doable,” he said. “You will never ever find a sponsor who pays 1 million euros just in fences and not have something from that.”
“Most of the crashes are because the riders are risking too much”
“Most of the crashes are because the riders are risking too much,” argued the former German champion. “Even if the manager says it’s a dangerous descent, and there are some roundabouts and traffic islands, you want to win as a rider. When it’s wet and you are a good descender, you think, ‘Now it’s my time, and then you go, and then things can happen.”
Wegmann also invoked Paris-Roubaix: “You can try to create a new race which is super safe, and it’s maybe also in a nice city and with a good course. You will never ever get Paris-Roubaix. It’s never on the same level.”
“And Paris-Roubaix is not safe at all,” he continued. “It’s super dangerous to ride 60kph on cobblestones when it’s wet. So that’s part of our sport, and that makes it so interesting.”
His own route preparations involve repeated reconnaissance, checking traffic islands and roundabouts and identifying where marshals, barriers and padding are needed. Even then, he acknowledged that “if somebody comes out of a house with their car, it’s always still a problem”.
“But in the end from every crash we have to learn,” Wegmann said. “We’re all making mistakes, but we have to learn from these mistakes and get better.”
Read also
The cost of changing a finish
“Sometimes we remove traffic islands, or the city have to do it, but it’s really expensive to put a traffic island away and then rebuild it,” Wegmann explained. “And when the city have to pay it, they also have to tell their citizens.”
He illustrated the political difficulty with the example of explaining that €30,000 of taxpayers’ money had been spent removing and rebuilding three traffic islands.
Wegmann says he has also rejected offers from prospective Deutschland Tour host cities when he has been unable to design a safe sprint finish.
Kieran WoodDeputy Editor-in-Chief
Kieran Wood is a sports journalist based in Wales and has been active in journalism since 2022. He regularly contributes to DartsNews.com and CyclingUpToDate.com, where he covers professional cycling and darts. In cycling, his work includes liveblogs from major races, including the Tour de France, the Giro d’Italia, and La Vuelta a España, alongside race reports and analysis. He has also conducted interviews with professional riders.
His reporting spans the full racing calendar, from one-day classics to stage races, with a focus on accurate, real-time coverage and clear contextual analysis. For statistics, results, and historical context, he regularly uses resources such as ProCyclingStats. To support reporting on rider activity and training context where relevant, he also references Strava.
In his work, Kieran places strong emphasis on careful sourcing, editorial accuracy, and updating articles as new, verified information becomes available.
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