PHOTOS, PAGE 1

       Editor and prime reporter is Doug Terry, a veteran television and radio reporter in   Washington, DC, (details below)

DEATH AT THE GIRO d’ITALIA

To those who don’t follow cycling and racing, it might have come as a shock to learn that a rider was killed Monday (5.10.11) in the Giro d’Italia. How could this be, in a bike race? In fact, however, bike racing is probably more dangerous than a lot of other sports, including NASCAR racing where the cars go in excess of 200 miles per hour. Some estimates say that about 1/4, or 25%, of all professional riders are involved in crashes each race year requiring hospital treatment. At least ten riders have died in the last ten years.

A rider on a bike has nothing to protect him or her in a crash, other than the helmet. That’s it. As someone else said, bike racing is the only sport where people travel in excess of 60 miles an hour down a mountain in their underwear. The clothing is very thin to allow air in and sweat out.

In a fast mountain descent, all it takes it one mistakes. That was apparently what took the life of Belgian rider Wouter Weylandt. Another rider said he believes that Weylandt looked back over his shoulder to see how far back another group of riders was, causing his pedal or handlebars to strike a rock wall at the side of the road. Why was he looking back? He had been dropped by the group in front of him, so his choice was to go as fast as possible, trying to catch the group, or slow a bit and wait for the trailing group to pick him up (riders always want to be in groups when possible to reduce wind resistance and it help set an appropriate fast pace).

A rider simply cannot crash on a fast downhill without major injury in most cases. The “safer” crashes on descents usually involve someone overshooting a corner, having slowed way down, but not enough to make the turn. Often, when one rider goes down like this, one or more will follow trying to avoid hitting the first or just out of fear that there is some obstacle in the roadway that has caused the first to go down.

I attended several stages of the Tour de France some years ago and the speed downhill is an amazing, frightening sight. The first stage I watched was near the finish line. In the distance, I could see the mass of bikes flying down a steep hill like darts. The difference is that men were riding those darts and they were in a big, tight bunch. That finish involved hard braking before a sharp turn into the last couple of kilometers and a sprint to the finish line. The speed at which the riders went down the final hill, which was not even in the mountains, took my breath. Watching it on television does not do it justice, by any means.

The race organizers take a lot of steps to try to make the rides safer, but there is little doubt they could do more. They do a great job of keeping dogs and intruding cars off the race course, which is on regular roads throughout towns and countryside. I have noticed some road hazards from time to time when watching the races that could have been addressed by the race organizers before the race started.

The most dangerous times are when it is raining and, frankly, I don’t know how the riders survive those  days. Multiple riders could be killed during a mountain descent on a rainy day, something that has not happened to date by pure luck. It seems to me that they should consider some steps to call off, or neutralize as they term it, mountain descents in the rain. One way would be to restart the race at the bottom of mountains, but that would be a difficult process. Something needs to be done, because these racing bikes were not designed to be ridden on rainy, slick roads.

Doug Terry, 5.11.11

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