Ineos Grenadiers is not having a good time while its team completes the training in Colombia, Egan Bernal and Brandon Rivera both experienced terrible accidents this week and this has riled up Tom Pidcock to express his worries and what he thinks could be a really “Big” factor behind these accidents.
Pidcock has related time trial bikes with the recent crashes that his team members have suffered from, completing training with these kinds of bikes leads to trouble, Pidcock believes so. Earlier this week, Egan Bernal crashed into a parked bus while training that led him to multiple serious injuries, his femur, vertebrae were fractured along with other life-threatening injuries.
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Bernal is not the only one that got into an accident while training with time trial bikes, last year Pidock also got hit by a car, suffered from a broken collarbone and this was during his descent in the French Pyrenees. These crashes and the “extreme” aerodynamic positions that are required to use time trial bikes struck a nerve in Tom Pidcock. Last year, Ben Turner, the new Ineos Grenadier recruit also got into an accident, he suffered multiple facial fractures.
Pidock told the media in Arkansas,
I crashed on a time trial bike, Ben crashed on one in the L’Avenir, and Egan’s now crashed. It’s getting quite extreme, the position. I think that’s the biggest cause of the crashes recently.
I think a lot of accidents have happened on time trial bikes and I think that’s something that we need to – you know, the positions are getting more and more extreme, and we spend more and more time trying to hold these positions where you don’t necessarily see where you’re going.
And I think it’s evident now that it’s getting quite dangerous. I don’t think we need to stop progression but we need to think about how it can be, how we can train in a safer way and also try and mitigate these crashes.
These accidents bring back bad memories for Tom Pidock, although he has promised his undying support for his teammates, he said that he and the team will fully support his team members get back to full health.
Pidcock stated,
It’s terrible news. I mean it kind of touched a nerve if you like with me because after my crash on a time trial bike it just shows I know that it can go wrong so quickly.
Also Read: Tom Pidcock Expecting His Form To Improve Even Further, Motivated For Cyclo-Cross World Championship
Are time trial bikes really to be blamed or is there something else behind these recent crashes? We hope that a safer way to train is used, or extra security while training, anything that can stop these tragedies from happening.
Featured Image Via Instagram/tompidcock
