If this has already been covered, please ignore, but I did do a search and could see nothing here. In any case… good Lord, his accident sounds horrible!

Just when I was starting to talk myself into getting back on the bike, I read of his accident (which sounds hauntingly similar to my own), as well as that of Amy Pieters, and think, ‘forget it’.

Egan Bernal, get well soon!

I hope he gets well soon, however don’t let that crash put you off. Just don’t ride in Colombia.. it’s a bit mental.

That’s awful.

Story for those interested…

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cycling/60113862

¡Ay, caramba!

Ooof, that looks painful. Get well soon.

Check out the dent in the bus:

Egan Bernal sufrió un accidente mientras entrenaba, chocó con un bus, noticia en desarrollo… pic.twitter.com/7tMQ21e1DZ

— Chasqui Deportivo (@chasquidep) January 24, 2022

I hope he gets well soon, however don’t let that crash put you off. Just don’t ride in Colombia.. it’s a bit mental.

The bus was stationary at the time, just sounds like an unfortunate accident (immediately thinking of Rachel Atherton’s serious lapse in concentration) that may have ended has career many, many years too soon.

Egan Bernal undergoes spinal surgery after bus collision

“After requesting an explanation of this technical language from a specialist in this field of medicine, I can understand that we no longer talk about cycling,” Jácome wrote. “Everything that happens today and in the next few hours will be ensuring Egan Bernal’s quality of life after this accident.”

🙁

It looks like he was training on a TT bike. I know pros need to ride the TTT bike to adapt to position, but after Froome’s accident you would have thought team INEOS would be selective about the roads and conditions used for TT training.

Oof. Let’s hope his recovery is as good as it can be.

Lets hope it’s not career ending. pro cycling not for the faint of heart that’s for sure!

Cycling Tips are still carrying that report @mashr linked to above but Cycling News are reporting slightly better news that his spinal surgery was “successful”…😳

The state of the bus jeeezzzz!

hope he can recover fully

The state of the bus jeeezzzz!

bloody hell i didnt even notice that!

Hope he heals and can just enjoy life after this never mind racing…

you would have thought team INEOS would be selective about the roads and conditions used for TT training.

There does seem to be a bit of a pattern with sky/ineos and serious accidents during training doesn’t there…

Check out the dent in the bus:

**** ! How fast does someone who weighs about 9 stone wet through have to be going to do that ?! 😬

yikes!

Thats a truly horrific accident, and the state of the bus , yikes indeed. But how difficult is it to keep your eyes forward. OK you look down occasionally, but he needed to be going at a fair pace for a while and the bus didnt just suddenly stop.

Anyway, academic now i suppose. Hope he heals, but fractured leg,kneecap, collapsed lung and worse spinal damage isnt something you really recover fully, so this could be career ending in a competitive setting.

Along hard road ahead. As dedicated as he will be its certainly going to be a difficult journey.

Looks like he made that noob mistake of taking his eyes off the road. He is lucky to be able to walk. Lucky to be alive. Look at that impact dent!

Did you just call multiple grand tour winner, Egan Bernal, a noob? 😄

We have no idea what the road was like. Coming down a mountain. Twisty turny road. Quite easy to run into the back of a vehicle coming out of a fast corner, especially if you have traffic on your other side.
In fact there’s a road near me where I’ve always felt this could happen. It’s a really fast downhill with a fun swoopy bend at the end, get that speed wrong and the right combination of parked cars and oncoming traffic, could quite easily have to run into the back of something.

There’s quite a few different photos circulating now. Looks like a long straight dual carriageway. Bus is stopped midway across 2 lanes. I think there’s a bit more to it than hitting something that was parked up.

Hopefully he makes a full recovery.

w00dster
Full Member

We have no idea what the road was like. Coming down a mountain. Twisty turny road. Quite easy to run into the back of a vehicle coming out of a fast corner, especially if you have traffic on your other side.

He was on his TT bike remember, so pretty unlikely.

Even if the big red bus was stopped in a funny place, you would generally notice a great big red bus. Just sounds like a horrible accident

he’s got youth and fitness going for him. And they’ll spare no expense in his treatment. We’ll probably get pics of him on a turbo in a couple of weeks.

For a man who already had back issues, this could well be the early retirement ticket he didn’t want.

A new statement this morning. Really sounds terrible, I hope he heals well but racing a bike isn’t going to be high on the agenda for quite some time.

Tom Piddock’s comment about aggressive TT position on public roads is pretty damning. Not being able to see where you are going at the speeds these guys do does seem like a risk too far.

they are not having much luck

🙁

some better news for Egan

(20 fractures though 🙁 )

How the heck is he on this feet after just a week?!

Looks like the doc is holding him up! Nonetheless, that’s pretty incredible. I hope it’s genuine and not just an Ineos PR thing to play down the significance of his injuries.

Just astonishing: 13 days after breaking eleven ribs, femur, patella and two vertebra (to name only a few) and puncturing both lungs, @Eganbernal is out of ICU and starting physio. His powers of recovery have always been unique. Suerte, campeón.

— Matt Rendell (@mrendell) February 6, 2022

Just when I was starting to talk myself into getting back on the bike, I read of his accident (which sounds hauntingly similar to my own), as well as that of Amy Pieters, and think, ‘forget it’.

If you fell down some stairs, would you never use stairs?
No, you’d take more care when on stairs.

Just wait to see what damage he can do when he tries to move a large stone sculpture across his patio…

excuse my ignorance but is puncturing both lungs not fatal, obviously not…. every days a school day.

I punctured both lungs and broke 13 ribs presumably one twice, in a motorbike accident. I was in ICU for a week and in hospital for three weeks, thank you Raigmore. It took me about three months to get back on a bicycle but 18 years later I am still here and doing fine (for my advanced years). My ribs healed rather wonkily which causes doctors to stare if taking my shirt off for other reasons!

If you fell down some stairs, would you never use stairs?
No, you’d take more care when on stairs.

Not a good analogy.

Like anyone who has an accident in which death is only narrowly avoided, and injuries are massive, there is a huge psychological component. I can hardly watch segments of GCN anymore without wanting to leave the room.

Some thoughts on TT bikes from Chris Froome
from about 4:43 in

Saw that. It’s a valid point. TT bikes could be completely banned and the racing would not be affected in the least. In fact it would open it up significantly at low levels. I haven’t got the space for a TT bike and if I were seriously competing at triathlon or local TTs I’d be screwed. If you inly needed one bike it would reduce the barrier for competition.

I do wonder what the bike industry might have to say about that. Some companies might welcome the dramatic reduction in R&D costs, specific tooling etc needed to make TT bikes plus they’re not exactly big sellers in the mass market.

On the other hand, it’s not so much the fact that TT bikes (in and of themselves) are dangerous, it’s the fact that riders are going out on open roads in super-aggressive aero positions and they have limited visibility and control. It’s one thing doing that on closed roads with support cars, barriers, a DS giving instructions in your ear, it’s quite another doing it on an open road with random traffic.

You could maybe get the UCI to add a few extra paragraphs to the already insanely complicated rules around TT positions – which could then lead to the question of why use TT bikes anyway if they’re going to be made more like road bikes.
It’d be difficult to mandate riders to using them indoors or under closed conditions only although it wouldn’t be unreasonable to recommend training indoors / on a velodrome to get the position sorted and then ask teams to arrange training sessions at motor-racing circuits to practice outdoors / in real weather. But the riders do need to ride the bikes a lot to hone the position and the technique so it’s not wholly practical.

Indoor training

Amazing what a super hero

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cycling/60903214