Dan Bigham: Expert biking wishes safer packages and heavier bikes, not diminished speeds

Christian Prudhomme, the director of the Tour de France, sparked debate by claiming at present’s knowledgeable cyclists “are going too quick”, endangering themselves all through the course of.

The controversy has rumbled on for various weeks, nonetheless now Dan Bigham – the best of engineering on the Purple Bull–BORA–hansgrohe WorldTour workforce and a rider famed for taking a marginal useful properties methodology to his illustrious biking occupation – has shot as soon as extra at Prudhomme.

Talking on the BikeRadar Podcast, Bigham gave an emphatic response: “No, I do not assume they are going too quick”.

Bigham furthermore claimed “any protagonist inside the sport who proclaims tempo is the issue every is making an attempt to distract you from the precise drawback or would not perceive the issue.”

If tempo isn’t the issue, although, what’s? And additional importantly, what, if one factor, does Bigham assume may be carried out to spice up security in knowledgeable biking?

The exact causes expert biking is harmful

Consistent with Bigham, there are three main risks going by the use of expert avenue cyclists: “unsafe roads, unsafe devices and poor, insufficient or gradual medical response when the worst does occur.”

Bigham concedes that the tempo at which a crash happens has an have an effect on, and the data reveals occasions such on account of the Tour de France are being raced sooner than ever.

However, he says, “by altering the tempo, you do not actually – in most circumstances – change whether or not or not or not a crash does or would not occur.”

The game’s governing physique (the Union Cycliste Internationale, or UCI) and race organisers should, in Bigham’s view, give consideration to stopping preventable crashes, very like these launched on by avenue furnishings or sudden factors on the street, by designing safer packages.

Bigham beforehand spent a 12 months working as an aerodynamicist on the Mercedes AMG Petronas System One workforce and maintains a eager curiosity all through the game. Citing developments there, Bigham talked about these accountable for the game initially sought to chop extreme speeds all through the wake of high-profile incidents – such on account of the demise of Ayrton Senna – by stricter regulation of automotive and race-circuit designs.

Noting “biking tends to be 10, 20, 30 years behind motorsport”, Bigham talked about his concern is that – as in System One – it’d take “a significant-profile rider having a life-changing or life-ending hurt” to fast comparable modifications in biking.

Bigham says he has engaged with the UCI and fully completely different stakeholders inside the sport, such on account of the Cyclistes Professionnels Associés (the rider’s union) and Affiliation Worldwide des Groupes Cyclistes Professionels (the union {{{of professional}}} biking groups), and notes they aren’t “burying their heads all through the sand”.

Nonetheless, he believes discussing tempo is a distraction from what he sees as the first components.

What may be carried out to make expert biking safer?

Though he now works as a effectivity engineer, Bigham could be a former holder of the UCI Hour Report and competed on the 2024 Paris Olympics (taking a silver medal for Good Britain all through the Workforce Pursuit).

So whereas he’s certainly not raced the Tour de France, Bigham is all through the weird place of getting been on each side of the fence.

This affords him a specific perspective on what interventions could enhance rider security, and except for safer course design and sooner medical response, Bigham feels there are a variety of technical interventions that may have a optimistic affect.

Heavier bikes

Though followers of the game generally converse regarding the potential for the UCI decreasing its minimal bike weight restrict (which at present sits at 6.8kg), Bigham says he would advocate rising the restrict.

Heavier bikes allow “increased components of security” (which suggests how fairly a bit stronger one issue is than is required for its meant load), in line with Bigham. It’d furthermore allow groups to go properly with bikes with extra sensors or methods that assist monitor rider-health metrics – with out riders worrying about effectivity losses relative to their opponents.

As a aspect phrase, Bigham believes elevating the load restrict would furthermore assist to cease riders stripping the paint off their bikes in pursuit of weight financial monetary financial savings, which could furthermore please workforce sponsors.

The present state of affairs, he says, ends in circumstances of riders and groups prioritising effectivity all through the short-term over the long-term successfully being of the game.

Fewer weight-weenie parts

Bigham furthermore cites the rising use of parts very like 3D-printed components, titanium bolts and ultra-light bottle cages as doubtlessly harmful examples of riders pushing the bounds to have the flexibility to make their bikes hit the 6.8kg restrict with out compromising on aerodynamics.

Merely stopping errant bottles from tearing by way of the bunch might “cut back out 10 or 20 crashes a 12 months – fairly a number of crashes are launched on by free bottles all through the peloton,” explains Bigham.

With bottle cages in the marketplace at present weighing lower than 20g, Bigham thinks the UCI should merely “regulate them, make them 50 grams – which is definitely achievable – after which the [bottle] retention will go up.”

Bigham even suggests bottle cages for expert racing is maybe mandated to make the most of a “clasp mechanism” that helps to lock bottles in place when not in use.

Higher helmets

Then there’s the subject of helmet security.

In relation to security requirements, the UCI’s notorious technical authorized pointers state riders must positioned on a “inflexible security helmet” all by way of opponents and “official instructing classes”, and that such helmets have to be “authorised in compliance with an official safety commonplace”.

Bigham, although, questions whether or not or not or not the game might implement stricter requirements, requiring helmets designed for avenue racing to endure additional stringent security exams.

He concedes this is able to seemingly finish in better, heavier helmets – one issue that has historically been anathema to avenue cyclists, regardless of the apparent dangers of travelling at excessive speeds on solely two skinny patches of rubber. Nonetheless, he feels this is able to be worthwhile if “they’re bigger at absorbing crashes”, and subsequently bigger at stopping head accidents.

Persevering with on the topic, Vaughters talked about expert cyclists “are hard-wired to the bone to take life-threatening dangers. Similar to F1 drivers. And like in F1, the reply is to create a safer atmosphere spherical them. Due to they’ll all the time push the envelope so far as it goes.”

Not all folks agrees with this stance, although.

Chatting with Le Parisien (a French every single day newspaper), Groupama–FDJ workforce supervisor and former expert, Marc Madiot, talked about “The blokes are using sooner and sooner on terrain the place every half is designed to decelerate the autos. And downhill, it is worse than one factor. And since fairly a number of guys do not need to perceive one factor, there’s just one resolution: decelerate the bikes.”

No matter your kind out the state of affairs, it’s a minimal of reassuring that these components are being taken severely by the game’s stakeholders and talked about so robustly.

As Bigham says, although, we’ll solely hope it doesn’t take further high-profile incidents to fast very important change.