Glad to hear she is mostly alright.

Watched the race stream live and I doubt she flatted or had a mechanical. If that happens in that scenario she would have jumped to the bullhorns to brake and recover and not stayed in the aero bars. She was clearly trying to hold it through the corner and keep going, thus implying not a mechanical, maybe strong crosswind or something. She clearly went into a speed wobble mid corner.

very strange crash indeed.
This last week must also feel very bittersweet for Anna vd Breggen as she more or less inherits two major wins (Giro+TT) And on top of that the Rio Olympic RR as well
Though not crashing is an important aspect ...

Was she not using zipp tubeless (possibly hookless) rims?
Could be a chance that the tyre burped

Sadly it is the nature of bike racing. Annamiek absolutely was the best at the Giro Rosa and Dygert was the strongest at Worlds, but like you said the crashes are amongst numerous factors that make this sport so chaotic.

Not surprising, if you see the way she slid along the top of the guardrail; those fuckers can be sharp

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"What's your claim?" - Ben Gravy
"Your best work is the work you're excited about" - Rick Rubin

At least she can look to WvA for how to come back from a very similar injury. That dude came back in full beast mode.

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I wonder how many motorcycle riders have met that fate. It wouldn't likely cost anything for the former of rails be adjusted to curve over that edge under itself just a hair.

Shoot, lots of places here went cables over time. Those present their own issues, but there have been many reasons to abandon traditional guardrail. None cycling related.........nasty auto vehicle intrusion reasons.

Based on the video it appears, she overcooked the corner and carried too much speed going in. This is a calculated risk every rider makes and its a higher risk on a TT bike since there is more weight on the front axle and less weight on the rear axle (really you need to use the rear wheel to steer throught he turn and the front wheel is the counter steer). The video has a "jump" in the frames just before she looses control. It is hard to see if that is just video or hitting something small in the road or the tire issue (I have not followed the entire thread).

It really sucks, but on the flip side, the entire turn could have no padding too and it would be fine. Sometimes just by placing padding it takes the attention of the rider from steering "down the road" and "aiming high" to aiming at what is just in front of you (the padding) and ending up going exactly into the very thing that you should be trying to avoid. I don't know about the case of this, but from ski racing, we used to tell ski racers to never ever look at where the course designers put the padding because that's a guarantee to crash into it.....aim way down the course. For races, I would take my athletes to the technical downhill corners and stand on the "exit" of the turn way down from the barriers and instruct my athletes to aim for me, and not even look at the barriers which would in effect, take their line to the good line. We would practice a bunch of times before the race and they would know the fastest, safest line out of the turn.

Those metal guard rails are also problematic because the large mounting posts are exposed on the backside. You can easily slide over the rail and get hung up on the post edge.

I feel inclined to say, so what? Her bike has brakes, she should have used them, But didn’t and crashed out. My point is, there has been a lot of pointing fingers at organisers for unsafe routes and sprints, this is not one of them. It your take chances, know the risk, Sometimes you win, Sometimes you lose.
Still horrible crash, But it was her own fault. If you make mistakes like that and you able to continue and/or win, it’s “too safe”

"Brakes are a means of expressing fear" - HST, allegedly

She totally believed she could save it somehow and stayed on the extensions, right until the second she hit

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"What's your claim?" - Ben Gravy
"Your best work is the work you're excited about" - Rick Rubin

That didn't look like a flat or a tire burp, and braking too hard likely would have made that worse...it looks like it was either some small debris that caused the wheel to start to sketch out, or a slight over-correction of the body position with relation to the speed she was traveling with. Either way, you can see her fighting to try and control the sketch-out of the wheel, but there was too much speed and too little run way with which she could re-gain control (and in those split seconds where you know you won't get control back, and are going down, all you can do is try to set yourself out for the least bad crash scenario).

Cornering on a bike comes down to a simple equation of skill vs. technical demand of the curve. When the techical demand exceeds the skill, you go down, if skill exceeds the demand, you stay upright. Speed influences that technical demand, breaking in the corner is a guaranteed recipe for crashing, the way you mitigate that is by scrubbing speed before you start to corner, so that it does mess with your handling. Factors such as fatigue can negatively impact the skill side of the equation too, as you get more fatigued, your ability to handle those situations towards the upper end of your skill level tend to be diminished... In this case it looked like she was just over that tipping point, likely through a combination of some small debris, fatigue and a bit too much speed in the section (most of the riders recce'd the course ahead of time, so they could have known where scrubbing speed was needed) that resulted in the crash.

Glad to hear that she should recover, it's always scary AF when you see someone go over the guardrails, especially at that kind of speed...

At some point you're just committed. Doing the 2-step process to get up the bullhorns reduces control of the bike and takes a while. There are few things in cycling more terrifying than being mid-turn in TT position and realizing you'd much rather be in the bullhorns.

I like how you called it simple, then go into the immense complexity and sometimes sheer luck (invisible slick patch, etc) :)

From Neal Rogers on Twitter

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I wrote this, you should read it:
https://www.slowtwitch.com/...n_Swimming_6700.html

That's ridiculous. Her injury was much worse than it would have been had the pads been placed correctly.

Were the pads necessary for riders' safety? Apparently the organizers thought so, but they carelessly put them in the wrong place. The organizers are responsible for the extent of her injury.

If a course designer is going to put crash barriers on a turn, it is their responsibility to do it correctly. As you go into the turn and you see there are huge pads, that will give you some confidence to take it a little hotter. And as you come around you find that the pads do not go much past the apex of the turn, rendering them completely useless? It would have been better to have no pads at all.

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Ed O'Malley
www.VeloVetta.com
Founder of VeloVetta Cycling Shoes
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A genuine speed wobble while in the TT position is kind of strange. I've had speed wobbles a few times on my Felt DA if I have only very light grip on bullhurns. But being in the extensions seems to eliminate them as it sort of "locks" the front end in place with 4 points of contact (elbows and hands).

But wobbles are often specific to geometry, so her particular set up may have been more conducive to them.

CVV shared on the Mens TT pre-show that she and Kristin Armstrong talked yesterday and Chloe asked what the splits were ... like where she would've finished?

Chole's a badass - with bright pink sox

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"What's your claim?" - Ben Gravy
"Your best work is the work you're excited about" - Rick Rubin

Huh - my experience with speed wobbles is usually when I am nervous and I tense up, gripping my bars hard and my arms/shoulders get rigid. It increases the natural frequency of the system. A relaxed grip usually lowers the natural frequency to way below the typical frequency of a speed wobble. If i get a wobble and I can be level-headed enough to relax, it goes away.

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Ed O'Malley
www.VeloVetta.com
Founder of VeloVetta Cycling Shoes
Instagram • Facebook

Her leg is literally...open.

https://twitter.com/...342151034261504?s=21

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Yup I've had the same experience -- speed wobbles are worse on the bullhorns, not sure why. I've had them a couple times after hitting a rock and blowing out the front tire - very very scary. It doesn't look like a true speed wobble to me. I think she panicked mid corner and sat up and overgripped the extensions and lost control. (Her hands never leave the extensions even though she sits up.) I'm sure the TT geometry didn't help.

And @rowtotri
I disagree - it wasn’t a particular hard or dangerous turn, so it was her fault - she just rode too fast through that corner. The same could be said for every corner, if you ride it too fast, you crash. She Tool a chance, would have gained several seconds through that corner, had she made it, and she wasn’t far from making it. Thats just taking risks and facing the consequences. Zero or hero is a a knife’s edge, just like it should be. Or should it just be a straight Road then?
If anything could be argued about the crash barriers, the positioning is one thing, But they probably shouldnt have been there at all. Crash barriers are for unforseen obstackles in the middle of the road, not at the exit of a High speed turn

hope that looks worse than it is.....cos it looks bad

+1 on this!

If brasch watched the Men's TT today, the barriers were certainly extended to the area she crashed. Perhaps she still would have gone over given how low they are but it may have avoided the lacerations and surgery potentially allowing her to compete in the road race.

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