Swiss pro cyclist Gino Mäder dies after horrific Tour de Suisse crash

Good points. I would add, perhaps slightly cynically, that there are very few towns on mountaintops, so a mountaintop finish removes the opportunity for the €120,000 (in the Tour) that the organisers get from towns for the privilege of hosting a stage finish.

Funny you should mention that. I was talking to a colleague yesterday who has no knowledge of cycling but had been engrossed in the Netflix Need for France or whatever it is called and his question was about how money was made and I explained the funding model of start/ finish venues paying.

"I see," he said, "does that mean they don't ride the same route each year then?"

There is still some way to go to explain our wonderful sport/ hobby/ means of  transport to the masses!

I suspect most people critisizing the profile is taken from Remco's initial comments. As they are the people on the front line, I suspect they have more knowledge on what is dangerous or not. There are not many tour stages which have descent finshes nowadays for example. 

I agree, however my point was that somebody should be looking at the route and asking "what happens if a cyclist crashes here?" (this is independent of the immediate cause of the crash) If the answer is "they will plummet into a ravine and end up underwater" (as per the news reports) then they should be thinking about mitigation measures at least, if not changing the route.

From Remco's comments I inferred that he felt nobody had even asked the question.

I could be wrong, I hope I am. I hope that this was a freak, tragic accident that nobody could be expected to foresee.

You cannot put cotton wool around all the descents that they race. Most riders recce and know the descents and train and ride on them. For sure there are newbies that have less knowledge. Part of racing in the mountains is about roadcraft. Modulating the speed to the bend. When they get it wrong unfortunately it can be costly. Remco got it wrong in Il Lombardia on the descent of the Muro di Sormano: Too fast into the bend and hit the bridge wall. I also reject the idea that a stage cannot finish with a descent. Riders have many descents and I so no reason why they cannot finish at the bottom of one. If you are pushing the limits to find 2 seconds that can cost you. The best descenders rarely crash. In my experience, all my accidents racing have happened on the flat caused by someone else not paying attention. Except a slippery bend in Majorca as I ignored advice. I still think we should not race to judgement as we do not know the facts. I am deeply heartbroken, as a Swiss and local knowledge it just seems to make it worse. I can only state the following: https://sinclair.ch/Phils_web01/Epitaph_for_a_cyclist.htm

Looking at the point at which Mader left the road it does appear to be a pretty innocuous stretch, just after a wide sweeper with another coming up. From the look of it I'd say a mechanical might be the most likely cause. Although I've expressed reservations about having such fast downhill finishes, now I've seen the location I don't think the organisers can be blamed for not identifying it as a danger area, it's on a part of the descent which one would imagine was one of the least likely areas for a crash.  

I am keen to learn what went wrong, as I love descending alpine passes (as do many others here), so here's some sleuthing ...
This article shows the location of the crash, and what look like skid marks leading off the edge - yikes.
And Google Earth shows the bend concerned.
It looks like a wide sweeper with good visibility and not reducing radius.
The bend comes after a long straightish section at 8%-9%, so maybe 100km/h
You can follow it down on StreetView.
I think ravine is overstating things - its a stone-lined culvert.
They were heading East, so not sun in the eyes.
So what happened - damp road? Cow pats? Mechanical?

RIP Gino. Terribly sad...
 

I think thats something the riders should have the final decision on.

Secret_squirrel wrote:

I think thats something the riders should have the final decision on.

Not sure about that...what if 55% of the riders vote continue and 45% not? Might be better if the decision is taken out of their hands. Obviously they must be consulted though.

Just seen that the organisers decided to neutralise the stage, the peloton will only ride the last 30 km of the route in tribute to Mader. Good decision.

I did wonder this morning if the call to shorten the stage was actually because of a rockslide and wasn't actually because they would have been climbing up the same climb as yesterdays descent. 

The call to shorten the stage was made before the news broke of Mader's death. 

I know, but I suspect the organisers would have had a pretty damn good idea of his condition overnight. Maybe not that he would die today, but that he was touch and go. So having all the competitors cycling past the spot might have been too much. It probably was a rock slide though. 

Let me help you, and TDS went past it yesterday: "Huge landslide narrowly misses Swiss mountain village. A large section of the crumbling mountain above Brienz/Brinzauls broke off around midnight narrowly missing the village in canton Graubünden in southeastern Switzerland." https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/evacuated-village-spared-as-enormous-rock-m...

Ta for the knowledge. Surprised the Tour wasn't diverted before yesterday then being as the Village at the base of the slide was evacuated over a month ago. 

Shocking news, was a fan and was looking to see how he develop over the next few years.

RIP Gino

1. There is still a flat run to the line after the Poggio.
2. The Poggio descent roads are fairly shallow gradients, is much shorter, and have walls and barriers preventing over-the-edge mass drops and other than the obvious hairpins have no major or sudden change in direction that catch riders unawares.
3. The Poggio (both up and down) is legendary, not because of it's size, but its pivotal effect in the race. 

Festus wrote:

Sorry Remco it is the riders taking chances, I watched the descent no one backed off, maybe a switch back to rim brakes might work

Remco wrote:

 As riders, we should also think about the risks we take going down a mountain

He seems fully aware of the fact that riders have a responsibility. 

It's a competition; riders need to take chances to win. It's up to the organiser to provide a course which doesn't encourage certain types of risk taking which can have terrible consequences, e.g. finishes at the bottom of technical descents with dangerous drops.

Festus wrote:

Sorry Remco it is the riders taking chances, I watched the descent no one backed off, maybe a switch back to rim brakes might work

How will a switch back to rim brakes help? 

johnsonmoog wrote:

Festus wrote:

Sorry Remco it is the riders taking chances, I watched the descent no one backed off, maybe a switch back to rim brakes might work

How will a switch back to rim brakes help? 

I'm guessing, but was the argument that, because disk brakes are better, riders are taking bigger risks?  A bit like the rusty spike sticking out of the steering wheel argument for safer driving.