Tour de France champion Chris Froome says he is okay after a driver chased him onto the pavement and rammed his bike this morning, before driving off. The hit and run incident destroyed Froome’s Pinarello bike, according to a picture he posted to Twitter.
According to the social network, the photo was posted from Beausoleil in France’s Alpes-Maritimes department, close to Froome’s Monaco home.
Just got rammed on purpose by an impatient driver who followed me onto the pavement! Thankfully I’m okay Bike totaled. Driver kept going! pic.twitter.com/o7FT4iXsAo
— Chris Froome (@chrisfroome) May 9, 2017
45 thoughts on “Chris Froome rammed “on purpose” – bike destroyed – by hit and run driver in France”
Probably an irate 2CV driver
Probably an irate 2CV driver that got dropped on a climb.
I can imagine the driver’s
I can imagine the driver’s thoughts:
‘Bloody Full Kit Wanker, who does he think he is?!’
Only way to stop him winning
Only way to stop him winning the TDF
Sabotage! Just because he’ll
Sabotage! Just because he’ll probably win the TdF this year and a French rider won’t. Sad really. I always get told by friends who ride abroad that the car drivers in France and Spain are a lot more tollerant of cyclists and will wait behind for a safe place to pass and even wave them on as they’re passing, the driver was probably British?
steviemarco wrote:
or Australian
steviemarco wrote:
sorry but your assumption that the driver is British is simply BS.
Having visited/cycled in France many times over the last 27 years the standard of driving over there varies as widely as it does here. Only last week (in france) I had a WVM try to scrape DNA off my elbow instead of using the completely empty lane to his left and more than a few mickey poor passes and drivers pulling out of side roads in town centres. then there was the woman who decided a roundabout wasn’t worth going around in a village and the motorcyclist who thought he could bully his way in front of my car when there was a red light ahead.
yes the vast majority are okay but I wouldn’t say fantastic, the cycling death toll in france is much worse than the UK and is on the increase not going down as per for all road incidents.
2015 final results Incidents 56, 603 Killed 3,461 Injuries 70, 802 hospitalisations 26, 595
2016 estimates 57, 251/3.469/72,199/27, 214
since 2010 cycling deaths have gone up by 8% and other modes have gone down (except pedestrians), so please stop with the BS speculation about it being a British driver hitting Froome and how great drivers the french are, they simply aren’t.
Fame and fortune are no
Fame and fortune are no protection from these idiots in cars. I hope he reported it to the police just in case there was CCTV nearby.
Chris was lucky to escape uninjured.
Christopher TR1 wrote:
That’s it isn’t it. Doesn’t matter who you are, as soon as you hit the road on a bike, you’re a vulnerable target playing the odds of being done in by some scumf*ck.
This is awful, espeically
This is awful, espeically since what happened to Scarpoini recently. Its mad that the driver followed him onto the pavement as well. FFS
My money’s on it being a
My money’s on it being a Skoda with Paul Weller on full blast driven by a man with a gingery beard.
I’ve been seriously hassled
I’ve been seriously hassled by drivers in France three times in total, although never resulting in injury or damage, and two of those the car had UK licence plates. But I have always avoided cycling in both Paris and the Côte d’Azur (where this happened) as those areas are twat-magnets.
handlebarcam wrote:
Yes, the British – worst drivers in Europe….except we’re not by a long shot.
Yorkshire wallet wrote:
British roads are certainly safer for motorists than, say, Italy’s. Indeed, our roads are some of the safest in the world in that regard. It would be interesting to see how our stats for cyclists compare to the continent, however.
daturaman wrote:
Yep, Italy and the UK have similar population sizes (around 60 mill – plus or minus a few mill) but Italy has around twice the level of fatalities on its road network/year that the UK does. In the UK the road fatality rate has been around 1750 or so/year for the last five years or so. Yes we do have a slightly higher percentage of cycling deaths, but still fewer than Italy.
Bear in mind that Thailand also has, broadly speaking, a similar population size to the UK and Italy (around 60 mill, plus or minuse a few mill). It has 11 times the road fatality rate/year that the UK does.
Anyone who says we have the worst drivers in the world in the UK is basically talking out of their arse.
One fun fact to know – in Western Europe Belgium has the worst drivers, without doubt. the country has twice the level of fatalities/year of Holland next door, and about 1 1/2 times that of France.
OldRidgeback wrote:
Amazing! Whenever I make may way over to the continent, I do genuinely always think that the Belgians are by far the most cretinously careless and unskilled drivers. I’m allowing myself a wry smile that my experience is backed up by facts.
As we are missing all our
As we are missing all our trolls, I’ll give it a stab:
There was plenty of space on that footpath for a bike to be overtaken by a car if only the cyclist wasn’t trying to police the space by inconsiderately riding more than 10cm from the edge.
If I was the car driver in that situation I would of worried him like a terrier shaking a rat, plenty of horn followed up with a close pass to remind him to get off the pavement and onto the grass when a faster vehicle is clearly attempting to overtake.
Pavements are by extension a part of the road and I have paid for that with my car tax. I also own a bicycle, but only use it round the garden because I am a considerate cyclist.
Mungecrundle wrote:
You win Cyclist bashing bingo! congratulations – a full house
Mungecrundle wrote:
Well done for adopting the position of a troll, you have succeeded. Why should any cyclist not use the road?
I am unfamiliar with French law, are cyclists allowed to cycle on footpaths?
Grahamd wrote:
Unless your 8 years old and under, it’ll cost you 90€
Mungecrundle wrote:
Ride on the grass?? That be the domain of the lawnmower. Ride in the air, that’s where bicycles should be.
earth wrote:
Nope. I pay for the air with my drone tax.
Mungecrundle wrote:
Well done! Made me laugh whilst having a mouthful of chiken tikka pastie (apologies to the west country for this fusion cuisine abomination). Managed to avoid spraying it all over my desk, but got blowback up my nostrils.
Mungecrundle wrote:
Hear hear. The cyclist was obviously a middle-class, middle-aged man and not even wearing a helmet. The car that rammed him could have been an ambulance trying to get to the scene of an emergency royal birth brought on by the stress of seeing foreigners throwing donkeys off towers.
Vidette?
Vidette?
Expert more of this sort of
Expert more of this sort of thing after Brexit, innit.
I’m telling you it’s a fake
I’m telling you it’s a fake accident. This is a Sky Team conspiracy. He’s in crap form with no chance of winning the Tour this year. So they’ve found a nice quiet road with no witnesses said “Right Chris off the bike and lay it down in the road”. They’ve then run it over with the team car. “Chris get a photo on Twitter quick”.
You see the next thing will be a Sky statement. “Chris was involved in an accident today and as a precaution we took him to hospital and it turns out he’s got a bit of a poorly back and we don’t think we’ll be able to get a TUE for enough drugs to win him the Tour this year so he’s not going to bother doing it”.
Unbelievable.. Glad no injury
Unbelievable.. Glad no injury. I’m waiting/hoping for the day when bikes come supplied fitted with some form of built in/removable cameras..or at least have the option for it. If it was done across the board it would send a powerful message to f*cktard drivers like this.
For sale: Rare Pinarello
For sale: Rare Pinarello Dogma, slightly used. Some restoration required to return it to its former glory.
ChainedToTheWheel wrote:
You forgot to add “fully functional”
Was it this driver?
Was it this driver?
https://youtu.be/S1RMtVWItNo
I wouldn’t be surprised if it
I wouldn’t be surprised if it was a targeted attack rather than just a random idiot motorist. We heard all about the abuse team sky riders have suffered at the last couple of tours, and all the revelations about the jiffy bag can hardly have improved the perception of them. Given that it’s close to where he lives and probably roads he rides regularly it could conceivably be a disgruntled French cycling fan trying to put him out of the tour.
Jiffy bagged team mates,
Jiffy bagged team mates, getting covered in urine and now this. What a life eh?
Pinarello with Shimano? I’ll
Pinarello with Shimano? I’ll get road rage too
There was no car or third
There was no car or third party interference. Froome was just too busy staring at his stem to note where he was going…
Who’s to blame eh ?
Who’s to blame eh ?
frogg wrote:
Brexit.
frogg wrote:
Ronnie Pickering, that’s who!
The driver didn’t stop?!! How
The driver didn’t stop?!! How could he check for damage to his/her car without stopping? Madness…
Or it could have been a law
Or it could have been a law abiding citizen who was driving a French car which are so bad that he couldn’t keep it in a straight line.
This is very sad, he must
This is very sad, he must have saved up for months to afford a Dogma. What ever is he going to ride now? I would be gutted if my pride and joy was destroyed by some burk with a hard on for being at the next lights two seconds sooner.
At least a couple of times a year I get asked if I am in the Tour de France. Maybe I can take Chris’s slot.
Hey, guys! We’re all cyclists
Hey, guys! We’re all cyclists here. Please drop the vitriol and politics! The guy was just hit by a cager, let’s show some sympathy. I hope the jerk that did it gets found. Ideally his wife would have to bail him out!
RGRHON wrote:
Err, you might want to reread the comments. There’s a lot of sarcasm, not a lot of vitriol, and only one political dig, which was also sarcastic.
OldRidgeback wrote:
whilst I do get that I don’t think its appropriate someone attempts GBH/murder using a car and no we are not shocked and dismayed, no we play along with the haters by using humour. Like the van driver earlier in the week this driver needs to be caught and incarcerated for a LONG time.
what is gong on in the world that anyone thinks it is acceptable to attack another human with a massive weapon just because it is also a bit of transport?
Hope French law is much tougher and effective than ours
The driver was mad at Froome
The driver was mad at Froome for distracting him from his mobile phone.
Worst driving I saw on the
Worst driving I saw on the mainland was Norway by a mile. Gobsmackingly wreckless. Drivers booting it past queues into tunnels with oncoming traffic coming. Swerving around bends at insane speeds. Seems normal all over the country. Reckon the low population density has allowed them to get away with utter stupidity.