Nicolas Roche near miss at Critérium du Dauphiné
Nicolas Roche was sent flying into the back of his team car on yesterday’s stage of the Critérium du Dauphiné.
And when he hit the vehicle shoulder first and crashed onto the road, a passing police motorbike ran over his wheel.
Thankfully BMC Racing’s Roche was able to right himself and get back into the main field long before the bunch sprint.
He would finish the stage in the peloton and without serious injury, but not before giving the driver of the race doctor’s car a piece of his mind.
Nicolas Roche outlines the dramatic incident in his Critérium du Dauphiné Diary in the Irish Independent today.
He said when the breakaway went clear he took advantage of the lull in pace to take a natural break.
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And though he got back up to the his own team car, which is second in the cavalcade thanks to Richie Porte sitting 2nd overall, it was on the bumper of his own team car that problems began.
The vehicle carrying the medic was just ahead of the BMC car Roche was drafting at the back of.
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And when the doctor’s car slammed on the brakes, Roche’s car did the same and the Irishman had nowhere to go.
“I had to slam on the brakes and I reduced my speed to around 30kph as my back wheel locked up,” he writes in his Irish Independent Diary.
“I skidded towards the bumper, where my front wheel made contact and I was buckaroo-ed shoulder-first into the boot of the car.
“It could have been worse; I could have gone through the windscreen.
I bounced off the car and landed on the right-hand side of the road, where a police motorbike was overtaking the cars.
“Thankfully, he stopped before hitting me but I didn't notice he had driven across my back wheel until I remounted and pulled myself together a few minutes later.
“With my brake lever also bent, it took another few minutes to find a spot to pull in and change onto my spare bike, which was handed to me pretty quickly by Alan, the team mechanic.
“Having swapped over my bottles and power metre it took me about 20 minutes to get back to the peloton but I wasn't going to kill myself and took it one car at a time.
He said he let as the race doctor’s car as he passed, telling the occupants they couldn’t simply jam on in a cavalcade.
“To be honest, when the first word out of his mouth wasn't 'sorry', I didn't even wait to hear his reply,” he writes. “(I) just kept making my way back to the peloton.”
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