The dirt and debris on Nicolas Roche's kit and bike tells the story of spectacularly landing on a group of spectators and flattening them onto a flower bed.
Nicolas Roche has written of his crash yesterday on stage 5 of the Tour de France.
The Irish man riding for Team Sky has outlined the circumstances of the dramatic smash in his Tour Diary in The Irish Independent today, Thursday.
Roche also said yellow jersey Tony Martin apologised to him on the road yesterday, which took the riders 189.5km from Arras to Amiens, during which crosswinds split the field again.
On Tuesday’s stage 4, which took in seven sections of pave and was won by Tony Martin who also took the yellow jersey, Roche said the German riding for Etixx-QuickStep manhandled him on the cobbles.
Advertisement
But yesterday he apologised, during what was a stressful day in yellow.
“In the early kilometres he rode up to me in his yellow jersey and apologised for shoving me off the road on a cobbled section yesterday,” Roche writes in his column, which is an especially insightful read today.
“He probably didn't have to do but was much appreciated.”
He explained he would then go on to crash after around 55km on a very breezy and wet day; the fall simply compounding the challenges the stage threw at him.
“As we were rounding a right-hand bend in a little village, Bauke Mollema's bike slid out from under him on a greasy section of new tar,” he explained.
Related News
“I pulled my brakes to try and avoid the Dutchman but instead of hitting Mollema, my bike fishtailed towards the kerb where a group of fans were watching the race in front of a large flowerbed.
“I tried to control my skid but couldn't stop my wheel hitting the kerb, where I was catapulted over the handlebars and onto the stunned spectators, who broke my fall a little bit before we all landed in a heap in the flowers.
“I uprooted myself from the flowerbed just as our mechanic Gary arrived alongside me.
“Gary pulled a few flowers out of my brake levers and cleaned my handlebars while I wiped the peat moss off my team kit and gave myself a quick once-over.
“Apart from my pride though, I wasn't hurt and I hope none of the spectators were either.”
Nicolas Roche's Tour Diary is appearing every day of the Tour de France in The Irish Independent.
Topics
