TV Doc: Tour de France crash with Dan Martin began one man's horror story

Jack Bauer hits the tarmac with Dan Martin - both in the green of Cannondale Garmin - during stage 4 of last year's Tour de France. Bauer would crash badly three times in two days; his season ended by a broken femur necessitating a long road to recovery.

 

New Zealand, a bit like its relatively near neighbour Australia, is renowned for producing talented bike riders who are also hard men.

Jack Bauer fits that description perfectly. He's a man very much at home on the pavé of Belgium and northern France when the rain is falling and skin and hair is flying.

On stage 4 of last year's Tour de France, the race headed for the pavé of France.

But before the field even got to the first bad section of cobbles that day, Dan Martin was to crash on a sharp right-hand bend when a rider from Astana came off just ahead of him.

Advertisement

Bauer, a team mate of Martin's at the time, was with him and came down too.

They got back on their bikes and made it to the finish, brushing off the incident as minor and very much still in the fight inside the world's biggest race.

"That was a massive day - chasing for about 60km. We pushed really deep and still lost about five minutes I think," Bauer says in his new 25-minute documentary 'The Road To Recovery', which you can view just below.

 

Bauer's broken femur meant surgery was needed, with 10 weeks of intense physio required and then a longer recovery period to get back training and into shape again.

 

The stage 4 fall with Ireland's Martin and the chase back on meant Bauer was pretty exhausted going into the following day when stage 5 took the riders 189 kilometres from Arras to Amiens.

Related News

Bauer came down on a wet patch early in the stage, smashing his left side on the road.

"The leg wasn't working so well but I wasn't pulling out on stage 5 of the Tour," he recalled.

After another couple of hours and a further 90km in which he continually got dropped but got back on, the Kiwi came down again on his own while taking a roundabout.

And once more he landed on his left side. This time he was forced out, with the diagnosis after the stage revealing he had broken his femur and soon underwent surgery.

His horror race and the long and painful struggle back to the peloton has now been made into The Road to Recovery. Enjoy!

 

New Bauer documentary, "The Road To Recovery"

 

Stage 4 crash with Dan Martin (watch from 1:10)