More Crashes. The Cost Of Progress?

Can bike tech be called progress when the machines are getting slower and more dangerous?

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Injuries at the UCI pro level have increased by 300% over the past decade. As shown in Figure 1, 2025 is set to break all records and end with a 400% increase over 2014.

What is the cause of this three-fold injury increase?

The common crash increase mantra includes some subset of the following unfounded statements:

"Racing speeds have increased significantly over the past decade."

This is the most common reason we read for the rise in crashes. The data doesn't support that hypothesis. Figure 2 overlays the average speed to the number of injuries. The average speed increase in the top UCI World Tour races (the Great Eight) is 0.6% per year over the past decade. That's 0.25 km/h (0.16 mph) increase per year. That speed increase cannot explain any meaningful rise in injuries. Even if the crash-injury increase was exponential to speed increase, injuries would increase by only 1 to 2% annually.

The 2025 season provides more data on the disconnect between race speed and injuries. As of 2 June 2025, Paris-Roubaix, Milan-San Remo, and the Giro d'Italia were all slower than their 2024 counterparts by 0.9, 0.8, and 0.2 km/h each.^[2] The net speed change for the four Monuments, year to date is slower by 0.1 km/h.^[3] And yet, injuries have increased by 14% from 2024 to 2025 between January 1 and June 2 (198 vs 226 injuries reported).^[4] Speed is not the cause of increasing injuries.

Additionally, the weather conditions in 2024 were substantially worse in 2024 for Liege-Bastogne-Liege and the Tour of Flanders.^[5] Therefore, injuries should be higher for those two races. Paris-Roubaix weather was identical year over year, and Milan-San Remo weather was marginally worse in 2025.^[6] The net rain effect should mean more injuries in 2024 than 2025. However, in 2024, the only Monument of the first four that reported injuries was Flanders.^[7] Flanders 2024 weather was wet compared to its 2025 running, so this makes sense anecdotally.^[8] The other three Monuments reported zero injuries.^[9] In contrast, for 2025, the first four Monuments had a total 12 reported injuries despite better weather than 2024 for three of races.^[10] 2025 has recorded a 300% increase in injuries for the four Monuments even though speeds were level and weather was better.

"Races are longer than ever."

We see this statement a lot, too. The average Great Eight race distance has decreased slightly, by 1.3%, over the past decade.

"There are too many races on the calendar."

This is another popular justification for the increase in crashes and injuries. In reality, the average number of races per UCI rider has decreased by 9% during the past decade (from 91 to 83 race days).

Figure 3 shows a combination of the total number of races and the distance of those races. There has been a 10% decline in total miles over the past decade.

"Traffic furniture is more problematic than ever."

This is true but it accounts for less than 9% of incidents in 2024 as tracked by SafeR.^[12] Meaning, at most, 29 incidents in 2024. That's not a high enough baseline to account for a meaningful escalation of injuries.

"Tracking injuries reports more injuries."

The UCI's injury tracking system is obtuse. As the UCI has taken rider safety more seriously over the past few years, it probably affects the reporting of injuries. More focus on the problem likely means riders would report injuries. However, there are a number of counters to this argument. Regardless, assuming injury reporting is up, there's no indication that it's 3x up. Case in point: Primoz Roglic retired from the 2025 Giro due to four crashes.^[11] However, zero injuries were reported for him.

Any other factors, like spectator interference, front-to-rear wheel gaps shrinking, and "all out" racing, have virtually no impact on overall injury escalation.

Racing Is Significantly Safer Than A Decade Ago

This seems at odds with the previously unheard of increase in rider injuries. Regardless, it would be difficult to argue that racing has become more dangerous over the past decade. Figure 4 shows 19 changes that should make racing safer. There are only a few changes that one could argue make racing more dangerous.

What is the cause of this three fold-injury increase?

If all of the typical tropes for so many more crashes in recent years are not accurate, what explains the incredible pace of injuries? Figure 4 shows some causes of more dangerous riding but they seem overwhelmed by safety improvements.

The data from SafeR does not appear helpful in finding answers. Fully two-thirds of incidents (not necessarily crashes, but rather dangerous situations) SafeR could not even categorize in any useful way. For example, 35% of incidents are categorized "unprovoked rider errors" and 27% of incidents had no categorization at all.^[13]

Whatever the cause of so many more crashes, it's not obvious in the data. We see two significant issues: tracking of modern bikes and traction issues at the tire contact patches.

Bike Tracking Problems

By tracking, we mean the wheels keeping connected to the pavement.

A change bike behavior is clear from watching hundreds of UCI races over the past few decades. And then watching those crashes over and over again in slow motion. We know this is not scientific, and we are loath to bring it into the conversation. Regardless, it's difficult to watch modern crashes and not think there's a bike problem.

A bike with good tracking should allow the wheels to stay in contact over bumps, vertically, and at an angle during aggressive turning. Good tracking is maximized through a combination of vertical flow (compliance) and a small amount of torsional flex in the front end. This combination enables the wheels to move in three dimensions while remaining connected to the ground. As bikes get stiffer every year, their tracking capabilities diminish. As tracking gets worse, bike control and handling become more difficult. The result is an increase in crashes.

Tire Contact Patch Conundrum

In video replay, it is far too common to see the cause of crashes to be a loss of traction. However, there are at least two reasons that traction should be significantly better than a decade ago: 1) road conditions are better than ever, and 2) tires have gone from 23 mm to 30 mm in width. (2013 marked the transition from 23 to 25 mm tires in the pro peloton.^[14]) This is a 30% increase in contact patch size. No amount of frame stiffness should be able to negate the significant tire contact patch traction improvement, but here we are.

Footnotes