The Current - Protecting cyclists as the sport gets faster and faster

Episode Date: September 18, 2026

Beginning Sunday, Montreal hosts the UCI Road World Championships. Top cyclists from around the world will compete. But with racers averaging speeds of 42 kilometres an hour, it is a dangerous sport. Crashes are common, and sometimes fatal. This year alone, three competitive riders died during races, with at least six more killed on training rides. In his documentary, CBC’s John Chipman investigates what some cyclists say is an urgent need to protect riders.

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podcast. Hello, I'm Matt Galloway, and this is the current podcast. Beginning Sunday, Montreal hosts the UCI Road World Championships. Top cyclists from around the world will compete, including Canada's reigning women's world champion, Magdalene Villar Mill. But with racers averaging a speed of 42 kilometers an hour, it is a dangerous sport. Big Crush. Tani Bikachia, the leader of Lovewell He has come down and he's come down hard. Wow. They don't see him often in the crashes, but he has heard himself.

Five-time Tour de France winner Tada Pogacar will not be in Montreal to defend his world championship title because of his injuries from that crash this summer in Spain. Crashes in this sport are common and sometimes fatal. This year alone, three competitive riders died during races with at least six more killed on training rides. The CBC's John Chitman has been investigating what some cyclists say is in urgent need to protect riders who are going faster and faster. Here's John's documentary. The course starts in a race in about 15 minutes. I'm standing in an industrial park on the outskirts of St. George, a city of 33,000 people,

about 100 kilometers south of Quebec City, in the rolling foothills. of the Appalachian Mountains. It's a chaotic hive of activity, as cyclists zip in and out of the parking lot weaving around team support staff and well-wishers as they warm up for the day's races. This is the heartland of competitive cycling in Canada. It's late June and I'm here for the Canadian road cycling championships

whose winners will qualify for the worlds in Montreal. Some big names are here. Michael Woods is back with us today. He won the title in 2024. Michael Woods has had a long accomplished professional career racing in Europe, even taking a stage of the Tour de France in 2023. He retired from professional racing last year. I started racing bikes in 2010.

The bike that I'm on now versus the bike that I first started racing on is night and day. The speeds that you can hit are far higher, but the rules haven't caught up. and that's made the sport far more dangerous. Crashes were a big part of why he retired from professional cycling. Michael is fine competing in smaller circuit races like this one, but he's done racing in the enormous mountain-spanning world tour events in Europe. To his mind, the sport is not doing enough to protect its athletes.

I've had way too many crashes. I've probably averaged around three to four per season and raced for over 15 years, so definitely in the 30s to 40s. In 2019, I broke my femur. Last season, 2025, I crashed and woke up in an ambulance, broke my collarbone, and, yeah, severe incursion. In fact, winning the nationals again isn't even his primary goal. I'm trying to set up my former teammate, Pierre Andre Cote, for the win. For the elite women's race, Alex Volstad, is among the hopeful.

I ask her what her plan is today. Survive and see what happens. The 20-year-old races professionally for EF education Oatley, another world tour team. She's based in Spain. Not all the cyclists are as accomplished or experienced as Michael or Alex. In fact, riders don't have to qualify for the nationals. Just buy a license through your provincial cycling federation and you're in. A focused young cyclist with a scruff of beard warms up on his trainer.

This is my first time. This is definitely the biggest race all of them. Ilan Basada rides with an amateur team in Montreal. I've only been racing for three years. I've been riding probably for five or so. I think it's going to be tough with the field that we have. Alon was supposed to be racing with a friend, but he broke his collarbone at a recent race.

It's really a shame. Is that something that you think about when you're going... Yeah, yeah, every race. Every race. Try not to crash. If you stay on two wheels, it's a good race. A light drizzle falls as the men begin their 185-kilometer race. From here, they ride 30K through winding hills before doing a 15K loop eight times and then heading back. I fall behind the support vehicles following the riders out to the circuit loop,

but it's not long before the first signs of trouble. Let's see what's going on. An ambulance is parked on the side of the road. A dazed rider walks toward it. When I get close, I ask him what happened. It's wet, so one break and everything was done. What did you hurt here? My ankle.

His arm is also in a sling, and he looks to be favoring his collarbone. Further on, another rider sits on the side of the road, too distraught to speak. His girlfriend, Florence Filion, who is in the team's support vehicle, explains what happened. I think a guy was stressing his riding and just made everybody fall. I asked her how many riders crashed. Maybe five. A lot just continued the race. The guy hit its head and still decided to continue.

Florence's boyfriend is not seriously injured, but his bike is wrecked. Is it because of the wrecked? Is that what a ride? I think it was just the, yeah, the rider. She acknowledges there's a wide range of skill levels here and experienced amateurs up against seasoned pros. Lots of pressure on these young men and that

because it's stuff like this. Michael Woods says crashes are a constant worry for competitive cyclists. He's competed in races in which riders died. So is Alex Volstad. I didn't know her personally. I mean, I had raced with her throughout the year. Two years ago, when Alex was just 18, a young Swiss rider named Muriel Fuerer

died at the World Championships in Zurich in a junior race in which they were both competing. I was just riding the race normal like we hadn't heard anything during the race. I just crossed the line, thought, oh, it's just a normal day out. Canadian Naomi Julien was also in the 73.6K race. She was 17 at the time, competing for an amateur team based in the Netherlands. The weather was really bad.

It was raining and it was quite cold, like I think 15 degrees or something. The race started in the pretty suburb of Ooster, taking riders around a lake and into a loop that climbed onto a plateau of trees and farmland perched high above Zurich. before a treacherous descent through a heavily wooded, steep and secluded forest ravine. Heavy rains had soaked the roads, which were littered with wet leaves. I actually had really bad legs. So yeah, I still finished the race, and I finished around 80-something placed. I believe I was 13th or 12th maybe.

So for me, I was pretty happy with it. As the competitors crossed the finish line, no one knew that Muriel Furer was still out there. She crashed on one of the descents up in the woods. There was a really long, wet descent in the trees. But I think she had slipped out in a corner and gone under a guardrail and into the ditch. And then no one saw it because it was so strung out on the descends. Sometimes you're often alone.

Like, I'm often like that in races if I'm dropped. So it's quite scary sometimes. You're just sometimes alone in the middle of nowhere. Race organizers eventually realized Muriel was unaccounted. for. A search party was mobilized, but it would be more than 80 minutes after her crash before a safety marshal found her lying unconscious in the woods. Mary O'Fiourer died in hospital the following day. It was really weird how we found out, actually. We were, I think, at a restaurant, like heading back home because we were driving back all the way to the Netherlands.

And we found out on Instagram, yeah, about her death. And it was a, it doesn't a big shock. Naomi Julienne didn't realize it at the time, but she was riding with Muriel just before her fatal descent. The police, of course, did an investigation, and they went to see the live stream and who was there around her. In the live stream, we can see we're next to each other. Naomi didn't know Muriel, but they were both part of a group of riders working together to finish the race. This was the last uphill before going into the circuit, but I actually went into the descent quite a focus and at full speed. Naomi stayed ahead of Muriel on the descent and didn't see or hear anything out of the ordinary.

I think the police, they asked a few questions about if there was wild animals. That could have implied the accident. I unfortunately haven't heard anything or seen anything. Maybe I was too in the zone, but I think there was nothing there. Muriel died from a traumatic brain injury. The Zurich Public Prosecutor's Office found that emergency crews acted quickly once alerted and its investigation did not place criminal fault on organizers or responders. The final report did not address whether the delay in finding Muriel contributed to her death.

Police and race officials acknowledged that the torrential rain, wet, leaf-covered asphalt and low visibility under the dense forest canopy were all factors in her crash. It was just quite a shock and like especially my family too like they were in Canada at the time so they were just like whoa like some girl passed away in your race and like this could happen to you

it was just very close to home a girl my age it's crazy to just think that it could happen to me the race did two passes through the tree line descent meaning all the competitors passed by the spot Muriel crashed not knowing she was lying there just off the road unseen

Naomi says she says she struggled initially to process what had happened. I was a bit in disbelief that someone actually took the start of this race and never finished. I don't know how as a friend, as a family member, I would have passed through this. It's really terrible. But also my coach at that time, he was like, lay your bike on this side, go through emotions and then we'll get back. So I took a good month without touching my bike.

thinking if I truly want to do this, is it worth it? And for me, it just brings a lot more than I can lose. Michael Woods was competing at those world championships as well. Despite the tragedy, the event continued. The sport's wild in that sense. When a rider passes away, it's sad. Everyone's impacted by it, but they didn't cancel the event. And it's the same with other instances where

I've raced where professional riders have died. Riders that I competed against, they died. And yeah, maybe we took things a bit easier the next day or had a moment of silence, but racing continued. The nation is watching Alberta and we know it. I'm Kathleen Petty, host at West of Center. Every week I speak with the people shaping Alberta politics from pipelines to separation to help you understand what's going on here and why.

it matters to the entire country. Pull up a chair and join me west of center. Find us and follow wherever you get your podcasts. Back at the nationals, bad weather and the varied skills of the competitors illustrate the difficulty race organizers can face in keeping track of everyone. The weather during the men's elite race went from cloudy to a light drizzle to steady, then torrential rain. As the kilometers piled up and the hours wore on, scores of riders started dropping out. In fact, more than half the field didn't finish, including Ilan Basada, the first timer from Montreal. What happened?

Legs didn't show up today. Oh, no. Yeah. On a good day, I think I might have stayed in a bit longer, but it was a bad day for me. It is what it is, though. I asked race organizer Francis Rancourt how he keeps cyclists safe in society. challenging conditions. The main issue is the thunderstorm on lightning.

If it gets really dangerous, we have to stop the way. So we call on the radio and we lift a red flag and we take everybody out of the course. To ice rink somewhere or a barn or something, we have to really, really fast. But it didn't happen. Francis says the rain got torrential near the finish area, but not out on the course.

It was bad here, but up there we almost no rain. Really? Yeah, on the secret. Like small rain. That's it. Rider Michael Woods begs to differ. I mean, we got hailed on. We got smashed by rain out there.

It certainly wasn't a beautiful day when we were racing. It wasn't the worst weather I've raced in by far. But it was significant. One of the main changes following Muriel Fure's death has been a push to get GPS tracking devices on all bikes. They were rolled out at last year's world championships in Rwanda and are expected to be in place in Montreal. And cycling's governing federation, Union Seacliste International or UCI, hopes to have GPS tracking at all world tour events by next season, including the Tour de France.

But they're not used at the Canadian Nationals. No, we don't. Maybe we wish we could, but it's a lot of money to put that on, huh? Yeah. But we are not in Europe, like high mountains and lots of turns and everything. We don't have it here. We have a long straight line. But it would be good to have GPS. We don't have money to do that. Adam Hansen is a former professional cyclist from Australia

who now leads the cyclist professional al-associet, the governing body for pro-cyclists. He also sits on safer, which works to improve rider safety. I ask him what he makes of the fact that cyclist. at events like the Canadian Nationals don't have GPS. I'm really surprised that there's not someone that just creates an app and your phone acts as a GPS tracker at these smaller races because a lot of these small races, the riders do race with their phones. Professional level you're not allowed to ride with the phone.

That's how I would implement it in, say, the non-professional smaller races. Cyclist airbags are another measure safer is exploring. The system is really small. It actually fits in your bike pants and that and bike pants have strong. straps at govy shoulders, so it's in the straps also. And when it goes off, it actually puts a ring around your neck area, and it actually covers your collarbone. It goes all the way down the sides and protects your ribs and all the way down to your hips. And the device itself, it has padding at the back also. So it really protects your spines, protects your neck and the side of your, it goes

almost up to your helmet. So you have protection from the foam, and then you have the airbag almost connected directly to it. So it actually looks really good, really promising. Wood says they're long overdue. There's certainly something that could be seen quite soon in the Peloton, which to me is a no-brainer. It's crazy to me that we're just wearing helmets. Michael hopes, too, that more will be done to make the roots themselves safer to prevent accidents from happening. Improving course design is a priority for safer as well. It's ironic, but the increase in infrastructure created to make cycling safer, ultimately

increases risk for racing on the bike. He's talking about changes meant to make recreational and commuter cycling safer. Adding speed bumps, adding roundabouts, adding bullards to create bike lanes. They're all fantastic. They're fantastic for communities. They're fantastic for making cycling safer and for reducing speed with vehicles. But they make cycling in a bike race way more dangerous. Alex Volstad says when you're in the middle of the

Peloton, which is a massive riders racing tightly together, you're pretty much riding blind. There's so much that can just pop out of nowhere when you're going quite fast and all you can see is the wheel in front of you. There's potholes, there's narrowings, there's curves, there's speed bumps especially. Sometimes if it hits you by surprise, then you can get a bit bucked off your bike like you're riding a horse or something. It's one of the reasons why the appeal to have these races happen in more rural areas is there. because it is safer. You have these bigger roads with less complicated road infrastructure

that does reduce your risk as a rider. UCI and SAVER have implemented already or are considering changes aimed at slowing the bikes down as well. Hardware changes like standardizing wheels, limiting minimum handlebar widths or rim depths, frame weight, and gear capacity. But slowing down the bikes has divided riders. Some, like Michael Woods,

thinks it's worth it if it makes racing safer. Others like Adam Hansen feel it could undermine the sport. To me, it's hard to get my head around this because that's the whole purpose of the sport to go as fast as possible. Some riders point to simpler fixes. Michael Berry is a former Canadian pro cyclist. He had a bad crash on a rainy descent

during an amateur race in the late 90s in the French Alps. Flying downhill, kind of like a 20-year-old does, and came into a corner and I didn't see that there was gravel on the corner and broke my femur. The reason he didn't see the gravel was because he wasn't wearing his glasses. He had a light prescription and didn't think he needed them when racing. There weren't many guys using them in the Peloton just because it's easier to race without them because you're, you know, in the pouring rain and everything that get a bit dirty or if contact lenses are even worse.

From then on, he wore prescription racing glasses, something his teammates were curious about. On the team bus, guys would just pick up the glasses and put them on, and different riders are like, holy smokes, I can actually see better with these on. So, yeah, a few of my teammates went and got glasses after. And they're all, it was like, definitely three of them. Michael Berry thinks requiring cyclists to take an eye test would do wonders for improving safety. Drivers, after all, need one to operate a car. It's a simple thing to do. If I was running a team, I would just make sure that all the riders at the beginning of the year get their eyes tested and do it annually. They're testing for every other physical aspect attribute the riders have.

So just a simple eye test would make a fairly big difference. If we start looking at the small things that contribute to the crashes, the compounding effect of many small things does affect the safety of the riders and the races and contribute to more crashes. Michael Woods says there are broader structural issues in the sport that he feels encourages riders to take more risks, which increases the chance of crashes. Starting in the 2020 season, UCI introduced what's known as a promotion and relegation system. Modeled after English soccer, teams need to score points to stay in the top-level world's tour,

which is the most lucrative and comes with automatic entries in the marquee races like the Tour de France. Don't score enough points and a team risks being demoted. I think it's a bad system. I'm not a fan of it at all. One of the things I loved about cycling when I first entered, it was very win-oriented. The objective was never finishing top 20 in a race. It was you trying to win or setting your teammate up for a win. In professional cycling, most competitors are support riders or domestiques. Their main job is to help the team leader win, like racing up front so the top rider can draft off them and conserve energy for the finish.

If the team leader wins, everyone does. At least that's how it used to be. Riders, staff, managers, everyone did not care if you finished 30th, but your teammate won. But with the relegation system, points were allotted to guys coming even in 50th in a race or just finishing. So it's evolved into now everybody's racing for points. And that puts a lot more stress on the finale's. And it means that guys are sprinting and taking risks for minor placings. so the risks and the crashing don't stop even after the race is won.

I reached out to UCI for comment about the concerns Michael Woods raised regarding the relegation system and Michael Berry's suggestion for mandatory vision tests. The Federation declined to respond, instead pointing me to its website where it is various regulations and press releases pertaining to rider safety. The takeaway? The Federation says it's exploring a variety of new measures aimed at protecting competitors. After the men's back of the men's race, the rain has finally broken

and after four hours, the men's field approaches the finish line. A breakaway group of eight riders leads the way. Among them, 2004 winner Michael Woods and his former teammate Pierre Andre Cote, who Woods is trying to help propel the victory. But in one of the most significant upsets in the history of the National Road Cycling Championships, a lower-tier rider named Jerome Gautier beat the field of World Tour heavyweights in a sprint at the line. Michael finished seventh, one spot behind his former teammate Pierre Andre,

who had to settle for 30 points rather than the 100 that comes with the win. In the women's elite race, Alex Volstad came up just short, finishing second to Maggie Cole's Lister in the final sprint. Yeah, she just, she got me, so, I mean, I can be happy with the U-23 title. Once again, just like last year, Alexandra Volstad. Alex won the under-23 classification. Michael Woods was at peace with his finish. You happy? Yeah.

Yeah? I noticed there was a little bit of a spill towards the front. Was there? Yeah, yeah. I didn't see it. Maybe this is the second group. You're always going to have some big wrecks at races, even at a smaller race like this.

How hopeful are you? I think that eventually the sport will adapt or it will die, and I don't see the sport dying anytime soon. So I'm an optimist, and I am hopeful. It's such a beautiful sport. The documentary was produced by John Chitman from the CBC's audio documentary unit with support from Joan Weber and Julia Pagel. You've been listening to the current podcast.

My name is Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening. I'll talk to you soon. For more CBC podcasts, go to cBC.ca slash podcasts.