rene haselbacher tour de france

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The history and unwritten rules of crashing at the Tour de France

Cycling’s biggest race has a long history of crashes. Here is a guide to the unwritten rules of the Tour de France’s most harrowing moments.

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Crashes are the worst thing about cycling, especially at the Tour de France . They’re violent and disruptive, and they hurt riders who trained all year to be at the Tour only to go home in bandages. They rob us of fun and rob teams of million-dollar investments.

Crashes have already affected the 2018 Tour de France.Four-time winner Chris Froome lost 51 seconds because he went over a canvas barrier into a ditch . So did Adam Yates and Richie Porte. American Lawson Craddock has been toughing out the first week despite a broken scapula . Richie Porte was forced to abandon on the cobblestones of Stage 9, seemingly cracking his collarbone on a fall and being reduced to tears .

And yet we can’t get rid of crashes. They are as much a part of the sport as the pneumatic tire. They even have their own set of rules, written and unwritten, which often cause cycling’s deeply analytical fanbase to lose its minds for days on end.

Here, then, is your Tour de France crash primer: what they are about, and how they happen, so when that instant comes (and it always comes) you will know what you’re looking at.

To start with, let’s stipulate that nearly all crashes happen for two basic reasons: 1) Two bikes can’t be in the same place at the same time, and 2) Cyclists are fundamentally insane.

There are many types of cycling crashes

Crashes start with a rider losing his balance. Sometimes guys bump shoulders and someone goes down. Sometimes riders go down without the help of their competitors, hitting something in the road, overcooking a corner, or slipping on a wet spot (painted surfaces are not your friend on a rainy day).

But the big bunch crashes usually start with a touch of wheels. If you’re packed tightly going 40 miles per hour, trouble could come from any direction. Maybe the guy in front of you taps his brakes at the wrong time, or maybe you aren’t paying attention when the peloton slows down, and your furiously spinning rubber tire rubs up with someone else’s tire spinning the other way.

Usually you’re the one going down in this scenario — front wheels jerk sideways much more easily than rear wheels — and the people around you fall like bowling pins. Fortunes are lost (and, by process of elimination, won) in these moments; in the Tour de France one of those bowling pins could be the favorite to win, and if his helmet or collarbone isn’t up to the impact, a year’s worth of blood, sweat, and tears will have meant nothing.

Bunch crashes on the flats are bad enough, but usually the victims are able to get up and go on. The horror crashes typically happen on descents , where riders have even died from hitting the deck at high speed. Sometimes those bad impacts are due to bad luck. Heads have limits to what they can sustain, even inside a helmet.

Those are the crashes that leave a mark on the soul of the sport. Obviously the fate of the rider and his loved ones are the real story, but we fans have scars on our souls, too, that ache every time we hear names like Weylandt and Casartelli and Goolaerts.

But nobody wants to talk about those. The crashes we talk about the most happen in sprints . We accept them as part of the sport, even joke about them sometimes because, amazingly, riders tend to emerge intact, or close to it.

Google “Haselbacher” and “crash” and you will be treated to articles about an Austrian sprinter known for the occasional cartwheel in the final meters of sprints. (Rene Haselbacher is his name, and he’d like you to forget that he was known for crashing too much, thank you.) We got some mileage out of a crash in Turkey a few years back where it looked like Dutch sprinter Theo Bos had pulled a nifty little sumo maneuver in taking out Daryl Impey as the pair dueled down the stretch.

Cycling crashes are governed by a ton of unwritten rules

When we debate who did what to whom is when things get … complicated. Sprint crashes are 99 percent the fault of someone moving sideways, in direct violation of the written rule that you have to hold your line in the sprint.

Nobody cares about written rules. I reiterate what I wrote above: cyclists, and especially sprinters, are fundamentally off their rockers, and will try to fit themselves into spaces where they don’t belong any way they can. At 45 miles per hour.

Everybody takes cycling’s unwritten rules very seriously, however, even though no one can agree on what they are. At last year’s Tour, two of the Usual Suspects of cycling controversy took center stage when reigning World Champion Peter Sagan came along the right-side barriers ahead of former rainbow jersey holder Mark Cavendish, who seemed to want to slip past Sagan in the six or seven inches of space between the Slovakian and the rows of tempered steel outlining the course.

Sagan had problems of his own to manage, sitting third wheel behind Arnaud Demare (who would take the win) and only the gap to Demare’s right available. Sagan seemed to move into the space, toward the barrier, slamming the door on Cavendish, who went down in a heap and out of the Tour.

No one could agree on what happened . Cavendish sure looked like the victim, with Sagan clearly flaring out his elbow. That is, until you slow down the tape and realize that Cavendish seemed to be going down before the elbow went out, and that Sagan appeared to be correcting his balance, shifting his weight to the right to stop himself from keeling over to the left.

Was the crash Sagan’s fault for pinning Cavendish against the barrier, or Cavendish’s fault for sticking his nose where it didn’t belong? Was it Demare’s fault for moving in to create the circumstances of the crash? Was it somehow Nacer Bouhanni’s fault? (One unwritten rule that most can agree on is that Bouhanni is doing something wrong at all times).

Sagan ultimately got the blame for making an almost imperceptible move to hinder Cavendish. Tempers flared, ending a while later when the race jury threw Sagan off the Tour, a decision that no one particularly liked.

The episode was a good lesson in how crashes aren’t always what they appear to be at first glance — or second, third, and fourth glance, for that matter.

From time to time, cyclists will just fall off a mountain

One last, particularly memorable category of crashes merits discussion: riders falling off mountains. In my memory they all have somewhat miraculous endings … knock on wood, cross myself, and say a little prayer to the Cycling Gods.

The dramatic history starts with Roger Rivière falling into a ravine on a descent of the 1960 Tour. The maillot jaune , following his rival and ace descender Gustavo Nencini, hit the retaining wall and disappeared, falling 20 meters and breaking two vertebrae, but surviving. Even crazier was the disappearance of Tour boss Bernard Hinault on the eve of his first campaign. In the 1977 Dauphiné, Hinault, in the race lead, lost control on a descent, flipped sideways, and fell off the road. Hinault initially thought he was plunging to his death, but somehow landed intact, got help climbing out of the ravine, and went on to win the stage.

More recently, Frank Schleck, a poor bike handler, flipped over a guardrail on a descent during the 2008 Tour de Suisse and completely disappeared . Those of us watching thought he was dead, but he hit some branches on his way down and got away with scratches and bruises, finishing the race. A month later at the Tour, John-Lee Augustyn ascended the Cime de la Bonette, Europe’s highest road, only to overcook a turn and slide 30 feet down a steep, rocky slope. He eventually crawled out gingerly on all fours, but his chances of winning were gone, as was his bike, which was last seen still sliding. Augustyn eventually got a new one and finished the stage five minutes back.

This is all to say that cyclists are shockingly resilient despite the lack of protection around their bird-like frames. With any luck, crashes won’t be the talk of the Tour anytime soon, but they’ve come to be as inevitable as death, taxes, and Germany advancing at the World Cup.

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Nationality: Austrian.

Appearance: Well, that depends how fast you are.

Oh, very fast. Really? Fast enough to have come in the first 192 (out of 196) in the Tour de France on Tuesday?

Well, maybe not quite that fast. You surprise me.

Why is this important? Because one's view, literally, of Haselbacher on Tuesday depended on whether you were faster than he was.

Surely if you were faster than him you wouldn't have seen him behind you? Exactly.

And if you were one of the three racers behind him you'd have seen... A blue moon rising.

Eh? The crack of the whips.

I'm sorry? The ring cycle.

What are you talking about? Herr Haselbacher, during the final, aggressive sprint of the race, clashed with fellow competitors and was knocked from his bike.

What a bummer! Not least because he skidded several metres on his backside and ripped his shorts to ribbons.

That's bare-faced cheek! Yes, now you're getting it. Anyway, happily he wasn't badly injured and was able to limp to the line clutching the remnants of his knickers to his buttocks, in a largely unsuccessful attempt to preserve his modesty.

He really should have changed gear... Ho ho, very good.

I hope he watched out for skid marks! OK, you're slightly overdoing it now...

They should rename the race the Tore de Pants! Right, that's enough now, stop it.

Interesting fact revealed by Haselbacher's accidental pant-rip: Top-level cyclists shave their legs for improved aerodynamics. But the Austrian appears not to have stopped when he reached the line of his shorts.

Cheeky! I'm finding your humour holey inappropriate.

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The name RH77,  was formed from the initials of the founder R ené H aselbacher and birth year 19 77 . The former professional cyclist started at numerous big races like, the Tour de France, Giro de Italia and Vuelta, to name a few, as well as representing Austria at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney. Even as a professional cyclist, at teams like Gerolsteiner and Astana, he was able to give his import regarding the fit and look of the teams kits.

Back in those days he was already involved in design and selecting fabrics to ensure optimal fit and appearance for the riders. However, attention to detail started much earlier, in his youth, where he would get his mother to alter his jerseys so that they would fit perfectly.

With that history in mind, driving him to create cycling wear that fits well and looks unique with trendy or contemporary designs. Always trying to meet the needs of the customers requests.

The international group of employees behind the brand is a selection of competent and passionate professionals in their various fields. All based in Austria, South Africa and U.K. to form a dynamic team working together creating a brand of high-quality products and offering top service.

Manufactured in Europe, developed in Austria and designed in South Africa.

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CYCLING : Tour suffers bumpy landing

By Samuel Abt, International Herald Tribune

• July 10, 2004

Mass crashes continued to disrupt the Tour de France on Friday, with the worst of them occurring a kilometer from the finish and leaving 20 riders sprawled on the road, including Lance Armstrong, the defending champion.

"Two guys went down in front of me and there's nothing you can do," he said. "I hit the brakes but went down, too, and guys ran into me.

"They've got the crowd barriers really tight there, and you get 200 guys raging through at 40 miles an hour and what the hell do you think is going to happen."

Neither the American leader of the U.S. Postal Service team nor most of the others involved were seriously injured, and only René Haselbacher, an Austrian with Gerolsteiner, had to go to a hospital for X-rays, which showed three broken ribs and a broken nose. He later withdrew from the race.

It was the second crash of the day for Armstrong, who crossed the finish line with his uniform shorts torn and his right knee scraped. "I'm a little stiff in the hip," he reported.

The mass fall near the finish sliced the 179-man pack in two: about 25 men were ahead of the crash and fought it out in a sprint to the line.

Everybody else was blocked a kilometer, or five-eighths of a mile, behind them.

Tom Boonen, a Belgian with Quick Step, was the easy winner, with Stuart O'Grady, an Australian with Cofidis, second and Erik Zabel, a German with T-Mobile, third.

The 34-year-old Zabel, for many years until the last two a dominating Tour sprinter, gave Boonen, 23 and one of the best of the young generation, a congratulatory pat once across the line, as if to pass the baton.

The winner had a time of 4 hours 33 minutes 41 seconds for the 196-kilometer sixth stage, or 121 miles, from Bonneval to Angers in western France. That translated to a rapid 42.9 kilometers an hour as a two-day rain ended and strong winds died down.

There was no change in the overall standings, where Thomas Voeckler, a Frenchman with Brioches la Boulangère, remained in the yellow jersey by 3'01" over O'Grady, with Armstrong sixth, 9'35" behind.

Those standings would have changed dramatically if the crash had occurred a minute sooner.

"Fortunately, the crash happened 10 meters inside the final kilometer flag," Armstrong said. "So we all got the same time."

The rules stipulate that any rider falling in the last kilometer gets the same time as the winner as long as the crash victim crosses the line with his bicycle. Outside the red flag that marks the final kilometer, a rider who crashes gets his real time at the line.

Two big names among the sprinters were missing Friday. Mario Cipollini and Alessandro Petacchi, both Italians, failed to start because of injuries.

Cipollini's Domina Vacanze team reported that a gash in the right tibia he ripped in a crash in May in the Giro d'Italia had reopened. Petacchi was badly bruised in a crash Thursday.

For Cipollini, who rarely still races at his best, the end was not unexpected. His heart was elsewhere after he did not come close to a victory in this Tour.

Neither did Petacchi, and that is astounding. The king of the sprinters, with 24 victories in the three major stage races in the last year, did no better here than eighth place twice. At this point in the last Tour, he had bagged four victories.

In the week since this race began, Petacchi seems to have reverted to the years when he was nobody, nowhere, a button man in the hierarchy of bicycle racing.

After Petacchi turned professional in 1996, he spent four years with the minor Scrigno and Navigare teams in Italy, recording just one victory while doing the team's work. When he joined the powerhouse Fassa Bortolo team in 2000, it was the same routine. If there was a thankless job to be done — chase after a breakaway, lug water bottles — Yo! Petacchi.

Was somebody needed to set a rapid pace toward the finish line for the team's sprinter in his slipstream and then peel off to let him burst by? Hey, Alessandro, up there!

Petacchi did the donkey work of leadout rider until the 2000 Vuelta a España, that autumn when the directeur sportif of his team, Giancarlo Ferretti, realized that the sprinter, Fabio Baldato, could barely remain in the slipstream — Petacchi was too fast.

It was, as they say, a eureka moment. Ferretti immediately ordered the two riders to reverse roles, with Baldato becoming the leadout, Petacchi the designated sprinter. Within a week, he won two sprints in the Vuelta.

But Fassa Bortolo was built then around star riders with a chance to win big races and classics, not sprinters who could win a daily stage.

Over the next two years, the stars generally failed to perform and so the team's goal was changed to accommodate Petacchi and the fearsome speed he generates over the last 200 meters of a race.

Last year he won six stages in the Giro d'Italia, four in the Tour de France and five in the Vuelta.

"My life changed when I won the first stage of the Giro and took the pink jersey," Petacchi has said. "That changed everything for me. It gave me extra motivation and drive."

He continued on that upward curve until this Tour.

Last month, when the Giro ended, Petacchi had won nine of 11 sprint finishes, a post-World War II record. What were expected to be his duels with Cipollini were highly anticipated in this race — the sprinter kings, past and present.

As Petacchi said before the start, speaking of Cipollini, "If he decided to be here, it's because he feels he can still do something."

Not this Tour, though, not by either of them.

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René Haselbacher

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•   National Championships Austria - Road Race   ('02)
•   National Championships Austria - ITT   ('00)
• 2nd  Rund um die Hainleite   ('03)
• 4th  Paris - Tours   ('02)
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RH 77 RENE HASELBACHER RADHAUS KOLLEKTION

Radkleidung deluxe

RH77 - DIE EXKLUSIVE RADHAUS KOLLEKTION

René Haselbacher ist einer der bekanntesten Radfahrer Österreichs. Der ehemalige Profi und Tour de France Teilnehmer hat sich nach seiner Profi-Karriere auf das Design und die Fertigung hochqualitativer Radkleidung spezialisiert.

Für das Radhaus Oberwart kreierte er die spezielle "RH77-RADHAUS-Kollektion", die in Sachen Design, Qualität und Tragekomfort einzigartig ist.

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René Haselbacher und das Radhaus Oberwart

"Radfahren war und ist mein Leben. Ich bin stolz, für den Top-Radshop in meiner Heimat diese einzigartige Bike-Wear-Linie zu produzieren. Ich wünsche Euch damit viel Spaß!" 

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Rene Haselbacher:

“burgenland simply has to get the world cup”.

Not only veteran and regular guest René Haselbacher was thrilled. Over 2,500 participants from 46 nations made the 32nd Neusiedler See Cycle Marathon powered by Burgenland Tourismus a great event. Victory went to the Netherlands and Styria.

Victories for Van Voorden and Winter While winter conditions prevailed in large parts of Austria, Burgenland presented itself with sunshine and temperatures of around ten degrees Celsius at the start of the cycling marathon season. Victory at the 32nd Neusiedler See Cycle Marathon powered by Burgenland Tourismus, the first competition of the Austria Top Tour, Austria's largest cycling series, went to Dutchman Jeroen van Voorden and 20-year-old Styrian Elisa Winter in the women's race. The decisive situation occurred shortly before Rust in the final, when van Voorden and the Pole Marcin Karbowy were able to break away from the leading group. The 27-year-old Dutchman rode almost the last ten kilometers at the front and then took the victory in the sprint: "It was a great race and the conditions with a lot of wind suit me. Unfortunately, I crashed in the time trial yesterday, but everything went perfectly today."

Organizer draws positive balance Organizer Johannes Hessenberger was delighted to welcome more than 2,500 participants from 46 nations at the weekend, with over 550 making the time trial the largest of the UCI Gran Fondo Series for amateurs worldwide: "I am absolutely happy that we were able to offer so many competitions for the youngest to the oldest cyclists. I would like to thank the 70 or so volunteers and Burgenland Tourismus, the sponsors and partners, without whom such an event would not be possible. And I am also very pleased that Heinrich Dorner, Burgenland's sports councillor, and many celebrities honored us." The German record-breaking Olympic luge champions Tobias Wendl and Tobias Arlt, who reached the finish line in 3.5 hours, were very strong.

More and more people come every year, everything is perfectly organized - for me it's absolutely certain: the Gran Fondo World Championships must come to Burgenland one day!

Ex-Radprofi René Haselbacher

Haselbacher's "accolade " Regular guest René Haselbacher, who pedaled in the pairs time trial with former Tour de France runner-up Andreas Klöden, gave the event an accolade of sorts. "The race here is different because it's flat and mostly windy," says the former professional cyclist from Unterwart, who is delighted with the professional organization: "Burgenland simply has to have the Gran Fondo World Championships one day, Johnny Hoogerland thinks so too." And the Dutchman is world champion after all. Who knows, maybe Hasi, now a fit 47, can even attack again at a home world championship...

Willkommen in unserer Community! Eingehende Beiträge werden geprüft und anschließend veröffentlicht. Bitte achten Sie auf Einhaltung unserer Netiquette und AGB . Für ausführliche Diskussionen steht Ihnen ebenso das krone.at-Forum zur Verfügung. Hier können Sie das Community-Team via unserer Melde- und Abhilfestelle kontaktieren.

User-Beiträge geben nicht notwendigerweise die Meinung des Betreibers/der Redaktion bzw. von Krone Multimedia (KMM) wieder. In diesem Sinne distanziert sich die Redaktion/der Betreiber von den Inhalten in diesem Diskussionsforum. KMM behält sich insbesondere vor, gegen geltendes Recht verstoßende, den guten Sitten oder der Netiquette widersprechende bzw. dem Ansehen von KMM zuwiderlaufende Beiträge zu löschen, diesbezüglichen Schadenersatz gegenüber dem betreffenden User geltend zu machen, die Nutzer-Daten zu Zwecken der Rechtsverfolgung zu verwenden und strafrechtlich relevante Beiträge zur Anzeige zu bringen (siehe auch AGB ). Hier können Sie das Community-Team via unserer Melde- und Abhilfestelle kontaktieren.

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The Olympic flame landed on French soil amid tight security on Wednesday, firing the starting gun on a summer extravaganza of sport that President Emmanuel Macron hopes will showcase the splendours of France and burnish his legacy.

Marseille-born French rapper Jul lit the Paris 2024 Olympic cauldron as the flame reached French soil on Wednesday.

• As it happened: Sprinters miss out on Giro d'Italia stage 5 after failed chase

Haselbacher overjoyed with second

By Susan Westemeyer Astana's René Haselbacher avoided a crash five kilometres before the finish of...

By Susan Westemeyer

Astana's René Haselbacher avoided a crash five kilometres before the finish of the final stage of the Volta ao Algarve and was able to preserve his second-place in the overall classification. "I am overjoyed to finish so well in this race and to play a leading role in the team," he said. "It's a great feeling when stars like Andreas Klöden ride one hundred percent for you.

And finishing second behind Alessandro Petacchi, one of the top sprinters in the scene, is nothing to be ashamed of. I can live with that!", he added.

The Austrian finished the final stage as 12th, saying he didn't want to take any risks. "Five kilometres before the finish I thought, that's it. There was a mass crash right in front of me, which I was barely able to avoid. Then it was very dangerous in the last kilometres with traffic islands and roundabouts. 500 meters before the finish was the biggest surprise: The route book showed a light left-right-left curve. Instead, we went around a 90-degree corner. Bernhard Eisel was riding next to me and we both had to fully brake. I didn't participate in the final sprint because I just wanted to come safely over the finish line."

Haselbacher will train this coming week from his home in Vienna, and is looking at an adjusted schedule. "I will leave out planned starts at Het Volk and Kuurne-Brussel-Kuurne. I want to concentrate on my preparations for Tirreno-Adriatico and Milan-Sanremo."

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