Another death in the pro ranks

ademort

The portugese rider Bruno Neves was killed y esterday while taking part in a stage of the classica de amarante race.The 26 year old was riding for the pro continental team Aluminious Povoa and travelling at a speed of 40Km/h when he crashed,he is reported to have suffered serious head injuries. What is really surprising is the fact that he was not wearing a helmet.R.I.P. Bruno Greetings Ademort :roll:

Brian B

I crashed at a similar speed yesterday - My helmet is shattered but I have only a few cuts and lumps on my head, what more can you say.

ademort

I am not familiar with all the rules of racing, but i thought you must wear a helmet,it,s mandatory,so who,if anybody is to blame,rider,team,organisers or all three? Ademort

glad, to hear you are ok Brian any damage to the bike?

afx237vi

It doesn't look as if that race is on the UCI calendar, so the rules were probably set by the race organisers. Even so, I still find it very surprising that anyone would hold a race where helmets are optional.

Very sad, all the same. Looks like he was quite a decent rider - some very good results in the Volta ao Portugal and the Tour de l'Avenir.

Brian B

ademort wrote:

I am not familiar with all the rules of racing, but i thought you must wear a helmet,it,s mandatory,so who,if anybody is to blame,rider,team,organisers or all three? Ademort

glad, to hear you are ok Brian any damage to the bike?

No luckily - I cannot remember anything that happened but another rider said my lovely shiny carbon bike did a full somersault in the air and came down square right on the back tyre and then bounced off the road onto the grass verge. One tiny chip on the laquer on the carbon and a small dent on my back wheel.

Tom Butcher

Are you sure he didn't have a helmet on - I read his helmet split due to the crash.

timoid.

He had a helmet on

LangerDan

According to a Portugese website, he was wearing a helmet but it came off in the crash, resulting in a depression of the skull. I wonder if he was one of those riders (Basso, Cav etc) who have the strap hanging down a couple of inches below the chin?

Sad.

ademort

I got the story from the belgian, HLN.be website have just checked again and it states that he was not wearing a helmet, will check out some more sites Ademort

cougie

Helmet or not - its still a sad story. Poor guy.

Bernie S

And ex stagiere

Jérémy Dartus, 25 ans, est décédé lundi à Amiens en traversant la route. Le chauffeur du véhicule qui l'a percuté se trouvait en état d’ébriété.

Jérémy Dartus avait été stagiaire au Crédit Agricole en 2002, avant de porter durant deux saisons les couleurs de l’équipe espoirs de Roger Legeay. Il y côtoiera les Lequatre, Lemoine, Mazet, Patour, Duclos-Lassalle ou Raisin. Faute de proposition concrète chez les professionnels, il s’était exilé à l’UV Aube, avant de mettre un terme à sa carrière.

Coureur rapide et adepte de la piste, il avait notamment terminé 6e du Championnat de France juniors, en 2000.

érémy Dartus is deceased

Jérémy Dartus, 25 years, is deceased Monday in Amiens while crossing the road. The driver of the vehicle which struck it found in a state of intoxication.

Jérémy Dartus had been trainee in Crédit Agricole in 2002, before carrying during two seasons the colors of the hopes team of Roger Legeay. It will côtoiera there Lequatre, Lemoine, Mazet, Patour, Duclos-Lassalle or Raison. For lack of specific proposal at the professionals, it had been exiled with UVAube, before putting a term at its career.

Fast runner and follower of the track, it had in particular finished 6th of the Championship of France juniors, in 2000.

aurelio_-_banned

Brian B wrote:

I crashed at a similar speed yesterday - My helmet is shattered but I have only a few cuts and lumps on my head, what more can you say.

I wonder why you appear to believe that the fact your helmet broke up on impact is evidence that it did much to protect you? Have you ever tried to snap a couple of cm thick piece of polystyrene foam in two? It take minimal effort to do so. Helmets absorb the minimal amount of energy they are designed to (only 90 Joules or so in a perfect-scenario impact to the crown area) by means of the foam compressing. Unfortunately modern helmets are so full of large ventilation holes that in a real-world crash they often simply break up rather than crushing down as intended.

It is also the case that impact loads ride with the square of the speed, so even if a helmet absorbed the energy it is designed to (which is equivalent to a 12 Mph impact with a 5 kg load), rather than simply breaking up as they usually do, at 40 Mph the impact load would only be reduced by the equivalent of less than 2 Mph, too small to gve any significant benefit.

Helmets may well protect against abrasions, cuts and mild concussion at their design speed (12 Mph or less) but unless you believe that an inch of polystyrene foam has energy-absorbing abilities which ignore the laws of physics I very much doubt that they can do much else!

jpembroke

Here we go again

scmb

What an awful thing to happen - thoughts and condolences to his family

SteveR_100Milers

quote] wonder why you appear to believe that the fact your helmet broke up on impact is evidence that it did much to protect you? ........has energy-absorbing abilities which ignore the laws of physics I very much doubt that they can do much else!
[/quote]

I'd be inclinded to believe some of that is it was from a helmet test laboratory, and not some pseudonym on a web forum.[

aurelio_-_banned

SteveR_100Milers wrote:

wonder why you appear to believe that the fact your helmet broke up on impact is evidence that it did much to protect you? ........has energy-absorbing abilities which ignore the laws of physics I very much doubt that they can do much else!

I'd be inclinded to believe some of that is it was from a helmet test laboratory, and not some pseudonym on a web forum.

Fair enough, but I don't see how you could argue with the maths. This is what Brian Walker of Head Protection Evaluations of Farnham, Surrey, 'the principal UK test laboratory for helmets and head protection systems of all kinds' had to say on helmets a while back...

...Due in the main to the introduction of the weak EN1078 standard present day cycle helmets generally, offer a lower level of protection than those sold in the early 1990's. In the early 1990's market research suggested that in excess of 90% of the cycle helmets sold in the UK were certified to the Snell B-90 standard, at that time the most stringent cycle helmet standard in the world. In 1998 Head Protection Evaluations (HPE) my safety helmet laboratory, conducted a test program for the Consumers Association's assessment of cycle helmets available in the UK. By that year all of the helmets were manufactured to the EN1078 the European harmonised standard for cycle helmets. The results showed that with one or two exceptions all of the helmets tested were totally incapable of meeting the higher Snell B-90 standard, to which many of the models had been previously certified. Some tests suggested that certain helmets were even incapable of meeting the weak EN1078. standard.

...In a recent Court case, a respected materials specialist argued that a cyclist who was brain injured from what was essentially a fall from her cycle, without any real forward momentum, would not have had her injuries reduced or prevented by a cycle helmet. This event involved contact against a flat tarmac surface with an impact energy potential of no more than 75 joules (his estimate, with which I was in full agreement). The court found in favour of his argument. So a High Court has decided that cycle helmets do not prevent injury even when falling from a cycle onto a flat surface, with little forward momentum. Cycle helmets will almost always perform much better against a flat surface than any other. In every other legal case with which I have been involved, where a cyclist has been in collision with a motorised vehicle, the impact energy potentials generated were of a level which outstripped those we use to certify Grand Prix drivers helmets. In some accidents at even moderate motor vehicle speeds, energy potential levels in hundreds of joules were present.

...the very eminent QC under whose instruction I was privileged to work, tried repeatedly to persuade the equally eminent neurosurgeons acting for either side, and the technical expert, to state that one must be safer wearing a helmet than without. All three refused to so do, stating that they had seen severe brain damage and fatal injury both with and without cycle helmets being worn. In their view, the performance of cycle helmets is much too complex a subject for such a sweeping claim to be made.

Perhaps you would prefer the testimony of some of the doctors speaking at that BMC meting which voted to support making the use of helmets compulsory...

RICHARD KEATINGE, North West Wales division,

"Compared to the huge health benefits of cycling this motion may seem trivial, After all there are relatively few deaths or injuries to cyclists. It may seem harmless, after all how much harm one centimetre of expanded polystyrene actually do? It may seem a useful protection, it's been described as uncontroversial.

"None of these things is true.

"Cycling is the best buy in health. Cyclists have a death rate about 40 percent lower than non cyclists. Obese cyclists are rare.

"Helmet laws - wear a lid or get off your bike - powerfully discourage cycling, especially amoing teenagers.

"Every enforced helmet law has been followed by a steep drop, of about 30 percent, in cycling.

"Helmet laws are a grave threat to health.

"Danger? Well, it's real. The hourly rate of injury is about the same for cycling as pedestrians and motorists. That's about one serious injury per 3000 years of cycljng. Serious injuries are not that common and the majority of them are due to motor vehicles.

"One centimetre of polystyrene won't do you much good if you get hit by an HGV.

"No helmet law has shown any effect on the proportion of head injuries to cyclists.

"Helmets laws actually don't work.

"After all, we're talking about one centimetre of polystyrene intended to be crushed and absorb the energy of a one metre fall. This is hardly relevant to most serious injuries.

"I've been shown broken helmets with the comment, 'This helmet has saved a life.' In most cases the foam wasn't even crushed. Helmets are far more fragile than even children's heads. Most broken helmets have simply failed.

"To repeat, helmet laws don't work, for either adults or children.

"This motion calls for an intervention which fails to reduce head injuries, which gravely harms health by reducing cycling and which even strangles a few children on their own helmet straps.

"We have not had a thorough review of the evidence. Until we do, we as a scientific association, I suggest, have no business passing this motion.

"If we do pass it, we will be faced with loud and well reasoned opposition from organisations which should be our friends.

ANDREW WEST, no constituency listed,

"I feel that, I take that, I accept that injury to the brain, depends how you define head injuries but injuries to the brain not affected a great deal by helmets but helmets do protect the shredding of the scalp. I feel that we should support this motion as it protects the scalp even if it doesn't protect much else.

El Conejo Ingles

I assumed that the physics states that if you increase the contact time within the crash you reduce the force acting upon the body. This is at the heart of air bags, seatbelts and bendy lampposts.

Any way a sad story.

aurelio_-_banned

El Conejo Ingles wrote:

I assumed that the physics states that if you increase the contact time within the crash you reduce the force acting upon the body. This is at the heart of air bags, seatbelts and bendy lampposts.

That airbags andseatbelts can reduce the likelihood of death and injury in a serious crash is not proof that cycle helmets are as equally effective!!

The real issue is whether an inch of polystyrene can absorb enough energy in a real-world impact serious enough to be capable of causing death or serious injury to actually make a significant difference. The simple fact that helmets are only designed to give 'protection' in a low-speed impact and the kinetic energy generated in a impact rises with the square of the speed strongly indicates otherwise.

Also the test helmets are required to pass assumes that the mass of head is the only load the helmet has imposed on it (a nominal 5kg). If a proportion of the riders mass (say 80 kg) is passed through the helmet in a crash (say in an over the bars 'headplant') or the rider is hit by a motor vehicle travelling at speed (weighing perhaps 1500kg or more), the impact load will be many, many times that the helmet is designed to withstand.

In addition a helmet does not absorb all the energy even in a simple 12 Mph / 5kg impact, instead reducing the impact load to a supposedly survivable 400G, not that the evidence indicates that the brain can withstand a 400G impact without serious harm, especially in certain groups such as children.

Then there is the fact that most serious and fatal brain injuries involve the brain moving around inside the skull where it is torn by bony protrusions and so on, especially were a rotational load is placed on the brain. No helmet can prevent this happening. Similarly, think about the way boxers can still get serious brain injuries as a consequence of being hit by someone wearing heavily padded gloves.

andrewgturnbull

Cake Stop - take this debate there, this is race.

We don't do the following here:

-Helmets
-Red Lights
-Campag v Shimano.

Thank you and goodnight!

Cheers, Andy

andrewgturnbull

ps Forgot - we do do drugs though...

Titanium

Turns out the guy died from a heart attack whilst racing, which made him fall and hit his head but the heart attack was the cause of death.

El Conejo Ingles

The real issue is whether an inch of polystyrene can absorb enough energy


Forces are the thing that will do the damage

aurelio_-_banned

andrewgturnbull wrote:

ps Forgot - we do do drugs though...

Just as well, given that the rider apparently died of a heart attack and it now appears that institutionalised doping was also rife within the team. (Including the use of blood transfusions). It's hardly beyond the realms of possibility that these two facts are related. It seems that once again the UCI might well have blood on it's hands due to it's flaccid attitude to and even complicity in doping.

If the UCI were genuinely concerned about the well-being of riders they should have adopted the sort of robust approach to doping ASO are now taking a long time ago, rather than forcing riders to race up mountains in polystyrene hats!

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news.php?id= ... /may21news

iainf72

aurelio wrote:

If the UCI were genuinely concerned about the well-being of riders they should have adopted the sort of robust approach to doping ASO are now taking a long time ago, rather than forcing riders to race up mountains in polystyrene hats!

ASO are taking some kind of robust action? Really?

[Blinks....Looks confused]

Ohhhhh, I see. Not inviting one team is robust action is it? Riiiiiigggght.

aurelio_-_banned

iainf72 wrote:

ASO are taking some kind of robust action? Really?

[Blinks....Looks confused]

Ohhhhh, I see. Not inviting one team is robust action is it? Riiiiiigggght.

And just look at the sh-it storm and the degree of anti-French xenophobia doing even that has caused! All in all the ASO actions have proved to be not only robust but rather brave!

If refusing to invite Astana to the Tour is no big thing, then just why have the ASO's actions prompted the UCI/McQuaid/Verbruggen to wage a virtual war on the ASO? Perhaps because by their actions the ASO are both ‘reading the riot act’ to teams across the board and in turn are making it clear that they will no longer go along with the UCI's 'See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil' approach to the doping problem?

iainf72

aurelio wrote:

!

If refusing to invite Astana to the Tour is no big thing, then just why have the ASO's actions prompted the UCI/McQuaid/Verbruggen to wage a virtual war on the ASO? Perhaps because by their actions the ASO are both ‘reading the riot act’ to teams across the board and in turn are making it clear that they will no longer go along with the UCI's 'See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil' approach to the doping problem?

There is no xenophobia on my part. ASO are doing something but it's just marketing. They cannot explain why Rabobank are still there, no issue with Valv.Piti (perhaps because his sponsor also sponsor another ASO event in the Paris marathon)

Do ASO have the right to exclude Astana? Absolutely. Did Astana cause them problems last year? No doubt. Is banning them any kind of message about doping that we can believe? No, not really because it's very inconsistant.

Are they still insisting on a failed passport in order to take place? Oh wait, that's the one that the KOM guy from Paris-Nice claims he's never been tested for. ASO seem to be happy letting that UCI run scheme decide if someone is fit for their race, non?

Jez mon

ASO's action against Astana seem like they might be misplaced, whilst i'm not going to claim they are a completely clean team, i think there might be far worse ones within pro cycling. Personally i think the Astana situation is as much about Bruyneel being the DS as it is about how Astana ruined last years tour. Confidis had to leave last year as well as Astana, yet no one mentions them.

redddraggon

Jez mon wrote:

Confidis had to leave last year as well as Astana, yet no one mentions them.

Yeh but Moreni put his hands up and said "Fair cop" or similar, Vino and his mate keep insisting on their innocence when we all know they are dirty as feck and the illegitimacy of the controls.

Jez mon

Yes but you have to admit, the current Astana set up has nothing to do with Vino's insistence on innocence. In reality ASO seem to be using the whole affair to break with the pro tour, which they never liked.

However, during the Tour, ASO were quick to remove teams with dopers on...this has to be the way forward, as it will encourage the teams to be cleaner....or at least discrete

redddraggon

Jez mon wrote:

Yes but you have to admit, the current Astana set up has nothing to do with Vino's insistence on innocence. In reality ASO seem to be using the whole affair to break with the pro tour, which they never liked.

"Astana" seem to have stuck with Vino though, maybe not JB and his staff but the Kazakh backers of the team seem to have.

Jez mon

But the team of cyclists which ASO have barred have almost nothing to do with the team which accepted the invitation to leave last years tour de france. The Vino situation will not be resolved until the Olympics. The mysterious Kazakh backers put themselves in a difficult situation, if Vino does come back in then JB will want to up sticks, as will alot of the team.

Fundementally ASOs anti doping measures seem to be just as much of a PR affair as the UCIs