@CyclingBram Lame post when you perfectly know that he said the Samyn stuff in the heat of the moment and don't know that he apologized for it. He also obviously does not think Samyn is actually a "kutkoers" as he will be at the start again this year and chooses it above Kuurne every year.

@BelgSportsFan Or they choose to believe the organizers can't really do anything about moronic drivers who ignore police blockades or people coming out of their own private driveway? If life was only as simple as you portray it.

@Tim_Cahill93 That's how it goes nowadays, outrage but almost no one is actually trying to find solutions or look at the cases individually to see what actually went wrong. It's more fun to just blame organizers who don't even make money.

@BelgSportsFan Why are we acting like De Lie (or even anyone) made other people risk their lives? No one demanded others to start. Everyone could make their own choice.

Tell me then, how do you completely prevent morons in cars ignoring road block or instructions from Gendarmerie or people who drive out of their own driveway onto the course? Everyone is acting like it's so damn simple when it isn't. Only way is small circuits always, so basically go away from traditional cycling. Or go ride in the desert on highways. Great.

I don't know if they did it today, but I know a lof of organizations do that But even then, there's people who forget (like the one who hit Schachmann in Lombardia a few years back) or are just ignorant (particularly in France a problem) and take the risk. Today's incident is really hard to prevent. Yesterday was worse imo cause it's actually someone coming out of another road.

Yes it is priority, that does not mean it won't ever happen tho? New York City race (1.2) race last year was literally hold on open roads. See that's a bridge too far, but now it seems like we're all judging an organizers while not even knowing if they did everything they could or what exactly happened. I see people using pictures of cars standing still beside the road to prove a point while that's exactly what always happens when you do rolling road closures. Almost every u23 race (that isn't a circuit) is like that for example. I haven't seen anyone actually say what should've been done better apart from "yeah no trafic on the road" when we all know it isn't 100% preventable, definitely not for smaller races and definitely not in France (where only the real big races don't use rolling road closures).

@cyclingtakes Or maybe he just needed the race kilometers as he's already missed some yk. I doubt De Lie was thinking when it happened oh yeah now i can get an easy stage win. If that was the case he would've convinced his teammates to actually ride.

You can't make races 100% safe, definitely not races with rolling road closures. You could say ban them, but than 80% of the small race calendar disappears, including most u23 races. Which is De Lie's point. Now I don't know what exactly happened today, but I read somewhere that a car came out of their private driveway. I just don't see how you can always prevent things like that.

@WanScho No. But half the peloton quit after some safety drama at the beginning.

@BenjiNaesen @lucasaganronald The safety issue is because there's more teams that want to be at the front. Lowering amount of riders per team to get more teams is not a good solution imo. 20 teams of 5 riders is more dangerous than lets say 10 teams of 10 riders.

Stage 1 is like always the effect of a rolling road closure. This happens in a lot of small races. And it's sadly impossible to completely prevent cars from going out of their driveway mid race. If you want 100% safe races you need to go race in the desert only. Or countries that spent a lot of money on it to make it safe, but that's not possible for every small race. That being said, yesterdays accident shouldn't happen. Someone on a moto should've blocked that road.

70% of the calendar will disappear, how do you not understand this. The whole u23 calendar will disappear. Junior category won't exist, etc. They all work with rolling road closures, it will never be 100% safe, it's impossible. Now I will say that Besseges this week has been worse than ever, but still.

@matt_tupman @laflammerouge16 It's not about hoping they can get away with it, it's about not having the money to make it perfectly safe sadly. It's the same with u23 races, this happens all the time. 90% of u23 races would disappear if you up the standard.

@lwskipper That's a valid opinion, maybe teams should stop going there then. Besseges is a dangerous race every single year and for some reason it gets more and more WT teams. And it's not the only race that has it. It used rolling road closures I'm pretty sure, which is always risky.

@BenjiNaesen @RoelGremmen @dnlbenson Er zijn teams die dit gewoon als mooi opportuniteit voor punten zien hé, ze hebben weinig andere keuze. Arkea en Cofidis zien gewoon een gouden kans nu bijvoorbeeld. Sommige Pro Teams moeten punten scoren voor top 30, etc. Zo krijg je nooit een peloton dat het eens is.

@SeeuwsBram @BenjiNaesen Sure, but this happens more than people think. Also in other races sadly. Those smaller races use volunteers and they don't have enough of them. Not a new thing. I'm surprised it's only a "problem" now.