The 676 silent heroes of the Tour

We tend to watch the Tour with awe at the superhuman feats of the riders. Battling each other in the mountains or barreling at breakneck speeds on the flats, these cyclists inspire an entire generation of children to dream of wearing the yellow jersey someday. As a parent of a bike-obsessed four-year-old son, I see that spark in my own child’s eyes. My son Finn is already pedalling around with limitless ambition, declaring he wants to race the Tour one day. It’s a beautiful dream that tends to make me feel proud - but it also terrifies me. Because behind everything we love as fans, there’s a grey haze of crashes that never quite disappears. And with each crash, 676 hearts skip a beat.

Today’s racing is faster, tighter, and more intense than ever. Advances in gear, training and nutrition keep pushing the limits of what’s possible - records fall, speeds rise and margins shrink. But while the riders evolve, race organisers struggle to keep pace in ensuring their safety.

At the same time, it feels like every race has become a race that must be won. The age of using early-season races for preparation seems over. Riders now go full gas from February to October. All-in, all the time. With results tied to contracts, selection, UCI points - everything - the stakes have never been higher. And neither has the risk.In 2024, the UCI’s SafeR initiative recorded 497 race incidents across top-level events. And in the first half of 2025 alone, there have already been 297.

While equipment continues to improve, crashes are no less brutal as riders still hit asphalt the same way. And maybe it’s just me, but I can’t help thinking of the parents whenever a crashed rider doesn’t get back up right away. The uncertainty. The awful waiting. The silence.

And sometimes, the silence becomes final.

In Italy last month, the parents of 19-year-old Samuele Privitera felt their world stop. He crashed during a descent at the Giro della Valle d’Aosta, suffered a traumatic brain injury, and passed away the next day. A kid with a future. A dream. Gone.

We’ve seen it before. Wouter Weylandt in 2011. Bjorg Lambrecht in 2019. Gino Mäder in 2023. Each name a scar on the sport’s soul. And for every fatal crash, there are dozens more that come close. When Jack Bauer hit a barbed-wire fence during a Tour stage in 2013, his parents watched it live. “We saw it all happen live but had to wait for more than an hour to hear anything – it was awful,” his mother Carolyn later said. Bauer survived with cuts and stitches. But the wait, she said, was torture.

So while we watch everything that makes the Tour exciting, those 676 parents are watching too - but always with one extra thought: is my son or daughter OK?

This sport doesn’t separate joy from risk - it wraps them together. A raised arm one moment, an ambulance the next. For parents, that mix never fades into the background. Even the happiest scenes - the jerseys, the champagne - carry a weight. Because behind every stage is the same fragile truth: it could’ve gone another way.

And yet, how can I not encourage Finn? His love for the bike is so pure and joyful. I want him to believe anything is possible. But I also want him to be safe. Can those desires ever truly coexist?

Maybe that’s the paradox of parenting. We teach our children to chase big dreams, even when those dreams scare us. We smile and clap and tell them to keep going, while something quiet inside us whispers please be careful.

If Finn ever rides the Tour, I’ll be proud beyond words. I’ll also be anxious every day he lines up at the start. I’ll follow every update, hoping for nothing more than a clean finish. Because when someone you love takes those risks, you feel them too. And in cycling, those risks are never theoretical.

But for now, he’s four. Still small, still fearless, still full of dreams. I’ll keep cheering him on. I’ll keep hoping the sport he loves becomes safer. And until then, I’ll be thinking every year of the 676 silent heroes of the Tour.