'I couldn’t poop for five days' – Mads Pedersen opens up on life with two broken bones

Pedersen said the incident unfolded at full stress as riders fought for position ahead of a climb. “It was a stressful moment, everyone had to be at the front for a climb,” he explained on In the Middle of Lidl-Trek podcast. 

The road tilted slightly downhill and speeds were high. “We were going 70, 75 kilometers per hour. In a gentle left hander some guys touched, so they went straight on. I had no choice and had to go over the edge. I saw a lot of bushes and hoped for a soft landing, but I dropped about a meter onto the stones.”

The first day of his season quickly turned into a medical assessment. His wrist took a major impact and the collarbone break was obvious, but he said his face also “took a bit of a beating.” 

Worse, the medical staff treated him cautiously because there was concern about a back injury. With a neck brace on, he was transported to hospital while the fear hung in the air. “Then you think, f*ck: if my back is broken, you are not thinking about returning to the bike, you are thinking about how bad it can be.”

Scans ruled out vertebral damage, yet the early days of recovery were still, in his words, miserable. Pedersen offered an unfiltered snapshot of life with one arm immobilised in a cast and the other limited by a sling. “I could not wipe my ass, mate. My left wrist was broken and I was in a cast up to above my elbow. And my right collarbone was broken so it was in a sling. I could not poop for five days. It was a tough birth when it finally happened.”

The big question now is what any of it means for the races that define his spring, especially Milan-San Remo and the Tour of Flanders. Pedersen has already hinted that San Remo would be very difficult, and while he has been spotted back on rollers and even joined the squad on training camp, he urged restraint. 

“That is why we should not get too excited. We are stretching the limits of what is possible,” he said. “We do not know how my body will react. If I make the classics, those will be my first races. Without racing before, it is a big question mark what my legs will be like.”

For now his training is heavy on indoor work and light on road mileage: roughly 20 hours a week on the trainer and only about 3 hours outside, largely because his wrist still limits safe handling. 

Still, the camp environment has lifted his mood. “Those guys spend six hours a day together on the bike, I do a bit less,” he said, before adding that long evenings at the dinner table have provided a welcome boost. And despite the uncertainty, his mindset is simple. “If we did not believe in it, I would not be killing myself on the hometrainer.”