'They just did not listen' – CPA president Adam Hansen exposes major flaw in cycling's safety system

The issue was thrown into sharp focus at Il Lombardia on Saturday, where the peloton delayed the start by five minutes in a united protest over rider safety. Remco Evenepoel led the demonstration, calling for urgent action following the death of 19-year-old Finlay Tarling at the Volta a Portugal in August and another week of dangerous incidents involving vehicles on race courses.

"We cannot keep accepting the fact that guys are getting injured and are literally dying while doing what we like the most," Evenepoel told those gathered at the start in Bergamo. The protest followed incidents at Coppa Bernocchi, where a delivery van entered the race route, and Tre Valli Varesine, where two Pinarello-Q36.5 riders were reportedly struck by a police motorcycle travelling in the opposite direction.

Speaking to Domestique earlier this week, before Saturday's protest, Hansen identified a fundamental weakness in cycling's existing safety system. SafeR Cycling, the body bringing together riders, teams, organisers and the UCI to improve safety, can identify dangerous roads and recommend changes, but currently lacks the authority to enforce those recommendations.

"At the moment SafeR does not have the power to force a change, but we do give recommendations," Hansen explained on the Domestique Hotseat podcast.

It is a weakness that Hansen believes needs addressing. For the CPA president, the frustration is not simply that dangerous situations continue to arise, but that some of those dangers are identified in advance, only for the warnings to go unheeded.

Hansen pointed to an example at the Renewi Tour, where SafeR analysts had identified a potentially dangerous section of road between three and two kilometres from the finish.

The road featured a crack running along the centre between concrete slabs, prompting analysts to recommend using an alternative route.

"SafeR gave a recommendation not to use this street, use another route where you can go to the finish and avoid this," Hansen explained.

The concern was not that such a road could never feature in a professional race, but that its position so close to the finish created an unnecessary risk.

According to Hansen, the recommendation was ignored.

"The organiser just did not listen at all," he said, adding that two crashes subsequently occurred because of the crack in the road.

The incident highlighted what Hansen sees as one of the fundamental problems with the current approach to safety.

"That's one thing we're working on in the future, to make sure that SafeR analysts do have the power to make this change."

SafeR analysts already examine race routes, identify hazards and issue recommendations to organisers. But without the authority to require changes, their work ultimately depends on organisers responding to those warnings.

Hansen acknowledged that SafeR has been a positive development for professional cycling, bringing the sport's major stakeholders together for regular meetings and allowing safety concerns to be examined more systematically.

Yet he made clear that the CPA is far from satisfied with the pace of progress.

"The CPA's not even happy with the direction it's going," Hansen admitted.

"I think SafeR is really good because it gets all the stakeholders. This is the first time that they've ever had all the stakeholders meet once a week."

But the existence of those discussions has not eliminated the frustration felt by riders.

"The most frustrating for the CPA and also the riders, and we hear it from the riders, it's just too slow. It's just too slow."

Hansen explained that part of the difficulty lies in the different resources and circumstances facing race organisers around the world.

While major organisations have the infrastructure and financial capacity to implement changes, smaller races can face considerably greater challenges.

The UCI must also develop regulations that can be applied across different countries, each with its own legal and logistical requirements.

That makes the process of introducing new safety measures considerably more complicated than simply agreeing that improvements are needed.

Hansen believes another issue is that some of the organisers most in need of guidance are not sufficiently involved in the discussions.

"One of the issues that I always say with SafeR is we have these organisers in SafeR. And we should have the other organisers in SafeR. They're the problems."

One potential solution being discussed within SafeR is the introduction of a certification process for race routes, beginning with sprint finishes.

Hansen revealed that a proposal under consideration would require the final five kilometres of sprint stages to meet defined safety standards before receiving approval.

"We should do a certificate, like a SafeR certificate, for sprint finals," he explained.

"So the last five K must be checked and it must have all these parameters and then we'll give it a SafeR stamp."

Crucially, unlike the existing system of recommendations, failure to meet those requirements could prevent a particular finish from being used.

"If it doesn't, then it doesn't get approved and it cannot be run."

However, these proposals remain under discussion, and Hansen did not provide a timeline for their introduction.

Hansen also challenged the way responsibility for crashes is sometimes discussed within professional cycling.

He acknowledged that many crashes are caused by rider mistakes, but argued that this does not remove the responsibility of organisers to minimise preventable dangers.

"Riders are allowed to make mistakes," he said.

"You're on your limit, you're fatigued, and you're making your decisions based on all the riders around you."

For Hansen, there is a fundamental difference between a rider making a split-second decision under pressure and an organiser overlooking a hazard during months of race preparation.

"When an organiser makes a mistake, they've had six months planning at least to make sure the course is right, to make sure there's padding in the correct position, make sure there's a marshal there."

"For me, they have zero excuse to make mistakes."

It is an argument that places greater responsibility on those designing and managing races, rather than treating crashes as an unavoidable consequence of riders taking risks.

For Hansen, the challenge is clear: cycling must act on the dangers it already knows about before another crash exposes the consequences of ignoring them.

Listen to the full Hotseat podcast with Adam Hansen 👇