Speaking of wearing your seatbelt...

Juliet Macur has an article in The New York Times about a crash that even the best seatbelt wouldn't have helped: On a day of wicked weather at the Tour of California, where roads were slick with rain and winds were whipping, the German rider Jens Voigt stayed atop his bike Monday and crossed the finish line of Stage Two unscathed. Considering the possibilities of disaster as a professional cyclist, possibilities that Voigt knows all too well, it was a proud accomplishment. “No matter how long you’ve been in this sport, there’s always that fear of crashing in the back of your mind, especially in the rain,” Voigt said before the 110-mile stage, which started in Davis and was won by Brett Lancaster, an Australian rider on the Cervélo Test Team. Voigt, whose spectacular and frightening crash on Stage Sixteen of last year’s Tour de France was broadcast worldwide, cringed when he felt a raindrop hit his right forearm. “Crashing, as we are all aware of, is not a very pleasant experience,” he said. “Everybody is scared of it, no matter who they are.” But, for professional cyclists, who take to the roads in good weather and bad, crashing comes with the job. Part of the reason they shave their legs is so the wounds they sustain from sliding on or smacking the road can be easily cleaned and wrapped.
During a race, cyclists can fall at any time, but race-ending group sprints offer some of the greatest dangers. Riders often pedal within inches of one another as they jockey for position. Any contact can cause a pileup, as it did on the opening stage of this race. Descents, when riders sometimes speed down a course at seventy miles per hour or more, are also particularly hazardous. The slightest wrong move could send a cyclist tumbling from his bike in a split second.
On Monday, nearly two dozen riders fell on slippery roads in bone-chilling weather, but only Andrew Pinfold, a Canadian on the United Healthcare team, dropped out, after crashing for the second day in a row.
Lancaster took the yellow leader’s jersey by four seconds. Levi Leipheimer, the three-time defending race champion; Lance Armstrong, the seven-time Tour de France winner; and the other overall favorites finished in the lead group. But the chance for a serious crash was there, and riders knew it.
“After a really big crash, especially with an injury, some riders get right back on the bike, and some need time to prepare themselves mentally for coming back,” said Helge Riepenhof, a doctor for Team HTC-Columbia who has studied injuries in cyclists. “The healing process is fifty percent physical and fifty percent psychological. And some riders, really, they never can get back to the fullest. They just never make it. The fear is just too much.”
Voigt, 38, is one of the oldest and most experienced riders in the professional peloton. He returned to racing with Team Saxo Bank about two months after crashing in France, at his 11th Tour.
That day at the Tour, his bike hit an uneven patch in the road. He and his bike went flying. He smacked his head and slid along the pavement on his chest, face, and arms, which were tucked beneath him. As the peloton zoomed by, Voigt remained still, looking like a battered rag doll. He was unconscious for three to four minutes, doctors said. He was lucky to be alive. He had a concussion, a litany of bruises, and several broken bones in his face. His orbital bone was broken in two places, his jaw in one. The wall of one of his sinuses had been punctured and was filling with blood, causing equilibrium problems, Voigt said. That injury later required the insertion of a titanium plate to hasten healing.
His fellow riders, many of whom call Voigt a friend, were aghast. “It was really hard to see because Jens is amazing, just super tough,” said Team Garmin-Transitions’ David Zabriskie, who rode with Voigt on the former CSC squad. “When we used to do survival camps, he had the strength of multiple men. I’ve never seen him tired. I’ve never seen him hurt. He’s always happy.”
Voigt, a rider known for his gutsy attacks during races— including one Monday, when he ended up 14th— was not about to let that horrific accident keep him off his bike. He had the support of his wife, Stephanie, and their five children to return to the sport, full bore. “I wanted to believe that I was the chief of my own destiny, that I wouldn’t end my career like that,” Voigt said. “If I would have retired, I would always feel like a quitter, like there was a piece of my life missing. I wouldn’t have been remembered for my 60 wins. I would have been remembered as the guy who crashed at the Tour de France. No way did I want that.”
So Voigt raced at the Tour of Missouri last fall, proving to himself and everyone else that he would not let fear conquer him. He had studied the videotape of his crash and with the help of experts concluded that no material failure occurred with his bike. His tires had wobbled on a lip in the road and slipped on a white line, he said.
Now the only evidence of the crash is a tiny blue scar above his right eyebrow, some scars on his left hand and a slight deformity of his right index finger, which had dragged along the road during his fall. He cannot bend or straighten the finger completely. “But I can do all the important things in life. I can eat sushi,” Voigt said as he mimicked using chopsticks with that right hand. “I can brake,” he said, pulling the brakes on an invisible bike with the hand. “And I can sign the credit card bills for my wife,” he said, laughing.
Voigt said, however, that the nervousness of crashing again would always be on his mind. And on Sunday in Stage 1 of the Tour of California, for the first time since the Tour de France, he crashed during a race. He was one of several riders who fell as the peloton, setting up some riders for a final sprint, sped to the finish line.
Voigt bruised his right elbow but was otherwise fine. Some of the other riders involved were less fortunate. Tom Boonen, a Belgian sprinter on the Quick Step team, rode off with gaping holes in his jersey and shorts that revealed glowing, fire-engine-red wounds. George Hincapie, the United States road racing champion who is on BMC Racing, hit his head and back.
Voigt said: “It wasn’t that bad, just the usual. Nothing to worry about, this time.”