Matteo Trentin makes emotional appeal after Egan Bernal accident: ‘The road has become a jungle’ | cycling

Recently, the cycling world was rocked by a number of serious crashes. Egan Bernal crashed into a stationary bus during a training ride. The Colombian from Ineos suffered a series of injuries, including a fractured spine, a fractured femur, a fractured kneecap, a chest trauma, a perforated lung and multiple broken ribs. A few days later, it was teammate Brandon Rivera who fell during a training session in Colombia and broke an elbow.

“It’s more of a jungle than a decent environment to train,” Trentin told cycling magazine Cycling Weekly. “We are confronted with that every day and everyone knows it. Every time you go to work out, you don’t know how you’re going to get home. Upright, as it should be, or on your back in some ambulance. We have to take more and more care of our roads. It only gets worse, with more cars and more nervous people. I can’t count how many times a car has passed me and then immediately turn right. Or to brake hard for someone else ten meters further on.”

Stress for nothing

According to Trentin, cyclists are increasingly endangered. “People really stress for nothing,” it sounds. “But if you let this get into your head, you can’t become a cyclist. Then you cannot train. I now have two children, but not many people like to send their children on the road by bicycle.”

“And what does the future look like? Cycling should really focus on that. When I talk to the Italian cycling union, we hardly ever talk about ourselves. We are talking about children who do not cycle to school or the park. Or why a woman doesn’t get on a bicycle to shop or work. Simple: because they are afraid for their own lives.”