RIP Gino Mader

 Distracted Cycling?

Pro cyclist Gino Mader (above) was killed in the Tour of Switzerland recently. So far there are no real witnesses to describe what happened and the investigation continues as we type this.

Crash scene photos seem to indicate he went off the road at high speed and landed in a water catch-basin. He was dead when they found him but CPR, etc. was done and he was flown to a hospital and finally pronounced dead the next day. Photos showed a bend in the road to the left and what looked like a likely exit from the road surface pretty much straight over the side, which was lacking a guardrail like so many small mountain roads.

TV coverage of the race showed speeds on this descent of over 100 kph, which Zio can tell you (having reached 'em only once) is really moving on a bicycle while dressed in what is mostly a dancing costume with a styrofoam bucket on your head. Much different than his moto days when at least he was wearing a real crash helmet and a thick leather one-piece suit.

Zio thought "How could this happen?" Another rider crashed in the same spot but escaped with minor scrapes and as Zio says "a rung bell" as in a blow to the head that kept him in the hospital for observation for a few days. We've yet to read reports from him but Zio wonders if he'll even remember what happened after such a blow to the head?

When something like this happens, especially if you ride a bike, you start wondering what was the cause? A man is dead...why...how?

Just a few days later, Italian National Champ Filippo Zana went off a mountain road in a different race and crashed, luckily unhurt. But when he said "My mistake. I trusted the bike computer" was the reason, Zio began to wonder what trusting the bike computer meant?

Maybe a decade ago Zio remembers reading what he thought was mostly marketing-speak from a pro on a team sponsored by one of the GPS bike computer makers. This guy claimed the on-screen GPS graphics of the descents made it easier for him to go fast as he "knew" where the turns were!

That, combined with Zana's comments have got to make you wonder, no? Any cyclist knows only too well that motorists distracted by phones/GPS screens in their cars are a menace. A few MOTOGP riders have crashed on their own bicycles...not from distracted motorists hitting them, but instead while looking at their own gizmos instead of where they were going.

Can it be that modern pros are using these on-bike GPS gizmos to help them on descents? It looks that way based on what's HERE. This article is full of stuff like - "...benefit of map screens, enabling him a bird's eye view of corners, so he knows whether to scrub off speed or send(?) it."

And what if the gizmo fails...do they crash or sail off the road entirely..sometimes with fatal consequences? In Zio's opinion it's bad enough when these gizmos keep the rider from attacking going uphill if he's watching his maximum/target heart rate or "watts", but what if they're affecting the race going downhill as well? With much more serious consequences than just making the race dull.

Zio hopes some questions will be asked by the investigators of the fatal crash but also by the rider's union or UCI about the use of GPS gizmos on descents. Ya gotta wonder if these things have become more than a distraction and a possible cause of serious crashes?

We'll never get to hear from Mader, but what do the rest of the pros have to say? Will they be muzzled by the makers of the gizmos, whose sponsorship money goes towards their salary? There may be nothing to connect-these-dots, but shouldn't we ask?