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Video: Team Sky's Owain Doull says disc rotor "cut through" his shoe "like a knife" in Abu Dhabi Tour crash, but video casts doubt on claim

“They’re pretty lethal to be honest," says Welsh rider of the controversial technology… but was Kittel's disc brake really to blame?...

Team Sky's Owain Doull says a disc brake  rotor "cut straight through" his shoe "like a knife" following a crash with 1 kilometre remaining of today's opening stage of he Abu Dhabi Tour. But helicopter footage of the incident is inconclusive over whether there was contact between him and Marcel Kittel, the rider whose bike he believes was responsible.

The Welsh rider was speaking to journalist Gregor Brown who uploaded the above video of the conversation to the Cycling Journos on the Road YouTube account.

Doull said: “My shoe’s cut to pieces, that’s definitely brakes that did that.

Disc brakes in the pro peloton: Riders demand better safety for disc brake roll-out

Tom Boonen says disc brakes "the biggest improvement I've seen in my career" and he will be racing on them in 2017

“It’s gone straight through my shoe into my foot," explained the 23-year-old, who said it was "lucky it is not my leg.”

He continued: "It’s like a knife, you know. Just cut straight through that.”

The Team Sky rider believes that Marcel Kittel of Quick Step Floors, who was also involved in the crash, is the only rider involved in the crash who was using disc brakes.

He added: “They’re pretty lethal to be honest. I’ve come off lucky.”

In the moments before the crash, Doull in the black of Team Sky can be seen just ahead of a Sunweb rider in white  in the overhead footage posted online by Eurosport, with Kittel, in his team's blue kit with a white helmet, to the outside of the pair.

Doull, who sustained road rash with his jersey and shorts both badly torn, comes down hard towards the barriers, knocking one out of place.

It appears that it was the Sunweb rider who hit Kittel's rear wheel, catapulting the German - and his bike - 15 metres down the road, and it's the same rider who crashes into Doull.

While Doull may be convinced of what happened, knowing the exact chain of events that led to the slicing of his shoe in the inevitable maelstrom of riders, bikes and equipment that accompanies a high speed crash means it's always going to be difficult to know who exactly hit what or vice-versa with any degree of certainty.

We're far from sure there was contact between Doull and Kittel's bike, and there have been suggestions on social media that the damage to the Team Sky rider's shoe could have been caused by the foot of the crash barrier, which on the TV footage in the aftermath of the crash does appear to have a sharp edge to it - as shown in this post to Twitter by Cycling Weekly jounalist Nigel Wynn.

Wynn added: "Barrier leg shown in that Abu Dhabi Tour footage appears to be rusty and jutting upwards - not good."

The UCI has reintroduced its trial of disc brakes this season after suspending it following Paris-Roubaix last year when Movistar rider Fran Ventoso claimed that a deep cut in his leg had been caused by a disc brake rotor slicing into him during a crash.

Their use in the peloton remains controversial, however. Kittel's Quick Step Floors team mate Tom Boonen is a huge fan of the technology, but Dimension Data's Mark Cavendish - winner of today's stage - has expressed strong concerns about the safety aspect.

Three-time Tour de France winner Chris Froome said in January last year that it would be safer if all riders in a race were required to use the same type of brakes.

He said: "Having different braking systems in the peloton would be more dangerous.”

Chris Froome talks safety concerns of disc brakes in the pro peloton

This afternoon, he retweeted a picture that Doull had taken of his shoe, with Froome copying in the accounts of the UCI, the professional riders' association the CPA, and the British and Irish Professional Cyclists' Association.

Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.

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65 comments

Avatar
hsiaolc | 7 years ago
1 like

A test has just been done and lookes like the spokes slice the vegs just as efficient as discs.  

http://road.cc/content/tech-news/218061-road-discs-what-will-they-cut

Ban all wheels with spokes. 

Looks like it is impossible to cut the shoes. I never believed it could but test shows that very clearly. 

 

Its disgusting how this guy claim its the disc that cut his shoe when it clearly couldn't have. 

 

 

 

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vitessecoach | 7 years ago
2 likes

Play nice!
Unlikely it caused the damage.
Real issue is the industry pushing discs onto people when in the road they're not really necessary for 99% of road conditions. Why do you need that level of braking power to ride at 18 mph on average public roads?
Pros get paid to ride on them, Joe public starts to believe they should buy cos pros have them. It's nonsense and the industry just trying to get people to spend thousands of pounds on upgrades to frames and wheels they don't need.

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Billy1mate | 7 years ago
1 like

Left foot, was he having a backy off Kittel?

Dry your eyes princess.

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Billy1mate | 7 years ago
0 likes

Left foot, was he having a backy off Kittel?

Dry your eyes princess.

seriously though,  that far across his shoe with no spoke marks on edge of his shoe, it doesn't look like a disc caused the cut, the other option of course is not to fall off.

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hsiaolc | 7 years ago
2 likes

Disgrace comment from a MBE.  Footage already indicate that there is no contact. 

He should retract what he says. Need to get to the bottom of this and appologies is needed.  

Just can't promote a culture that you can just say anything without any proof or accountablity. 

No respect for this guy and makes roadies all look like moaners.  FFS.  

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earth | 7 years ago
1 like

Cue a new range of cut proof shoes made with a kevlar liner.

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Sniffer | 7 years ago
0 likes

I'd lay off Doull a bit.  He may well be wrong, but he just had a high speed crash when he commented.  It is probably very hard to know exactly what happened in a crash like this.  He may have added up 2 plus 2 and got 5 by making an assumption that crashing with the only disc braked bike in the peleton and his shoes having unusual damage were linked.  That probably doesn't make him much of a bad guy.

What it still shows is that on safety matters you must take the people with you, including fears that might be slightly exaggerated or irrational.  If you have ever tried to implement something in a workplace without tacit consent that people have safety fears about you will know how hard it is.

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Rapha Nadal replied to Sniffer | 7 years ago
1 like

Sniffer wrote:

I'd lay off Doull a bit.  He may well be wrong, but he just had a high speed crash when he commented.  It is probably very hard to know exactly what happened in a crash like this.  He may have added up 2 plus 2 and got 5 by making an assumption that crashing with the only disc braked bike in the peleton and his shoes having unusual damage were linked.  That probably doesn't make him much of a bad guy.

What it still shows is that on safety matters you must take the people with you, including fears that might be slightly exaggerated or irrational.  If you have ever tried to implement something in a workplace without tacit consent that people have safety fears about you will know how hard it is.

All that tramadol must've been clouding his judgement.

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schlepcycling | 7 years ago
3 likes

I think this video shows that Kittel's bike didn't cause the cut on Doull's shoe.

http://www.velonews.com/2017/02/news/did-disc-cut-doull-race-footage-suggests-it-didnt_431165

It looks like Doull goes down first and Kittel goes down face first still attached to his bike which can be seen flipping up scorpion style seemingly nowhere near Doull.

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davel replied to schlepcycling | 7 years ago
0 likes
schlepcycling wrote:

I think this video shows that Kittel's bike didn't cause the cut on Doull's shoe.

http://www.velonews.com/2017/02/news/did-disc-cut-doull-race-footage-suggests-it-didnt_431165

It looks like Doull goes down first and Kittel goes down face first still attached to his bike which can be seen flipping up scorpion style seemingly nowhere near Doull.

So the suggestion is that Doull clanged the barrier and caused the crash, taking down Kittel with him. Presumably the barrier or something in the aftermath mangled his shoe. 

From that footage, that looks likely.

So then the only reason for him blaming Kittel's disc for attacking his foot is deflection from causing the crash. What a twat.

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bikercub | 7 years ago
2 likes

I've seen some photos on facebook which show Doull colliding with a barrier and Kittel nowhere near him. It's just scaremongering and news deflection. 

Doull seems like a media whore at the moment. Out for 7 months with an appendix operation then falls off his bike in his first race back. Everyone or everything else is to blame and "Ooh! Look at poor me!"

Look at that shoe carefully. The "cut" in the front is probably caused by something impacting it, the brown marks may well suggest a rusty barrier. That doesn't explain the rip to the upper cuff, where the fabric/leather looks to have torn as his foot tried to pull out of the shoe. That looks unlikely to occur with a disc rotor as opposed to a (relatively) fixed object. If a disk rotor made either cut,  a forensic examination of the suspected rotor would reveal the shoe left a residue or some kind of evidence on the disk. 

Bottom line IMHO is that Doull is deflecting attention from his poor performance, Campag don't make disc brakes, the UCI and it's Italian head are crying wolf over unproven disk rotor injuries. Probably time to invoke Rule #5.

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stenmeister replied to bikercub | 7 years ago
1 like
bikercub wrote:

Doull seems like a media whore at the moment. Out for 7 months with an appendix operation then falls off his bike in his first race back. Everyone or everything else is to blame and "Ooh! Look at poor me!"

First year in a World Tour team and instead of being known for riding a great race he marks himself out as the guy who complained about Kittel's brakes.

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rpjwhite | 7 years ago
0 likes

*Note I haven't been through all the comments so I might be treading on old ground but...

  1. how does his left foot get anywhere near the rotor of someone elses bike more liekly to be a chainring
  2. they have had disc brakes in mountain bike races and CX races for a while, there are plenty of crashes and there is no one screaming about disc brakes being killers there, yes the speeds are lower but chance of crashes seem to be higher.
  3. CX ran a mixed of disc and rim brakes and there was not scare mongering
  4. Surely you are more liekly to get injured by a large chainring

I really don't understand the peleton's lack of interest in disc brakes, all their worries have been debunked but the moment someone falls in the pros they say it was a disc brake and all cry to the UCI.

let us not forget I am sure it was this race a couple of years ago where the tubular tyres were de-gluing from the rim becasue the rim's were getting too hot and there was no cry to ban tubulars or carbon wheels.

The UCI will knee jerk once again and we are back to square one. Dear UCI allow discs in the pro-peleton if teams or riders don't want it then they don't run it. If disc brakes help people win stages over rim brakes then you can bet everyone will switch.

#rantover

 

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hsiaolc replied to rpjwhite | 7 years ago
2 likes
rpjwhite wrote:

*Note I haven't been through all the comments so I might be treading on old ground but...

  1. how does his left foot get anywhere near the rotor of someone elses bike more liekly to be a chainring
  2. they have had disc brakes in mountain bike races and CX races for a while, there are plenty of crashes and there is no one screaming about disc brakes being killers there, yes the speeds are lower but chance of crashes seem to be higher.
  3. CX ran a mixed of disc and rim brakes and there was not scare mongering
  4. Surely you are more liekly to get injured by a large chainring

I really don't understand the peleton's lack of interest in disc brakes, all their worries have been debunked but the moment someone falls in the pros they say it was a disc brake and all cry to the UCI.

let us not forget I am sure it was this race a couple of years ago where the tubular tyres were de-gluing from the rim becasue the rim's were getting too hot and there was no cry to ban tubulars or carbon wheels.

The UCI will knee jerk once again and we are back to square one. Dear UCI allow discs in the pro-peleton if teams or riders don't want it then they don't run it. If disc brakes help people win stages over rim brakes then you can bet everyone will switch.

#rantover

 

 

Get rid of UCI I say.  Useless.  Only hinders advancement in this sport.  This sports needs more boost than most others and yet UCI is hindering it. 

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hsiaolc | 7 years ago
0 likes

lets look at it antoher way.  Did he get cut? Was he in need of surgery? Did he need to go to hopsital? Did he die?

None of those.  So some shoe got cut? Not that I think it can be done in this instance anyway. 

But there are plenty of times people have died from mountain decent since they are going at super fast speeds and can't brake on time, so I consider that leathal and they should ban any decending from mountians or hills for all races. 

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Colin Peyresourde | 7 years ago
2 likes

I can believe this. Mostly because I gave myself a nasty cut in my hand when pulling the pump off my tyre valve on a disc brake equipped bike.

Despite what his detractors say I think he might have a good sense of what happened given he was in the crash. I'm sure when he felt his shoe being opened up he had a quick look to understand what it was that did it.

I keep hearing the 'I ride a mountain bike and been involved in crashes and this ever happened' but the dynamics of the situation of road bike accidents are usually quite different to MTBers.

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Leodis | 7 years ago
0 likes

Totally disproved now, I can understand some riders now wanting progress and its all about cash but lies...

Here

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BrokenBootneck | 7 years ago
0 likes

So prior to disc brakes nobody ever got a cut? If they did was anything ever made of it?

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Redvee | 7 years ago
3 likes

A shoe cutting video from VeloNews, only one thing was actually cut by the rotor in the video.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpsGxKdBwS0

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Zjtm231 | 7 years ago
1 like

NEWS FLASH! Disc rotors can't actually cut through shoes. http://www.velonews.com/2017/02/video/video-can-disc-rotors-actually-cut...

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beezus fufoon replied to Zjtm231 | 7 years ago
0 likes
Zjtm231 wrote:

NEWS FLASH! Disc rotors can't actually cut through shoes. http://www.velonews.com/2017/02/video/video-can-disc-rotors-actually-cut...

meh, he needs to slam that shoe in there at 45kmh - give them to Abdoujaparov to test!

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herrow | 7 years ago
4 likes

I agree with Nigel Wynn, looks far more likely to be the rusty sticky out pointy metal railing. No way was it the disc. Looked like Kittels bike is down and out well before cry baby owain goes down. Wah wah disc brakes, I don't like them they scare me so any time something slices me, like a stone or a knife or a piece of paper I'll immediately blame discs. If he'd have been watching the road instead of his feet so he could see the moment a disc actually sliced through his shoe he wouldn't have crashed. All the disc haters (Alex Dowset has always hated them so he was bound to jump on the bandwagon) are very quick to say "Oh no what if all the peloton had discs they would all have been dead".

Edit: just been cleaning my chain after commuting through stormy Dorris. Had my bike upside down so thought I'd spin my wheels as fast as possible, see what awesome damage my disc rotor could inflict. Jammed an old cycling shoe against the disc rotor and it left... A tiny black line on my shoe, no gouge and I basically used it to stop the back wheel. You need to get some better bloody cycling shoes Owain! I would not want to get my finger caught in the gaps though! That would actually be nasty. Shimano's new Dura ace rotors look like they have the gaps filled with metal for cooling, plus it would save fingers... and lives.

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fenix | 7 years ago
0 likes

Its plausible. He was the one there and we know crazy stuff happens in a crash.

Someone's done a little bit of a test

https://youtu.be/yYLgCtDX4ug

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SNS1938 | 7 years ago
1 like

Just cannot see that being a disc, as the whole left foot and left mounted rotor ... and even if it was, it'd be such a fluke that it'd never happen again. 

Even the TRP cable to hydro discs I've used are so amazing that I'll take the ''risk'' of discs in order to get the massive improvement in brake feel/power/modulation over my previous Dura-ace/Ultegra brakes .... not to mention the freedom discs give to rim designers.

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700c replied to SNS1938 | 7 years ago
0 likes
SNS1938 wrote:

Even the TRP cable to hydro discs I've used are so amazing that I'll take the ''risk'' of discs in order to get the massive improvement in brake feel/power/modulation over my previous Dura-ace/Ultegra brakes .... not to mention the freedom discs give to rim designers.

Nobody suggested you shouldn't. This article is about discs in the pro Peleton.

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Moggy | 7 years ago
2 likes

Text book smoke screen tactics. Fabricate a story that's guaranteed to get people talking and divert un-wanted attention from certain other areas! 

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ashliejay | 7 years ago
5 likes

F**cking b*****ks, a disc rotor can barely cut through a sausage,  and the edges on most rotors even cheap chinese ones are rounded, and if heat was involved i've had worse burns from a soldering iron than from a hot rotor and that was from poking it to see how hot they actually got, as here's the thing bike disc rotors are designed to stay cool unlike car rotors which work best when hot.

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Beecho replied to ashliejay | 7 years ago
8 likes
ashliejay wrote:

F**cking b*****ks, a disc rotor can barely cut through a sausage... 

A ha! Was wondering what I was going to do tomorrow night with the missus out. Will post the results on Saturday.

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Chris James replied to ashliejay | 7 years ago
1 like
ashliejay wrote:

... if heat was involved i've had worse burns from a soldering iron than from a hot rotor and that was from poking it to see how hot they actually got, as here's the thing bike disc rotors are designed to stay cool unlike car rotors which work best when hot.

 

I've had a very painful burn on my leg from the disc rotor on a mountain bike, by stupidly leaning against it after a long descent. 

How can rotors not get hot when they are designed to remove kinetic energy from a rider, by tranferring it to another form of energy - most of which is heat.

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EddyBerckx | 7 years ago
2 likes

Left shoe, disc on left, foot injury at two points matching up with the start and end of the rip - nothing like a disc which would touch the centre of those two points, didn't realise it at the time but didnthink it might've been a disc once he got on the bus.

 

oh, and btw, for the disc to have cut his shoe in that position at that angle he would've have to have put his foot through the spokes - did kittle finish using that wheel?

 

this kid is really mugging himself off here...as is certain senior members of the peloton with an agenda

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