Near Miss of the Day 700, Ineos Grenadiers training camp edition: Overtaking motorist narrowly misses Egan Bernal and Richard Carapaz

It’s often said that cycling is the most egalitarian sport in the world. As the old cliché goes, you can’t just lace up your boots and have a kickabout on the pitch at Wembley, but you can (in theory anyway) ride on the exact same roads as Tour de France winners. But here’s the rub – that also means professionals are subjected to the same dangers while out training as us regular punters.

Esto ocurrió en el último entrenamiento del @INEOSGrenadiers en Colombia. Un auto rebasa justo antes de entrar a la curva y a pesar de la doble línea amarilla. Un imprudente se pudo llevar por delante a @RichardCarapazM, @Eganbernal o cualquier ciclista del mundo 😠 pic.twitter.com/SoeVrhWwJH

— Santiago Guerrero (@guerrerosanti7) January 18, 2022

Yesterday that danger was strikingly apparent for a small group of Ineos Grenadiers riders training in the Cundinamarca region of Colombia.

The group, led by 2019 Tour de France winner Egan Bernal and 2019 Giro d’Italia winner Richard Carapaz, experienced a frightening near miss on a shallow descent when a driver decided to overtake a van and a cyclist at the same time on a blind bend as the riders approached.

Fortunately, the motorist was just able to swerve back in without hitting either the pros or the amateur cyclist heading in the opposite direction.

The Ineos riders also had to have their wits about them earlier in the day, when a dog threatened to run into their path on a similar descent. Both near misses were captured by Karol David Torres, a former racer who provides technical support for pros on training camps in Colombia.

 

 

 

 

View this post on Instagram

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A post shared by karolo (@karoloarueda)

It’s not the first time that Bernal has had a close call on home roads this winter: in November he narrowly avoided being struck by a driver who tried to squeeze through an almost impossible gap between an oncoming lorry and the Colombian national hero.

Following Giant-Alpecin’s horrific mass crash in 2016, reports of training camp run-ins with motorists are becoming increasingly common. Wilco Kelderman suffered a broken vertebra after a driver crashed into his Bora-Hansgrohe team when out training near Lake Garda last January, while three Drone Hopper-Androni riders were injured in December after a motorist pulled out in front of them in Spain.

> Near Miss of the Day turns 100 - Why do we do the feature and what have we learnt from it?

Over the years road.cc has reported on literally hundreds of close passes and near misses involving badly driven vehicles from every corner of the country – so many, in fact, that we’ve decided to turn the phenomenon into a regular feature on the site. One day hopefully we will run out of close passes and near misses to report on, but until that happy day arrives, Near Miss of the Day will keep rolling on.

If you’ve caught on camera a close encounter of the uncomfortable kind with another road user that you’d like to share with the wider cycling community please send it to us at info [at] road.cc or send us a message via the road.cc Facebook page.

If the video is on YouTube, please send us a link, if not we can add any footage you supply to our YouTube channel as an unlisted video (so it won't show up on searches).

Please also let us know whether you contacted the police and if so what their reaction was, as well as the reaction of the vehicle operator if it was a bus, lorry or van with company markings etc.

> What to do if you capture a near miss or close pass (or worse) on camera while cycling