Disc brake said to be cause of serious injury at Paris-Roubaix Espoirs

Chambery CF rider Matteo Jorgenson has said that a disc brake rotor was the cause of a deep cut that he received to his leg in a crash at the Paris-Roubaix Espoirs under-23 race in France on Sunday.

The 19-year-old – who rode for US Continental team Jelly Belly in 2018 ahead of joining French team Chambery CF for this season – collided with another rider during the race, which was won by British Team Wiggins Le Col rider Tom Pidcock.

"I didn't believe they could do this until it happened to me," wrote Jorgensen in a tweet, accompanied by a picture of his injured leg while he waited for surgery at the hospital in Cambrai.

In response to Twitter user @MR_Ciclismo, who asked whether there was proof that the injury was due to a disc brake, though he had not seen what caused it, Jorgenson said that it could not have been anything else.

"When I got up, I saw [the other rider's] rear [disc brake] rotor and my shoe completely soaked in my blood. Nothing else could have cut so clean and four centimetres deep," Jorgenson added. 

The Chambery CF team – a feeder team to WorldTour outfit AG2R La Mondiale – later sent out its own tweet, showing a smiling Jorgenson following successful surgery on his leg.

Jorgenson is not the first rider to suggest that a disc brake has wounded them during a crash. After the 2016 elite Paris-Roubaix, Fran Ventoso said that a disc brake had caused a large wound just under his knee during a fall. The assertion was questioned by some, but the UCI chose to suspend the testing of disc brakes within the peloton and it was not reinstated until the start of the following year. 

Infirmerie | @A_ParisRoubaix