Despite racing to the win at the Danish Time Trial Championships on Friday, Mads Pedersen narrowly averted disaster several times in the space of a few seconds during his ride.
Giro d'Italia points classification champion and early race leader Pedersen put in one of the performances of the weekend to take the Danish title for the first time in his career, winning by 25 seconds ahead of Niklas Larsen.
However, a tight left-right chicane in the middle of the 41km course in Aalborg could've put paid to his hopes of racing to victory. Pedersen was trailing a police motorcycle at the time, but the vehicle entered the left-hander too slowly for the 29-year-old.
He was forced into passing the motorcycle around the outside of the corner, a manoeuvre which then sent him off-line. In order to keep himself upright, Pedersen had to jump his time trial bike up a kerb and onto the bike path on the inside of the right-hand corner.
Last year's Danish Time Trial Championships also saw the winner, Johan Price-Pejtersen, ride on a bike path. He was initially disqualified before being reinstated by the Danish Cycling Union (DCU). The case finally drew to a conclusion just last week when he was disqualified for good by the UCI.
Jens Kasler, event manager at the Danish Cycling Union, told Danmarks Radio that there was no comparison between the two incidents, with Pedersen forced into making his move in order to avoid a collision with the police motorcycle.
"You can't compare the two cases," Kasler said. "It happens in a bike race, and the alternative is that Mads Pedersen crashes.
"He catches up with a police motorcycle that is supposed to be in front of him. That shouldn't have happened, but it did. To avoid the motorcycle, there's only one option, and that's to ride up on the bike path.
"The bottom line is that it's a technical driving error by the police motorcyclist."
Pedersen successfully navigated that sticky situation, but the hazards didn't end there. Faced with nowhere to go, Pedersen couldn't avoid a young spectator standing on the bike path, hitting the 13-year-old boy with his shoulder and sending him to the ground.
Pedersen was forced to unclip from the pedals but miraculously stayed upright and continued with his victorious ride.
"Fortunately, no one was injured, and no offences were committed, but it's an unfortunate incident," local police commissioner Jess Falberg told DR.dk, before he apologised for the earlier situation.
"We apologise for the situation because it's clearly a mistake on the part of the motorcyclist. He wasn't aware of how far ahead of the rider he was."
For his part, Pedersen was just happy to come away with the win.
Admitting that the time trial wasn't his favourite discipline, he said that "it'll be a while" before he has to race one again, even if he'll be proud to show the national colours.
"I'll keep doing what I've always done. Riding like I did today is still not my favourite thing to do. I'll leave it at that, and luckily, it'll be a while before I have to do a time trial again," Pedersen told Ekstra Bladet.
"It means a lot. To ride around with the Danish flag for the next 12 months at the time trial is extremely big. I'm happy about that.
"Of course, there's some form from the Giro. A grand tour always gives you good legs. It's nice to come out of the Giro and deliver like this. I had no doubt that I would be able to compete for a good position here, but I didn't expect a victory."
