Matteo Trentin (Mitchelton-Scott) has spoken out about the dangers of protruding barrier feet after Álvaro Hodeg (Deceuninck-QuickStep) was badly injured in a crash in the finale of the Tour de l'Eurométropole on Saturday.
As the Colombian exited the final corner of the race, he hit the barrier feet, which poked out onto the road. He was later taken to hospital with fractures to his left forearm, right shoulder and two ribs.
"The problem is not only [at that race]," said Trentin in a post on Twitter. "We go at 60kph or more also in other parts of the race. That kind [of] barriers should be banned everywhere!
"Just look at how dangerous they were in the Worlds or in the Grand Tour time trials this year. Flat feet barriers are available everywhere in the world."
Trentin went on to highlight issues that the UCI often legislates against, contrasting their relative unimportance with the rider safety issue highlighted by Hodeg's crash.
"But the most important things are: sock length, disqualifying someone for something that always happened [referring to Nils Eekhoff at the Worlds – Ed.], no feed from the cars in the last 20km of a race, no race radios in the Worlds, no cutting our 45x45cm numbers, be on time [for] team presentations that are always late."
Groupama-FDJ's Jacopo Guarnieri also chipped in, asking the UCI "how can there still be falls like that of Hodeg?" and adding that the barrier-style must be eliminated from all races.
Hodeg's crash is far from the first involving protruding barrier feet in recent years. Back in June, Justin Jules (Wallonie Bruxelles) was injured in the sprint finish on stage 1 of the Tour of Luxembourg after clipping barrier feet metres from the finish line, while Sam Bennett (Bora-Hansgrohe) criticised the barriers at August's BinckBank Tour.
Five years ago, Zdenek Štybar (Deceuninck-QuickStep) appealed to the UCI to ban protruding feet barriers after crashing and suffering serious facial injuries at the Eneco Tour. However, they are still used at races from professional down to junior level.
