Jens! Ouch!

Jens Voigt is a popular rider amongst fans, myself included. Chatty, upbeat, and spends hundreds of kilometers off the front in breakaways every year. We enjoy his feats possibly because they seem to be something that mere mortals could achieve.

He's out of the Tour this year. He crashed heavily descending near the end of Stage 16, and the world got to see it live.

Here's The Guardian's story on it. A concussion, lost consciousness for a few minutes, cracked his cheekbone, and lots of road rash. He told his team, and htey released a statement, "I think I was very lucky not getting severely hurt."

What's striking is that he's been vocal about safety in the peloton. He complained about the descent to Prato Nevoso in the 2008 Tour as being too dangerous. He complained about not having race radios on the day they went radio free in 2009. Then he crashes on a road compression that the rest of the race passed over without incident, and he'd probably not even notice if he made another 100 runs down the same road. Terrible luck.