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Kate Richardson's damaged kit after being hit by driver on country lane (Instagram)British cyclist to miss Tour of Britain after being hit by driver who tried to "squeeze huge 4x4 past at high speed" on country lane blind bend before returning to "verbally abuse and threaten" female rider
A British professional cyclist set to compete at the Tour of Britain Women which begins this week will not be racing after suffering injuries when she was hit by an impatient driver who tried to overtake at "high speed" on a blind bend in a narrow country lane.
Kate Richardson, who rides for Lifeplus Wahoo and won last month's Rapha Lincoln Grand Prix, shared the news on Instagram where she recalled the incident that is now being investigated by the police. According to her Strava, she had been training near Holmfirth in Yorkshire yesterday morning when she was hit by the motorist and suffered a refractured scapula, road rash and an "incredibly bruised and swollen right hip".
[📷: Kate Richardson/Instagram]
Saying it is "incredibly hard to accept" but hopeful potential CCTV and witnesses will mean "some sort of justice will prevail", Richardson explained how the incident occurred on a "narrow single track road, no more than three metres wide and on a blind bend".
"Clearly the driver couldn't wait ten more seconds to overtake me," she said. "He decided to try and squeeze his huge 4x4 past me at a high speed, hitting me hard and knocking me off my bike.
"Initially, he just drove on but turned around and came back later to verbally abuse and threaten me before getting back in his car and driving off again. Thankfully another driver came across the scene pretty quickly and kindly helped me up and drove me home.
"This of course means no Tour of Britain this week and I'm currently uncertain about what the rest of the season holds. This is a lot more than just a physical injury, it was incredibly scary and I count myself lucky that I walked away relatively unscathed compared to what it could have been. Mentally though, it will take a while to overcome."
Richardson compared the impact of a crash like this to those experienced in races, having suffered some pretty nasty road rash at the recent RideLondon Classique, and explained how yesterday's crash "is incredibly hard to accept".
"Whilst racing incidents are never nice, we know that unfortunately they sometimes come with the territory. Even when not at fault we have no choice but to accept them and move on," she said.
"This however, is incredibly hard to accept. It just should never have happened. There are far too many stories about cyclists being hit by cars whilst out training and there is absolutely no excusing it.
"Knowing that once again I'll be missing a key racing block, whilst knowing what sort of shape I've worked so hard to be in, is hugely disappointing and hard to get my head around. I'd say that normally I'm good at dealing with these types of situations, but with this being my fourth serious crash in under a year, my body and my mind is in need of some rest and recovery before thinking about returning to competition."
The Tour of Britain Women, previously named the Women's Tour, returns to the calendar this week having been cancelled last year due to funding issues. However, British Cycling has stepped in and committed to delivering both a men's and women's edition this year.
> British Cycling hopes to deliver Tour of Britain and women's edition in 2024
The women's edition begins on Thursday in Welshpool and will feature two stages finishing in Llandudno and Wrexham before returning to England for stage three in Warrington and the final day starting and finishing in Manchester.
Dan is the road.cc news editor and joined in 2020 having previously written about nearly every other sport under the sun for the Express, and the weird and wonderful world of non-league football for The Non-League Paper. Dan has been at road.cc for four years and mainly writes news and tech articles as well as the occasional feature. He has hopefully kept you entertained on the live blog too.
Never fast enough to take things on the bike too seriously, when he's not working you'll find him exploring the south of England by two wheels at a leisurely weekend pace, or enjoying his favourite Scottish roads when visiting family. Sometimes he'll even load up the bags and ride up the whole way, he's a bit strange like that.
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45 comments
There is no war on drivers. There is only carnage from motorists.
If it's a war then it's a very asymmetric war.
Generally known as a massacre
The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world there was a war on motorists.
I disagree. Yes, policing is under funded like everything else, so the cash flows to more billionaires.
However, I've met enough petrolhead police officers with an inbuilt hatred of cyclists to know police culture is always a problem.
The only police group I would trust to take my complaint against a driver seriously are motorcycling police riders.
Yet the moment there's a left wing protest about the government, about Gaza, about anything really then the police suddenly find they've got plenty of manpower to turn up mob handed just on the offchance that someone might commit a crime.
Yes, the cuts are bad, but there are still choices being made about what and who gets looked after and what and who does not.
And the police choose wrong, every time.
That thought occurred to me yesterday when the "milkshake" incident had a sudden police response with the perpetrator being quickly arrested in contrast to incidents involving cyclist victims.
(Although I found the incident amusing, I don't agree with chucking things at campaigning politicians even if they are as slimy as Farage. It also adds to his massively disproportionate coverage by the BBC)
Is he slimy? He always reminds me of Mr Toad from wind in the willows, and I thought the difference between frogs and toads is that froags are slimy, and toads are not.
Police are also out in force for the right wing protests, and when Prescot was egged I'm sure the perp was equally quickly apprehended. This isn't a left/right thing.
Maybe not every time...
The Sarah Everard vigil was quite disgusting policing.
The truth is somewhere in the middle.
Some forces, some officers and some prosecutors will take these offences seriously. However, police and prosecutors are overwhelmingly motorists who don't cycle, and are as likely as anyone else in that category to share an anti-cyclist prejudice.
Yes, the government has made cuts, but they are too cowardly to determine where the axe should fall, so even within the constrained police budgets, leaving cyclists to fend for themselves is a policy choice.
I think the reality is that they don't want to prioritise protecting us, which is a choice made on the back of not having sufficient resources to deal with everything they should be.
Question is ... what will it take to change that?
Sorry, but WTAF??
Insane behaviour.
I hope that Kate is back in the saddle very soon.
Does that qualify as 2 counts of fleeing the scene?
Should do
... plus two counts of assault (one pertaining to actual - and, potentially, grevious - bodily harm).
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