The Santa Barbara Road Race featured a sprint finish over a 30-foot tall bridge the crossed a dried up creek bed, and a frightening crash on the bridge almost sent one cyclist over the edge.
Two cyclists in the pack appear to touch, sending one down to the pavement which leads to two others flipping over the downed cyclist and bouncing into the air. This collects more cyclists, including Mike Allec on the side of the bridge near the barrier, who flips over the barrier only to hold on for dear life as his bike crashes to the creek bed below.
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It’s a terrifying scene and the picture of the bike destroyed far below the bridge shows how close this was to being a tragic disaster.
This weekend at the Santa Barbara Road Race our team rider and manager Mike Allec was involved in a spectacular crash in the final sprint that left him hanging off of a bridge above a ravine (30ft below). We are very thankful for the outpouring support from many who were there and more importantly those that helped him off of the bridge.
Words cannot express the gratitude for him being able to walk away from this with road rash, this could have ended much much worse.
Luckily, Allec and the rest of the cyclists were able to avoid being thrown all the way off the bridge, but it’s clear that the race coordinators need to reconsider the sprint finish in that section of the road.
