Cycling-Pidcock calls for time trial bike safety after Bernal crash

(Reuters) - Ineos Grenadiers rider Tom Pidcock said elite cyclists need safer ways to train on time trial bikes after team mate Egan Bernal suffered severe injuries in an accident in Bogota on Monday.

Colombian Bernal, who won the 2019 Tour de France and last year's Giro d'Italia, had neurosurgery hours after slamming into a stationery bus. He fractured his vertebra, right femur, right patella and suffered chest trauma and a punctured lung.

Pidcock broke his collarbone in a crash on a time trial bike while training in Andorra last year and said that the position of the rider on the bike did not help with manoeuvrability on public roads.

"Positions are getting more and more extreme and we spend more time trying to hold these positions," Olympic mountain bike champion Pidcock told the BBC. "You don't necessarily see where you're going."

Riders on time trial bikes keep their heads lowered and arms tucked in to help with speed and aerodynamics.

"It's evident now where it's getting quite dangerous," Pidcock said.

"I don't think we need to stop progressing, but think about how we can train in a safer way and try and mitigate these crashes."

(Reporting by Shrivathsa Sridhar in Bengaluru; Editing by Peter Rutherford)