However, watching cycling races won’t make it easier for you. The situation hits the normal pre-race and post-race routine hard. Riders, crew or even the hosts and hostesses are wearing masks, there is a body temperature check for the cyclists, journalist and other media workers are keeping the required distance.
Also, the teams can’t have too many relaxed moments, the risk of getting infected is really high. There are opinions, that the restart of the racing happened too early, but on the other hand, the professional road cycling can’t afford to miss an entire season. It looks like the riders have to learn to live with the possibilities to get pulled out of a race without getting infected, only for precautionary reasons.
This happened for example with Alex Dowsett, who was windthrow by his team, the Israel Start-Up Nation from racing before the start of Vuelta a Burgos. He didn’t contact with the infected rider of the team directly, he was only a contact of a contact. A day later it turned out, Dowsett’s test was negative But his story had a happy end. He rode Strade Bianche (if he would have started in Spain, this would have been impossible) and was the only rider of the team finished it.
A higher level of nervosity
Although a crash can happen any time, if it becomes a tendency, then it’s most likely the sign of nervosity. Vuelta a Burgos was one of the first race after the Big Break with lots of elite riders. It happened a nasty crash already on the first day and both of the bunch sprint (Stage 2 and 4) seemed to be a bit chaotic.
Also, Strade Bianche was a nervous race, but this is the topic of the next paragraph
Unexpected difficulties
Everyone was waiting for Strade Bianche eagerly because everybody loves that race. Furthermore, it was the first event on World Tour level after the Big Break. The riders were aware of the heat which can affect the race, they prepared for it as they could. But nobody was aware of some unexpected side effects of the pandemic.
The race was marred by crashed and punctures, even the biggest favourites were suffering from this kind of bad luck. The problem occurred by the lack of preparation: during the recent months, nobody cared about the quality of the gravels. There were some bigger and more dangerous rocks should have been removed before the race under normal circumstances.
But nothing is normal nowadays, and of course, we shouldn’t blame local people having more important issues in their life. I just wanted to stress out, that life has literary stopped in March in Europe, lots of things being part of the everyday routine left undone, which can cause unexpected troubles at a cycling race.