The body’s biggest organ was never meant to be used as a brake pad, and road rash is a rude reminder of just how exposed cyclists are while travelling at speed clad only in a thin layer of Lycra. For most of us, the sight of torn clothing and red raw skin is a signal that our ride is over, but for the pros it is merely something they deal with before carrying on, so it’s no wonder that pro team doctors are pretty experienced when it comes to patching up their riders and getting them back in the game.
‘Usually when a rider goes down you put on a little bit of water, try to scrub them clean a bit, then it’s back on the bike and to the finish,’ says Anko Boelens, team doctor at Giant-Shimano. ‘If it’s really bloody you patch it up because it’s not very nice to look at.
‘After the finish, the work to clean up a wound starts,’ he adds. ‘I ask the riders to scrub the wounds clean in the shower to get off all the dirt and bacteria.’ For the most superficial of wounds this can be as far as treatment needs to go, but generally Boelens will clean and bandage the affected area, depending on the location of the scrape, and whether there are more stages to come.
‘If it’s an area that will be covered by clothes I clean the wound with iodine and antiseptic cream, then apply a paraffin gauze that doesn’t stick to the wounds, and then a bandage. We use 2nd Skin Hydrogel bandages that you leave on for a couple of days. The bandage itself will react with the wound.’
Boelens is an advocate of leaving wounds open to the air unbandaged. ‘Then it heals nicely. As long as it’s open, the body will get rid of the wound itself,’ he says. On a stage race, where riders face consecutive days in the saddle, it’s not desirable to leave road rash open, despite it being better for healing: ‘I always bandage it up because it’s a little bit nicer to look at, and also the riders might fall again. I’m taking into consideration how it looks from the outside and how it feels for the rider.’
But it’s not just down to the doctors. Pro riders are required to regularly check their tetanus vaccinations – once every couple of years – because, as Boelens puts it, ‘Riders fall all the time!’
Rash decisions
How to patch up those unfortunate scrapes
Keep these in your cupboard…
Disinfectant
‘Betadine or iodine is good,’ says Boelens. ‘I don’t like to use alcohol-based products, or 70% alcohol-based products. It’s painful but it also interferes with the healing process.’
Paraffin gauze
This sits between the bandage and the skin, which is useful ‘so the bandage doesn’t attach itself to the wound, which can be really painful’, says Boelens.
Bandages
To cover the gauze. ‘With those three things you can go a really long way,’ says Boelens.
If it looks really bad…
‘It never hurts to show it to a doctor. They can more easily differentiate between a flesh wound and something more serious. A doctor can also bandage it up nicely,’ says Boelens.
Check for infection…
‘Sometimes a wound can have a little bit of a green tinge to it. As long as it’s open and there is no deep penetration to the skin, it’s OK – it’s a part of the healing process,’ says Boelens. ‘If the edges of the wound start to go red, and the redness spreads and starts to feel warm, it’s infected. Go to the doctor.’