Jorgenson hopes for more rider action against unsafe conditions: 'We need to be on the same page'

The autumn cycling season was packed with unpleasant moments. In the Coppa Bernocchi, a DHL delivery van drove onto the course, while in the Tre Valli Varesine, two riders from Pinarello–Q36.5 crashed due to a police motorcycle riding in the wrong direction. A car was also spotted on the road during the Eneco Tour.

As a result, the riders in the Tour of Lombardy—a few days after Tre Valli— refused to start when the race began. That’s when Remco Evenepoel spoke up. He said he would no longer tolerate riders getting injured—or even dying—due to unsafe conditions in the race. “We’ve lost a colleague and a brother,” he said, referring to the death of Finlay Tarling in the Tour of Portugal.

Jorgenson was there, and in an interview with TNT , he gave us a glimpse into the process. “I have to give credit to Ben Healy for this,” says the American rider from Visma | Lease a Bike. “He seemed to be the one who organised it. He set up a group chat with one rider from each team in Lombardy for that race. He came up with the idea to stage a five-minute protest.”

Thijs Zonneveld criticised the small scale of the protest, but Jorgenson explains why that was the case.

“It was very well thought out: we didn’t want to influence the race. Because the most recent races where these incidents occurred weren’t organized by RCS, the organisation behind the Tour of Lombardy. They had nothing to do with it.”

It’s not often that riders come together like this for a race. There’s been plenty of criticism of unsafe conditions, such as in last year’s Tour of Holland, where the riders brought the race to a halt. The same thing happened during the 2025 Ster van Bessèges. While protests against a race are rare, Jorgenson hopes this marks the beginning of a new movement.

"We need to practice this," says the American, who often serves as one of the spokespeople on safety matters. “We need to practice to see what it’s like to work together; we need to be on the same page. We won’t be laughed out of the room if you suggest setting something up together—for our safety.”

Jorgenson said that cars on the road at races was not a new phenomenon, and that he had experienced it across his career. What he thinks has changed is the speed of the peloton, and the risks riders are taking on the route.

This means room for error is so much smaller, making accidents more likely, and meaning a safer course and tighter controls of vehicles is imperative.