Cyclist hospitalised after being impaled by thru axle lever in crash

A cyclist has shared details of a shocking injury when he was impaled by a thru axle lever in a crash.

Colin Reuter posted pictures on Twitter after he was taken to hospital with a front wheel and fork stick into his leg following the collision.

Reuter was racing in the category three/four Lime Rock Cycling Grand Prix in Connecticut, USA on Sunday (June 2) when the crash happened.

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The pictures show how Reuter fell onto the front wheel of another racer in the crash, with the lever puncturing his skin.

He was taken to hospital with the wheel still stuck in his leg.

Reuter said: “So I know we were all worried about disc brakes being unsafe, but can we talk about sharp thru axle levers?

“On the plus side, I’m super grateful and impressed with the number of guys who got up from the crash and spent the next 20 minutes stabilising me, disassembling the bike, helping get me onto a backboard and off to the hospital for the extraction.

“I am going to be fine in the long run, but in the short term things hurt.”

Reuter’s crash happened on the same day that 19-year-old American Matteo Jorgenson suffered a gruesome leg injury he says was caused by a disc rotor.

Jorgenson, who riders for the Ag2r La Mondiale development squad, was caught in a crash at the Paris-Roubaix Espoirs on Sunday and needed surgery after the collision.

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When asked how he knew it was a disc that caused the injury, he said: “It’s my right leg, it was a right turn, rider flew up the inside just before the entry, he ripped the front brake, slid into me with speed.

“When I got up I saw his rear rotor and my shoe completely soaked in blood.

“Nothing else could have cut so clean and four centimetres deep.”

Jorgenson’s injury has reignited the long-running debate about the safety of disc brakes in the professional peloton.