Riders criticise dangerous Tour de Suisse stage six finish (video)

Rain hampered the finish to stage six of the Tour de Suisse on Thursday, but even in the dry the final stages would have been quite treacherous.

With a very tight, narrow right turn inside the last kilometre preceded by a series of difficult traffic furniture the bunch was split as Peter Sagan sprinted to an easy victory.

Mark Cavendish's Etixx-Quick-Step team had set the Manxman up well in the last ten kilometres, but when teammates Zdenek Stybar and Julien Vermote slid out on the wet tarmac he found himself outnumbered by Sagan's Tinkoff-Saxo.

The crash held up a number of riders, who struggled to regain touch with the main bunch, including former leader Tom Dumoulin, who lost seven seconds on the stage.

IAM Cycling's Dries Devenyns also hit out at the organisers' decision to finish races in urban locations.

“The stage was long, very wet, and especially dangerous in the finale. I don’t understand the attraction of having that type of final kilometer which must be delicately negotiated," he said on the team website.

"There were lots of crashes near the end, but we managed to avoid any mishap, even with the roads made so slippery by the rain."

It's not the first time this season that race organisers have come under scrutiny for their route planning.

Peter Stetina broke his leg and kneecap in a brutal crash with a metal pole in the final metres of the Tour of the Basque Country stage one. Riders held a protest before stage two and the UCI promised to look into the incident.