Too Many Top-Level Racing Drivers Are Getting Injured Riding Bicycles

Image: Valtteri Bottas

Factory Toyota Hypercar racer Mike Conway will miss out on his 11th start at the 24 Hours of Le Mans after a cycling incident this week has left him with broken ribs and a fractured collarbone. Another high-profile cycling incident saw IndyCar driver David Malukas nerfed from his freshly inked contract with Arrow McLaren and miss the first six rounds of the IndyCar season, including last month’s Indy 500. If I had a nickel for every time a racing driver missed a triple crown event because of a cycling injury in 2024, I’d have two nickels, which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird that it happened twice.

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Riding bicycles is incredibly fucking dangerous, and for racing drivers who need all of their bones intact and aimed in the right direction to be truly effective, it’s probably not the best idea for keeping their stamina during the season. And yet almost every professional racer is also a rider. Every grid on the planet from sports cars to F1 is packed with people who find their fitness on two wheels.

I’m not entirely opposed to risk. I ride motorcycles, after all. But I can type words into a laptop from a hospital bed. It would be damn near impossible for Valtteri Bottas to finish outside the points in this weekend’s Canadian Grand Prix if he were to fall off his bicycle and crack a femur or whatever. When cycling risks your career in motorsport, your contracts, your sponsors, and your livelihood, is it still worth doing?

With luck and effort Conway will recover to race again, though when is anybody’s guess at this point. And thankfully Malukas has gotten back in the saddle and will join the Meyer Shank Racing squad for the rest of the 2024 season, taking over Tom Blomqvist’s now-vacated cockpit. Both have found relative success in their own ways, but I hope these injuries don’t stick with them long-term and affect the outcomes of their individual racing careers too significantly.