Pidcock blames ‘white shit’ sprayed onto roads after he and several others crash on sketchy descents in final of stage 10 of the Tour.
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Roads were heavily whitewashed in stage 10 of the Tour de France. (Photo: Gruber Images)
Updated July 15, 2026 03:49AM
Tom Pidcock, Matteo Jorgenson, and Chris Harper all came off worse when Tour de France safety measures appeared to backfire on Tuesday’s 10th stage.
All three riders crashed on the sinuous, narrow descent of the Col de Puy Mary on Tuesday.
According to master descender Pidcock, the culprit was the “whitewash” sprayed across the road to prevent the tarmac from melting.
“I didn’t expect the roads to be like this,” Pidcock told TV reporters after Tuesday’s stage. “I don’t know what they do to the roads here. They’ve thrown all sorts of white shit over them.
“It made it very slippery, especially on the descents.”
Pidcock and his Pinarello-Q36.5 teammate Chris Harper both slid out on a tight left-hander on the gnarled, precipitous descent from Puy Mary.
Pidcock was able to jump back on the bike and battle his way to 9th in the frenetic final through the Massif Central.
“I crashed in the middle of one of those corners,” Pidcock said at the finish. “The damage does not seem too bad. I feel fine at the moment, but we will have to see how everything feels later and what the checks show.”
Harper came off worse. The Aussie was pictured with bloodied hands having opted not to wear gloves. He suffered his way to the finish, 32 minutes back.
He abandoned the race overnight after undergoing surgery for a “serious injury” to his thumb.
Treating road surfaces during mid-summer heat
Local authorities typically spray roads with whitewash or lime when the Tour de France comes to town. The coating cools the tarmac to prevent it from turning into a sticky, melty mess under the peak July sun.
The chalky white stuff was all over the back half of Tuesday’s stage as the Tour pushes through a fearsome European heatwave.
Jorgenson also crashed on the Puy Mary descent and finished the stage with bandages across his left elbow.
The incident occurred off-camera, and it remains unclear what caused the Idahoan’s fall.
Seixas: ‘The tarmac was melting … it was like an ice rink’
Seixas’ teammate Nicolas Prodhomme picks his way down a sketchy whitewashed descent in Tuesday’s stage. (Photo: Dario Belingheri/Getty Images)
Tour de France organizers and local authorities seemed in a lose-lose situation Tuesday as the Massif Central cooked under a 32 °C sun.
Pidcock blamed his crash on whitewash. Teen prodigy Paul Seixas suggested sections of asphalt without the coating were just as bad.
“I think the tarmac was melting,” Seixas said.
The French ace told RMC Sport he and Decathlon CMA-CGM pushed the pace on the way up the Puy Mary on Tuesday’s stage so they could get a safer line on the way down.
“It was more for positioning,” Seixas told RMC when asked about his team’s aggression on the Cat.1 climb.
“We could see the descent was very dangerous. I think the tarmac was melting,” he said. “The descent was like an ice rink. It was lucky we were at the front at that point. We didn’t want to take any risks.”
Seixas’ conservative descent didn’t slow him down in the final.
The 19-year-old kicked for third on the finish into Le Lioran for the best result of his hotly-hyped Tour de France debut.
The Tour de France is grappling with how best to keep racing through a rapidly warming world. Managing road surfaces might be the latest thing it needs to add to its climate change action plan.