Alessandro Petacchi, known for his huge concern about a safety of riders in the peloton, have recently made an interesting remark about particular cyclists being responsible for most of the incidents happening on the road, claiming that he observes the same figures constantly hitting the deck. As a name of Tyler Farrar popped up by this occasion, the Garmin-Sharp rider decided to defend himself and his bike-handling skills and refused to take a responsibility for causing dangerous accidents.

"I'm alright. I'm a bit sore after the crash but nothing serious," Farrar told Cyclingnews yesterday, referring to the most recent crash he suffered on Tuesday.

While Petacchi suggested that there must be some other reason than just bad luck for being involved in 18 crashed one season, as Farrar reportedly was last season, American sprinter disagreed with an opinion that he was the main force causing all incidents.

"I don't know about that. I've crashed a few times in this race but every time, other than yesterday, I've been falling on a pile of people who go down in front of me," he argued.

"There were a lot of crashes in the first week, with the rain and slippery roads a factor, but it wasn't like any of those were my fault. I don’t know, shit happens, I guess. We were going into the corner and they braked ahead of me. But I didn’t have room to brake, so the collision was unavoidable."

Looking for different reasons of constantly growing number of accidents, Farrar pointed out to changes in modern cycling with many lead-out trains rivaling for a best position as well as teams uninterested in contesting sprints also staying near the front to keep their GC riders protected.

"There isn’t one team that is capable of controlling things in the sprint as say Cipolliini's Saeco team once did or Petacchi's Fassa Bortolo team did in the past," he suggested.

"Back then the peloton was lined out by the high speed and crashes were rare. Today there are lots of teams who are able to organise a lead out train. The bunch is spread out across the road and that makes crashes more probable. That's modern cycling."

"This is also the best generation of sprinters in the history of cycling. There's people like Cavendish, Kittel, Degenkolb, Greipel, Matthews, Swift, Bouhanni, Viviani and now Nizzolo."