It Didn’t Take Long for a Bike Fan to Do Something Stupid in 2026

Well, that didn’t take long for a fan to do something stupid in a bike race.

Just in the opening days of 2026 — with kangaroos bounding onto the race course and riders suffering horrific injuries in a 100kph-plus crash — it felt inevitable that someone would add human stupidity to cycling’s already dangerous mix.

With 5km to go in Sunday’s one-day GP La Marseillaise to open the French calendar, TV cameras caught a punter with a big smile riding what appeared to be an e-bike onto the race course.

Luckily, the fool on the bike stayed mostly out of the way, and there was no major disruption to the race.

Still, at top-end race speed, these stunts could have massive consequences, either impacting the outcome of a race or provoking crashes.

With pro racing contested on open roads, it’s hard for any race to completely control what one meme-seeking fan might do.

Are fans getting out of control?

The incident is the latest example of what appears to be an unsettling trend of two-wheeled hooligans jumping onto live race courses. Though anecdotal, there does seem to be more publicity-seeking freaks trying to bust into races.

Last year’s Tour de France saw a spectator drag a bike over the barriers and attempt to ride the finishing straight on stage 17 in Valence. A similar incident happened during Liège-Bastogne-Liège Femmes, when a spectator barged onto the race course and briefly joined the women’s race with about 30km to go.

Most pranksters are quickly tackled by ASO thugs and hauled off the course, but the latest lapse comes as safety concerns continue to simmer just beneath the surface.

The UCI and race organizers are growing under pressure to improve rider safety.

Last week, the UCI met with key stakeholders to outline safety issues going into 2026. Course safety, signage, and barriers are high on the agenda.

Bigger races, like the Tour de France and Vuelta a España, have the budget to try to keep things under control. It’s often at the smaller, underfunded races where things can go wrong.

Sunday’s incident comes just ahead of this week’s Étoile de Bessèges, where repeated vehicle intrusions in last year’s event forced race stoppages and rider anger that saw several teams pull out of the race.

Striking the balance between access and security

The sport’s always walked a tightrope between fan access and event safety.

Most fans know the protocol, and it’s still surprisingly rare to see a race altered by fans acting stupidly. Even on the crowd-choked summits of Europe’s highest mountains, the riders usually manage to fight through the throngs largely unhindered.

Even if there are a few idiots who might throw something at a rider — like the incident last year with Mathieu van der Poel at Paris-Roubaix — most people know how to act.

Still, the porous nature of security in a bike race is always something sitting nervously in the back of the mind of every race organizer.

And that’s not even considering how activists and demonstrators can cripple a race, with last year’s Vuelta a España falling into chaos following an unprecedented wave of protests targeting the former Israel Premier Tech team.

On Sunday, at least there was no race-altering mayhem. Bryan Coquard kicked to victory for Cofidis ahead of Steffen De Schuyteneer to deny the recently merged Lotto Intermarché its first win of 2026.

It was good for Coquard’s 54th career victory and Cofidis’s first of the 2026 season after relegation out of the WorldTour.