If there is anything good you can say about a crash that takes down or delays the majority of the field it is that today’s major fall happened within the final kilometer and did not cost anyone any time in the overall classification. Lance Armstrong was involved in the crash and suffered a few minor scratches, but fortunately he’s fine and escaped major injuries.

Crashes in a big peloton are unbelievably violent, and it’s amazing that riders don’t get more injured than they do. Traveling nearly 40 mph, shoulder to shoulder with nearly 200 other riders, crashes happen so quickly that you really don’t get a chance to react. The first few riders hit the ground, and everyone else just piles into them. Even if you manage to stay upright, you get crunched from behind as the rest of the peloton accordions into you.

While the most visible effects of a crash are the scrapes and abrasions, it’s the soreness and bruising that causes the biggest problems. Riders often find themselves compensating for a sore thigh or hip by subconsciously changing their pedal stroke or position on the bike. Since they are so accustomed to pedaling in one fashion for hours and days at a time, these small adjustments can lead to tight muscles and additional soreness for several days.

Lance Armstrong hit the deck twice today, and it seems the first was the more serious of the two. He lost some skin on his knee and knocked his hip pretty hard when he was brought down in a crash just 16 kilometers into the stage. Following the stage, Lance and his soigneur will spend a little more time than usual working the stiffness out of his hips and lower back in an effort to prevent soreness from affecting his ride tomorrow.

After talking with Johan Bruyneel, it seems the team has fared reasonably well despite the number of times they’ve been on the ground. They haven’t lost any men, and even Benjamin Noval is beginning to recover from his crashes in the early days of the race. For now, the crashes have equally affected the US Postal Service, T-Mobile, and Phonak teams. They have all had several riders fall and get scraped up, but suffered no serious injuries (that we know of so far). Let’s hope this afternoon’s crash, the most serious one of the race so far, is the last major incident we see; but I wouldn’t count on it.