The nine best bike throws in the history of cycling

There's nothing more frustrating than your bike breaking right in the thick of the action. And what's more, when there's no-one around to help you fix it or give you a new one, you can see your chances of winning fly right out of the window.

>>> How to clean your road bike in seven minutes (video)

So there's no better way of showing your frustration than giving your formerly trusted steed a good sling into the nearby bushes.

Here we've rounded up the ever evolving list of the best bike throws from recent times.

1. Jack Bauer, 2015

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZ4QmHDCFHs

The Cannondale-Garmin rider had already been battling gale force winds and expending a lot of energy just to stay in touch with the splintered peloton at Ghent-Wevelgem back in 2016, and the feed zone must have been a bit of welcome relief from the stress of the race.

Well, until another rider's discarded jacket got wrapped around his gears and forced him to come to an abrupt, sliding halt.

Ironically, the offending jacket becomes dislodged pretty easily as the bike is making its way to the ditch.

Distance: 8/10

Style: 6/10

Aggression: 9/10

Total: 23/30

2. Jeremy Santucci, 2016

https://www.facebook.com/thewonderfulsocks/videos/1798302403786023/

Track-bike-in-a-crit rider Jeremy Santucci turned the aggression up to 11 with this outburst. His bike had already been damaged in a crash at the Red Hook Criterium in Milan when he made sure it wouldn't race again.

Understandably annoyed about crashing out of a race he'd work hard to be competitive in, Santucci threw his bike to the ground with such force that the frame was left in two very separate pieces.

By virtue of it being a track bike, there weren't any brake of gear cables to keep the now severed parts at all connected.

If it hadn't been for the distance Jack Bauer managed to launch his bike, Santucci's effort would have gone straight in at number one.

Distance: 4/10

Style: 7/10

Aggression: 11/10

Total: 22/30

3. Bradley Wiggins, 2013

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhdVr2Cn1OY

No such list would be complete without the famous 'bike park' trick Bradley Wiggins pulled out of his sleeve at the 2013 Giro del Trentino.  He couldn't have done that if he tried.

Distance: 6/10

Style: 11/10

Aggression: 6/10

Total: 23/30

4. Bjarne Riis, 1997

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFzteK_y1b4

Defending champion Bjarne Riis unleashed all his fury on his malfunctioning bike at the final time trial of the 1997 Tour de France.

Now we know the performance enhancing drugs worked on his throwing abilities, too.

Distance: 9/10

Style: 4/10

Aggression: 8/10

Total: 21/30

5. Marcel Kittel, 2014

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tOjKfqeiQvo

Giant-Shimano's sprinter slams his, er, Giant bicycle down on the ground like the Incredible Hulk. Clearly not quite sure what to do with himself, he then goes for a lie down.

Distance: 3/10

Style: 7/10

Aggression: 10/10

Total: 20/30

Kittel later took to Twitter to apologise...

6. David Millar, 2008

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIW1MAvyPD4

There was no hanging about here. Denied an all but certain win on stage five of the 2008 Giro d'Italia, the then British champion David Millar knew exactly what to do.

Distance: 6/10

Style: 7/10

Aggression: 7/10

Total: 20/30

7. Peter Sagan, 2014

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AshrIuNZWqk

You can almost see Peter Sagan's thought processes at work here at the Dubai Tour. The Slovak also demonstrates an integral part of a good bike throw; slinking around like a moody teenager for several seconds before going to pick it up.

Distance: 4/10

Style: 3/10

Aggression: 5/10

Total: 12/30

8. Tom Dumoulin, 2018

Cover your ears, children, there's a bit of bad language in this one as Tom Dumoulin suffers mechanical problems for the second successive stage at the Abu Dhabi Tour. Dumoulin's effort seems to have all the right ingredients for a good bike throw, but unfortunately the bike seems to slip out of his hands as he tries to throw it in the air, making for a slightly pathetic effort before his high-pitched profanities secure him a low score.

Distance: 2/10

Style: 1/10

Aggression: 5/10

Total: 8/30

9. Elisa Longo Borghini, 2019

Things got heated in the women's edition of Three Days of De Panne, when Elisa Longo Borghini was caught in a crash during the Belgian one-day race.

Unfortunately, her bike became tangled under the machine of Bigla rival Elizabeth Banks who was also involved in the collision.

Borghini wouldn't let that slow her down however, as she tore Banks' bike up and threw it across the road before remounting her bike and pedalling on.

To make matters worse, she almost collided with a team car as she got going again.

Channelling Marcel Kittel, Borghini apologised on Twitter very promptly.

Distance: 8/10

Style: 6/10

Agression: 3/10

Total: 17/30

Honourable mentions

Mario Cipollini, 2003

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4XxCZagAjk

Ok, so it's not technically a bike. But who can forget Cipo chucking his toys out of the pram at the 2003 edition of Ghent-Wevelgem?

Bernard Hinault, 1984

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqMqCc1Qy7E

How does Bernard Hinault put an end to unwanted industrial action at the 1984 Paris-Nice?  Ride into them at full pelt before throwing out the knuckle sandwiches, that's how.

The original version of this story by Richard Abraham first appeared online in March 2014