Bike hero Chris rammed in road-rage nightmare

POLICE were hunting a hit-and-run driver yesterday after British Tour de France triple winner Chris Froome was chased on to a pavement and run down, destroying his bicycle.

Chris, 31, took a picture of the damage and posted it on social media with the comment: “Just got rammed on purpose by an impatient driver who followed me on to the pavement! Thankfully I’m okay. Bike totalled. Driver kept going!”

The crash happened on the French Riviera in Beausoleil, a town on the hilltops above Monaco, the Mediterranean principality where the cyclist lives.

Chris is training for this year’s Tour, which starts at the beginning of July.

Police in France and Monaco are investigating yesterday’s incident which they are calling a road-rage attack.

A spokesman for the French national police said: “Incidents like this are investigated as a matter of course, and everything will be done to find the driver involved.”

He said such road-rage attacks were disturbingly common.

There is not believed to be any stationary CCTV footage, although it is possible that Chris or his Team Sky Chris Froome in race action in January, left, and right, his mangled £9,000 bicycle after he was chased off the road while training yesterday colleagues have captured images, or taken the number plate of the car.

His mangled bicycle is a Pinarello Dogma F-10, which costs about £9,000.

The incident follows the horrific death of Italian professional cyclist Michele Scarponi, 37, in a collision with a van during a training ride in April.

Britain’s only other Tour de France winner, Sir Bradley Wiggins, who retired from cycling at the end of last year, suffered a broken rib when he was in a collision with a van near his home in Eccleston, Lancashire, in November 2012.

In July last year, Carol Boardman, mother of Olympic gold medallist Chris, was killed after being knocked off her cycle in North Wales.