After trailing in a distant last in stage two of the Vuelta a Espana on Sunday, French rider Axel Zingle had a good excuse: he had dislocated a shoulder, twice, and a bystander had disappeared with his bike.
"Something quite funny happened to me..." the Visma rider said at the finish.
Zingle was shadowing his team leader Jonas Vingegaard and was taken down by the Dane as a group of riders crashed at the foot of the final climb on a rainy day.
Vingegaard remounted and rode on to win. But Zingle had dislocated a shoulder.
"It's never happened to me before I had no idea how to pop it back in on my own," he told Eurosport.
After a support team member shoved the arm back into the socket by the side of the road, Zingle tried to set off and reached for a snack.
"I wanted to grab a gel and I dislocated my shoulder again, so I had to stop," he said.
This time he was sent for more expert treatment.
CaÃda en la cabeza del pelotón: afectados casi todos los Visma (incluido Vingegaard) y Pidcock.
— Teledeporte (@teledeporte) August 24, 2025
🇫🇷Axel Zingle se ha llevado la peor parte, pero continua en carrera.
🔴Sigue la etapa en @la2_tve
📺También en RTVE Play https://t.co/fZ2hXIg1wQ#VueltaRTVE24a #LV2025 #LaVuelta25 pic.twitter.com/MDazHNmFq6
"There was a guy there who didn't speak English very well, so I gave him my bike while I got into the ambulance to have my shoulder put back in place," Zingle said.
"When I came out, my bike was gone. I had to wait five or ten minutes because he had left with my bike."
The team car eventually found their rider. Zingle was handed a spare bike off the roof and set off in the wake of the distant peloton, finally finishing some 24 minutes after stage winner Vingegaard.