Xacobeo Galicia rider Gustavo César Veloso broke his collarbone♔ yesterday after a fall during a pre-season mountain bike training ride. He'll undergo surgery in Lugo, Spain, to treat the injury and begin rehabilitation later today.

Veloso had ridden a cyclocross race the ꦐprevious day and headed out on a mo🐼untain bike as a means of post-race recovery. Instead he's now nursing a broken clavicle which will slightly hinder his pre-season preparations.

"I had planned a 'soft' session tꦅoday, since yesterday [Saturday] I had trained in the morning and in t❀he evening I attended the cyclocross race. I was out with a cyclist. We were quiet. I put the wheel in a creek and was thrown over the handlebars," said Veloso, who won stage nine of this year's Vuelta a España in Xorret del Catí.

"I tend to be very cautious, but I couldn't help it. I think if I had gone a bit quicker the wheel would have come out of the doldrums, but as it slowl⛎y froze [I couldn't rectify it],༺" he explained.

The fracture is the first of this kind he has experienced in 12 years of cycling and won't threaten his 2010 season. "I was training🐼 to start the season and looked sharp in cyclocross; without assuming any kind of risk every time [I rode] I wꦛas [getting] better. Now, after surgery, I will readjust my schedule," he explained.