Thoughts on LeTour 2026

 Le Tour de France 2026

Zio Lorenzo at LeTour 2024

Le Beeg Shew is over for another year. A few thoughts below:

First, a big F-YOU for this. The author has some nerve to write: Those who succeeded Froome as the sport’s pre-eminent general classification riders, Tadej Pogačar and Jonas Vingegaard, have had to face the same questions and doubts that Froome did in his career. Namely, credibility over their performances.

Really? Based on what? The author even admits: Froome tested positive for the prohibited asthma drug salbutamol at the 2017 Vuelta a España – which he won – but he was cleared by the UCI and WADA of any wrongdoing nine months later. There were also accusations of Team Sky exploiting Therapeutic Use Exemptions (TUEs) for certain medications.

Have you read anything like this about the other guys? Me neither. So why the nasty comparison?

Sure, the yellow jersey race went rather flat once the pasty Dane crashed himself out but Pogacar can only beat the guys who are there, right? Remco Evenepoel proved Zio wrong when he said he should stick to one-day races while Isaac Del Toro raced well for a relative newbie and it was great to see the champ help his young protege. Zio contrasts this podium with the Giro's with the pasty Dane on top with Felix Gall and Jai Hindley on the next steps. So much for the woulda/coulda/shoulda from the Dane's camp.

The battles for the white, green and polka-dot jerseys were compelling in contrast, none of 'em truly wrapped-up until the race was nearly over. It was great to watch 19 year old Paul Seixas try to get on the podium as well as Lenny Martinez get 5th place, good news for the French but also tough to note none of the big-3 cycling countries (France, Italy or Spain) had riders win a single stage. Talk about globalization!

We watched Eurosport's TV coverage with Italy's RAI subbed-in now and then. We skip the English-language commentary, that pie-faced British woman they have is annoying enough when she comes on. She does interviews but rarely asks a question, instead just making a half-baked comment while nodding her head like a fan someone just handed a microphone and camera crew. Can't they do better? There are other women out there that are ex-racers and/or better journalists for sure! 

Vive LeTour!

Volcano fun

 Volcano Fun

Here's what's been going-on at our local volcano. It's 60 miles from where we live. Years ago we were driving at night and Heather saw it erupting with glowing red spews of lava, from a place south of Siracusa! We booked a week up there to get out of the summer heat though that was relative as it was hot even at 6000 feet!

You can see Rifugio Sapienza indicated on the ETNA model here. That's where we stayed. More accurately at a hotel nearby named CORSARO.

A bike-friendly place, wouldn't you say? This is the hotel lobby. Pro cyclist Michele Scarponi used to stay here for altitude training, they say he called to reserve a room just before he was tragically killed in 2017. This place has one of the world's best breakfast buffets and an amazingly friendly and caring staff.

We wanted to see the volcano up-close and since the eruptions had died down we rode the cable car up the side one day. From there they drive you further in a 4-wheel drive bus.

Then you get to walk around with a guide to see some craters that were active a few years ago. This is close to 9000 feet so the air is thin.

And the wind BLOWS! You kind-of get sandblasted so Zio Lorenzo wore pants despite the heat.

That's all that was happening when we were there, kind-of an "after eruption cigarette" for the volcano maybe?

Back at the hotel, life is tough!

Though we DID do some cycling! Most rides were the "15 minutes going down with an hour plus coming back up" type. Thank gawd for the e-bikes!!!

The "Brogan Adjustment"

 The Brogan Adjustment

And then:

Why pro teams continue to use SRAM escapes Zio Lorenzo. They stop if/when SRAM stops writing the fat checks, but with team budgets these days north of 20 million for an average WT team, how much can it matter, especially when it costs the team a race win? Winning races is what Zio thought it was all about.

Temperature Inflation

 Temperature Inflation?

Everyone is familiar with grade inflation and in the USA, the weather reports that concentrate on some subjective "feels like" temperatures rather than tell you what the actual thermometer readings are.  Few will argue that climate change is a hoax but Zio thinks things are going too far when some call for LeTour to be held in a cooler month.

Seems like the pros train for heat (note silly photo above) but all you read on English-language cycling sites is about how hot it is at the Tour de France. Here and here, for example. Oddly enough, the Italian-language sites Zio looks at don't much mention this. 

The TV images from Carcassonne the other day reminded ol' Zio of following Le Grand Boucle all over France back in the day. Back in the day when hotels in France mostly did not have A/C nor did the vehicles you drove around in. Back then you climbed off your bike at the top of a climb and bought a boisson from a roadside vendor. A drink described as "fraiche" but it came out of a big tub...of water.

Zio had to laugh when one of these sites noted "record" heat - from records that started being kept all the way back in 2007!

What has changed? The pros used to race around dressed in WOOL jerseys and shorts in 40 C heat for Pietro's sake. And don't tell me those guys went slow...TV images the other day showed the 2026 TdF peloton ambling along at 31 kph. Even ol' Zio can ride that speed! Maybe not for 5+ hours but he's a) not a pro b) he is an old-fart.

Notably silent (so far) is the rider's union rep. That guy who seems OK with racing every January in Australia when it's 40 C while screaming bloody murder every May in Italy when it rains or snows. It's not too hot for him?

Stick-thin modern racers have high-tech clothing with ice stuffed inside, hundreds of bottles handed-up, air-conditioned transportation and lodging, popsicles, ice-vests and more. Back-in-the-day it was a cabbage leaf under your cycling cap and whatever you could beg, borrow or steal to drink in-between jumping into a fountain or river.

Zio remembers back in the 1990's when Coca-Cola was a Tour sponsor. Their slogan was "Buvez Tres Froid" as the sign shows. There was a bit of a scandal when the Tour doctor claimed riders were getting sick from drinks TOO COLD! OOOooopps!

Zio wonders if the globalization of cycling has something to do with all of this? Back-in-the-day cyclists mostly came from places it was hot in the summer like France, Italy, Spain, etc. with the occasional Australian or British rider. Brits are notorious complainers about the heat since they have only one or two days of summer each year. Could this be behind all the current whining? Note this quote from one of the articles:

“So far, I’ve coped with it quite well,” Riccitello says. “I think just being from somewhere that is quite hot, I maybe adapt better. I don’t know. There’s only so much you can do.”

Riccitello is from Arizona, USA while we currently live in Sicily. For us it's "desert rat" time - awake at 6 AM, on the bike by 7 AM and back to our tiny island by 9 AM where we can enjoy a granita with brioche! Nobody is paying us to ride after all!

Update: As of July 12 2026, 40 C is too hot to race a full TdF stage. But somehow it wasn't back in January 2026 in Australia. WTF?

Fake Booze

 Fake Booze

Fake booze? Yep, you read that right. Zio Lorenzo finds himself living in the land of great wines and he can no longer enjoy them. He made a choice after A-Fib. It was booze or cycling, since they say alcohol is a huge trigger for A-Fib. But he missed the "adult beverage" part of meals as well as the aperitivo in the evenings. Ice tea just doesn't cut it!

So it was time to explore the ever-growing 0 alcohol drink selections. Beer was easy, there are hundreds of those now and after a month or two Zio could no longer even tell the difference. But wine's a different animal. He tried all the offerings from Sicily first, then spread to all over Italy, with zero positive results. Most of 'em were like fruit punch, especially the reds.

But fear not if you're in the same situation or just want to reduce/eliminate alcohol from your diet. Heather still imbibes and Zio enjoys selecting wines for her...he can still sniff 'em after all!

After trying most of 'em Zio ended up with wines from Thomson & Scott. He thought their claims were hyperbolic but he decided to try their wines since there's a local importer with fast shipping. The verdict? Whites are pretty easy, as are sparklers like the one below from Mionetto. But reds are a challenge, most of 'em taste like something, but it's NOT wine! Zio really hates the idea of drinking wines in Sicily that are imported from South Africa, but it's not his fault nobody else seems to have figured this out, right?

The red tastes like wine, something that Zio can't say about the others he's tried. Not GOOD wine, but wine just the same - think of the quality level you get with most wines-by-the-glass. "Inoffensive" was the description Zio's late father-in-law used to use. Zio took a bottle of the white to a seafood ristorante here in Sicily and shared a taste with a hidebound wine-snob who took a break from his "that's not wine" mantra (it IS wine, the alcohol is just removed) and declared it acceptable. The snob's wife has A-Fib but refused even a taste - go figure.

Mionetto now offers a fake version of Aperol so Zio has some of that coming to see if he can make a decent spritz*. Fingers crossed!

CIN-CIN!

*Update - Mionetto's "Aperitivo" isn't much like Aperol

Cycling or Motorsport?

 Is this CYCLING or a Motorsport?

Our friends at PEZ Cycling published this the other day.

UCI’s Tunnel Vision: Policing Aerodynamics While Riders Keep Crashing

I like the guys there, having worked with Richard and his crew to promote CycleItalia back in the day. But I have issues with this piece.

First is the defense of the guy who keeps cheating and getting caught. He's become such a pest to the UCI people in-charge of enforcing the rules it looks like they single him out at each race for special scrutiny. He's been DQ'd three times but he doesn't seem to learn a thing from it. 

The "aero" stuff is already out-of-control - one look at the "head fairing" below should explain it. Why is this obvious fairing allowed? Because they call it a safety helmet? What's next, a larger one, maybe supported by struts attached to the rider's back? UCI needs a rule limiting how far from the rider's head (you know, that thing they're trying to protect?) these gizmos can extend. 4-5 centimeters in ANY direction would be a good start.

Or they could just drop all pretense and have a race around France each July using these. How many fans would line the roads to watch a pack of brightly colored suppositories go by? The industry might like the idea - they could really advertise their "Slippery Sam" won the Tour de France. The guy inside pedaling it would be just like a F1 driver...the advertising isn't for him, it's the CAR!

The PEZ article touches on some of this as well when the author takes the UCI to task for failing to do anything about safety, claiming the  "peloton continues to suffer mass crashes at an alarming rate, events that genuinely endanger riders’ lives and careers," In my view that's rather hyperbolic but it's also untrue.

Recently the UCI attempted an experiment in slowing the peloton down with the idea that slower speeds might make racing safer. Their SAFER committee wanted to limit gearing to 54 X 11 to see if this would slow things down and make things safer. But SRAM, who has a 10 cog on the end of their stack, objected. Not only that, they sued! Forget that their own website points-out that 50 X 10 is the same ratio. Instead of telling their sponsored teams to use that, they sued in a Belgian court and so far have prevailed.

I guess they don't care about safety? But they DO care about money. The NYT/The Athletic published an article about this fiasco so Zio Lorenzo won't get into it here. But he WILL ask where does this end? I don't think too many MLB fans lobby about the sales opportunities for the companies that make the bats, nor do NBA fans care a lot about the balls. But why do so many cycling fans seem to support the bicycle industry? 

This same industry cares only about sales and profits, sport is just a vehicle. They fight against any equipment regulations on their "innovations" since those innovations are really designed to make whatever you are riding now seem obsolete and in immediate need of replacement with their newest-latest. Think of the 32" MTB wheel craze going on now. They're saying exactly the same things they said when you "needed" 29" wheels instead of those antique 26" hoops. 

Please don't let cycling turn into just another industry-controlled sport...like motorsports.

$50 vs $10

 Battle of the chainrings $50 vs $10

Can you tell the difference between the $50 chainring and the $10 chainring in this photo? After our Tuscan adventure we thought our gravel bikes needed gearing a bit lower, but Shimano GRX was maxed-out with 40 up front and 42 out back. Sadly, nothing smaller up front or larger out back was available from Shimano.

So Zio Lorenzo went searching on the internet where he found a French Specialties T-A (remember them?) chainring claimed to be a perfect replacement with 38 instead of 40 teeth. Zio figured this would be an easy swap, probably not requiring anything other than removing and replacing, so he ordered two of 'em. $50 seemed a bit steep but they were supposed to fit and if not, the reputable online merchant would surely take them back, right?

Meanwhile, some $10 Chinese chainrings popped up after he ordered. They looked the same but the description was a little vague as to the bolt-pattern fitting GRX, but for $10 Zio figured he'd give 'em a try. Looks like they'll fit but will they last as long as the 7075 T6 alloy French rings? Probably not, but Zio doubts the French ones will last 5 X longer to justify the higher price. Time will tell.