Tour riders are speaking out on extreme heat - but is anyone really listening?

Heat has always been an occupational hazard at the Tour, and the legend of the race is replete with all sorts of picaresque tales of riders taking creative measures to cool themselves down. 

In 1950, when Custódio dos Reis followed Marcel Molinès to become the second African stage winner in as many days, his exploit was overshadowed by a polemic over an incident along the way at Saint-Pons-Mures, where most of the peloton stopped and took a dip in the sea.

The modern Tour, with every kilometre broadcast live around the world, allows for no such spontaneous stoppages, and the race organisation itself makes fewer concessions to the July heat. 

In yesteryear, Tour stages started in the morning. These days, to satisfy the needs of broadcast partners, stages are run off at the warmest point of the day in the afternoon. It’s not clear if rider welfare was ever a factor in those discussions. 

But this year, mercifully, some riders have been raising their voices to highlight the impact of this specific heatwave – and of climate change in general – on their working conditions. Not for the first time, Matteo Trentin has been an especially articulate advocate for his fellow professionals, and he cut to the heart of the matter when speaking to Wielerflits earlier this week.

“I don’t know if it’s safe, but it’s not healthy at all,” Trentin said when asked about the wisdom of racing in these conditions. And, as the Tudor rider pointed out, this week’s heat cannot be dismissed as an aberration; it’s the new normal.

“It’s always been hot, but these recent heatwaves are very different. It doesn’t get cool in the night anymore. Climate change is here. It’s not like it’s coming next year; it’s already here in this moment.

“If I’m a normal, random guy, I wouldn’t go out at this time of the day. In Italy and also in France, there is a rule that people working in agriculture or construction cannot work [in extreme temperatures]. We are working, technically. It’s nice on the bike, but it’s a job for us.”

The Tour is only four days old, but the temperatures have clearly taken a toll on the peloton. At the finish at Les Angles on Monday, Tom Pidcock (Pinarello-Q36.5) likened conditions to a “warzone.” 

“It can take its toll and really affect the riders’ health,” said Benjamin Thomas (Cofidis). “Once the perceived temperature goes above 40°C, it really starts to get dangerous.”

In the pages of Le Parisien, sports performance researcher Sébastien Racinais of the CREPS institute in Montpellier suggested that the temperatures were pushing riders “to the limits of what the human body can tolerate.”

As if to prove the point, Pogačar himself confessed to feeling the effects of the extreme heat in the opening phase of stage 4. “When we started, I had a full headache and I was thinking this is going to be one long day,” Pogačar said. 

Shortly before the start, the UCI announced that it had, in consultation with the commissaires, “decided to soften the provisions governing rider feeding in light of the extreme heat forecast over the coming stages of the Tour de France.”

That, in essence, meant that riders could now take musettes in feed zones that had previously been designated for bottles only. When the news was confirmed on Tuesday morning, Trentin was among those to wonder why it had taken so long. 

“We have been asking for this for three days already, and surely approval from Aigle shouldn’t be needed for that?” Trentin told Sporza. “They should turn off the air conditioning in their cars for a change. Then they will understand what we are going through. Everyone is giving 100%, but the regulators must also take action. We have been asking for this for three days already.”

It remains to be seen what further action, if any, the UCI and the Tour organisation will take if the conditions remain like this. Although Pascal Chanteur of the French pro riders’ union has called for a change in start times, there is an acceptance that the machinery of the Tour cannot be altered at such short notice. 

“This is a gigantic circus,” Tour technical director Thierry Gouvenou told Het Nieuwsblad, explaining why stage times could not be changed on the hoof. “There are strict time slots. Sometimes access to a hospital is temporarily restricted. That requires all kinds of arrangements. You can’t just say, ‘We’re going to pass by an hour or three earlier.'”

The obvious alternative, of course, is the shortening or outright cancellation of stages, though it seems few are willing to countenance that prospect publicly just yet.  

But Trentin has rightly stressed that the issue cannot be simply swept under the carpet once the weather eventually breaks: “We need to sit at the table and seriously talk about it, so we’re not here in another year saying we need to talk about it.”

The Tour peloton is finding its voice on the matter – but is anybody really listening? 

The scorching temperatures this week also serve to highlight an inconvenient truth that cycling and the Tour have ignored over the years. The bicycle may be a most ecologically-sound mode of transport, but the great bike race itself is a different proposition.

ASO has claimed that its carbon emissions dropped by 37% between 2013 and 2021. It also claims that 100% of the carbon emissions produced by the Tour organisation itself are offset, but their calculations do not factor in the emissions produced by the team staff, journalists, sponsors, corporate guests and fans following the race across its three weeks.

And one cannot ignore, either, that a sizeable portion of WorldTour sponsorship is, in essence, a form of greenwashing. Petro-chemical companies such as TotalEnergies, Ineos and XRG are festooned across jerseys in the Tour peloton. As the journalist Matt Rendell has pointed out, “the Tour is a daily, five-hour ad for fossil fuel producers.”

And yet the Tour looked the other way when its part in climate change was very publicly called out in 2022, when protestors from the ‘Dernière Renovation’ climate action group blocked the race for more than 10 minutes on the road to Megève.

On France TV’s coverage that afternoon, Laurent Jalabert made a point of refusing even to name the protestors’ cause. “There’s no question of talking about it, we’re here to talk about cycling,” said Jalabert, himself no stranger to reticence when faced with uncomfortable questions. 

It was striking, too, that Tour director Christian Prudhomme opted against naming the cause or discussing the issue that had been raised when he appeared on the same show shortly afterwards. 

That macabre episode came to mind again on Monday, when the Tour raced towards Les Angles, just 70km away from the wildfires that had seen residents of Trévillach evacuated from their homes. The emergency effort saw the local police call on spectators to stay away from the Tour, and so the roadsides were largely empty in the final 40km.

But while the Tour raced in something of a bubble on Monday afternoon, it doesn’t take place in a vacuum. The temperatures that are pushing the riders to extremes and putting their health at risk are a consequence of global warming, and, whether we like it or not, pro cycling is a contributor to that phenomenon.

Speaking to L’Équipe, Guillaume Martin-Guyonnet cited a small but absurd example of needless extra emissions on the opening weekend of the race. A number of teams, he noted, brought two buses to the event – one at the start and another at the finish. 

“Basically, a bus turned up just for a shower,” Martin-Guyonnet said. “Was that really necessary when there were hotels just twenty minutes away?”