Dhe best cyclists, it’s hard to believe, need the car. The Giro d’Italia just shows again that such a bike race is not just a bike race, but also a car race. Same route, same distance, 3500 kilometers over the thumb.
Dozens of cars are on the road there, and anyone who has ever sat in one of the escort vehicles that smashes through winding villages in front of, behind or in the middle of the field, and anyone who feared for their lives and those of the village children, knows that top talent is not only at work here on two wheels are, but also on the steering wheel. Lewis Hamilton probably wouldn’t have a chance against them at the moment, which can also be due to the car, which Mercedes no longer understands, as you can hear.
Too wide, too long, too high, too expensive
But now to the problem. As is well known, the future belongs to the e-car, and if the combustion engines are switched off soon like Isar 2, it will be tight for racing cyclists. Or does anyone think that the e-car will soon be able to complete a Tour or Giro stage with, say, a whopping 5,000 meters in altitude without a charging break at the foot of Mont Ventoux?
But even if that should work, a problem remains. The station wagon is dying out. The production is no longer worthwhile because everyone prefers to drive SUVs the size of armored personnel carriers. For cycle races, this means: no more station wagons in the near future. No fast, manoeuvrable team and service vehicles with their perfect space conditions for radio and television, workshop and spare parts store. And with space for plenty of spare wheels on the flat roof.
Putting the wheels on the roof of an oversized, overlong, oversized, overpriced tank SUV would mean not being able to get through some underpasses, not to mention the chaos on narrow Tuscan streets. And even if, contrary to expectations, they continue to build the station wagons, that doesn’t change another problem.
Because the sunroof is also threatened with extinction. And now just imagine Christian Prudhomme, the tour boss, without a sunroof! So his car, of course, this red hybrid Skoda, from which he always looks out at the top, a yellow flag in his hand that says “DÉPART”, which he lowers after a few kilometers of leisurely rolling along, thus releasing the stages.
But now, as I said, the sunroof is also dying out. And no Tour de France without a sunroof. Without sunroof just eternally comfortable rolling along. Perhaps one should not dramatize the situation too much and instead appeal to the car manufacturers: You know what you have to do! Will continue to build a few station wagons in the future, “Prudhomme” equipment, i.e. combustion engines with a sunroof! The cyclists will thank you.
