The newly released 2025 Tour de France route looks good. It’s a pure summer road race once more, moving away from the gravel and cobble-dabbling of recent years.
Six mountain-top finishes, two time trials – with one in the Pyrenees – and the breathtaking, savage beauty of Ventoux, it's my cup of tea.
The recent announcement of the end of ITV’s free-to-air coverage is a shocker. I’ve always been a fan of the Tour – the endurance, excitement and tension sustained for its 21 days is unparalleled in any other sport.
That said, I won't be watching – and so I’m not going to lament the loss of free-to-view coverage – for two key reasons.
We can have better bikes than the pros
Over recent years, the lust I once had for racing bikes has subsided.
In a world of near-identical bikes, there’s not enough to hold my tech-oriented interest.
That’s down partly to how I ride these days, preferring to spend my time on long endurance rides and gravel than anything else.
I’d also argue that it’s down to how brilliant non race-oriented bikes have become. They're better all-rounders – smoother, just as fast, equally tech-laden and highly evolved.
Nowadays, if you offered me the choice, I’d buy Giant’s Defy endurance bike over the TCR or Propel (which the pros ride) every time.
I’d rather be riding the Mosaic RT-1 TR I tested recently than a S-Works Tarmac, for example.
I’m also looking forward to trying out the next generation of Cannondale’s Synapse than any update to its aero-race weapon, the SystemSix; a Cervélo Caledonia or Soloist over an S5. The list goes on.
The fact is, non-race-optimised bikes are as quick as I’d ever need – and they're more comfortable, easier to live with and more fun.
We need more bike-design variety
Now, I’m a huge fan of race bikes – I own both a TCR and a SuperSix Evo – but there just isn’t the variety we used to have.
At least in the steel era of the 70s and 80s – when all bikes really looked the same – we had fancy lugs and beautiful paint to give us some points of difference.
The copycat Kammtail profiles, dropped seatstays and integrated everything are becoming boring.
All the major players use the same CFD (computational fluid dynamics) software, the same CAD (computer-aided design), and even tube-shape libraries defined by wind-tunnel research and computational engineering are similar from brand to brand.
We’re looking at the same silhouettes, the same fork shapes and just variations on a theme.
I can only think of one exception to prove the rule – that being Pinarello – where curves still seem to matter.
The search for speed and advantage is interesting, but silly super-narrow bars ruin the handling of a bike, especially if your dimensions are similar to mine – making it great in a straight line but horrid in the corners. You might as well spend your riding time on Zwift – and tyres narrower than 28mm just don’t work where I ride.
I do like riding the best aero road bikes, of course. However, much like a track-day car, they're amazing fun for a day of playing… but I wouldn’t fancy riding one home.
It's a murky road out there
Sportswashing has also soured the experience massively for me.
In the 1980s, I was watching riders emblazoned with the names of brands such as Peugeot, Ti-Raleigh, Puch, Splendor, La Redoute, Kelme and more.
Today, I’m faced with the prospect of supporting polluters, human rights abuses, restriction of freedom of expression and much more besides. All emblazoned across Lycra and cheered on from the sidelines.
Now, don’t get me wrong, we aren’t at the stage of other more moneyed sports, where ambivalence to the financial rules is tolerated, and sportswashing state ownership is practically encouraged by fans, media, and especially governing bodies.
But how soon will we, as supporters, get to the point where the money behind our favourite team is enough to overlook serious accusations over abuses of the environment, human rights or indeed the law? It's a situation that's arisen numerous times in football, as supporters of Newcastle United, Manchester City and Paris Saint-Germain may or may not acknowledge.
I don’t want to see pro tour athletes go unrewarded – it’s a short career and they should be able to monetise it as much as they can.
We are also well past the days when an ex-pro rider can continue in the business of building bikes. I’m glad to see that Aurum (Basso and Contador) and Boardman (Chris) are still hanging in with great bikes, but we won’t see another bike brand like Merckx, Museeuw, Olmo, Benotto, Battaglin, Moser or Fondriest.
So, while I understand the need to attract huge sponsorship money, I just wish we could be better than this.
Sportswashing has rinsed the vibrant colour out of the Tour and all that’s left is murky.
