The best cyclists, believe it or not, need the car. The Giro d'Italia shows once again that such a bike race is not just a bike race, but also a car race. Same distance, same distance, 3500 kilometers over the thumb.

Dozens of cars are on the road, and anyone who has ever sat in one of the escort cars that bang through winding villages in front of, behind or in the middle of the field, who feared for his and the village children's lives, knows that top executives are not only at work here on the two-wheeler, but also on the steering wheel. Lewis Hamilton probably wouldn't stand a chance against them at the moment, which may also be due to the car, which Mercedes no longer understands, as you hear.

Over-wide, over-long, over-high, overpriced

But now to the problem. As is well known, the future belongs to the electric car, and if the combustion engines are soon switched off like Isar 2, it will be tight for the racing cyclists. Or does anyone believe that the e-car will soon be able to complete a Tour or Giro stage with, let's say, a measly 5000 meters of altitude, without a charging break at the foot of Mont Ventoux?

But even if that works, a problem remains. The station wagon is dying out. Production is no longer worthwhile because the whole world prefers to drive SUVs the size of infantry fighting vehicles. For cycling races, this means: no more station wagons in the long run. No fast, manoeuvrable team and service cars with their perfect space for radio and television, workshop and spare parts warehouse. And with space for plenty of spare wheels on the flat roof.

To put wheels on the roof of an over-wide, over-long, over-high, 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, this does not change another problem.

After all, 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 peeks out of the top, a yellow flag in his hand that says "DÉPART", which he lowers after a few kilometers of leisurely rolling along and thus clears the stages.

But now, as I said, the sunroof is also on the verge of extinction. And without a sunroof, there is no Tour de France. Without a sunroof, only eternal leisurely rolling. Perhaps, however, we should not dramatize the situation too much and instead appeal to the car manufacturers: You know what you have to do! Build a few more station wagons in the future, equipment "Prudhomme", i.e. combustion engines with sunroofs! The cyclists will thank you for it.