“Grand Tours should have more individual time trial kilometers”

Luca Guercilena started as RCS Sport's Head of Cycling on September 1, and he has already put the clock back on the agenda. In interviews with La Gazzetta dello Sport and Il Corriere della Sera, the former Lidl-Trek general manager said he wants the Giro d'Italia to be decided by more than climbing. "I've always loved time trials, and I'd like to bring them back into the spotlight," he told La Gazzetta. "I'd like to strike a better balance between time trials and climbs, so as to broaden the range of potential winners." The numbers show how far the sport has drifted. This year's Giro had one time trial of 42km. The Tour de France had a 19km team time trial on day one and a 26km individual test in the third week. The Vuelta a España has 41.5km against the watch in total. Jan Bakelants, a former Tour stage winner now writing for HLN, argues that more kilometres would make racing better, not duller. "I miss an extra time trial of between forty and fifty kilometres that could have made the race more exciting," he said of the 2026 Tour route. His point is about time gaps. A 26km effort lasts about half an hour and barely moves the general classification, so climbers can wait for the last mountain. Hand a rider like Remco Evenepoel two minutes to defend, and everyone else has to attack far earlier. Johan Bruyneel, the former rider and team director, says the distance is not really the issue. Speaking on THEMOVE podcast, he noted: "The time trial is only 26 kilometers, and the first 10 of those are uphill. It's a stage for the GC contenders; time trial specialists are definitely not at an advantage here." On that reading, organisers already design time trials that protect the climbers, so adding kilometres changes little. Then there is the identity question. A Grand Tour still only has 21 stage days, so a second time trial takes a slot a road stage would otherwise fill, and Italian critics were quick to say the 2026 Giro had already given up too much of its character. "It is a Giro without any signature stages, without any iconic locations, the ones that make a Giro special," Cristiano Gatti wrote on Tuttobiciweb. There is a business angle too. The 2026 Giro route, with its flat 40km test and no back to back mountain blocks, was widely read as a pitch to Evenepoel and Jonas Vingegaard, and it still did not persuade him to come. As Cadel Evans put it about the Tour, "You can't Pog-proof the Tour." Routes built around one rider's profile rarely deliver the race the organiser imagined. So the trade-off is clear. More time trialling opens the door to a wider group of contenders and forces the pure climbers to race earlier, but it uses up a stage day, and it may just hand more races to the riders who already win everything. Should Grand Tours carry more time trial kilometres, or does that risk trading the mountain drama that made these races famous? Where do you stand?