Cycling’s Latest Controversy Involves Pee in Water Bottles

Professional cycling is a sport of dizzying calorie consumption. During the Tour de France or Giro d’Italia, the cyclists burn gazillions of calories and must gulp down massive quantities of pasta and rice to keep their cannon-like legs churning. They also guzzle coffee, recovery shakes, electrolyte swill, and sugary gels by the gallon.

Back when I was a full-time cycling journalist, my non-cyclist friends always peppered me with the same questions about the day-in, day-out biking, eating, and drinking.

So, do the cyclists have to poop and pee all of the time?

My short answer, of course, was yes.

It’s no secret that cyclists go to the bathroom during the races. Most times, the peloton pulls over to the side of the road, and everyone pees in unison. Sometimes, if a rider really has to go, a teammate will push him while he coasts along and does his business. And sometimes, in instances of an emergency, a cyclist will duck into a house or roadside RV.

These potty stops are integral parts of the sport: they impact strategy and produce legendary moments in cycling history. Sometimes, bathroom breaks are the source of maddening controversies.

Despite the banality of bike racing’s bathroom talk, there’s a new kerfuffle involving pee that is a truly bizarre affair, and unlike any story I’ve followed in my 20-plus years reporting on the sport.

On Monday, May 18, the organizers of the Giro d’Italia, the three-week men’s Tour of Italy, had to publish a stern warning to the cyclists: Don’t pee into your water bottle. 

“To respect the image of cycling and the Giro d’Italia, the organizer and the Commissaires’ Panel inform all riders that urinating into a bottle and subsequently discarding it is strictly prohibited,” read the official decree.

Apparently, someone had peed into his bottle, or bidon, and then tossed it to the side of the road. This may seem like a relatively minor offense—at every race, riders toss their empty bottles to the roadside as the race rolls by. Well, at European bicycle races, the fans standing along the roadside covet these souvenirs as if they were the golden idol at the start of Raiders of the Lost Ark. They dive into ditches after bottles, battle one another to grab them, and erect ornate signs that ask the riders to toss one their way.

Alas, sometimes a fan may take a gulp of the fluid remaining in them.

While I don’t have concrete proof, I can only surmise that some overzealous cycling fan collected a bottle and then received an acrid mouthful of you-know-what after taking a celebratory drink. All of the mouthwash in Italy isn’t going to chase that flavor away.

The whole situation begs the question: Why would a cyclist pee into his bottle during a race? In cycling-mad Belgium, the pee bottle has sparked an interrogation of this question. A former pro named Arjen Livyns, who is also a broadcaster with the sports network Sporza, said that sometimes a cyclist simply cannot find a secluded place to do his business.

At very popular races, like the Giro d’Italia, fans pack almost every inch of the 100-mile course. So, in order to get some privacy, a cyclist may attempt to go in his bottle.

“You try to look for places where there are no people, but in the stages with good weather, people come out to watch the race. Then it is difficult to find a good place to pee,” Dries Van Gestel said during the broadcast.

Van Gestel added that peeing in a bottle is pretty uncommon.

Now, since this is cycling—a sport with no shortage of investigations into wrongdoing—this ordeal sparked a minor witch hunt to figure out which rider tossed the pee bottle. My colleagues at Velo have labeled the investigation “Pee-Gate,” which is an appropriate and hilarious title. According to Velo, several Belgian reporters and ex-pro riders believe that Flemish cycling star Victor Campanaerts, one of the domestiques on the Dutch team Visma-Lease a Bike, is to blame.

Word on the street is that Campanaerts has a track record of peeing into his water bottles.

“I’ve only known two who do it: Campenaerts and Sagan,” ex-pro Oliver Naesen told broadcaster Sporza. “Sagan” refers to Peter Sagan, the Slovakian star who retired in 2024.

Campenaets denied the accusation. Like all things cycling, we can only assume he’s innocent until proven guilty.

Alas, we’re going to have to wait a few days to see if Pee-Gate is resolved by the time the Giro d’Italia peloton rumbles into the final finish line in Milan. Until then, I simply hope that the fans attending the Giro wash any and all bottles they find along the route.