Short answer: most of the time, they just go while riding.
But once you start asking how do cyclists pee during the Tour de France, you open a small can of worms.
There’s the biology behind why they go so often, an unwritten truce that’s quietly falling apart, and a brand-new 2026 ban that has the peloton scrambling for a workaround.
Why Do They Need to Go So Often?
First, the obvious one: volume. A rider might drink several liters of water and sports drink across a four to six hour stage, often more than they sweat out. All that fluid has to go somewhere.
Then there’s the sneaky one. On cold, wet stages, your body pulls blood inward to protect your core. Your kidneys read that as “too much fluid on board” and crank up urine production. It’s called cold-induced diuresis, and it can fill a bladder roughly 30% faster than normal.
Add a shot of race-day adrenaline (nerves, attacks, all-out efforts) and the urge only gets stronger. So a shivering rider on a rainy mountain stage isn’t imagining it. Their plumbing really is working overtime.
“There is total anarchy there… they just p**s in the middle of the pack. Everyone pees on everyone. Disgusting.”
The Three Ways Pros Actually Pee Mid-Race
They’ve got three options, depending on the moment.
Option one: stop at the roadside. When a breakaway gets a gap and the pace drops, 20 to 30 riders will pull over at once and go, while the TV cameras politely find something else to film. The catch: they need to be outside a town, or they risk a fine.
Option two: pee while riding. This is the famous “pro ps.” As Will Girling, head of performance nutrition at EF Pro Cycling, explains: “They do what we call a ‘pro ps’. This involves drifting to the back of the peloton and discreetly peeing out of the side of their shorts while maintaining their pace.” A teammate often gives a push to get them back up to speed.
Option three: just get wet. Reserved for when you’re already soaked and freezing. Tour stage-win record holder Mark Cavendish told GQ: “In races that are soaking wet and freezing cold, I like to p**s myself. It warms me up for a split second.”
The Unwritten Rule: The Nature Break Truce
For generations, there was an honor system around all this. The race leader or GC boss would signal a collective nature break, and nobody would attack while the group emptied their bladders. A gentleman’s truce.
Lately, that truce is fraying. Three-time world champion Peter Sagan grumbled that the tradition is dying: “There is total anarchy there… they just p**s in the middle of the pack. Everyone pees on everyone. Disgusting.”
The women’s peloton saw an uglier version. At the 2023 Vuelta Femenina, rivals attacked in the crosswinds while race leader Demi Vollering stopped for a nature break. She lost about a minute, and eventually lost the overall by just nine seconds. Her SD Worx teammate Niamh Fisher-Black summed up the new mood: “if you can’t beat ’em, cheat ’em.”
How Do Female Pro Cyclists Manage?
The pee-while-riding trick barely works with bib shorts. The straps go over the shoulders, so you can’t just yank the shorts down. That means women more often stop and squat somewhere secluded.
Former Olympic track champion Jo Rowsell has pointed out that women’s races are partly shorter for this very reason. The men’s Tour averages about 173 km per road stage, versus about 130 km at the Tour de France Femmes. Newer “easy-pee” bib short designs are starting to close that gap.
And the Newest Twist: The Bottle Ban
The peloton just lost a favorite shortcut. At the 2026 Giro d’Italia, some riders started peeing into a bidon and tossing it aside, partly to spare roadside homeowners the view.
After Stage 9, the UCI and race organizers issued a formal written warning: that’s now explicitly banned. Victor Campenaerts admitted he’d been doing exactly that (to be kind to the homeowners, he said) and agreed to stop.
So the pros will always find a new workaround. And the rulebook, faithfully, keeps chasing right behind them.
