Today’s French cycling term comes to us from Sean Kelly, not a person I would have expected it from, but he spent enough time riding with French coureurs to have heard them all, I guess. Sean was referring to Remco Evenepoel, looking comfortable in the middle of a peloton that was deciding whether or not to chase down a breakaway.

The meaning, from what I can tell, is that a rider who is smoking the pipe is looking confident, comfortable and is probably a level above his competition. We’ve got 18 more stages of the Giro d’Italia to find out if Remco will still be smoking when it’s over.