The support vehicles are an important part of the tour. A report from the car of the sports director of the Decathlon AG2R team.
Sporting directors have a hell of a job at the Tour de France. Not only do they have to draw up tactical plans and ensure that their cyclists are in good shape, they also have to ride the many kilometers in a convoy themselves. This involves avoiding accidents, issuing replacement bikes quickly and ensuring that the cyclists are fed.
I have an appointment with Nicolas Guillé on Tuesday. The former amateur cyclist has been with the AG2R team – this year it is called Decathlon AG2R – for five years as sports director at the Tour de France. He is driving team car number 2 and explains the day’s plan: “We will first set off in front of the peloton, position ourselves at kilometer 30, hand the riders bottles there and then line up behind the field in the column of the other sports directors.”
Marc Chevenement is sitting behind him in the car. The mechanic is taking part in the Tour for the ninth time. He has attached the team’s spare wheels to the roof rack. “On the far right are the wheels of our leaders Sam Bennett and Felix Gall,” he says. On the right because he sits at the back right of the car and can therefore get to the wheels on the right-hand side quicker. The team hierarchy is also visible on the roof of the support vehicles.
We set off, initially very slowly past the buses of the other teams. As we pass the start area, Radio Tour, the radio service of the tour organizer ASO, announces information about the stage and the individual jersey rankings.
Bidons and ice for the drivers
Then we head to the first refreshment station. “We choose a place where the route goes uphill. The riders have to slow down a bit there and it’s easier to hand over the bottles,” says Guillé. We soon find the right place.
We are not alone. Other team vehicles also park here to supply their riders. Fans come and ask for bidons, the drinking bottles. “They are still full, they are for the riders,” says mechanic Chevenement to the people at the side of the road. There are forty bottles in this team vehicle alone, plus about the same amount of gels and energy bars.
Guillé ties a bag of ice cubes to some of the bottles. “We do this when the temperature is above 30 degrees so that the riders can cool down,” he says. He marks our location in the Veloviewer, an app that shows the route and the important danger spots, and notes that bidons and ice cream are waiting for the riders here. The app is probably the most important tool for the teams in the race.
Sébastien Joly, the sports director, who is driving in team car number 1 immediately behind the peloton, then informs the riders via radio. The team radio is only about two kilometers away, so we, who are driving further back, don’t hear any of the communication between the riders and the other sports directors.
As the peloton approaches, Guillé and Chevenement each take out eight bottles. Eight bottles is the maximum that can be handed over at the flying refreshment point, says the mechanic. Both stand at the side of the road, wearing their team jerseys to make them easier to recognise, and hand the bottles to the riders. “Handed over five bidons and four ice creams,” Guillé can report shortly afterwards over the team radio. The riders and the number 1 team car are still within transmission range.
Riesiger Fuhrpark
The Decathlon team is taking part in this Tour de France with a total of fifteen cars. In addition to the two cars behind the field of riders, there is another one that drives in front of the field. One truck is there for the material, another for the luggage of the riders and support staff. Then there is the team bus, vehicles from the marketing department, the kitchen truck and other vehicles that support staff are distributed along the route so that they can feed the riders from there. At the end of the race, these support staff have to be collected again. Nicolas Guillé developed the logistics plan for this. The individual locations are neatly noted in the Veloviewer.
We now join the column of the sports directors. This is a convoy of more than fifty cars – two cars each from the 22 teams, plus race director Christian Prudhomme, the jury of the International Cycling Union (UCI), the medical service cars and the neutral equipment cars. The order of the team vehicles is determined by the positions of the best rider in the overall classification. Decathlon is in 9th place.
But the order does not last long. Radio Tour reports the first defects. Some team vehicles therefore pull out and race towards the front of the field. They keep to the right, forcing the following vehicles to move to the left. There is usually hardly any space because the two dozen or so motorbikes of the photographers and cameramen whizz past.
Occasionally, individual racing drivers mix into the column. They try to get back to the front – after a breakdown or after urinating on the side of the road. The column of vehicles is therefore a huge fleet of vehicles in constant motion. Individual cars accelerate to get to the front, others stop, and still others slow down to take up their designated position further back.
We don’t get much of the race in the car. The TV reception in the car is often disrupted, and information from Radio Tour is sparse. It mainly concerns defects, riders in breakaway groups and riders who have fallen out of the peloton.
A quiet day in the wild mobile office
It is only towards the end of the stage that communication becomes more dynamic. On the last 20 kilometers, the sports director in the first team car announces all the obstacles: curves, narrowing of the road and changes in the surface. At these points, the drivers have to be well positioned and maintain their position. Whether they succeed in doing this is difficult to tell from the television picture that keeps breaking down. Sports directors coach blind.
The day was successful for Guillé and Chevenement. Sprinter Sam Bennett reached 6th place in the 10th stage, the Irishman’s best placing so far in this Tour de France. The mechanic did not have to intervene once. No flat tires, no falls, no broken frames. “The material is good,” says Chevenement. This is also why Decathlon is in 3rd place in the UCI team rankings.
Oliver Naesen only had to change his bike once because of a broken chain. The defective bike later ended up on our roof rack. Chevenement passed Naesen’s second spare bike on to his colleague from team vehicle number 1. After all, that was closer to the peloton.
Our job, on the other hand, would have been to ride behind a breakaway group or behind riders who had fallen behind. None of that happened. A comparatively quiet day in the wild mobile office.