Staff Profile - The Drivers
We have a total of 12 vehicles on Tour, from signing car and the back van to the feed stop vans. It’s a wildly complicated logistical exercise and of course every vehicle has a driver. So this blog is a shout out to our brilliant van drivers who cover huge distances, often with questionable soundtracks (!), to make the event a success.
The Feedstop Van drivers
We have 2 vans that provide our 4 feed stops and give you access to your day bags every 40km or so. Each van has a driver and a physio helper and although they have other skills (mechanical & medical), their main job is preparing the food. Their sandwich-making, water-sourcing and veg-chopping skills are as valuable as their driving skills and they keep you extremely well fed and hydrated!
They’re also there to ensure safety (making sure everyone has checked in to the feed stop as they pass through) and give advice, support and encouragement. They all have a cheerful ‘can do’ disposition and they are absolutely key to the smooth-running of the event.
You’ll get to know these great people pretty well on tour. It’s true to say that ‘Coffee Ian’ is perhaps the most well-known staff member thanks to his ability to brew a fantastic tea or coffee on the road side just when you most need it. This will also be his 10th full Tour (all 21 stages) with us. A true Tour hero!
Back van and signing car drivers
The signing car heads out in the very small hours of the morning to start putting up the signs marking our route. These are the ultimate unsung heroes, working long and often very stressful hours on tour, ensuring that every turn is arrowed as well as reassurance arrows on longer stretches (you’ll be given an arrow lesson at your arrival briefing). They are masters of what is a much tougher job than you might imagine, often having to think fast on their feet to solve problems like roads closed for Tour Tarmac laying (it’s a thing!), or village streets closed for local festivals.
Meanwhile, our back van is driven by a mechanic who brings up the rear with spare bikes, parts and a few spare seats just in case! They’re an invaluable extra set of hands where needed and provide help to bikes and encouragement to the slower cyclists. Crucially, they also REMOVE the route arrows that have been put out by the signing car so that we are not littering the French countryside long after we’ve passed through.
It’s important to mention that this back van isn’t there to tell you you’re going too slowly; they’re an important part of our logistics machine and as encouraging and friendly as all the other staff you’ll see. If we have cyclists on the road until 9pm, it’s the back van out there supporting them with a high five and words of encouragement.
Late Shift Van drivers
At least 2 vehicles are used to transport luggage as well as the late shift staff to the next hotel. These guys are our brilliant evening mechanics (who do the bigger bike repair jobs) and physios/massage therapists who all work through the evening and sometimes into the night to keep our riders in good enough shape to ride again the next day.
When you arrive at the hotel at the end of your stage, they’re set up, ready and waiting to fix you, or your bike! They work late – sometimes very very late, so you probably won’t see them at breakfast. Once we’ve all set off, they jump in their vans and head directly to the next hotel (often diving into bike shops to collect parts that are needed as well as food supplies – an army marches on its stomach after all!).
This team runs our ‘Tour Shop’ where you can buy supplies of plasters, pain killers, inner tubes, gels and electrolytes and more.
They also support our feed stop van drivers by helping sort and re-stock their vans for the next day while they get dinner and head to bed.
Bike transport van drivers
Almost a week before our first riders arrive on tour, our vans start moving through the UK collecting bikes from our bike transport hubs and gradually making their way to the Tour. With up to 5 vans in action at any given moment, this is a complicated picture that sometimes requires some pretty creative problem solving to make all the pieces of the puzzle fit together.
From the UK, they head out via the Channel tunnel (sometimes a ferry) and on to their final destination. We have vans travelling to-and-fro throughout the tour for the different Loops. Our team have been doing this for years and are experts at packing bikes safely and securely into our vans. Most of those drivers then take on a different role once on tour.
Sarah and the roving vehicles
Tour Manager Sarah has another vehicle and pops up along the route. As well as coordinating the logistics each day, she visits a lot of supermarkets where she stocks up on food for the feed stops. She delivers the food and helps the feedstop staff prepare lunch before dashing to the hotel to make sure everything is ready for those first riders arriving to collect their room keys. She’s up at dawn (often in early comms with the signing car), and is still working hard at the end of the day when she gives all the riders their briefing for the next day after dinner.
Depending on how many cyclists we have on tour, we also have 1 or 2 additional ‘roving vehicles’ that support the feedstop vans; they help with mechanical problems if the back van is too far away and chaperone the charity visitors when they’re with us.
Best in the business
It’s impossible to list all the jobs that all our staff do on a typical day on tour. Suffice it to say that it takes a special kind of person to work on Le Loop. They have to be experts at their core role – be that bike mechanic, physio or whatever … but they also need to be able to leap into action and be flexible, stepping up to whatever needs to be done. Sometimes that’s filling water barrels, or loading bikes onto vans, or unloading luggage vehicles, or a million other tasks that help to make the Tour run smoothly.
And while working long and exhausting hours, they also need to remain cheerful and fun! We’re incredibly lucky (and proud) that so many of our staff come back year after year, often using holiday from their real jobs to spend time on Le Loop. Like Coffee Ian, many of them have been with us for a decade but that doesn’t stop us bringing in new, enthusiastic people to the team too. It’s a really happy, fun-loving team and we all look forward to these sunny weeks working together, helping our cyclists to have the ride of their lives.
We look forward to meeting you all on Tour!
Vive Le Tour!
