Each year, when the Tour de France rolls round, the tech team at Cyclingnews heads to the Grand Départ before the race and, as we affectionately describe it, do a tour of hotel car parks. More specifically, we meet each team in turn, often in a somewhat random order, and eye up their bikes to create our mega Grand Départ tech gallery.
This year, with stage 1 being a team time trial, we spent the whole of Saturday bouncing from bus to bus, pulling together our team time trial tech gallery.
Most teams are very accommodating. Both Visma-Lease a Bike and UAE Team Emirates-XRG kindly dug out their respective leaders' road and time trial bikes for standalone galleries; Lidl-Trek provided iced coffees, NSN let us have a nosey about the mechanics' truck, and Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe kindly (albeit accidentally) left us a van door open. Oops/thanks.
But as well as all that, while we're in and amongst the action, we get to see some unusual stuff. Things that are either out of place, downright cool, or just simply funny.
This gallery is where you'll find those things. I've rounded up 30 images of just that: silly things, new things, and a photo of a saddle that looks like a curious emu.
Starting with an intentionally over-exposed image of something that was initially flagged to me by Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe's head of engineering, Dan Bigham. It's Victor Campenaerts, who appears to have stuffed his radio under his armpit, rather than putting it on his chest (as is the current trend) or on his back like they did before they realised how bad it was for aerodynamics.
This is one of the NSN mechanics coolly riding a £15k time trial bike across a busy car park, wheeling another £15k time trial bike to his side. You see this in cyclo-cross often, but you've got to appreciate the skill and confidence. And there's definitely some extra risk here.
Speaking of mechanics, I really appreciated José Rodriguez Gil going the extra mile, towelling off the front wheel of each of his riders' bikes in turn, literally lifting the front end of the bike to spin the wheel and cover off all of the tyre, even though the riders were using the bikes to warm up.
There's a lot of talk about aero fabrics and pre-cooling optimisations, but sometimes a bracelet means enough to you that you'll happily wear it, no matter what. Unfortunately, Florian Lipowitz was a little too focused on the task at hand to want to chat, so exactly what this bracelet means to him remains a mystery.
The same applies here to Warren Barguil's bracelet. The word 'dad' give us a clue, but I was unable to find out whether it referred to Barguil's own father Denis, or Warren as a dad himself, in the form of a gift from his own children, Frank and Oscar.
It's unclear what this extra disc is on the Lidl-Trek heart rate monitors. I'm assuming it's a breathing sensor from TymeWear, who are more famously involved with Visma-Lease a Bike, but I can't find any evidence of a partnership between them and Lidl-Trek.
This one's fun, from the Lidl-Trek team. They each had a different coloured strip on their overshoes to help each rider identify other riders, to know when to slot back into the line without needing to look around.
They also had colour-matched stips on their bikes' forks and seatstays to achieve the same goal. This is an idea coined by Alex Dowsett at XDS-Astana, and has the added bonus of making it easier for the team car to see which riders are where, and be quicker to respond if they have an issue.
Here's a photo of Netcompany Ineos' Briton, Josh Tarling, wearing a skinsuit with the zip down the back. Nothing unusual here, right?
But wait... he also has a zip down the front!? Now that's unusual.
I had a lot of time for this TTT Day Plan provided to the Lotto-Intermarché staff, with to-the-minute precision on the schedule for each rider, and rules around who's allowed on the bus, and which car each rider will be travelling in.
Anthony Turgis rocked up to the start area with two (presumably) inhaler sticks up his nose. These are likely doused in menthol or eucalyptus to help open up the airways.
A couple of Van der Poel-isms now. This one was actually in use by the whole Alpecin-Premier Tech team. They had Wahoo Speed sensors fitted to their which I'm told was to improve the accuracy of the speed data being sent to their Wahoo computers. This is because riding in a paceline is more about holding a consistent speed than a set power, especially as you roll through to the front, where your required power increases, but required speed doesn't.
And now Van der Poel's Wahoo computer, ready to roll a few minutes before their start. No fancy metrics, just speed and power. Absolute legend.
Speaking of computers, Netcompany Ineos all had the smallest available option from Garmin; the Edge 130. Smaller is lighter, and presumably more aero too.
Of all the cooling hacks, this one from TotalEnergies went under the radar as Ineos' arms in buckets grabbed the headlines. Instead of the riders warming up under the shade of an awning off the side of the bus, their turbo trainers and rollers were set up in the air-conditioned sanctuary of the mechanics' truck. Smart!
This one also went unnoticed by a lot of people, except Ellis Pullinger (aka CyclingSpy) who pointed out to me that Alpecin-Premier Tech had rigged up a water line into their bus awning to spray mist onto the riders to help them stay cool as they warmed up.
This one was an odd one. Simply placed in the corner of Lotto-Intermarché's allocated bus area at the start of the TTT, they had this gold-coloured bottle, branded with Lotto, Precision Hydration, and Garmin, locked in a perspex box.
I really liked this hack from Visma-Lease a Bike. Each bike had a number sticker placed here on the head top tube. Jamie Lowden initially joked this was a power target, but soon confirmed it's actually the last three digits of the power meter ID, making it much easier to find and pair, when surrounded by dozens of other bikes.
First unveiled by Ineos Grenadiers a couple of seasons back, Tom Pidcock's clearly taken this hack over to Pinarello-Q36.5, as they have started placing the race transponder in the wake of the fork's dropout.
Far from the weirdest helmets on show at a bike race nowadays, but this row of Tudor Pro Cycling's Oakley helmets caught my eye, because when you look closely, they're all slightly different. The shape of each visor and how it interacts with the red shell above it are all slightly different. And I like that the little red covers, yet to be fitted to some of the helmets, are stacked up in the corner.
Excuse me sir, I believe you've got your shorts on inside out… What do you mean they're designed like that?
Red Bull gives you wings! Although when they came up with that slogan, I imagine they had visions of a more impressive bird than a pigeon.
I spotted this at the Bahrain Victorious hotel. It's essentially an ice bath in a van, and I understand it's following the team through the whole race.
Why is this saddle giving emu vibes?
I love a sneaky look inside a mechanics' truck, and here at NSN, this overview of each riders' preferences for what the extra button on a SRAM shifter does. Apparently, every time you swap from 1x to 2x (and swap the power meter with it) it resets and needs re-configuring.
I also love that Visma-Lease a Bike have a collection of staff bikes in each size, so if you want to go for a spin during your workday, you can! Just grab a bike and go.
To wrap this up, I couldn't help but fanboy over seeing Andrés Iniesta's bike, and later Iniesta himself. I refrained from asking for a photo, but my Dad would have been very impressed, so maybe next time.
Speaking of Iniesta, every member of the NSN team - riders and staff - were wearing Mikakus shoes, which is a new shoe brand launched by Iniesta himself and run by his wife Anna Ortiz.
