Tour de France pro team truck: Cyclist’s dream support

How does a Tour de France team manage all of the bikes and gear required for the three-week stage race? Glen Level of Lidl-Trek gives us a tour of the team’s mechanic truck on the day before the 2025 Tour de France.

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Takes a whole lot of logistics and material to run a team at the Tour to France. Here with a little trek just ahead of the Grand Depart and team sport manager Glenn Leven is going to give us a walk through the team truck for a look inside what goes into running a team at the 2025 Tour to France. Good morning, Glenn. How are you? All good. Yeah, good to see you. Team just out for a little tuneup ride. Yeah, exactly. There you lot going on here. here. I’m hoping you can walk us through some of what goes on with the mechanic’s truck as far as what gets crammed in there. Yeah, I can show you. So, I’m I’m going to follow your lead. Hey, welcome in the truck. While traveling, bikes are hanging up with the front wheel with the fork in here. Bikes are standing here. Those are the bikes for the second race car. Um once now the spare bikes are on the first car who follow the rider in case something happen. First bikes will be placed here and then race bike will be placed around like this. Everything is always organized after the stage. It’s really second bikes first first spare bikes and then race bikes after service they come back in here. So all riders have at least three road bikes. Minimum three road bikes. Minimum three. You see some are hanging up there. Um some stages they have even four. Mhm. Um because yeah, you place a second spare bike on the second car. The second second car is not always close in case something happened to your leader. You have two bikes on the roof for for your leader. Sure. And I would imagine the mechanics have detailed spreadsheets of every specification for all the riders as far as bike size, stem length, preference. Exactly. But then there’s also some pretty simple simple notes. Yeah. Exactly. This is an uh tire pressures. Um yeah modern cycling everybody is running a different tire pressure. Um yeah this is uh the easiest way bikes get pumped in the morning the first time here one time more at the start. Yes. So the mechanic have also a list simple list in the car to pump at the start but here to to pump in the morning already they uh have a list simple list hanging here. Sure. And then the riders can give a comment and say I want to change a little bit. Yes. How many wheels do we have? How many wheels can fit in the truck? Uh, in the truck in total can fit 80 sets of wheels. 80 sets? Wow. Yeah. So, now we have 24 bikes filled up with wheels already. Some wheels are on the road in the car. Yes. We still have a lot of wheels hanging here. So, we are close to the 80 sets what we have here. We have everything only road. We have nothing in here now. TT for time travel. Right. is all in a separate van what is standing there in front. Yes. Um otherwise the truck will be too small. Yes. And your service course is still in Belgium, right? Service course is still located in Belgium in Danza. Yes. Um Yeah. So that’s and that’s the the mother ship for where all this stuff lives when it’s not on the road. Exactly. That’s the the central point where everything comes back and leave again. Um, so from there mechanics prepare uh the bikes, the trucks and then they leave to the race and they bring everything back to there. How many mechanics do you have working here at the tour? At the tour we have four full uh we have then one TT mechanic who is coming for the day of the TT one additional so five for eight riders. So it’s a a decent amount. Yes. Yes. And then plenty of heavy metal here for cassettes. The truck is is fully loaded with with spare parts, um cassettes, gears, uh whatever the riders could ask to change, um they have. And then like the the mother of all charging suitcases for charging batteries, stramax access batteries. Exactly. And then here we have uh the drawers where tools are in for bleeding. Um, yep. And the trusty feedback sprint work stands. Yeah, the workh horses. You find this brake. You find kits here. You have chains, box chains, and normal chains. Um, how much do you guys do wax versus oil? You find from everything here. Yeah. Tools. Here B tapes. Yeah, we have plenty plenty of equipment. Sure. Sure. How much do you guys do wax chains versus other lubricants on on racing? Uh we try to do full hot tracks. Um it’s logistic wise not always easy. Grant to us to go. We are full on on hot tracks because we have also not only four mechanics but we have also help us volunteers like pong guys who have spare time in the evening to help us with uh chains. So grand tours is full classics the dirty races we have full wax other races we lead us on hot wax chains the other ones on liquid fax chains. So um but yeah more and more hot wax chains. Mhm. Mhm. I like these little Urggon cleat placement things. Could you tell us about these? So this is so when riders change shoes they can get the cleat placement exactly to exactly before the cleats is uh to place the cleat it’s actually a triangle. Uh you need to have the distance the offset and the angle. Yes. So I personally always measure the distance to the caliper of where the cleats have to sit. Yes. But with the airon tool, it’s super easy to set the angle because you have a reference point under the shoe what you mark and you look where it is and you set the cleat again on the exact same place and you are sure when you change the cleats that you can provide it back to the rider in exactly the same position. Yes. Yes. It’s a a far away from nailing on cleats to wooden shoes back in the day. Exactly. Just kind of eyeing it and hoping for the best. Yeah. Looks like we’ve got air compressor lines running through the Yeah, it is through the back of the truck. Exactly. Mechanics are working behind the truck. Um our truck is not big enough to work inside. Yes. Um as you know, he slides open one side. So mechanics are working behind and then the air compressor is closed where the mechanics they are. Uh can you tell us about what goes in the underbelly of the truck here? What do we have? Yeah, here we have uh the air compressor um sitting outside. It’s not making too much noise inside. There’s the draic for the truck to level it and uh put the legs out that we can go out with the side slide out. That’s the water connection. Um then next door is the drinks for the swers. In front is the kitchen of the swers. So where they have the washing machine uh to space to prepare the sandwiches for the race. Mhm. On the other side we have the high pressure washer the casher um to wash the cars and bikes. What are these different coolers for? Those different coolers are uh for the feats on car. Uh today we have only two following cars. So it’s uh it’s quite an easy day. Um they have small cooler only but yeah from tomorrow on we have So these coolers you’re prepping for these are for tomorrow. Yeah. These are getting ready for tomorrow. These are race day coolers here not just not the track. Exactly. Now you see uh it’s a feeding car. Yes. Extra feed. Yes. Uh car 22. Then they also doing extra feet. You have race car one, race car 2, and then the VIP car. Um so each those cars will have bottles in case the sport directors is asking some more. Sure. also for the people in the car that they have drinks, but also for sure they will have to do. Yes, for sure they have to do a stop somewhere to also feed the riders so that we have everything in case the riders ask now what water 60 that we have everything ready. Race car racks are very different than a consumer rack. Could you show us how these operate? Yeah. Um, now with disc brakes, we put eight bikes full on. Um on the outside they are clamped uh on the frame here with just a single clamp so that just a mechanic pulls this one thing bikes off they’re gone. Exactly. In the middle you have an arm here and you have an arm here. So you slide your bike in. Y the bike is up. In case of a change the mechanic just open the security, pull the arm down, pull the bike out and can change it. Um yeah, in the past they were down with the fork, fixed with the forks, you have to change front wheel. Yeah, now with the disc wheels that’s too risky that the disc will not be centered enough. So now the bikes are fully on the roof and Yeah. quick bike change which is faster to change bikes than trying to change wheels. Yes. And then you know each car has a mechanic in there with mechanics tools for the day. Exactly. Exactly. And where will you be during the race? I will be now uh sitting at home with your feet up watching on television cheering them on. Yeah, I stay now at the tour here until Sunday. Okay. U making sure everything is running smooth. Uh and then I continue back to the office life. Yes. Um being daily in touch with the mechanics and sports, riders in case something happened. But then I will share from home for sure. And now at the race I will do wherever the sport directors put me for extra feet or start finish. Yeah, but for sure also at the start have a look at the pedock and go around and see what competitors are are doing when it’s not on cycling news yet. Yeah. So the the grand tours are a bit like a trade show where you take care of your own thing. You also see what what the competitors are up to. Yeah. Exactly. It’s uh Yeah. We we have our philosophy and our work what we do and uh yeah for sure you want to see what competitors are doing and seeing if you’re step behind step in front or you you are there in the mix where all the others are. Sure. Yeah. Teams and racers and companies are help push each other to be better that way. Exactly. Yeah. Well, thanks very much for the tour, Glenn. That was great. Best of luck to you for this tour.