As we know during a race riders burn a huge amount of energy so they can't actually start
the day with enough food or drink on their bikes or in their pockets to sustain them
for the day so they have to take on a lot extra.
During the stage as you probably know domestiques drop back to the team car s and pick up extra
bottles, extra food that riders need but this feed zone is an opportunity to get in bulk
a load more stuff and it's not just bars and gels as we'll see in a moment there's some
more interesting stuff as well.
From a riders perspective this is a really good feed zone because it's on a slight up
hill drag the overall speed of the peloton is going to be much lower so it's much easier
to grab your bag.
You actually often hear of accidents in the feed zone even though pro bike riders can
handle their bikes better than anyone actually grabbing musettes with the whole peloton trying
to get bags its quite dangerous thing so actually quite frequently you do get accidents in the
feed zone and it's really rare that they're major but every now and then like Fabian Cancellara
in the Tour of Flanders last year you do get a big rider come down in the feed.
What is a musette in the first place?
Basically a really light cloth bag with a long holder that can go over the head and
the shoulder.
Each team has 2 soigneurs in the feed zone who split the bags between them.
They wear team kit so they can easily be spotted by the riders.
The soigneurs will have already phoned ahead to the team cars so they can tell them roughly
where they're standing in the feed zones and that information will be passed on to the
riders via their radios.
When a rider takes a musette they look to grab it just above the bag so they don't end
up with this great big pendulum swinging around.
The musette then goes over the head and the shoulder.
When the rider has got what they need they chuck the musette leaving it for souvenir
hunters so what is in the musette?
We asked around some of the teams and it's surprisingly similar.
Bottle of mix, is it another bottle of mix?
Yes.
Another bottle of mix, then we've got a selection of cliff products, 2 gels, is that right?
2 gels, yeah, shot blocks, a luna bar, is that slightly savoury?
Erm no that one isn't.
A whole nutrition bar for women which is important, the lads like that one!
Cliff bar, small bar of coke, you know you can buy these in Italy in some shops.
Excellent, and then rice cake Garmin Sharp are famous for their rice cakes and it's also
specially folded so the guys can easily get it out, that goes in as well.
Here we have some special cakes like rice cake, apple pie and chocolate cake, is that
something you guys make for the team?
Yeah we make them every morning and then we have gels, bars, energy bars, then we have
drinks, 1 water 1 mix it's an energy drink so that's 3 different no 4 different cakes?
Yeah!
So team sky ride on cake?
Yeah.
Bottle of isotonic mix, bottle of water, can of coke, 2 home made rice cakes Astana style
energy bar 2 gels.
As you can see it's pretty chaotic for the riders, it's also pretty chaotic at the back
of the convoy.
You see that anyone who's missed a musette the soigneurs will give them to the team cars
so that the food is then on board and not just going back to the bus where it's wasted.
They also quite sweetly make the DS's sandwiches and they can pass them through the window
as well.
You'll see now the soigneurs are absolutely legging it into the cars and that's because
they've got a race against time to get to the finish before the riders do otherwise
they're going to get stuck because they've got a job to do at the finish line.