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(bright music)
In almost every single road race
there is at least one feed zone.
This is a small section of road allocated by the organisers
that normally comes around halfway through the race,
where team helpers,
or soigneurs as they're sometimes called,
hand out musettes, which are small fabric bags,
out to their riders.
Inside these musettes, generally,
are two bottles and a selection of food,
which can include the likes of rice cakes,
energy bars, energy gels,
and even sometimes small sandwiches.
And a cheeky little can of Coke never goes amiss.
Each team would generally have
two soigneurs stationed at the feed zone,
because handing out all nine musettes to your riders
by a single person is a somewhat difficult task.
There's an unwritten rule within the sport
that states that nobody should attack within the feed zone,
but despite this rule it can still
be a very dangerous part of the race,
and that is because every single rider has to move over
to the right-hand side of the road to get to their soigneur,
so you can have an overlap of wheels
which can easily cause a crash.
Once the rider has taken out the things
that they want from their musette
and put them in their bottle cage or in their pocket,
they will wrap up the musette
and discard it at the side of the road.
And for this reason,
you'll often find fans congregating
a little distance after the feed zone
in order to get a memento to take home from their day.
(bright music)