Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
Hello and welcome to the GCN news show. We're still out at the Tour of Italy bringing you
all of the action, but today is the rest day, and we're in France.
It's been another very demanding week for the riders and there's been a couple of very high
profile riders abandon: Bradley Wiggins of Team Sky, and Ryder Hesjedal, last year's
winner, of Team Garmin-Sharp.
We caught up with his directeur sportif, Charlie Wegelius, to find out exactly what the riders
get up to on their day of rest.
Charlie, we're in France for the rest day, what do the riders get up to on their day of rest?
Usually a bit of a longer sleep, I think that's the first thing on the menu. A bike ride,
which, in this mountain location isn't necessarily easy so this morning they rode up the Galibier.
Doesn't sound to me like rest but hey, that's the job they chose. A sleep in the afternoon,
massage and then bed.
We've seen a couple of riders out on rollers doing their recovery rides today is that because
of the climbs in the area? Yeah, I think that for a tired rider's legs, riding up a steep
hill isn't the best way to loosen up. I think that a lot of the riders feel better when they can have
a good sweat and get some liquids out of them, I think that's productive for a lot of them.
Looks like it's been a really tough two weeks for the riders in the peloton, how are the
Garmin-Sharp boys holding up? They're doing well. There's obviously the normal small health
worries that come in at the end of a race like this but I think that almost every rider
in the race has had something or has something at the moment - coughs, colds, sore knees,
but it's just part of the game.
One stage win for Ramunas, six stages left, what's the aims for them? We've got our three
good climbers: Stetina, Vande Velde and Tom Danielson, and I think the aim has to be to
try and place one of them in an early breakaway that goes to the finish like we've seen yesterday
with Visconti. Then we've also got Robbie Hunter, who's very quick, and the sprints
at the end of these three-week races don't necessarily follow the form book, so I don't
see why he can't come out with a result too.
OK, well good luck for the rest of the race, thanks for joining us. Thanks.
We often hear how special the Giro d'Italia is to the fans on the side of the road to
watch, because it's so accessible, and such a special race. We've got a couple of them
over here, that we understand have done the stage this morning. Did you go up the Galibier
sir? Yeah, we went up the Galibier this morning, got a bit further than the riders and nearly
up to the top, but snow stopped the way unfortunately for us. Have you been out to the Giro d'Italia
before, or is this your first time? It's our first time to the Giro but we do ski here,
so it's quite nice to come here when the sun's shining a little bit. What are the impressions
from a fan's perspective on the side of the road of the race? The race was great, and
the other nice thing about cycling of course is we can actually do what the pros have done
today, it was great.
It's not just the fans that find the race special, it's also the riders, and we caught
up with a couple of them to find out exactly what it means to them to be in this race.
Second rest day in your career: what do you do on these days? They seem to be the quickest
days I've ever experienced. You wake up, get breakfast and a bike ride done and then it's
mid-afternoon and you're trying to make the hours last as long as possible. It's about
as resting as much as possible, going from my bed, to the massage bed, to the osteo-therapist's
bed, then back to my bed! Just trying to do as little as possible. We did do a little
bike ride, we went up the Telegraphe, came back again and that was it. Some boys did
more, some didn't even look at their bikes, it's all personal preference on that. It's
just over a week now since you took that amazing victory in the time trial, has it had time
to sink in? Yeah I guess so, it's more when I'm riding in the bunch, I get moments when
I think: 'I've won a stage in this race,' I'm still getting a kick out of it I guess.
I think when I get home it'll sink in. Mum and Dad have kept all the papers and all the
coverage and everything, so I'm looking forward to seeing all of that. The response back at
home was massive, all my friends and family were absolutely thrilled by it, it's by far
the biggest win of my career, so it's really nice, how many people have supported me and
I'm really grateful for that. Thanks for your time Alex, we'll see you again in the next
six stages. I hope so, thank you.
We're here with George and Jesse from the Radioshak team. Guys, what are you getting
up to on the rest day? Nothing, just lying, trying to stay as horizontal as we can. Went
for a bit of a spin, coffee shop, walked, then a massive walk up to the lunch, now I'm
going to sleep and watch some movies, get a massage, then shower down. And presumably
as pro riders you get some luxurious hotels, how's this one? This one's actually not too
bad. There's no internet and we have to eat up in the tent, probably about a couple hundred
metres' walk for breakfast, lunch and dinner. But the hotel is actually pretty good, I got
the big bed out of the two!
So there's no rest in the hotel, you're having to walk to a tent to get breakfast and dinner?
The tent's way up there, halfway up the Galibier.
The opening round of the UCI mountain bike world cup took place at the weekend in Albstadt
in Germany. There were a few surprise names to the front of the races: in the men's it
was Dan McConnell of Trek Factory Racing who took a surprise victory after out-sprinting
his rivals. Whilst in the women's, Eva Lechner of Team Colnago took her first victory in
a World Cup since 2010, coming in solo eight seconds ahead of her rivals.
Whilst everybody waited with baited breath for Mark Cavendish to reach the milestone
of 100 career victories, he didn't wait long before notching up another one just 24 hours
later. It didn't go un-noticed by Geraint Thomas of Team Sky, who tweeted this:
While it might be a day of rest and relaxation for the riders, the same can't be said for
the staff. You can see behind me the team Katusha mechanics, they've been working on
the bikes all day long. And whilst the Giro has been taking place in Italy, there has
also been a high-profile race taking place over in the U.S. The Tour of California where
Tejay van Garderen of team BMC took arguably his biggest victory to date.
Announcer: "That is an unbelievable day for Tejay!"
We've had a lot of questions in the comments section below our videos asking what the riders
eat during a Grand Tour and of course the right nutrition is hugely important, just
to get the maximum out of the riders in the races and also to speed up recovery. But you
can't always guarantee how good the food is going to be at a hotel, that's why more and
more teams are investing in these things: mobile kitchens, and we're here with the Saxo-Tinkoff one
now. Inside, we've got Hannah, what's on the menu for the riders tonight? Well tonight
we're going for a little bit of fish, little bit of chicken, we're going to do some fishcakes,
a classic Danish dinner. Rice and pasta as always, it's always good before a long hot
stage, it's going to be a long stage tomorrow so not too much heavy meat, we're going to
go with white protein, lots of veggies and nice salads. Haven't planned it completely
yet, but they've just had lunch, so yeah, that's the plan. So on the rest days you prepare
breakfast, lunch and dinner for the riders? Yeah, three meals on the rest days. We keep
it quite light for the rest days so very low-carb because they go for a very short ride, so
we have to limit the energy intake so they don't gain weight when they have a day off.
Low-carb lunch, nice salad, eggs, a bit of tuna salad as well, a nice bit of bread as
well. Keep it simple, keep it light.
Keep your eyes peeled for a much more in-depth look at a mobile kitchen with the Garmin-Sharp
head chef - that's for a new show which we've got coming up next week, but we've got plenty
more to come before then.