Our spy in the Tour peloton: “No chat with other team in our hotel” | Tour

We have been in Nice for a few days and it is still quite quiet here for such a Grand Départ. Certainly compared to my previous participation in the Tour.

During the team presentation on Thursday evening, I became a bit more nervous, also because the interests are immediately high during the first days.

There is no time trial on the opening day: a lot of riders are aiming for the yellow. That will cause even more chaos and nervousness.

Everyone will want to be in the front and get through the descents safely.

They also predict rain weather after noon on Saturday. Then the descents can get technical and some riders might take a little more risks. But I still assume a sprint in Nice.

The past days were of course dominated by the corona virus, although the situation is not too bad, I think.

My team shares the hotel with a top team, a team that will compete for the overall victory. But each team has its own floor in the hotel and everyone adheres to the rules.

During the team presentation, serious care was taken that no one could jump to another bubble.

So it was not really possible to have a chat. We are on the right track with respecting the distance, although of course we will cycle a few centimeters apart in a few hours …

Is there really no contact with that other team in our hotel? If you intersect somewhere, you can say something, but we will certainly not stop for fifteen minutes. That would have happened otherwise.

But it remains strange, because from this afternoon we cycle together every day. But if we have to comply with this in order to ride the Tour, then so be it.

I think it is also a shame for the staff members of the teams, because they dare to fraternize a little more. That is certainly not possible now.

The fear has not been abated after the news about Lotto-Soudal, which had to send 4 staff members home.

We just hope that we all stay healthy, that we can race and that we make it to Paris.

The latter is always the first aim in the Tour. There is now an added risk, but you can get sick every year. Although the danger is now even greater.

But the cases at Lotto haven’t changed too much, no. Although we may have become even more careful now.

Paris is still a long way off, the cliché is there. I don’t think too much about how the race will go and what tough rides await us all.

I just want to deliver. It’s going to be super tough, even more difficult than one of the previous editions where I started. And then I suffered so much.

And on the rest days we do not have to count on a visit from our family. We are not allowed to see anyone outside of our team bubble. I already told my family that they shouldn’t bother making the transfer.

We cannot argue much against that and if it is necessary to get to Paris, then so be it.

I certainly have a book with me to spend such a rest day. I only play computer games, especially in the Tour, because that only makes me more nervous.

Although you actually only use such things in the days before the start of the Tour. After a racing day, there is not much time left to do something or to read. You are usually too tired for that. Eat, race and sleep. There is another cliché there.