Team Cofidis at Tour of Britain Women: The Inside Story

An exclusive report from our day with Team Cofidis at the Tour of Britain Women’s race 2024. We joined the team on stage 1 from Welshpool to Llandudno. I joined the team’s Director Sportive in the team car as we followed behind the peloton. We watched the team briefing in the bus, spoke to the riders on how important the tour was to them, as well as their nutrition and training. We also took a good look at the teams fleet of LOOK 795 Blade RS bikes, how they set them up and all the equipment choices.

This video was made possible because Arthur, the DS is a fan of the channel and reached out to ask if we would like to join them for the day. This video was not sponsored by Look or anyone else. Mapdec paid for our expenses.

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we’ just spent the day at the tour of Britain hanging out with team kofus on stage one of the women’s tour absolutely fascinating Day come along for the ride someone finally started [Music] chasing okay we have uh two climbs the numbers you have on the stem is the start of the climb not the top and you have the length of the climb um on the on the other side first one is the longest of the day and actually the longest of the week so for the Finish we go uh we go all the way around down the Finish is a long straight line this is from this point to the Finish is 1 kilm so it’s still quite far for the Finish you will have head wind from there Tailwind there and the cross Tailwind on the last kilometer I hope they will go and try to be quite active on the start from the start of the race towards all all the direction of the race and I hope that we not wait uh for Speed because use the weight the weight for what so Place probably I think I need to be in the top five wheels and all of these Corners probably yeah to five five to 10 10 10 being the max limits because after that even if it’s 900 M it’s long but uh it will be long it also curves as well so if SD Works have the inside line it’s going to be hard to come around any I rather if we could use those Corners as our Finish Line and then I’m first and I like if you guys die and then and then you’re done and I’m first I’m the first rider that’s fine I can just SLP back behind the other team but a it’s easier to do that and to move up exactly so that I think should be our process goal for today if it comes down to uh Sprint for me then uh that’s what I would like to do today to try and just that puts us in a winning position and then it’s up to me to figure out the rest so that was Arthur just finishing off his rider briefing um really really impressive setup actually and it was great to see all those sort of questions and a real strategy coming out as well let’s hope it pays off what I want to do now is take a look at some of these bikes so I’ve just had a quick catch up with the head mechanic here and a bit of broken French and English but I think I’ve got the main gist of some of the limitations here now all the girls are running tubular tires here a little bit of that as a restriction of what’s available from Kara the men’s team are actually running the clinches and a little bit of that as a restriction from the tires available for Mitchell in at the moment so interesting setup the girls do get to choose whether they want the Deep section or the narrow section and one of the girls has got the very nice Carbon wheels I’ll show you in a second what’s really interesting is nearly all of the girls have got their Saddles set all the way forwards and some of them are running some very long stems as well the real combination here of SRM power meters uh Shimano duras token bottom brackets as well but I think the general Vibe is that as soon as the look power meters become more available the whole team will be switching on to the new look power meters gear ratio choices for today are pretty brave they’ve got 40 52 on some of these bikes here on an 11 to 30 cassette so pretty impressive so this is the bike of Sarah Roy the team’s GC Contender and Sprinter she has quite a spaces on there and a super long stem and she is running the Sprint shifters as well the only one in the team running Sprint shifters and interestingly she’s also gone for the very shallow 30 mm deep Wheels this is kirsty’s bike she’s running very nice cream of Wheels with the carbon Spokes and she also gets the SRM power meter as well very very nice setup for Kirsty we can communicate with arur but also with the Riders on the link so we can talk to each other uh we just have so push this little button yeah yeah and then we have to talk into it yeah because of wind it’s hard to understand each other uh but it’s easier for Arthur to understand because he doesn’t have the wind either sure so uh it can communicate with everybody that’s really cool that’s smart isn’t it it is it hasn’t been on because of Co so uh it’s the first time doing it again since 2 years so I’m excited it’s back it’s a good and well organized race [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] we are 5 minutes from the start hanging out in the team car just waiting for the girls to get going thank you for your company and enjoy the [Applause] [Music] race time Advantage re for our leader now 20 seconds 20 20 seconds 20 seconds to see 20 seconds can push a little bit more just not to be catched to fast b a bench so what’s happening right now JC has gone off the front for team codus and after he got lead of about 40 seconds someone finally started chasing several Riders now forcing the pace at the head of the pelaton with 33.3 KM covered [Music] [Music] time for a quick update we’re about 80 KET in there’s been several breaks over the big Queen of the mountains but most of the peleton is coming back together again so let’s see if the second half gets a bit more lively and GAP remains 15 seconds 15 15 seconds leading group working well together but peleton chasing hard Gap is 15 seconds 15 seconds come on girls come on is coming up through the service from the window is not working I don’t know okay uh I think it’s in the back of the car so I’m going to need to stop and I call you back but I have no R okay maybe medical car the car behind I’ll I’ll go ask okay is it possible to have some paracetamol for Nicola thank you Arthur can I ask about your setup here so you’ve got an iPad with v viewer now you got V and I and sometimes we watch TV on it as well because most of woman cycling is not on National T this one is so you’ve got Euros sport on here as well yes and is this a little bit out of sync this behind the race a little bit or is that live yeah it’s always it’s it’s life but you always have some small delays and you have to have an internet connection as well come on guys first part of the climb is the steepest first part of the climb is the steepest climb is 6 km long at 5 5% average and then of course you got race radio that all the teams get and then you just spoken on the the radio that you can talk directly to the team as well yes we have a radio two with race information and as the Pelon also starts the first queen of the mountain climb of the day the Gap remains 35 35 seconds and we also have a team radio with with communication within the within the car and the Riders okay and the other car on that are fing on the site can have is H you as [Music] well so we’re just a few kilom to go in the town of Clan no there’s a leading group and sadly no one from Team CER this is in it [Music] Arthur thanks so much for that invitation I had a great time um I wasn’t too much of a hindrance to you not the result you looking for today but can you just roughly talk me through the race and you know the good bits especially what you thought went well we had a plan in mind to me in mind to me to be relatively aggressive from since the start of the of the race yeah um so did quite good she was in the front and and she was actually waiting for for some other team to go yeah she tried she tried she was in the front for a few like 10 kilm waiting for for a little bit of uh of help but uh but no one came so the first the first two hours of of racing were quite slow with 32 33 km/ hour average so it was was an easy relatively easy start and the race went really down after the second second clim second clim of the day I think this is all part of racing dealing with the emotions of um getting the motivation going and then dealing with the defeat because defeats going to happen and your role is DS is to now regroup and think about tomorrow yeah for sure in I I mean in for most team in cycling you you fail more than you you succeed so you have to be able to deal quite well with with failure before you are able to succeed uh when it’s possible so yes actually that’s a huge part of of what we have to do huge probably the biggest part of what what you do so other than that all the fuel and strategy all the girls reporting that they were feeling feeling fairly healthy yeah we have you usually we have some girls they tell when when they are not not feeling good or they have trouble with uh with nutrition so yeah I’ve not had time to debrief with everyone yet today so maybe maybe I’ll have a more CL vision of this later today so thanks again for inviting me I’ve learned so much about women’s racing especially and and racing and the role of a director SW exactly how much planning you put into all of this and and how you manage the team has been absolutely fascinating I really hope you guys enjoyed that behind the scenes look thank you so much to tof this for having us along we did get to speak to some of the Riders but they’re all a bit shy and getting ready for the races and didn’t get a chance to get a camera but we learned so much about their nutrition and I hope I can cover that in some later podcasts for you thank you so much to Arthur for having me along again I learned so much during the team car what you see here is just a small glimp of those hours that we spent in the team car together it a really insightful day for me and I hope you guys got to got a little glimpse of the excitement that’s going on behind women’s racing right now if you like this sort of video please give a thumbs up hit that subscribe button and please put your comments down below I’m sure myself and the entire team are really looking forward to hearing what you’ve got to say all right see you on the next [Music] one e