behind the scenes

Andrew poses on a team car

The centre of attention at any cycle race are the riders, and at the Tour de France support from the fans can reach the highest levels of frenzy. Behind the scenes though there are people who rarely step into the limelight being solely devoted to supporting the stars and riders. No-one more so than the soigneurs.

The soigneur is as close to taking your mum or dad on the race as anyone will get, and this role is undertaken by a special breed of dedicated professionals. We went to meet Andrew Hillman a professional soigneur of the Unibet Squad at their team head quarters near Ghent, Belgium.

You will often see the soigneurs standing by the side of the road handing up bottles or food, and also at the finish with a bag stuffed with dry kit. Andrew was able to illustrate and talk us through the role, highlighting the key elements to the job.

Physical
At the heart of the soigneurs work is to help the riders recover, to allow for the body to rest, so that they can sleep and eat.

Andrew and his peers do this by massaging back, legs and feet. They are working to ease blood flow back to the heart as blood becomes thickened during exercise. The act of massage helps the flow of blood and this encourages the break up of lactic acid.

Andrew works as part of a team of soigneurs and they will split up the duties. Each massage can take 40/50 minutes depending on the rider. One member of the soigneur team will do fewer massages and will prepare the next days food, plus the laundry. ‘Foot massages are very popular as they relax the riders’, said Andrew.

A box of food is positioned outside the riders hotel rooms full of goodies

Woe betide any rider who offers an unshaved leg for treatment, hairy legs roughen the soigneur’s fingers and the baby oil gets trapped in the hair.

Food
Andrew told us that rice is becoming very popular with riders as opposed to wheat based pasta, because many riders suffer from gluten intolerance.

Breakfast 9am
In the morning riders will sit down to a breakfast featuring bran and muesli, both of which offer roughage, and after days of gel eating and washing your system out with water, it’s important to give your stomach some substance.

They will then move onto a meal of pasta or rice at 10am to do some carbohydrate trimming (not loading).

From thereon until the race starts the riders will enjoy nibbles of fruit or honey cakes.

The previous night the soigneur’s will have prepared a race start bag, which will contain; A carbo bar, a gel, a sugar bar and two small sandwiches, this the rider will stuff in his pockets and eat on route, to be supplemented by a similar bags (musette) to be handed up as the stage progresses.

Unibet have a fleet of cars, mobile homes and cars

The food has to be easily digestible for as we all know exercise on a full stomach is painful.

Feed Zone
Andrew told us that this was his favourite aspect of the job.

At specific points along the stage route the teams are allowed to give food to the riders, the food zone can at times be five kilometres long and the soigneurs will spread themselves out, wearing team kit and hope to hand up the musettes into the throng of riders.

A steady eye is required, as is a steady nerve. The art is to hand it up without swinging the bag and bringing the rider and the whole peloton down with a bang.

After the stage the soigneur will offer the riders dry clothes, food and drinks, and if the team has been successful, help to spruce up the winner for the podium

The soigneur's area in the team truck is small and houses a washing machine, fridge and storage

Laundry
Tucked into the confined area of the team truck, a small kitchen will share space with a number of washing machines and team kit will be washed in preparation for the following day.

Andrew said that a soigneur needs to be professional, methodical and tidy. There is limited space in the team vehicles and they pack just enough and no more.

Another, often overlooked part of the soigneur's job is to have a good listening ear and making it easy for riders to be at ease and at times talk through fears and anxiety with them. The Tour de France is a fierce race and all need a bit of TLC.

How do you become a soigneur?
Being a soigneur on any team is not for everyone and working for professional requires experience and skill.

Andrew's history is of a man who rode as a second category rider in the UK and worked in the cycle industry before the lure of becoming a soigneur became too much and he decided to live out his dream.

He asked the advice of team managers and he was told to go back to school, which he did and he worked to attain qualifications in sport physiology and related subjects.

The team mobile home becomes a haven for the riders before transferring to the more luxurious team bus

Once he had these in his pocket he worked for a number of UK teams, including junior squads (which he still does) to gain experience and then with UK continental team DFL. The next step was to find work in the hot-bed of cycling, Belgium. No easy task, but as he did more and more work, people began to notice him and he was offered a full time contract with Pro Tour Team Unibet in late 2006.

Sadly you will not see the Unibet team in London (possibly yes, at the Tour of Britain) as the Tour organisers have overlooked them for 2007 because of an ongoing dispute with the UCI, the governing body of World Cycling, and other commercial matters.

Drugs
The Unibet team tests its riders independently and extremely often and Andrew is duty bound to report any breaches of the teams ‘no drugs policy’. Andrew could be called an outsider and he is keen to make the policy work work at Unibet.

Very fabric
Andrew and his peers are the part of the very fabric of any team - without them star riders such as World Champion Tom Boonen (Quickstep) would not thrive and flourish in the hard world of professional cycling.

The soigneur like the mechanic gets up before the riders and goes to bed after them. It's a job not for the faint hearted.

Website - www.unibetcycling.com/