As Skoda the Tour gives heart to the work

Between the motorist and cyclist, things are not necessarily of itself. It is to post at a crossroads of our inner city congested to observe how these two worlds "to ignore", at their own peril... And yet, Bernard Hinault is formal, "without automobile, Tower of France pas". The five-time winner of the event knows that it is a car journal, "The car" ancestor of "The team" , the great loop was created in 1903. He knows especially how many bodies are useful for the proper conduct of a cycling team. "Once the rider left with its hose kinked around him, not to mention its heavy musette." For assistance, he could count virtually as himself. The generalization of the automobile fortunately lightened the workload. Automotive, today is the assurance of the advice of your manager to the moment where arises a difficulty, and a wheel changed in a few seconds.

Years, the automobile and the Tower, it became une true love story. The life-saving car race Director that opens a gap in the crowd along the arrival of a stage of mountain the famous "car-broom" while also feared that legendary , passing through the countless advertising caravan, automotive vehicles composed a multicolored show stretching for 20 kilometres and bringing up to 200 bodies, i.e. almost as well as runners!

Mechanical education

So that to spawn a passage in this melee launched over 90 km/h in raids is improvise not. Cyril Guimard, former champion of the 1970s and renowned Sports Director, could testify. Caught in the gully on one side, the other spectators and racers at the centre, "Cyril chose a camping table to stop his car brakes down!" says Bernard Hinault. Result, take the wheel on the tower is reserved for an elite sorted on the track: "Ninety percent of drivers are real pilots and certainly older cyclists." "They alone know follow us without interfering with, like our shadow," continues the cycling Idol of the 1980s.

Same requirement for mechanics, which is worth a few surprises... Official car of the Director of the Tower of France 2006 Peugeot 607 Renault Vel Satis... Skoda Superb! A Czech model who first "gave cautious", remembers in the platoon. But the mark chaperonnée by VW is probably the which gives the most satisfaction to this day. "Room for invited passengers, a good (2.5 l V6 TDI) engine and a reliability test of the martyrdom of the tower." Perhaps a slight lack of recovery in the passes. But 13 technicians dispatched from Prague to care for every night of the mechanics. "There are rarely given better", says a former another runner, Gilbert Duclos-Lassalle.

A professionalism which would perhaps regret the folklore of the 1960s, the Estafette used car-broom immortalized in "Les Triplettes de Belleville" of Sylvain Chomet , the 404 to spare brake, or 15 HP to Yvette Horner who ensorcelait the caravan... But two things remain: the intense red of the car (Christian Prudhomme who succeeds this year Jean-Marie Leblanc) race Director and free the show the organizers expect more than 15 million fans on the roads of France. As Skoda, the Tour gives heart to the work. The mark will outline in the caravan the Roomster, kind of family monospace resolutely original look. Another story, on which we will return in September, when the commercial launch.