With more than a hundred vehicles alongside bikes, how is security organized at the heart of the peloton?

The runners will climb, Thursday, the Col de la Loze, some portions of which are very steep and difficult to approach for vehicles and motorcycles when too many spectators are there.

As at school, the call is made to check the presence of all. Before each start of the Tour de France, the drivers of vehicles circulating in the race, in contact with runners, are gathered for compulsory security meetings. On the program: the good behavior to adopt at the wheel or on the handlebars of motorcycles to avoid situations like that of The collision between a car from the Ineos-Grenadiers team and a spectator During the 14th stage, or that of the cork in the Col de la Loze in 2023, theater of the arrival of the 18th stage, Thursday July 24.

With 49 runners who had never participated in the Tour de France at the start of this big loop, Thierry Gouvenou, race director, warned: “This can cause accidents. And if there are falls, it is rarely the fault of the pilots. It comes mainly from the speed, material and behavior of runners”. The pilots are generally much more experienced, like Fabrice Roche, who transports a cameraman from France Télévisions at the back of his motorcycle for his 41st Tour de France. “We must have a license from the French Federation which allows us to drive in the race, explains this former competitor of the Dakar on a motorcycle. But there is not really any training, you have to be a little used to riding in the cycling shopping world, we are trained on the job “he explains.

Between the motorcycles of the organization, the commissioners, the press, and the cars of the race management, teams, doctors and guests, Thierry Gouvenou estimates the number of vehicles at around 130. To organize all these small people, three motorcycle regulators watch over the grain, to ask the cars to exceed at the right time, or on the contrary, not to exceed. With a specific order of priority. “If there is an incident, the runners have the priority to set off again, after there is the medical, the teams for supplies or troubleshooting, then the press and lastly, the guests”specifies Thierry Gouvenou.

To the “team members”, as he calls them, the director of the race recalls the rules, with a key word: anticipation. “Anticipate the cessation of vehicles interspersed in areas of strong crowds, know where the wind comes from to anticipate the movements of the runners, have taken ahead of the descents because the runners sometimes go faster”Thierry Gouvenou list. But there is one thing that drivers or drivers cannot anticipate: the unpredictable behavior of spectators on the side of the road.

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“Spectators sometimes behave like children”underlines Benoît Génauzeau, sports director of the Totalenergies team. Now, he is no longer steering wheel in hand: he sits on the passenger seat of the car so that the driver can focus on the road, and himself on his functions. But this is not the case in all the teams. “”You have to adapt to both the public and the runners. In the passes for example, despite the rope, there are spectators on the road, and the passage opens at the last moment. When we are in front of the runners, we open the road to them, but most of the time we put ourselves behind them, precisely to have the crowd movements in visu “explains Fabrice Roche.

As a general rule, motorcycles can be inserted if there is a gap “at least 15 seconds between groupsexplains the pilot. But we adapt according to the terrain. On dish, when it rolls quickly at 60-70 km/h, we do not insert ourselves, because 15 seconds is very little and you have to know how to be reasonable. And when you film the peloton, in general, you get closer to 15-20 meters. Then as soon as we are no longer on the antenna, we move away and we get back in advance “.

Cars too have their rules. Their order is dictated by the position of their best runner in the general classification. Thus, that of the yellow jersey is always the first. “Then there is a tacit rule between the teams which makes the operation at the racing level rather fluid. The teams respect the rotations in the race, the priorities on the incidents. When there is a need for assistance, we are informed by Radio Tour, so we start our rise in the queue of cars by horny to double, explains Benoît Génauzeau. Our vehicles are more and more electric or hybrid, so the runners intend to happen less, especially when there are a lot of audiences. So you must also hide to prevent them “.

To monitor the smooth running of the race and sanction any dangerous behavior of the pilots, the commissioners of the International Cycling Union (UCI) are vigilant. “We referee the racing sportingly, but we of course look at the safety aspect, because everything is linked. A vehicle can interfere on the sporting result if it annoys a runner”explains Gianluca Crocetti, president of the jury of the commissioners on this Tour de France.

Since the end of the 2024 season, the latter have had a new tool: the yellow card, to warn a driver for the first time a conductive behavior, then the red card to exclude it in the event of a recurrence. As in football, the Var is also used to view images that could have escaped the commissioners. “It was we who asked that these boxes be extended beyond the runnersEnsures Pascal Chantur, vice-president of the CPA (associated professional cyclists), the union of runners. We are sanctioned, but we are not the only players in the race. There are sports directors, organization, press, and everyone must play their role in the best security conditions “.

In 2023, when this rule did not yet exist, the motorcycle which transported Thomas Voeckler had been excluded one day after falling in the Col de la Loze because of the too steep slope and the too numerous public. For the passage of runners this Thursday in the same pass, the organizers planned more ropes along the road and withdrew eight motorcycles from the race for the entire Tour de France compared to 2024.