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Ann Ellis: 2014, Le Tour in Yorkshire - volunteering with the Tour

I have never been sporty so I'm quite surprised that at this stage in my life i spend so much time watching sport on TV and reading the sports pages of newspapers.

It was exciting to learn that Yorkshire was going to host the opening stages of the Tour de France in 2014 and even more exciting to learn Harrogate would be the finishing point of the 1st stage.

At that time I knew nothing about cycle racing and the only thing I knew about the Tour de France was that it was probably France's most prestigious sporting event and the winner of the race wore a yellow jersey.

A few months before the race I heard that Cedar Court hotel would be host to a cycling team and the hotel was looking for volunteers to help with translation. I and one of my friends volunteered immediately.

In the end, there were four teams staying in Harrogate; Team sky at Rudding Park and a Russian team, Katusha, an Australian team, Orica Green Edge and one of the smaller French teams, Cofidis staying at the Cedar Court.

I didn't know what to expect as this was the first time Harrogate had played host to such a big sporting event. I thought as the teams were all used to international events they would be used to dealing with different languages and not need any help.

The tour was due to start on the first Saturday in July and the hotel had drawn up a rota for volunteers. Cover was needed for the first part of the morning. For the rest of the morning and afternoon no cover was needed as the riders would be out practising. Help might be needed for the evening but after 9pm riders would be getting their beauty sleep ready for the rigours of the next day.

The Russian team, Katusha, were due to arrive the Monday before the race, and the other teams were not due until Wednesday so I was pleasantly surprised to receive a call on the Monday afternoon asking for help. The Russian team had their own chef who was Italian and spoke French but no English. Could I help him discuss diet plans with the English head chef at the hotel? Actually the team chef did speak English reasonably well bit just needed to develop his confidence and needed a bit of help to discuss the finer points of the seven page menu plan and food preparation guidelines, meticulously laid out for each day. The nine riders were to have a separate dining room (each team had its own base room , which doubled as a dining room, plus a separate storage room for the bikes). The riders had to be served individually at the table for breakfast and dinner but the sixteen support staff could eat freely from the hotel menu in the hotel restaurant with the other guests and help themselves to a buffet breakfast.

Breakfast had to be fresh and nutritious and provide a steady supply of calories throughout the morning. The riders were not supposed to have the croissants and Danish pastries that the other guests could eat but I'm not sure how carefully that was policed.

The evening meal had to start with salad and there had to be at least two dishes of different vegetables on the table and plenty of protein; steak, chicken or fish. Braising steak was definitely not good enough so it was a relief for the chef to find that the English version of the menu said best steak. Fruit also had to be served at each meal and plenty of water, naturally. The team chef was happy to let the hotel staff prepare breakfast.

It was fascinating to see some of the preparations and the dedication that went into the event. The team bus, parked on the hotel forecourt contained two washing machines in the luggage hold, to wash the team's kit every day. There was also a huge lorry full of racing bikes, staffed by two mechanics, then at least two team cars with cycles fixed to the roof. All the vehicles were painted in the team colours and displayed the team logo prominently. Support staff included a doctor and physiotherapists to keep the riders in the best possible shape and to patch up the riders along the route if necessary. It's quite a skill to be able to dress wounds from inside a car, moving alongside a rider still pedalling to keep up with the peleton.

The riders spent Thursday and Friday trying out the routes of the first two stages, covering more than 190 kilometres each day. I was conscious that they had come to do an important job. They wanted to give their best performance in the race and I didn't want to get in their way. They were off on their bikes straight after breakfast. On their return it was ice baths and massages before dinner and perhaps a bit of time in the hotel lounge, watching the World Cup football on TV. They all seemed very pleasant, quiet young men who were focussed on their sport. Some of them came back wearing bandages, after falling off their bikes. I was interested to learn the riders shaved off body hair, not for aerodynamics but because it made it easier to change wound dressings. Injuries could happen at any time. A Russian rider had broken his leg in training, shortly after arriving in Harrogate and a replacement rider had had to be flown in from North America two days before Le Grand Depart.

As Le Grand Depart drew nearer food requests became more precise: ten hard-boiled eggs and two baguettes were needed for the team's pack up before the race, together with specially commissioned high energy food - two apple tarts, two frangipane tarts, and "le pudding", a French dessert, similar to bread pudding, a kilo of rice to be boiled for the next day.

It was only when I watched the race on TV that I understood where the food came in. The riders pedalled along at a cracking pace whilst fishing energy bars and gel strips out of their pockets ans tossing the wrappers aside as they continued to guard their position in the race. Team cars would draw alongside their riders and proffer bottles of water or high energy drinks. At the designated feeding stations assistants would hold cotton shoulder bags aloft which the riders would grab as they raced past, fix over their shoulders and proceed to pocket the goodies inside to fill energy gaps later. All extraneous weight: shoulder bags, empty water bottles would be cast aside in designated areas to be collected by litter pickers later. It was important to have a few seconds advantage over opposing teams.

The end of stage one arrived and I was surprised to see the riders cycling back from the finish line, all part of the warm down. Cofidis were disappointed as their sprinter, Julien Simon has been brought down in the crash caused by Mark Cavendish just metres from the finish line. He had been denied his place in the top 10 a rare chance for Cofidis. I learnt that as they had no noted 'grands coureurs', their tactics were to get riders in the breakaway pack, ahead of the peleton (until then I hadn't really known what a 'peleton' was) and hopefully to have one or two wins in the climb or sprint stages to gain publicity for their team and sponsors.

Julien was taken to hospital as a precaution, but luckily, there were no broken bones and he was able to ride the next day. That evening some of the sponsors flew over from France and had dinner with the riders. For the team members it was important to get an early night to be ready for departure and day two of the race.

On Sunday morning everyone was up early and a steady stream of riders were making their way to the team coaches, wheeling their suitcases behind them, ready for the race ahead. The team mangers were chatting with passing team members and settling bills. One of the team had an Australian manager who was conversing in several different languages. When I asked how he had learnt his language skills his reply was 'life'. He was a former professional cyclist who had spent his life cycling in different countries, meeting lots of different people and had settled in Spain. The Cofidis manager had to tell the team coach to leave without him because there was a five minute delay in settling the bill and the team couldn't be late. He would have to follow behind in one of the team cars.

So, on to York for stage two from York to Sheffield and then straight after the race, back on the team coach to the next hotel in Peterborough ready for stage three from Cambridge to London and then on to the ferry to Calais ready for stage four on Tuesday.the next month would be spent racing with only two days off and then two weeks break and back on the. Saddle for the tour of Spain.

I began to realise what physical and mental endurance and discipline is required and how much these boys must love being on their bikes.

I felt very protective of 'my boys', checking the list of riders on the website so I could match their names with their race numbers so that when I watched the other stages on TV I could see if they were still in the race.

Now I understand a little bit more about the tactics, seeing the riders in the big teams staying together to protect their top rider, the pace makers using all their energy to keep their team at the head of the peleton, leading out their top man to attack and sprint ahead of the opponents to try to win the stage.

You have to admire the bravery and dedication of the riders; miles and miles of tough cycling day after day in all weathers - blazing sun, pouring rain, cross winds (rain is perhaps the most to be feared as wet clothes can cause body temperatures to drop as water conducts heat better than air), over difficult terrains- tough cobbles, gruelling mountain climbs, daredevil descents down impossible gradients, round hairpin bends and no guard rail to stop you falling down the mountain, not to mention crashes and punctures.

Seven of the Cofidis riders made it to the finish line on the Champs Elysees, not bad considering only about 160 of the 198 riders made it to the end of the tour. Along the way two of the riders got to wear the red polka dot jersey of the king of the mountains and I think one of them managed to win a green jersey for the sprint.

I feel very privileged to have played a very tiny part in such a great sporting event, which has left me with memories which I hope I won't ever forget.

Memory added on July 23, 2015

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