Jonas Vingegaard rides to stage start under police escort as Visma-Lease a Bike’s team bus suffers air-con failure in Tour de France heatwave

Jonas Vingegaard and his Visma-Lease a Bike teammates were already on their bikes well ahead of stage 3 of the Tour de France on Tuesday, riding to the stage start under police escort.

Even though it was only a short distance from their hotel, the journey is usually made in the team bus, but the Dutch team have been left without theirs and are scrambling for a replacement.

The team are now trying to get the air-con repaired, but are taking no chances and, according to French newspaper L’Equipe, have called for a replacement bus to be dispatched from the team’s base in the Netherlands, which is currently being driven down to the south of France by a staff member.

There are protocols governing stage starts, with teams required by race organiser ASO to show up in a timely manner in their team buses. However, exceptions were made on Tuesday in those exceptional circumstances, with the temperatures already up in the mid-30s in the start village approaching midday.

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“Despite our misfortune, we were only two kilometres from here,” team boss Richard Plugge told L’Equipe at the stage start in Carcassonne on Tuesday morning.

“With ASO, who have been very understanding and helpful, we came to this arrangement so that the riders could stay as long as possible in the cool at the hotel, which is as good as the bus.”

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As such, the riders made their way to the start much later than planned, just in time for their sign-on slot, and accompanied by a couple of team cars.

It remains to be seen whether Vingegaard and his Visma teammates will have access to a cool team bus at the end of Tuesday’s sweltering stage. That looks to depend on the air-con being fixed, with the replacement bus only likely to reach the south of France in time for Wednesday’s stage.

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