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Video: Spills, thrills and gap-storming in the peloton with FDJ's Jérémy Roy

Pro racing's not all champagne & the Champs-Élysées...

Want to see what it's like when you're inside a crash in a pro race peloton?

Jérémy Roy of the FDJ.fr team used bike-mounted video cameras through the five-day Tour international Poitou-Charentes, which finished on Friday.

In this video, the best of 'On the road with Jérémy Roy', he provides a glimpse of what's it's like to ride a relatively minor stage race (it's a UCI 2.1 and was won by IAM's Sylvain Chavanel) along the narrow roads of western France.

Spills and bumps are pretty frequent, a feed zone is organised chaos and plenty of London couriers would be proud of the riders' skills at weaving through team car traffic to regain the peloton.

John has been writing about bikes and cycling for over 30 years since discovering that people were mug enough to pay him for it rather than expecting him to do an honest day's work.

He was heavily involved in the mountain bike boom of the late 1980s as a racer, team manager and race promoter, and that led to writing for Mountain Biking UK magazine shortly after its inception. He got the gig by phoning up the editor and telling him the magazine was rubbish and he could do better. Rather than telling him to get lost, MBUK editor Tym Manley called John’s bluff and the rest is history.

Since then he has worked on MTB Pro magazine and was editor of Maximum Mountain Bike and Australian Mountain Bike magazines, before switching to the web in 2000 to work for CyclingNews.com. Along with road.cc founder Tony Farrelly, John was on the launch team for BikeRadar.com and subsequently became editor in chief of Future Publishing’s group of cycling magazines and websites, including Cycling Plus, MBUK, What Mountain Bike and Procycling.

John has also written for Cyclist magazine, edited the BikeMagic website and was founding editor of TotalWomensCycling.com before handing over to someone far more representative of the site's main audience.

He joined road.cc in 2013. He lives in Cambridge where the lack of hills is more than made up for by the headwinds.

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9 comments

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Leviathan | 9 years ago
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Come on fellas this is a race not a sportive.

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James Warrener | 9 years ago
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Fantastic stuff.

Keep it coming  1

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backflipbedlem | 9 years ago
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That is madness, gives u glimpse how fine the line is with being wiped out!
Amazing bike handling skills!

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cavasta | 9 years ago
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Insane! And all the better for it.

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farrell | 9 years ago
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"Ok, I'm about to run out of road here, what's my best option....Yep, that's it, over the grass and then fire off the front."

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edster99 | 9 years ago
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this is the best thing that could happen to cycling : to incorporate some of this into the live feed. its soooo good !

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banzicyclist2 | 9 years ago
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Agreed camera shots like these would really add to thespectical, the storming through gaps make you wince a bit  13

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wrevilo | 9 years ago
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Somehow the sport needs to get live pictures from these cameras into coverage.

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Ginsterdrz | 9 years ago
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Brilliant!

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