Spare bikes, team trucks, and washing machines - behind the scenes at the Tour de France

If you’re ever in the host city of the Tour de France Grand Depart, it’s well worth checking out some of the nearby hotels because you might find the car park packed with team trucks, buses and mechanics busily working on pro race bikes.

It’s amazing what you see in hotel car parks when the Tour is in town. Riders casually walking around chatting on the phone, mechanics glueing tyres and sports directors giving live interviews to television broadcasters. And bikes, lots and lots of bikes.

The road.cc Tech Team has been roaming hotels for many years, the access is incredible considering how big the race is with a huge global audience. This year we decided to show you some of what happens behind the scenes, so we went for a walk around a couple of the hotels to see what we could find. 

It really lids the lid on the scale of the operation required to put a team of riders in the world’s biggest cycle race. And there's so much we didn't manage to show you.