Tour de France 2010 - Rotterdam behind the scenes

So, the Tour de France, there's Jens Voight, here's Dave Brailsford and his crew, moving past the Radioshack support crew and assorted Livestrong types, and a big chunk of the AG2R team… and there's Skippy of road.cc forum fame, yep I'm pretty sure it's him. We're in Rotterdam and all the various members of the cast are assembling fast bit part players and big movers and it doesn't start for another three days.

We're here in a very nice anywhere-euro-hotel on the Rotterdam ring road to look at some Tour tech. There's Lance and his very short new haircut, Johan and his oddly ordinary motorhome… really nothing flash at all.

The teams are off to the presentation ceremony and we're off to the airport. Oddly, our Tour de France starts before theirs but in the coming weeks we'll all be working as hard as we can to bring you the best bits from the world's greatest bike race. Okay, we probably won't work as hard as them – actually, let's not kid ourselves, we're not going to be working as hard as them – but we can at least try to match their calorie intake… in cake.

Upcoming, we've got Tour tech on the Team Radioshack TT bike and the Specialized Shiv that will be being piloted by Fabian Cancellara, and the Schleck boys. We'll also be looking at Cancellara's Project Black bike that he won Roubaix on – yes, that one – and which he'll be riding on stage 3 when the Tour hits the cobbles. And that's just a taster of the Tour tech treats we've got in store for you over the next three weeks. So keep it locked on road.cc… and good luck Skippy!