Behind the scenes with Team TotalEnergies during the partner change

For the 2022 season, the French team TotalEnergies welcomes Peter Sagan and three of his most loyal teammates (his brother Juraj, Daniel Oss, and Maciej Bodnar). The transfer of the Slovak champion gives the Vendée-based team a new status and is accompanied by a change of suppliers for bikes and equipment with Specialized and Sportful. How is the delivery of this new equipment organized? What is being done to help the riders adapt as quickly as possible to their new bikes? A behind-thescenes report from TotalEnergies.

By Guillaume Judas – Photos: Billy Ceusters

It is in Les Essarts, Vendée, that the riders under contract for the TotalEnergies team in 2022 meet on October 18, 19, and 20, right after the end of the 2021 season. Only Juraj Sagan and Niki Terpstra are missing, as they have not yet finalized their commitment. A matter of a few days. It is here, at the Saint-Michel manor, that the team created and managed since 2000 by Jean-René Bernaudeau under various names (Bonjour-Toupargel, Bonjour, Brioches La Boulangère, Bouygues Telecom, BBox Bouygues Telecom, Europcar, Direct Énergie, Total Direct Energie, and finally TotalEnergies) is based. This place is a little more than just offices, a workshop, or a garage for vehicles, like the service course of most professional teams. It is also the soul of the Vendée team, a place for meetings, a place for living, with rooms and a kitchen for the riders and staff who feel almost like family here—in short, everything that makes this infrastructure, with its sixty employees, unique and endearing. The Saint-Michel manor belongs to Jean-René Bernaudeau, who makes it available to the team, and his brother Hervé is in charge of its upkeep.

The arrival of Peter Sagan, with three teammates, a sports director, a mechanic, and an agent, is a big event for the TotalEnergies team. Almost a culture shock. But both parties seem to be charmed by each other. When Peter Sagan and his crew arrive from the mini-van that just picked them up at Nantes airport, directly from Nice, the welcome is warm. Sagan is smiling, although looking a little intimidated. Daniel Oss and Maciej Bodnar, like good road captains, look more confident. Jean-René Bernaudeau confirms in a small committee the speech he must have given to the triple world champion to convince him to sign when he shows them around the manor and the service course: “Peter, I want you to feel at home here, to be comfortable within the team and to have fun on the bike. No matter how many races you win, I would like there to be a story behind each victory. But also that you try bold moves, that you are major players in the Classics. I dream of an echelon with Sagan, Oss, Bodnar, Turgis, and Boasson Hagen blowing up the race,” he specifies enthusiastically. After finishing the tour of the property, and before enjoying a grilled steak in the manor’s small dining room, Sagan confides to Bodnar that he is impressed by the structure set up by the team. Everything seems to be off to the best possible start.

From a material point of view too. The Slovak champion arrives at TotalEnergies with Specialized, the bike brand that has supported him for many years, and with Sportful, the clothing brand with which he has signed for the next ten years. For the entire team, this implies changes in benchmarks, but both companies are implementing the necessary means to promote rider comfort and rapid adaptation.

Extensive resources for rapid adaptation

“We make no distinction between the teams we support,” warns Léo Menville, Specialized’s professional team relations manager. “Whether it’s for Quick Step, Bora-Hansgrohe, the SD Worx women’s team, and now TotalEnergies, we come to the first gathering with the same resources. The goal is that by the time winter training resumes, the riders have their training bikes, and no further adjustments need to be made afterwards.” Specialized thus arrives in Vendée, the day after the last race of the season, with 25 initial frames (there will be about 125 in total throughout the season), dozens of pairs of shoes, helmets, and saddles, and a squad of specialists to work on the riders’ positions. A rotation is organized. Riders are positioned on one of the three workstations (the operation takes between two and three hours) while others go to Nantes for their stress test, before meeting with Sportful product managers, who present them with the entire range of clothing they will have available all year, to choose according to weather conditions. The color of the outfits, like that of the bikes, was hotly debated upstream with the team, suppliers, and sponsor.

Specialized uses the Retül system, a novelty for most riders, except for Sagan and his former Bora-Hansgrohe teammates. “We work on road and time trial positions, and we look for the most suitable shoe and saddle model within the Specialized range for each rider,” explains Jason Williams, one of Retül’s historical operators in Boulder, Colorado, who supervises the operation across three workstations. Antoine Rudeau, the brand’s trainer in France, adds: “During the next training camp in Spain, we will conduct aerodynamic tests on the track to refine certain details and find the best compromise between comfort, power output, and efficiency.” Nothing is left to chance. Emma Boutcher, product manager for saddles, also from Boulder, measures the riders’ sit bones and offers different models from the American manufacturer’s range. The choice is then validated during the bike fit. For her part, Californian Ashley Sult, a shoe specialist, offers two different models. “Sometimes we make some modifications for comfort, such as working on one of the edges of Sandy Dujardin’s shoe, who feels a slight discomfort there. And exceptionally, we can also be led to make custom shoes for a rider,” she indicates.

The bikes are already assembled by the team’s nine mechanics, but not yet adjusted. “Since we are changing suppliers, we are discovering the new frames, and the initial assembly takes a little longer,” explains Arnaud Labbe, a former Cofidis rider and mechanic in Bernaudeau’s team since 2015. “Like many teams, we have not yet received the new Shimano groupsets, and we have been forced to dismantle parts from the 2021 season bikes to mount them on the new frames, at least the first ones,” adds his colleague Nicolas Arnaud.

Professional riders open to novelty

During the bike fit, most riders are open to the operators’ suggestions. Some are ready to radically change their position, like Alexis Vuillermoz, or Edvald Boasson Hagen, who admits not having changed shoe brands for 10 years. But the subtlety of his sensation analysis is surprising when he tests his new position. Others, like Fabien Doubey, ask questions, wanting to know everything about the benefit of this or that modification, such as shortening his crank length on his time trial bike. Andrew McGregor, one of Retül’s specialists, explains to him in his French with a Canadian accent: “This way, the angle between your hips and your torso will be more open in an aerodynamic position. It will be more comfortable for you to express all your power.“

Once the position is determined, the bikes return to the mechanics’ hands. There is still a good hour of work to cut the steerer tube and make the final adjustments. The bikes are precisely measured and the data is archived for the assembly of other bikes during the season. The riders leave for home with their training bikes, even before flying off for their holidays. These will be studious for Victor De La Parte, who flies off the next day for an altitude training camp in Colombia “with my new Tarmac,” he smiles. “We’ll just have to be careful with photos posted on social media, as we must respect the partners with whom we are under contract until the end of the current season.“

“When I resume training in three weeks, I will directly use my new equipment,” says Anthony Turgis with satisfaction. “This will allow me to save time in adapting to the position and the bike’s reactions, and already to test different wheel or tire configurations for the Classics. It’s the first time everything has happened so quickly, and it gives the impression of having really turned a corner!” We’re likely to hear about the TotalEnergies team as early as the spring Classics.

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