For every Tour de France rider, they will be desperately hoping that the pause in racing due to a travel day does not see them suffer like Mark Cavendish did at the Giro d’Italia when the race crossed from Hungary back to its home nation.
“Mark started the first three days in Hungary great and won one stage but after we took the flight, the day after he was in a really bad way,” reveals Vasilis Anastopoulos, Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl’s coach to the Briton. “We couldn’t find the explanation as to why, but he didn’t feel good on the flight or throughout the whole day. I had a talk to him about it and he said that travel really affects him.”
By and large, most riders should avoid the struggle that Cavendish experienced two months ago, mostly because the entire peloton flew from Denmark to France on Sunday evening, thereby reserving Monday as an additional rest day with no further travel required.
But with all three Grand Tours starting outside their home bases this year, and with more foreign starts already confirmed in the coming years, managing the issue is becoming a new stress for teams and riders.
“We didn’t have so much evidence of what was actually going on with Mark, and apparently there are some riders who don’t struggle,” Anastopoulos adds. “We had a two hour flight from Hungary and Mark felt sleepy, perhaps because of the cabin pressure and having to sit for two hours on the flight. Added to that is the wait in the airport and the travel to the hotel.
“We need to try and find out why it affects some riders. That particular day [when they got to Italy] they rode for one-and-a-half hours, but maybe they needed to do some more riding because with Cav he also didn’t feel good the day after. And this is something I have seen regularly.”
To limit the risk of fatigue settling in and muscles struggling to reactivate when the racing resumes, teams give their riders a few instructions to abide by. Anastopoulos continues: “We ask them all to wear compression socks during the flight, to stay as relaxed as possible, and to drink a lot – a minimum of 500ml per hour. They also need get out on a ride as soon as they can, and if possible have a longer massage than the usual one.
“They should also have a light breakfast so the stomach isn’t too full, as we don’t want to overload them with carbs. As it’s not a rest day, but actually a stressful one because of the physical and mental fatigue due to the travel, we want them having…