Why does the Mavic car have bikes on the roof. ? I know they can give out wheels in an emergency but Bikes ?, Surely a rider has to wait for there team car or Domestique to give them there bike.

Neutral service – they can give out bikes too. Probably have a range of sizes but I wonder about pedals…

nope – they give bikes out too.

imagine chris froome yesterday, no team mates within 10minutes. The sky team car might be in a bad position in the convoy. His bike breaks.

Or, a domestique clops off the front, he’s such a no hoper his team doesn’t even send team car no.2. He breaks his bike.

It hardly ever happens, but it has.

Really?? , Seems strange a rider could ride 99.9% of the miles on a Spesh Venge or Pinarello Dogma but 0.1% on a ?? Mavic bike.
For the record I dont doubt either of you but It seems strange.

The mavic bikes used to be repainted ‘dales. Dunno what they use nowadays. They had toe straps too because of the different pedal system.

Edit. A quick google says jens voigt used a mavic bike in the 2010 tour!

Yeah still cannondales I think, the mavic car isn’t as useful in the tdf where most riders have massive teams but it can help riders on long breakaways etc when the team car is way behind. It’s just a neutral service vehicle offering help to any rider, wouldn’t say it was strange?

I think it’s got a bigger role in smaller races where you don’t have huge teams behind each rider. Suppose even in the tdf a rider is going to be happier riding 10 minutes on a badly sized aluminium bike with toe clips than sitting on the side of the road!

Toe Straps

Thanks for that , just had a discussion on a ride tonight that It would seem strange that you didn’t ride the whole 21 stages on a certain bike If for example you did the last 10km on a mavic/cannondale bike.

Doesn’t directly answer the question, but this was a fairly interesting read about the neutral service at the giro: http://road.cc/content/feature/83410-inside-giro-ditalia-vittoria-servizio-corse-pelotons-guardian-angels

Sounds like the neutral bikes are only ever used very occasionally and very briefly, until they can get a spare team bike, but as others have said if a rider has mechanical when the team car can’t get to them (eg in a breakaway on narrow mountain roads), then the quick change to a neutral bike hopefully avoids the race being decided by mechanicals not riders.

Also interesting that as well as pedals, they record which teams are on which groupset to make sure rear wheels are compatible, so they can get the right wheel without needing to check with the rider first – saves a few seconds I suppose.

For anyone that missed it at the time, here are Jen’s memories from that special day:

Why Jens is a legend.

It was probably useful at some point (and for the occasional jens voigt), but it’s main purpose is sponsorship, which it does quite well!