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news
Team Sky Race Hub (picture via Team Sky on Twitter).jpgVideo: Team Sky unveil two-storey "Race Hub" at Vuelta
Team Sky’s bus was quickly nicknamed the Death Star when it was unveiled in the UCI WorldTour outfit’s debut season in 2010, but its latest innovation is on another scale altogether – a two-storey ‘Race Hub’ that will be unmissable at the Vuelta, which starts in the French city of Nîmes tomorrow.
The portable structure includes a kitchen, dining room and meeting room as well as a communal area, and in transit folds in on itself to be housed in the trailer of an articulated lorry.
Here’s a video of it being erected – there’s clearly going to be a bit of work involved in putting it up then taking it all back down again
And here's how the Team Sky Race Hub takes shape! pic.twitter.com/ZZbSNv5NJf
— Team Sky (@TeamSky) August 16, 2017
Team Sky rider Wout Poels features in this video as he gives a guided tour to show what goes on inside it.
You've seen the pictures, but you've not had the special @WoutPoels guided tour of the Race Hub. Let him show you around! pic.twitter.com/w7FFTPzpIn
— Team Sky (@TeamSky) August 18, 2017
The team has also tweeted pictures of the Race Hub and its interior.
Our new Team Sky Race Hub is making its debut this week at the Vuelta! Take a look around...
> https://t.co/u7qMMOLyOC pic.twitter.com/VmTwlWDTK1
— Team Sky (@TeamSky) August 16, 2017
As requested, here's some more pics of the Race Hub with the riders and staff settling into their new surroundings... pic.twitter.com/aCYfcSM8k3
— Team Sky (@TeamSky) August 17, 2017
Team Sky says:
The Race Hub forms an important part of Team Sky's programme to support all its staff at race and modernise the on race accommodation provided for them.
The Team Sky Race Hub will provide a new flexible space for riders and staff that can be used on race in a variety of different ways - for example communal eating, Team briefings and pre and post-race relaxation. It can also be used for guest hospitality and media.
Team Principal Sir Dave Brailsford commented: “As a team we have always prioritised the support we give to our riders and staff. We all know how demanding Grand Tours can be.
"The nature of our sport inevitably involves thousands of kilometres of racing, constant travel between stages, ever changing hotel accommodation and long hours. We know how much all our people give to the Team and the sacrifices they make.
“As a result we have become increasingly focused over the past year on the need to provide our staff with an environment where we can look after them even better - a space where they can relax more easily, eat and be briefed together. Rest and recovery are obviously every bit as important as training for performance."
Brailsford continued: “This is not just about the riders but also the team behind the team who work from dawn long into the night to help them perform at their best."
“I believe the Race Hub will help strengthen our team culture further and foster even greater communication and camaraderie between riders and staff.
“We will be trailing the new Race Hub at this year's Vuelta and looking at how we can best use it going forward to support the team.
He added: “We are constantly looking for ways where we can innovate, modernise and improve and we see this as an important next step of that programme.”
In June 2015, world cycling’s governing body, the UCI, amended its rules to prevent Team Sky from housing Chris Froome in a motorhome at that year’s Tour de France.
The previous month Richie Porte, still with the team at the time, had used it during the Giro d’Italia where he was Team Sky’s contender for the overall.
The UCI amended its regulations to read:
In all road stage races on the international calendar the organisers must cover the subsistence expenses of the teams from the night before the start to the final day; riders must stay in the hotels provided by the organiser throughout the entire duration of the race. The decision was made in order to reaffirm absolute fairness between all riders.
Given the Race Hub does not provide accommodation, it would appear to remain within the letter of the regulations – although for some, perhaps not within the spirit.
Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.
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20 comments
Is that Hub as in Hubris
Last years MacBooks. Do they not care?
Almost obscene
You've obviously never been near the F1 paddock.
but the F1 paddock isnt something anyone should want to aspire to, or emulate, its little pinky extensions for the team owners who are so flush with cash but arent able to just buy their way to success anymore and consider instead to be able to serve frothy latte's with their team logo in chocolate sprinkles to guests as being an equivalent achievement to winning races.
the thing that annoys me most about this, is the cost of constructing this waste of space, let alone fueling it and traipsing it around Europe for even just one year, would easily have funded a top level pro womens tour cycling team for a year or more.
Looking forward to seeing this ridiculous thing getting stuck on some of those narrow, twisty Spanish roads.
And they're going to be incredibly popular in the coach parks too...
To me, this is going down the avenue of isolating/segregating/alienating Team Sky from the general public, and even other teams.
On a more practical note, wouldn't it have been a good idea to include a treatment room/area?
This insistence on staying in hotels and the like is laughable in the 21 century. You can't imagine Lewis Hamilton being told to stay in some shitty B&B, being kept up all night by Max Verstappen playing Dutch techno.
Every team in Motogp and most of those in moto2 will have something the equivalent or better than this Sky thing and yet this is seen as some massively opulent abode. There must be money in cycling.....but where is it all going? Not to teams and riders by the look of it.
bouncers on the doors to restrict journalists?
well they have the money, what sky introduce tends to become the norm in a couple of seasons because they get it right.
I dare say it is 'progress' but there really is something utterly ghastly about 'Team Sky'.
Really, what is this ghastly thing. Please illuminate us.
I don't know, but there's something about the whole set-up that gives me the boak. Maybe the corpartness of, how soulless it all seems.
I dare say all the teams are pretty much the same, it's irrational.
But I still can't shake the feeling. Just my opinion, other more valid opinions welcome.
Dave Brailsford drops in to see the guys at the Vuelta
I hate to think what it will be like when they move onto the embed the superweapon in the planet version
Looks superb. All good for the image and professionalism of the sport. It's called 'progress'. But people are gonna hate...
I personally want pro cycling to be a closer battle each race. Sky just keep raising the bar to a point where virtually all other teams can't complete. I don't think one team (with the best GC rider and best helpers), also having the biggest budget and most toys, will make racing closer.
How boring was F1 the years when Red Bull bascially won every race?
The UCI did act to effectively ban that mobile home sky were going to use for Froome a couple of seasons ago, perhaps they'll step in here to limit the parking space for team vechicles. A cap on riders salaries, support staff numbers, vehicles etc ... all things that could help at least keep the playing field level.
Don't you fear this would encourage mediocrity?
Red Bull won the way they did largely because the cars were designed by Adrian Newey and driven by Sebastian Vettel - not because they were the best resourced team.
And in cycling terms - although now thoroughly tainted - weren't the years of Lance Armstrong's dominance memorable?
Aren't SKY just looking after the welfare of their riders better and from that theoretically better perforamnces.
It would not be too far a stretch to say that it could work out cheaper and most likely less of a logistical nightmare plus savings in time (& thus money).
This has got no correlation at all to Red Bull in F1 and their massive mechanical advantage which was the ONLY aspect that got them the wins comparative to their opponents.
Plenty of storage room for 'jiffy bags'...