Experience counts for a lot in professional cycling and few riders are more experienced than 40-year-old Matteo Tosatto, who is riding his 29th Grand Tour.
Tosatto is also riding his tenth Tour de France since first taking to the start line in 1997 and the Tinkoff-Saxo rider understands the challenges that can be thrown up by cycling’s greatest race.
That extends to the vagaries thrown up by the weather. Cycling kit has improved significantly in Tosatto’s 17 years as a pro, and he, like every Tinkoff-Saxo rider, has two ‘dry bags’, one in each team car on race day, with spare kit from the team’s clothing supplier, Sportful, to cover every eventuality should the weather change.
Tosatto, who has won two Grand Tour stages, at the Giro d’Italia in 2001 and Tour de France in 2006, has faced almost everything Mother Nature can throw at him during his life in the peloton and he came to the 2014 Tour prepared, with two bags, provided by Scicon, packed to the brim with kit.
“I put in two of everything,” says Tosatto, who has perfected the art of packing his ‘dry bags’. “Not because I need it, but because I know that some of the other guys don’t pack their rain bags so well, so I’ll often give one of my jackets to a teammate”.
Sportful supply each Tinkoff-Saxo rider with up to 80 pieces of clothing a season to ensure they have the correct kit not only for the weather conditions, but also the demands of the race, and Tosatto’s team-mate, Michael Rogers, selected the firm’s new watt-saving R&D Speedskin ahead of his stage 16 win having earmarked the day as his chance to find Tour glory.
So what does a WorldTour pro take on Tour? Tosatto shared the contents of his ‘car one’ bag ahead of the Grand Départ in Leeds.
