Here's why Visma had to ride through sweltering heat to start of Tour de France: 'It would be nice if we had it, too'

Cycling
Tuesday, 07 July 2026 at 15:46
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Visma | Lease a Bike had an unusual start to Stage 4 of the Tour de France. On Tuesday morning, before stage 4, IDL Pro Cycling witnessed a strange site. The team bus was seen heading in the wrong direction on its way to Carcassonne. We decided to investigate. Richard Plugge and Marc Reef explained what happened.
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When the teams’ buses pulled into a parking lot one by one shortly after 11:00 a.m., the Visma | Lease a Bike bus was missing. The team arrived with only two cars: Plugge in one and the press officer in the other.
Once the vans were parked in the shade under two trees and the air conditioning inside was roaring at full blast, the explanation came: the team bus’s air conditioning had broken down. And staying cool was simply a necessity on a day when temperatures had already reached 38 degrees that morning.
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"Our bus is being repaired right now, so hopefully it will be back soon, and another bus is on its way," Plugge said when asked by the NOS and this website. "All the teams have air conditioning in their hotels and buses, so it would be nice if we had it, too."
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Jonas Vingegaard started Stage 4 again in the regular Visma | Lease a Bike jersey, rather than the yellow one.

Visma | Lease a Bike sees benefits in a broken-down bus at the Tour de France

"Fortunately, it doesn't mean much to the riders," he went on to emphasize. "One silver lining is that our hotel is very close to the start, and we've found a hotel at the finish in Foix where the riders can change clothes for a bit."
Plugge emphasized that there’s a lot of coordination involved, but didn’t really see any downsides. “Actually, this is better, because then they can stay at the hotel longer and stay in bed.” Visma | Lease a Bike didn’t send the riders to the start until just before the team’s presentation.
In Stage 5 on Wednesday, Visma | Lease a Bike will once again have a bus; this time, everything was perfectly organized under police escort, Reef emphasised. “We had to make sure all our gear was at the hotel, where two police officers were waiting. They drove us to the start.”
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Well, not quite. “After the mandatory checkpoint, those motorcycles were suddenly gone, so we drove around for a bit and eventually made it to the buses,” Reef laughed. All’s well that ends well for the yellow-and-black team, then.

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