To date, the Tour de France has been anything but plain sailing for Nacer Bouhanni (Cofidis). In 2013, he was forced to abandon through illness, in 2014 he was overlooked by his then team, FDJ, for selection, and in 2015, he again quit after crashing first in the Nationals and then in the Tour's first week, in a mass pile-up involving five Cofidis riders.
Yet for all that the build-up to the Tour this year has hardly been straightforward, with a late-night altercation involving drunken hotel guests leaving the Frenchman needing four stitches in one hand and exhausted for the Nationals, two pre-race factors will give the 25-year-old a big boost to his motivation: his win record for 2015 and a well-honed lead-out train.
Last year Bouhanni took five pre-Tour wins, including two stages of the Criterium du Dauphiné. This year the total has risen to eight, and his WorldTour total of victories has doubled to four - one at the Dauphiné, two in Catalunya, one in Paris-Nice. Arguably even more importantly, Bouhanni has shown a notable level of consistency, taking victories from February in the Vuelta a Andalucia to the Dauphiné early this month, punching a fist in the air as he did so in homage to his hero Mohammad Ali. The Tour de Picardie in May was also his first overall stage race win since the Circuit de Lorraine back in his first year as a pro, 2011, and there was his deeply frustrating mechanical on the Via Roma in San Remo this March, too.
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Already the winner of stages in the Vuelta a España and Giro d'Italia in 2014, can Bouhanni now complete his Grand Tour 'set' in the Tour de France? One area where Cofidis have moved up several notches this season, and it is surely no surprise that it coincides with Bouhanni's rising success rate, is the question of his lead-out train.
Three of his key riders, Borut Bozic, the vastly experienced former Vuelta stage winner who was signed last winter from Astana, Geoffrey Soupe, the bearded lead-out man who was brought in from FDJ with Bouhanni in 2015, and the talented young Frenchman Christophe Laporte, will all be taking part in the Tour de France alongside Bouhanni. But as Cofidis sports director Didier Rous explained earlier this year to Cyclingnews, the biggest change is that Bouhanni's lead-out train has another year of experience to build upon.
Talking after Bouhanni took back-to-back wins in the Volta a Catalunya in March, Rous pointed out that "above all, the lads know each other a lot better."
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