Pro Cycling Tour Race Radios (Tour de France, Tour Down Under, Bicycling, etc.)

[BenScan]

Global Cycling Network (GCN) has a nice story about race radios used by the pro cycling tours. It's available on Youtube here.

Although it wasn't as technical as many of us here would like, it's a great overview of how the radios work and how they're used. Cycling is one of my other passions, so it was especially interesting.

And here's another short one with riders talking about what their race directors communicate.

Happy Scanning & Cycling!
Ben

 

[commscanaus]

Thanks Ben for those links.

My cycling mad brother made it to Tour Down Under last week and managed to get a photo of the Israeli team communications setup.
It appears they are using Motorola DP4000 series DMR radios.
Quite a few of them!

I must admit I was surprised to hear the riders carry radios, since the extra weight matters.
Will have a look at the Youtube videos to learn more.

Enjoy your riding.

Regards, Commscanaus.

 

[BenScan]

Thanks Ben for those links.

My cycling mad brother made it to Tour Down Under last week and managed to get a photo of the Israeli team communications setup.
It appears they are using Motorola DP4000 series DMR radios.
Quite a few of them!

I must admit I was surprised to hear the riders carry radios, since the extra weight matters.
Will have a look at the Youtube videos to learn more.

Enjoy your riding.

Regards, Commscanaus.
View attachment 135245

I would be surprised if the riders are using those pictured above, in the race. I bet those are for support staff and there are smaller profile ones for the racers during racing.

 

[Ubbe]

 

[NWI_Scanner_Guy]

Global Cycling Network (GCN) has a nice story about race radios used by the pro cycling tours. It's available on Youtube here.

Although it wasn't as technical as many of us here would like, it's a great overview of how the radios work and how they're used. Cycling is one of my other passions, so it was especially interesting.

And here's another short one with riders talking about what their race directors communicate.

Happy Scanning & Cycling!
Ben

Cycling is another one of my passions as well. Someday I hope to travel overseas to experience a stage or two of the three Grand Tours (the TdF being my first choice). Thanks for the links; they were very informative.

 

[racingfan360]

Several of the French radio forums carry a lot of up to date information on the TDF comms and frequencies each year. It looks like most of the team comms are 434-456Mhz, a few DMR but most were analogue in 2022. The Yaesu FT4X and Hytera PD365/375 appear to be popular.

This is a helpful site:

Les Fréquences du Tour de France – ON5VL

on5vl.org

...and an interesring video too:

 

[mmckenna]

A long time ago I read an article about this.
At the time, the riders were using Alinco DJ-C series radios. At the time, Alinco was referring to them as "credit card" radios since they were a similar size and less than 1/2 inch thick.

 

[racingfan360]

Thanks @mmckenna ....Ubbes photo above looks a lot like an Alinco DJ-C

 

[cg]

Old news story but you can see a rider radio, likely being swapped (says Spare on it). Looks like the Alinco radio.

UCI makes U-turn on team race radio ban

Teams will be allowed to use in-ear two-way communication in more top-level races in the 2016 season

www.cyclingweekly.com

 

[Ubbe]

...and an interesring video too:

It sounded as if it was the live audio from a radio receiver. Strange then that the team managers radio in the follow up car do not use compressor and limiters as he sometimes modulated very low and sometimes you can see them scream of excitement into the microphone and I understand why riders sometimes pull out their earphone. It can probably be much more done to the audio quality with proper audio AGC and leveling controls, which seems to be more difficult to do in digital modes than analog and could be the reason why they use unencrypted analog radios. The bike mechanic in the car probably have a scanner listening to all the other teams radios.

/Ubbe