Giant-Alpecin has begun airing a documentary series aiming to give an insight into how the team, and the company as a whole, operates as they build up to this year's Tour de France. Two episodes have so far been released in a series entitled 'Keep Challenging', which is the team's strapline and central ethos.
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The German team was set up in 2008 as Skil-Shimano and became Argos-Shimano then Giant-Shimano before Alpecin came on board as a sponsor for 2015. The team as a whole includes the men's WorldTour set-up and the women's outfit Liv-Plantur.
The first episode takes viewers to Giant-Alpecin's headquarters in Deventer in the Netherlands, where CEO Iwan Spekenbrink explains how things are run on a logistical level. With three men's teams and the women's team, there are a total of 295 bikes, 30 cars, and a whole lot of riders to be coordinated. There is also an insight into the sporting decisions that take place as the management members discuss how they came up with a programme for John Degenkolb, who won Milan-San Remo and Paris-Roubaix and is now hoping for stage wins at the Tour de France.
Finally, Spekenbrink delves into the team's 'Keep Challenging' philosophy, looking at the two-stripe logo and explaining the principle behind the five core principles of 'development', 'cooperation', 'innovation', 'integrity', and 'drive'.
Episode 2 focuses on time trialling and marginal gains. With Warren Barguil and Tom Dumoulin, the team heads to the wind tunnel in Magny-Cours, France, to test out prototype helmets and riders' positions on the bike and collect the data. They then return to Holland, to the Apeldoorn velodrome, for some practical testing of the insights they gleaned from the tunnel.
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