For Nathalie Glinzer, the Tour de France Femme Avec Zwift will be her first race with her new team, Lifeplus Wahoo, which she transferred to mid-season from the Stade Rochelle Charente-Maritime. She joined the French team for the 2022 season and competed in the first edition of the women's Tour, but abandoned after the third stage due to injuries sustained in a crash.

In an exclusive interview with Cycling News, Glinzer discussed why and how she earned her new team position, her goals for the Tour, and balancing cycling and her actual job as a physio.

When Stade Rochere Charentes-Maritime was passed over for a wildcard invitation to the 2023 Tour de France Femme, Glinzer was mentally prepared and happy to stay with the team. However, she did not expect the team to curtail its season for financial reasons and was looking for an opportunity to continue racing.

"Obviously I was disappointed when I found out I wouldn't be racing in the Tour, but I wasn't going to move mid-season. But I didn't intend to move mid-season. But the day after the All-Japan Championships, I heard that the team was in financial trouble and there would be no races for the rest of the year. I had been in touch with Tom Varney (general manager of Lifeplus Wahoo) for some time and told him about the situation. They had an opening and were willing to make me an offer on short notice, and within two weeks I went from 'I can't race anymore this season' to 'I want to race the Tour. I think I was really lucky," explained Glinzer.

Her second Tour de France femme will be an opportunity for her to create better memories after she crashed on the second stage of the 2022 edition. She broke her arm and pelvis in the fall and had to abandon the race on stage 3 due to her injuries.

"I had prepared properly for the Tour, looked at the course, and had a training camp, and then it happened like that. ...... I started on the third day and I think I rode about 100km before a guy in a broom wagon told me to 'get on'. I just kept running to get away from them. But I was in so much pain I didn't think I could do anything. I guess when I was running to get away from the broom wagon that day, I was just processing it in my mind."[11

A year later, Glinzer was back at the start line in France with unfinished business. She does not have a specific result in mind as her goal, but she intends to support her new teammates.

"Everyone wants to finish the Tour. But if I have one good day, maybe I can get away with it, maybe I can place one day better. If you can find an opportunity on a day when you feel strong, that would be really great. We have some really strong climbers and I will support them until I can't. If there are team goals that are achievable, we should go all out on them, and that's good for the team and good for the sponsors."

So far, this sounds like a typical pre-race interview. However, Glinzer is not a full-time professional cyclist. She works as a physio for the NHS in the UK, balancing races and training camps with her job and cycling in her spare time.

"I work full time, so I have a day or two off in the middle of the week where I do long rides. I'm very good at it," Glinzer says of his training routine. [I have a very supportive employer, so I just tell them when I'm there and when I'm not. When I get back from a race, I go right back to work. I have a very flexible shift, so I can work fewer days but work more hours, and I can treat those days as rest days, so I can add another training day," says Glinzer, laying out a double schedule that would probably overwhelm many others.

Glinzer also plans to combine his two professions after his cycling career.

"I've helped Soigner a few times when he was injured. I feel like I know what the riders need and when they need it.

However, she wants to focus on cycling first and has her sights set on a full-time cycling contract for the 2024 season. Glinzer says that her training load will not increase much, but she will be able to do all the other things that her current work and cycling balance does not allow her time for. [e.g., conditioning, strength training, bike fit, time trials, less stressful travel, recomp races, attending training camps, high altitude training, etc.

What Glinzer shares with the rest of the Tour peloton, however, is that cycling is not her first sport.

"I played hockey in school and in college, and I trained six days a week. My dad also raced when he was younger, so it was always normal at home. I started getting involved in local club runs and trying to do both. I rode for 3 hours in the morning and then went to hockey games and couldn't understand why I was so tired ...... In the end, I liked biking better. I like the freedom of it. I'm not a very funny person, but that's how I express myself when I'm out riding or racing. Even when I'm feeling a lot of emotions and stress, I can let it out and relax on the bike.

"I started racing at university and was picked up by an amateur team, I competed in Rás na mBan and happened to win a stage and was picked up by WNT. At the time it was still a British amateur team, but it developed into a UCI team and I was with them for a total of three years. Then I moved on to Biscayan-Durango, and then to CAMS-Tifosi. Now it's DAS-Handsling, but they have really big hearts and they want to help the riders as much as they can, and they do everything they can financially to give the riders the opportunity to go to big races. So I'm grateful to them as well," Grinzer said, giving a shout-out to his former team.

Rás na mBan (Irish for "women's race") is one of her favorite races: six stages in five days, this Irish non-UCI race features Christine Majerus, Nina Kessler, Roxanne Fournier, Taylor Wiles, Julie Less, Alice Burns, Elinor Barker, and Coralie Dumais, and is an important development opportunity for British and Irish riders, as they can test themselves against guest riders such as.

"It's a really good race and a lot of British teams take riders. You learn about stage racing and racing in general and develop good habits. The organization is very friendly. People come to watch and are very interested in the race. The course is hard and there is something for everyone with TTs, crits, and mountain finishes. It's a really good race and I'm glad it's still going," said Glinzer, who has competed in Ireland six times. He has finished in the top 10 five times in Ireland and won the mountains jersey once. -

Eight years after this stage win, Glinzer would start the Tour de France femme again.