History of SA Vendée Cycling and Jean-René Bernaudeau

For more than two decades, Jean-René Bernaudeau has single-handedly embodied the modern history of professional cycling in the Vendée. A renowned rider in the 1980s, this native of the Vendée region has passionately turned his hand to team management, building a veritable breeding ground for talent and a sporting project deeply rooted in his native region. At the heart of this project is Vendée Cyclisme, which he founded and still manages today.

Created in 2000, SA Vendée Cyclisme is more than just a legal structure. It is the administrative, logistical and financial foundation for the successive teams that Jean-René Bernaudeau has led to the highest level: Bonjour, Brioches La Boulangère, Bouygues Télécom, Bbox Bouygues Telecom, Team Europcar, Direct Énergie, Total Direct Énergie and now Team TotalEnergies. Under its various trade names, it is always the same Vendée values that drive it, structured around the La Roche-sur-Yon Training Centre and the unfailing support of the Vendée County Council.

Jean-René Bernaudeau plays a central role in this organisation. Managing director, historic sporting director, mentor and builder all rolled into one, he ensures that the team remains at the top level of its sport while respecting local values: simplicity, loyalty, training and proximity.

Vendée Cyclisme embodies the commitment of an entire region to cycling, and the life project of a man who always wanted to prove that it was possible for a rural area to shine on the roads of the Tour de France. If the Vendée team continues to compete on the international roads under the TotalEnergies colours today, it's because Jean-René Bernaudeau has built a unique model in the professional peloton: family-oriented, rooted and ambitious.

A valuable man

To pay tribute to Jean-René Bernaudeau is to go back to the years when it all began: to the time when, wearing the legendary black and white chequered outfit of the Peugeot team, he was confirming himself at the highest level after having been one of the great hopes of French cycling under the orders of the Druid, Cyril Guimard.

After learning his trade in the shadow of Bernard Hinault, it was as a leader that he donned one of cycling's most iconic jerseys, alongside Gilbert Duclos-Lassalle and Stephen Roche. The Saint-Maurice-le-Girard native quickly established his own code of conduct: discipline, French-style panache, the importance of teamwork and respect for tradition. An identity and convictions that today make him a man to be reckoned with.

Because even more than his results, it was the Peugeot experience that shaped in him an artisanal and human conception of cycling, which he would faithfully reproduce years later at the head of Vendée Cyclisme. The elegance of the well-trained rider, the importance of the team's educational role, the duty to pass on: so many principles inherited from the Peugeot structure that Jean-René Bernaudeau transposed to his Vendée model.