From managing a WorldTour team to baking 200 baguettes every morning

For two decades, Emmanuel Hubert's life was marked by airports, gatherings, negotiations with sponsors, and hundreds of days of competition. Now, after the disappearance of Arkéa-B&B Hotels, his routine is completely different. The former French manager has left professional cycling behind and every morning begins his day preparing around 200 baguettes and croissants in a business he has opened in Corsica.

From managing Arkéa to opening a business in Corsica

Hubert has shared his new life in a recent interview with Ouest-France, just a year after the end of the structure he had managed for years. A disappearance that, as he acknowledges, took time to digest and has also reinforced his critical view of the economic direction professional cycling is taking.

Hubert has lived in Corsica for years and has chosen Lecci, near Porto-Vecchio, to start this new chapter. There, he opened last June Alta Pausa, a venue that combines café, fast food, juice bar, wine cellar, and local product sales.

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Cycling has not completely disappeared from his new life. The establishment maintains a cycling aspect linked to Far&Co Cycling, with rental and sale of road and gravel bikes, while inside, one can find frames, jerseys, and other memorabilia from his previous profession.

But the day-to-day is no longer anything like that of a manager of a professional team.

"Every morning I have 200 baguettes to put in the oven", Hubert explains about a day that starts early and can extend into the night. A radical change for someone used to managing million-dollar budgets, signings, and a structure with dozens of employees.

Hubert acknowledges that he probably never imagined dedicating himself to something like this, but after the end of Arkéa, he needed to start anew and, above all, to keep himself busy.

"What I experienced in cycling was, in a way, not real life"

The end of Arkéa-B&B Hotels left a deep mark. The team disappeared despite having completed a remarkable 2025 season and after Hubert spent months trying to find new sponsors capable of keeping the structure alive. Now he views those years from a different perspective.

"What I experienced in cycling was, in a way, not real life", Hubert asserts, who also acknowledges that the disappearance of the team was difficult to process.

A sign of how much his life has changed came last summer. After decades following the race from within, for the first time in many years he spent the month of July at home and away from the Tour de France.

His contact with former riders, employees, and people from the peloton continues, but Hubert admits that leaving professional cycling has also allowed him to see how quickly everything continues without those who stop being part of it. "Afterwards, they forget you quickly", he summarizes.

Hubert points out an increasing problem in professional cycling

His experience seeking funding for Arkéa also shapes his opinion on current cycling. Hubert believes that the traditional model of teams primarily supported by one or several commercial sponsors is increasingly struggling to compete.

The Frenchman observes how the economic gap between the most powerful structures and teams with more modest budgets continues to grow.

This concern is not exclusively linked to the disappearance of Arkéa. This summer, speaking about TotalEnergies' difficulties in securing its continuity, Hubert warned that while some teams have more and more resources, others have less and less.

The situation, he says, particularly affects the French model that for decades allowed the development of structures around figures like Jean-René Bernaudeau, Marc Madiot, or Hubert himself, largely dependent on private companies that used cycling as an advertising platform.

The budgets necessary to compete at the highest level have increased, and finding companies willing to take on those amounts is becoming increasingly complicated. The case of Arkéa-B&B Hotels was particularly significant because the team disappeared after a season in which Kévin Vauquelin finished seventh in the Tour de France, without that huge exposure being enough to attract a sponsor capable of ensuring the project's continuity.

For Hubert, the problem is structural, and the entry of owners or large groups capable of providing much higher budgets has changed the rules of the game. His former professional colleague Jean-René Bernaudeau is precisely facing a similar scenario with TotalEnergies, whose structure has been seeking funding for months to ensure its continuity.

A chapter he considers closed

Hubert does not seem to have any intention of returning to the management of a professional team in the short term. He considers that chapter of his life finished and is now focusing his efforts on his new project in Corsica, although it is difficult to completely separate his day-to-day from the sport to which he has dedicated practically his entire professional career.

He used to seek victories, sponsors, and results in the Tour de France. Now he opens a venue in Corsica every morning and welcomes customers, tourists, and cyclists.