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Telekom mechanic Ken Ilegems provides an occasional look behind the scenes into the mechanic's truck at the races.
Monday, February 25: Arrival & preparation
Today I arrived in our hotel in Calpe, after a two day journey. We're staying here all week, that means it's a little easier for us. No packing and unpacking every day, no walks to the truck with 30kg suitcases, no searching for electricity and water for the truck…
The arrival day is always a bit odd. The staff arrives with the cars, bus or truck. The riders have to be picked up at the airport, and most of the times they arrive on different flights, so it's not easy to organise the transport to the hotel. Our bus driver (Bert Tolhoek) was busy all day, driving up and down to the airport.
For our team, the support staff, it was time to make some 'substitutions'. A few of the staff had been away from home since the Tour of Mallorca, so they went home yesterday and fresh guys (including me) arrived.
After some unpacking and a quick lunch it was time to start working.
First we prepared the race bikes for a training ride. Most of our riders went out for about two hours, except for Mathias Kessler, who arrived in the evening after a delayed flight. He had a 12-hour journey; normally it takes only 1.5 hour to fly over here…
While the riders were training we checked the spare bikes, so they are ready for duty if we need them.
After training the riders got a massage, and we started to prepare the bikes for stage 1.
A short stage, only 126 km, starting and finishing near our hotel in Calpe. Nothing special for the set-ups for this stage: normal bikes, normal Campagnolo Neutron wheels.
After dinner we all went to bed early, since most of us had travelled a lot the last few days.
Tuesday, February 26 - Stage 1: Calpe-Calpe
Since today's race was short, and the start was at 2 pm, we could afford to sleep a little longer then normal. Breakfast was therefore at 9am for the staff and for the riders even later.
Nothing much to do for us before the race. The race-bikes were ready yesterday so we only had to pressurize the tires. The spare-bikes were also ready so we only had to mount them on the sports director car. For this race it's Mario Kummer. Today we even had two: Rudy Pevenage is also still here after he did the Ruta del Sol and Trofeo Luis Puig. He will return home tomorrow.
Fagnini, Zabel and Vino went out for a short lap before the race. Apparently Zabel's legs felt good, so he asked if he could race with the carbon wheels today. No problem, so my mechanic colleague here (Perry Moerman) changed the wheels and the brake shoes. For the carbon wheels we use cork brake shoes.
Today he's going to follow the race with the two sports directors and I'm going to stay in the hotel. Since there is no transfer to another hotel I was lucky, and had almost the whole afternoon off. The only thing I had to do was prepare the washing stuff for after the race.
I even had the time to do a small training ride myself. Always nice to relax a bit. I also watched the race come by twice behind our hotel.
After the race was finished the first riders arrived near our team truck. As usual my first question was: who won today? Petacchi… no victory for us today.
So I asked if anything special had happened in the race: crashes, bike-problems, flats and like that. It seemed it had been a quiet stage, except for the last few kilometres with a few crashes. Nobody was in it, but victory chances were gone.
Better luck next time.
Back to work. After a race it's more or less every time the same system every time. Washing the bikes, checking them, put some oil or Teflon spray on a few places, checking the wheels and put a ready-to-ride-again bike in the truck.
Our bus driver helped us to wash the bikes (thank you Bert!). Perry dismounted the spares from the car and put them in the truck and I started working and washed the bikes.
No problems, except for two front wheels that weren't straight anymore. Not so much work, so we were finished early today.
After a little rest for some of us, and some more work for others (the soigneurs were still giving massage) we had dinner together with all the staff.
And to relax we watched a soccer game on television (Champions League).
It's not all cycling after all…
Saturday, March 2: Valencia - Valencia ITT
No reports from the previous few days because I simply didn't have the time to write anything.
Because we're staying in the same hotel every night, the transfers from our hotel to the start and back from the finish to the hotel have been very long. Each day, approximately 200km to the start and about the same distance back from the finish. The transfer in the morning is okay, since we always have time enough then, but in the evening that's another matter. Instead of finishing the job around 8pm, we only started working then. Long nights for everybody, even for the riders. Lucky for us the hotel was flexible with the dinner times.
Today was the final stage, a time trial. TTs are always special for the staff and a little stressy, but today the stress was not coming from the race itself for us. Reduced to four riders and nobody in the top of the GC, there was nothing in the race to be nervous about.
Today the thing was to get everybody in the right place at the right time. Most of the staff were going home directly after the race, and all riders (except for one who is also doing the tour of Murcia) had to be brought to the airport. Nothing special you think… Well, if there's enough time, no problem. But this time we had to hurry because of the narrow margin between finish and flight departures and because not everybody was flying from the same airport. On top of that Vino had to go to the medical control after the race, Bobby left his laptop in the team bus and there was a hell of a traffic jam in and near Valencia.
Lots of driving (flying) around, but eventually everything worked out.
I came back to our hotel and will be staying here until Tuesday, together with Mathias Kessler, Mario and Camille (soigneur). Then I go to the tour of Murcia for my next race.
And in between? A few days relaxing under a nice Spanish sun and some bike riding. Can't be that bad I think.