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The Chris Davidson diary
Chris Davidson is a former mechanic for Bontrager Racing Service, now in the service of Shimano Multi-Service.
His diary entries give us a look inside the pits and an insight into the mind of a mechanic.
NORBA Series #4, Mt. Schweizer, ID, USA, July 26-27, 2003
Day 2 - Friday, July 27: The power of a second, third or fourth opinion
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Sun came up on another spectacular day in Northern Idaho. There are some wildfires burning off to the east of Sandpoint, and the smoke from these fires creates a misty, pinkish hue to the morning sunrise. Mechanics like to get up early, or more correctly, mechanics get up early. I woke up at 6:00am, and by 7:30 when we got down to the tech area to start the setup on our work area, almost all of the other teams and tech support rigs were up and running. You hear the sounds of air compressors, whinny disc brakes and chains running through cassettes.
Morning setup for us is pretty quick. We pop open the back of the big trailer and roll out a couple of table tops. Four work stands get distributed, and chairs get placed around the work area for riders waiting on service for their bikes. Then I break out the tool case and spread out the most frequently used hand tools and arrange them for the day. Once set, we choose the appropriate beverage and open the tent for business. The morning's rush was actually slow today, whereas most mornings there is already a line formed when we open. Today saw XC races for the some classes and practice and qualifying for some of the gravity events. We are stationed across from the Luna Chicks team trailer. Marla Streb and Kathy Pruitt go in early and went through about a two hour process of checking out bikes, tires and downhill gear before mounting the trainers and warming up, all in prep for about 30 minutes of time over on the course. Kathy was having her left ankle taped today before heading to the course, but that did not seem to slow her down.
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We rolled through a moderate number of repairs today, with cable and housing problems dominating the needs for service. By late afternoon, the flow of repair work had slowed and we were standing around joking when Ian from the Fisher team brought by Mary Grigson's bike. It seems that he had been troubled by some shifting gremlins on her bike and he had spent too much time trying to fix the elusive problem. Best bet there was to let a fresh face have a look at it, so we took a shot at the diagnosis. It was puzzling, but something really weird was up inside the shifting system for her rear derailler. Three of the four of us in the Shimano tent took a look and dismissed the cable and housing as the possible culprit, however after exhausting all the suitable possibilities, new cables and housing seemed to solve the problem. Unexplained, but now fixed. Never underestimate the power of a second, third or fourth opinion.
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Most of the pros have described the course as 'easy' when ridden solo at a moderate pace, but add the dust and a lack of wide places to pass, and tomorrow's racing will be tight. Some of the semi-pro riders that came by the tent today after racing had faces that were rendered unrecognizable by the dust. It should be interesting when the pros square off tomorrow.
We were noticing today in the tent that more and more of the XC riders are running handle bar tape for road bikes on there bars instead of using grips. This was most noticeable on Roland Green's bike, were he seems to have three or four layers of thick bar tape on his bars. While some like the feel, others commented that bar tape never twists on the flat bar, unlike the tendency with grips. I haven't seen any Cinelli cork on gravity bikes yet, it seems like the pure motocross feel of grips still dominates the downhill scene.
More from the tent tomorrow,
Thanks for reading,
CD