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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.
Chris' diary entries will show you what life is like inside the pits and an insight into the mind of a mechanic.
NORBA National Series #5 - Schweitzer Mountain, Idaho, July 29-August 2, 2004
Day 2 - July 30: Shimano's FBI
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The first day of competition here on the mountain; we saw semi-pro and junior XC today. There was a good deal more bikes in the trailer for service today as the DH crowd started practicing. The winds today were even higher than yesterday; the dust became a sand storm at some times.
There were some interesting faces in the Shimano tent today. At one point Greg 'Chopper' Randolph (1996 Olympian) was seen congratulating Todd Wells (2004 Olympian) on his berth in the Athens Games. Kind of a passing-of-the-torch so to speak.
We had five Shimano engineers from Japan visiting this weekend. They are gathering information about the performance of parts in the field under 'pro' conditions. My boss Matt took them around to meet the other team mechanics. During the course of the day, each engineer took like 10 pages of notes on various situations encountered in the field.
The most famous appearances in the tent today were that of MTB legends Joe Murray and Paul Thomasberg. These two guys were the strongest guys during the early days of mountain bike racing, and now they do some field testing for Shimano under the 'Skunk Works' program. These guys combined have more stories about mountain biking than all of the mechanics combined. They also are good buddies and enjoy giving each other a hard time. They are going to be hanging out for the weekend at the race and interacting with the Japanese engineers. Paul coaches a few of the juniors on the DEVO team. It was cool today to see him passing some of his experience to the next generation.
The fireworks start tomorrow; I promise to get more photos up. Until then, thanks for reading.
CD