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Wrenchin' in the USA: The Chris Davidson diary 2005
Chris Davidson is a mechanic for Shimano Multi-Service doing neutral tech support at road and mountain bike races..
Chris' diary entries show us what life is like inside the pits and give an insight into the mind of a mechanic.
Grand Tour du Grande Montreal and Montreal World Cup - May 27-June 2, 2005
Day Six - May 31: What a team!
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Today was a beautiful day in eastern Canada; nothing like the year before and the drive out to the town of Rigaud was filled with blue sky and green countryside. The team is felling well after last night and the start today was 1:30pm, so there was no stress in the morning for us.
Unpacked the cars in Rigaud, gapped the spare wheels and set the spare bike in the race-ready rack. Joked with Olivia Gollan - she is working on a new man - got the back seat of the car ready to go for a day in the rolling caravan. The stage started on time and as we are advancing to our position in spot #3 [determined by the individual GC] I organised the spares, radio and start list in the back. Less that 4km into the stage on a seemingly harmless corner, and 20 girls are on the ground. The caravan bottlenecks and quickly I see three Nurnberger girls on the ground, including sprint jersey wearer Oenone Wood. Crap.
By the time our car gets to the site of the wreck, all of our riders are up and going. Lynn Bessette is still on the ground with her helmet off, not looking good. Quickly beyond the wreck, Olivia is up and going, but radios that her bike is not working. Petra accelerates hard and we reach her quickly. As soon as I get out of the car she calmly says that she thinks that she will need a new bike. Spare bike down, seat height adjusted and then she says that she hit her head. Stop. They tell you 100 million times at race mechanic school that if a rider reports hitting their head and seems unclear at all then discourage them from continuing and get help. Liv reassures me that she is OK, and I quickly push her off. Immediately Petra is away and we have Liv on the bumper of the car at 55k/hour. She rejoined the peloton in less than three minutes as the commissare is upset that we did some motorpacing. Petra accepts that fact that we will be facing a fine at the end of the day.
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More bad news. Oenone radios that her bike won't shift and that she cannot get into the 27 tooth cog. Not good, as this course has a stairstep climb that is wickedly steep. All the girls got 12X27s for the stage. I suspect the hanger, but we are out of spare bikes, so she will have to finish on her current one.
Shortly after the chaos, Jeanson [RONA] attacks and gets a gap. The pack chasing her gets smaller instantly. We are down to three in the front: Judith, Oenone, and Liv. The latter two are on post-crash bikes, so things don't look good. The gap quickly gets big, about three minutes, despite Quark and Webcor trying to chase. We wait as Liv comes out of the group and is done for the day. 70km to go, 50km to go - Jeanson is staying away. At 35km to go we have to play our outnumbered card. What happens next is one of the most amazing things I have seen in bike racing. Judith Arndt goes to the front and over the next 20km, she almost single-handedly erases a three-minute lead. This despite the earlier attempts of Webcor and Quark to reduce the gap with three and five riders respectively.
I was totally amazed; I have never seen such a commanding performance in a sacrificial role. This put Oenone and her crashed bike back at the front of the race with less than 15km to go. Judith still sat up front and controlled the attacks. I was really worried about the condition of Oenone's bike after the crash and its ability to function correctly in the finale. 2km to go and Thorburn attacks and keeps the pace pinned. We cannot see form the car, so we listen to the finish on the race radio. Oenone wins.
The six Nurnberger riders worked in a very convincing team manner to make lemonade from lemons. Judith led the team effort with an amazing individual effort. And Wood delivered for all the sacrifice. I don't think that it will be too long before Wood has a set of rainbow stripes of her own.
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We packed the bikes as Oenone received medical help for road rash. The girls sat quietly in chairs in the parking lot as reporters circled. We are currently four seconds out of the leader's jersey. The team is tired, but super motivated for tomorrow. I wonder what can happen if things go right for us tomorrow night. The last two days have had some scary moments - still, this is the strongest 'team' in the 'team' sense I have ever worked with; the girls are nothing short of amazing.
The Blue train rolls into Terrebonne tomorrow night starting at 6:30pm. Be there.
Chris Davidson
