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Wrenchin' in the USA: The Chris Davidson diary 2007
Chris joins us again in 2007 to report on life on the road turning the wrench for a variety of teams both in dirt and on the road. Formerly with Ford Cycling in 2006, Chris has also worked for such teams as T-Mobile, Equipe Nurnberger, Quark and Mercury in the past, as well as neutral support programs with Shimano, Pedros and Trek.
As 2007 holds some new challenges for Chris, some things will stay the same. One of those will be his informative diary contributions on Cyclingnews, where you'll often receive the inside scoop on all things tech and a look at life behind the wrench.
November 1, 2007
Where does all that equipment go?
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So I thought that my season was complete a few weeks back, but I was wrong. There were still some details to clean up before calling 2007 closed. So I was off to the airport again this past weekend to attend to an activity that would close out 2007 for two of the teams that I worked for this past year.
A number of people that I have met at the races have asked me what happens to the team's bikes and equipment at the end of the year. Can they buy it? Might they score a long sleeve team skinsuit? The answer is yes. Teams do need to liquidate inventory at the end of the season, as sponsors and suppliers change year-to-year and equipment becomes outdated or simply worn thin. You can purchase this team equipment and ride the authentic stuff, if you know some of the secrets of where and when to access the sale of this equipment. Here is my tale of this last weekend.
I headed to Denver this past weekend to attend the annual VeloSwap held at the National Western Forum. Ed Beamon of EDJ Sports, the management company for both the Navigators men's team and Lipton's women's team, called me in to work this event to help liquidate the inventory for both teams, as neither title sponsor will be continuing for 2008. It was a lot of stuff; it had the Navigators 24-foot box truck filled to the top, all the way to the back with equipment. Everything imaginable bikes (some with the Tour of Missouri number plates still attached), clothing, wheels, spare parts - the whole works. Do you want a Kristen Armstrong long sleeved white skinsuit with rainbow stripes? What size, we still had most sizes available.
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I flew into Denver Friday and headed straight to the venue to start unloading the truck and setting up. On the way from the airport we got word that Matt Cooke's (Navigators Insurance) condo had been burned to the ground the night before and he had lost everything. After hearing the news it was time to set aside some extra clothing from the sale stuff to cover his riding needs. It was a really unfortunate situation, as the fire appears to be caused by intoxicated college students, displacing 50 people from their homes.
Once reaching the National Western Forum, it took about four hours to unload the gear and secure it in the exhibition hall. A number of other vendors, from individuals to manufacturers, were unloading their equipment as well. We had over 50 bikes for sale and tons of clothing and wheels. After unpacking we headed to dinner and got a reasonable night's sleep as the hall opened again at 6 AM for the vendors to do the final setup before the doors opened to the public at 9 AM.
My alarm went off at 5 AM; we were on site at just a little before opening time. We started the job of unpacking the equipment and arranging our vendor's area inside the hall. Here is where I learned the first secret of scoring the best team stuff:
A number of individuals interested in scoring the best deals and unique finds bought tables as vendors, not to sell their own goods, but to get access to the hall at 6 AM for vendor setup. In this way they could browse other vendor's products and start the purchasing hours before the public could get in. Sure enough our area was buzzing with buyers as soon as we got there; I took my first cash sale at 6:20 AM, before we had a chance to lay out most of the stuff.
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The next three hours were non-stop, as we sold a ton of stuff before the public was allowed in the building. We were so busy that I really didn't get a good chance to setup the area of Lipton's team bikes that I was overseeing. The selling was full speed for the first three hours. A little weary from the lack of breakfast and the flurry of business, I watched out of the corner of my eye as the clock ticked past 9 AM and I saw the wave of general public flood through the doors and hit the floor of the hall. Despite the rather heavy buyer traffic on the floor already, it looked like a wave of people rushing through the doors of the hall like a tsunami. Time to dig deep, this was going to be a long day.
Sure enough this was the busiest and hardest day of mechanic work I had in 2007. Tons of stem swaps, cassette changes, technical questions and bike fittings; all to get people out the door with some killer deals on team equipment. I had to raid the team's supply of race food - I survived on Clif bars and water all day, as I never really made it out of our booth. It was like I was in a race!
The swap ended at 4 PM, but it was closer to 6 PM before I was done getting the last customer fit up to go. One couple who lived in Boulder had to go home to get their checkbook in order to pay for a bike, they returned at a little after 7 PM to pick up what would be the last sale of the day for us, then we started the packing job. Although we sold over 20 bikes during the day, we still had more than that number that did not find new homes and needed to be loaded back in the truck. Reboxing the small parts and clothing took us until after 8 PM; we were the last people to leave the hall. Security even had to unlock the gate to the parking lot to let us out, as they thought that everyone was finished up much earlier.
So I mentioned some secrets to scoring the best deals on the real pro stuff earlier on, here they are in summary:
- Get to the swap early, buying a vendor table was the secret to getting early inside access to the best stuff.
- Don't waver if you really want something. I had a guy having trouble deciding to purchase one of Kristen Armstrong's training bikes. He said to me that he was going to walk around and look at other things and think about it. Bad call, it was gone in less than 30 minutes of going back on display.
- If you want to deal, have the cash in hand to make it happen. When people wanted to pay less than the assigned price, it made it easy when they had the cash there to close the deal right away.
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So a guy from Kansas now has Kristen Armstrong's training bike. A Queenslander owns Kyle Wamsley's C-50, and a 70+ year old woman from Colorado is riding Grace Fleury's Fuji.
As for me, the weekend was much harder than preparing for a single day bicycle race, the swap was 13-plus hours of non-stop, high-paced action - easily the hardest 'work' day for this mechanic in 2007.
The next event for me in the never-ending 2007 season is the Iceman Cometh race in Michigan, a great way to close out the season with the Kenda/X-Fusion/Titus team - as long as it does not snow. This race was not on my radar a couple of months ago, but it will be a great low stress way to see some old friends and enjoy the race environment for the last time in 2007.
Concurrently for me, the quest to secure employment for 2008 is in full swing. I am fortunate to have had some contact with Webcor, Tibco, Rock Racing, Team Type 1, Team BMC and Healthnet-Maxxis about work on the road and the Kenda/Titus squad about some potential work in the dirt for 2008. So while the field is wide right now, I do not have a definitive program for 2008 yet. Hopefully the next few weeks will close a deal, so I can head in the holidays with some ability to relax with a clear picture of 2008.
Things are always changing in the bike racing world. I will keep you updated. In the meantime, see you in Michigan.
Thanks
Chris Davidson
Photography
For a thumbnail gallery of these images, click here
Images by Chris Davidson
- Setup Friday night - unload, lock and secure over 50 bikes and a ton of other gear in the National Western Forum in Denver.
- Flying the Aussie flag.
- 7:35pm Saturday - the wasteland that was the exhibit hall after hours. Everyone else was pretty much packed out when we started our process.
- Do you want to buy Ben Day’s carbon Colnago TT rig? It is for sale.
- Looking for some team clothing, what size do you wear?
- TEAm Liptonland, 5:55am Saturday morning.
