Tour de Georgia: TT, Mountains, and Wrap-up

April 28, 2008 on 7:03 pm | In Road Racing |

I wish I’d been able to do a write up after each of the final four stages, but the time (and wireless internet) just wasn’t there. Wrenching for Marco Polo is a 16 hour day - 6am to 10pm just about everyday. A lot sure did happen though - lots of stories, too many to tell in one sitting! I’m sitting here in the hotel lobby next to Slipstream mechanic Daimeon Shanks, who’s getting ready to fly over to Europe with the team. He won’t be back home in Boulder until after the Tour de France. I’m not cut out for that life, after 10 days away from my wife, dogs, shop, and Cincinnati… I’m ready for home.

We last left off with the STAGE FOUR team time trial. With it being by far the shortest stage in the Tour, it was the easiest day for the riders and staff. Marco Polo was first to go off, with HealthNet two minutes behind them. With no time trial specialists on the roster, great results were not expected. As the story goes, before they were to go off, each of their bikes had to be weighed by the officials to ensure they weren’t underneath the UCI minimum weight limit of 6.8kg. As they each were hefted up onto the scale by a race official, they were coming in at 6.1 and 6.2kg! The guys questioned the validity of this scale, which to them more resembled a scale used to measure chickens and fruit…

Ultimately the readings were ignored and they were allowed to take their start. The guys looked strong, and stayed smooth keeping everyone together in formation. They wound up finishing last on the day, but by only two seconds.

STAGE FIVE was the first trip north into the mountains, and the roads were phenomenal! Beautiful scenery with perfect undulations and curves on flawless pavement. 128 miles on the road today, with two big Cat 3 climbs and a little hard-hitter at the end to finish things off. That first Cat 3 over Burnt Mountain was a tough Cat 3! Long and windy with several steep pitches. Seemed harder than some of the higher categorized climbs the following day. Sergey didn’t make it halfway up before jumping in the team car - his tour is over. Jai had some bad luck today with two flat tires, the second putting him off the group as it was winding up for the finish. A teammate was there to give him the wheel, and another there to help him chase, but it was for naught. After burying himself over the final 7km, he still finished 90 seconds off the winning time. That small sliver of metal I later pulled out of his tire most likely cost him his dream race up Brasstown.

STAGE SIX to Brasstown Bald went about as well as it could have for Jai. With a significant break of strong guys going off early, Slipstream set a steady pace that all he had to do was follow. He made to the bottom of the final climb sitting in a group of 30 being led by Astana. Astana sent two riders on attacks at the bottom, and then accelerated a lead-out for Levi that snapped the 30-strong lead group. Jai looked to be in trouble 1/3 of the way up, maybe trying too hard to stay at the front of that group (his goal was top ten). After the group shattered, Jai first fell off with the back half of the group, then recovered and picked his way up through the group to finish in a group of four led by early attacker Bobby Julich. He feels that if everything had been perfect for him (no flat tire and chase the day before, and feeling 100% mentally and physically good) he could have made the top five. Without that happening he still placed inside the top fifteen, which is pretty awesome.

There are lots of amazing subplots from within the race, but the one hardman tale that must be told is that of 6′5″ Astana-rider Michael Schar. We were lucky to park next to the Astana crew most days during the Tour, and we saw some interesting things come out of that box truck. Since we were using virtually the same bicycles, we traded hard-to-locate parts (or more accurately, we borrowed from them). Riding in the team car behind Astana during stage one, we noticed a crazy bike up on the roof, a huge Madone frame with what appeared to be a double-seat mast, and an abnormally long stem. A 16 cm stem to be precise! I’d never seen one. Michael had the misfortune to get caught up in one of the first crashes of the Tour, and as a result dislocated his shoulder. Race radio had announced him as “abandoned.” Fifteen minutes later he came up along past our car, rode up alongside Astana car driven by Eki, and took 5-6 bottles up to his teammates. He had gotten up from his crash, had the medic put his shoulder back into place (POP!), and chased solo for 15 minutes through the caravan to get back in the race (but not before grabbing bottles for teammates). Amazing! Henk and I eavesdropped while washing bikes at Schar pleading with Johan Bruyneel after stage three to let him continue to race. Johan told him that he was needed later in the season and sent him home to Switzerland early to heal his shoulder. So that’s the story behind the story of his DNF at TdG.

We were one of the few teams riding clinchers during the race. Bontrager Aerolus carbon clinchers with Vredestein Fortezza’s to be exact. Jai, Rhys, and Fuyu had brought their own set of tubulars to use for the climbing stages. Can you guess which tires flatted? Not one flat on eight pairs of clinchers, and at least one flat for each rider that rode their tubulars. Unexpected.

On a subject related to flat tires, the scene going on behind the peloton during these races has to be seen to be believed. You’ve got 15 teams with 2 team cars each, loaded with bikes, wheels, food and drink. There’s Team Car One and Team Car Two, and each team is given their place in the caravan based on their team placing in the GC. Each car has a number on their back window 1 through 15. They line up based on those numbers in the right lane. The left lane is called the service lane, and when a rider needs food, advice, or has a puncture, they raise their hand and race radio calls that rider’s team to the front. Every team wants to be as close to the front as possible, so they can service their riders faster. There’s a lot of speeding and crazy driving going on. The BMC team car was missing its rear bumper on stage five, with HealthNet having the front bumper to match. It’s like every component of this race is a race. Largely it’s a race on bicycles, but it’s also a race behind in souped-up team cars, it’s a race between the mechanics in the big rental box trucks and RV’s up to the next stage’s host hotel. Got to grab up the primo spots in the parking lot you know!

Both Jai and Fuyu flatted on stage five on their lightweight tubular climbing wheels. In the pro peloton, they don’t shoot Stans sealant inside and fix ‘em - you tear the tire off and replace it with a fresh new one. So at 9pm the night before Stage Six Brasstown Bald, I’m gluing up new tires for both our GC leader and the former Asian champion for what will be the most technically demanding stage of the race. I always tell my clients to wait 24 hours before they race on tires that I’ve glued up, but there is no choice here. This is the team’s highest profile race of the year, and Jai’s biggest race of his young career - what pressure! Yes I was very nervous in the team car, and watching attentively through the first high-speed corners. My stomach finally settled after their 60mph descent off Hogpen Gap. The glue had held, and no mechanical problems on the day for the team. I needed a beer at the end of that day.

Rock Racing. From my 10 days of staying in the same hotels, parking lots, and dining halls with the riders and staff - 100% nice guys. Always a smile and greeting from each of the riders passing them in the hallway, sharing an elevator, walking through their team zone. I came away so impressed that I bought a couple of their T-shirts for my staff back at the shop back in Cincinnati… a good chunk of the $3.12 per hour wage I had earned as professional team race mechanic.

Thanks for reading,
Mitch