I like bicycles. So when Doug Dalton, of Cannondale Bikes, called and asked me to fly to Ontario and help provide race support for the Bear Naked/Cannondale Bicycles race team, it was an easy decision.

Race support is a different beast than the daily grind of a bike shop or fixing bikes in a garage.  On one hand, you usually have new parts on new bikes.  When something breaks, you replace it with a brand new one.  The bike shop life involves a lot more “making it work”, maybe to save the customer a buck, maybe because you don’t have a replacement part in stock.  Inevitably, things will break at the most inopportune times on race bikes, which will add to the level of stress to the situation.  I cross over into both worlds quite often, and I happen to enjoy the variety. 

While the weekend mostly consisted of replacing brand new tires with newer ones.  Most of the racers went through at least two pairs of rubber over the course of the weekend.  Maybe a little excessive, but also a reminder that I may run my tires a little past their usable life.  With the addition of Stan’s sealant, seating the XC tires on the rim was fairly easy, even with just a floor pump.  The Michelin guys had to show me a few tricks to get the DH tires seated, even with a high pressure compressor. 

Besides tires, I lubed lots of chains, adjusted many derailleurs, and tuned many shocks.  The excitement came on Sunday morning when one of our pro woman downhillers had a headset explosion shortly before the finals.  We wasted no time pillaging another headset from a spare Cannondale Judge we had sitting around.  Her bike was fixed in plenty of time and then it was on to helping the others get ready for the short track race.

For those that have never witnessed a short track race, it is a 30 minute sprint filled with suffering and pain.  I was suprised at the tire pressures the riders were running.  Some of the women ran less than 25 psi in their front tires while the men hovered around 30 psi.  The theory behind the lower pressure is it lets you run more air in the suspension, for a more efficieent pedal, but allow the tires to hook up on the short and steep climbs, soft and dusty corners, and it also mellows the harshness of the small, high frequency bumps.

All in all, a great weekend as a bike mechanic.  I’d like to thank Andy Schultz, Tonya Bray, Kevin Smallman, Amelia Colasurdo, Leanna Gerard, Thomas Turner, Wendy Reynolds, and the other people who made the weekend totally radical. Huge thanks to Courtney for his help with everything, even though he was there on a volunteer basis. Can’t wait to see you guys when you stop through for Deer Valley. Go fast, take chances.

This entry was posted on Friday, May 11th, 2007 at 7:23 pm and is filed under Daily Rant. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.