By: Barry. The riders have it tough for the duration of the stage , but as soon as they cross the line they are pampered like newborn babies. They are washed down , given warm clothes and a nice cool drink , loaded up onto an air-conditioned bus and whisked away to the team hotel. Once there they head for the lift where an A4 sheet is to be found telling them which room number they have been given. No hassle of check in desks etc. Upon entering their allocated room they find their bags already in place and just remove the PSP or ipod before having their shower.
After the nice warm shower they are straight into bed and the soignoeur arrives to give them some water and more food. They are also told what time dinner will be served and what time to come down for their rub 30 mins to one hour of deep tissue massage. The soigneour will also take away their sweaty gear to wash and dry it for them. Oh yes , it is a tough life alright! Back in April I got a call one Saturday morning in the shop. There was an Irish team heading over to a stage race in France and they needed a mechanic.
The race was starting the following Friday in Thionville in Eastern France and would entail eight stages over six days. It was short notice but I was all excited in anticipation of my first experience as a stage race mechanic. The team was managed by Morgan Fox who had only received his call the day before me and the masseur was Claire Moore who missed the first three stages as she too had only been contacted at the last minute and had work commitments.
I must hasten to add that although this was common practice with Cycling Ireland teams at the time it has improved slightly since then. I met Morgan in the Cycling Ireland Offices on the north circular road in Dublin on the Tuesday afternoon as we had to drive the big blue van across England and onto France to collect the riders in Charles de Gaule airport outside Paris.
From there the plan was to collect the rented team car from Hertz and to drive across to Thionville. We shared the driving as we traversed Wales and England , only stopping for diesel and a few plastic sandwiches. Through the night the traffic was light and we made good time. However we still got caught in the early rush hour traffic on the M25 around London and it was They had all been booked on an early flight out of Dublin which was a few quid cheaper than the flight three hours later and were now waiting to be picked up.
