Behind the moto with team sponsor Mavic

This entry is courtesy of team member Marcel Van Garderen. Marcel works for Mavic, on a volunteer basis, as part of their neutral support race services.



Marcel: As I was heading out the door my wife and daughter chime, “Have a fun vacation in California.”

I was on my way to Redlands to work with Mavic providing neutral support for the Redlands Bicycle Classic. This will be my second full year volunteering with Mavic. For my regular job, the one that pays the bills, I am an architect for the Neenan Company, where the extent of my exertion consists of pushing a mouse around. My heart rate goes up slightly when I get up to refill my mint tea. Working with Mavic, however, means work and can not be misconstrued for vacation...at least not the one where you lay on the beach. Don’t get me wrong, I love doing this and in many ways it beats lying on the beach.

This trip to Redlands was my first foray as the moto pilot for Mavic. I worked as the jumper (mechanic jumping from car to provide neutral support) and driver of one of the Mavic cars during the 2009 Tour of Missouri and quickly realized that being on the moto provided the best seat in the house.




Mark, the guy that runs the Mavic neutral support program, asked me to drive one of the neutral support cars to Redlands with Roscoe, one of the guys I met at the OTC while getting licensed as a race mechanic. I checked my work schedule and quickly said yes. I am an early riser, so I picked up Roscoe on Tuesday at 4 A.M. to start our drive south. We planned to spend the night along the way somewhere before Vegas. Well, plans are made to be broken and we got to Vegas around 3 P.M. and decided to push on to Redlands. We arrived in Redlands at 6:30, just in time to join a few guys from Mavic for dinner.

Petar drove the Mavic truck pulling the trailer all the way from the east coast. The truck and trailer house all the things we need to provide neutral support for a four-day stage race: wheels, bikes, two motorcycles and a car!



The first order of business was to represent Mavic in a good light. This means all of the 100 wheels needed to be checked, and get rubber and cassettes. We also checked over the 10 neutral bikes and made any necessary adjustments. The truck, trailer and cars all got washed; the cars went to the carwash the truck and trailer were done by hand. This took the better part of the day working diligently with five people. Toward the afternoon, the rest of the crew finally made it to Redlands - some stuck at snowy airports in Colorado, others in traffic coming from Southern California. That night we sat down for dinner with the full crew of 11!

Time trials are generally uneventful for the Mavic crew. The short event and the equipment that does not get used often cause everything to run smoothly. We did have a few of the smaller teams visit the pit we had set up near the start house for some minor adjustments. An hour before the start we took the three Mavic cars and set up pits with wheels and bikes along the course. We ended up setting up six pits along a 3.1-mile course with each pit having at least six wheels and one bike.

My first day piloting a neutral moto was during Friday’s road race. I have been riding a moto for 15+ years and have been racing a bicycle for 28 years and I would be lying if I told you I was not a little nervous. It was not driving the moto that made me nervous but more where to be during the race. Lucky for me, Mark had paired me with Bart, one of the best jumpers! Bart has the Mavic record for fastest wheel change. He once changed Chris Horner’s wheel at the San Francisco Grand prix while leading the race in the last lap, in seven seconds!! Perhaps this was more reason for me to be nervous working with this legend. As it turned out, Bart is a great, down-to-earth guy, who was incredibly helpful getting me to the places I needed to be. The race went fantastic from a neutral service perspective.

Bart and I did 14 wheel changes during this stage alone! Often we would get to the riders before their teams did and the rider would be off and integrating into the field as their car would pull up. The benefit of providing neutral support from a motorcycle is that when a rider put up his hand mid-field, indicating a flat, we could already see him and were able to squeeze by the field. It happened more than once where Bart already had their wheel out before the last rider in the field had come past us. It is also an advantage that the motorcycle gets to ride closely behind the field rather than have to sit behind the race official and medical cars

After we provided a rider with a new wheel we needed to get rid of the flat. While Bart made the wheel change I radioed to the Mavic car the rider’s number and whether he had 10 or 11-speed. Once the rider was off, we sped up to the Mavic car, where they had a fresh wheel ready for us and we made the exchange and joined the back of the field, waiting for the next flat.

When we work to provide neutral support at a race we are so intently focused on everything from road conditions to riders and cars that travel at different speeds we forget how exhausting it is mentally and physically until we sit down at the end of the day and the realization hits home; This is not vacation, but it is a hell of a good time!

(All photos supplied courtesy of Marcel. He is the moto driver, in the dark blue Rudy Project sunglasses. Marcel is sponsor correct, as always!)