- Pro cycling mechanics are certainly
some of the best loved, and possibly,
the most patient members of the pro cycling world.
They're certainly very patient
with our repeated requests for pro bikes and tech.
But they also have to deal with a lot of very tough jobs.
So we're at the Tour de France.
We thought we should ask them
what their least favourite daily jobs were on tour.
What has to be one of the most repetitive,
and possibly one of the slightly more difficult,
jobs that team mechanics have to do repeatedly
is to measure pro cyclist's bikes
and get their positions millimetre perfect.
Pro cyclists can, at one end,
be a particularly picky bunch of people
when it comes to making sure that their bike is set up
just right for going as fast as possible.
So it means that team mechanics who employ
jigs like the one behind me here, a LottoNL-Jumbo,
they've probably all got spread sheets
that they're shared into that mean that they can see
every rider's preferred bow width,
or every rider's preferred ...
We just saw them measuring the tip of the lever,
to the centre of the fork distance.
I don't know how you define that.
Every rider's preferred reach.
Because there are so many measurements on a bike.
So many measurements to get right.
And when you do get them all right,
the bike feels perfect
and it's maybe a win or lose difference for your rider.
So, Risto, what is the worst job
that you have to do as a pro mechanic?
- As you know, talking to the media, first-fully.
(laughing)
- But I would say, from my side,
is the chasing down the millimetres from the guys.
So it's tough.
The positions is one thing.
What you have to do, and get always right.
Another thing is always about the traveling: the packing.
That you have everything with you.
That you're not missing anything.
That's also one thing.
- So there are so many guys
that can actually notice the difference between,
like a saddle height being a millimetre higher
or a millimetre lower.
- Yeah, just some guys even sometimes
say that they feel bad for that.
That they feel it.
So the guys that have been half of their life on the bike,
they feel the millimetre rightly.
- Cool, thank you.
- The stages where the riders have a long transfer,
let's say by an aeroplane or something.
And then the staff have to transfer by car.
That's just a long drive,
like takes all day or all night,
and kind of a waste of time.
I mean, the Tour de France is a race
like any big stage race, where you have to,
where you have to, you know, do a whole lot of jobs,
and any time where you lose 7 or 8 hours in the day,
just driving a vehicle from A to B,
to me that's waste of valuable time where you could be,
like, gluing tyres for example. (laughs)
- I was gonna say, that must be said of your feeling,
because in front of us now we have how many pairs of wheels?
- [Bike Tech] That's about 15 sets of wheels.
- [Interviewer] 15 sets of wheels,
and the equivalent number of tubs behind us.
I'd happily drive 8 hours to not stick 15 tubes of tyres on.
- I recon one of the toughest, most repetitive,
and possibly most tedious jobs
as a pro cycling team mechanic,
is gluing , stretching, and then fitting tubes for the tyres.
A team might get through, let's say, 100 tubular tyres
in the course of a three week race,
so that's a lot of replacing flat tyres.
A lot of taking tyres off the rim.
A lot of stretching them, a lot of glueing them.
So to get around that, they actually carry pre-stretched
tyres on their team trucks.
So they've got old rims they might have used
at a race like Parry Dubai or something like that.
They put two layers of glue on the tube of the tyre,
just so the base tape of the tub
has soaked up a bit of glue,
meaning that you have to put one layer of glue on,
then stick the tube of the tyre on,
in order to prep.
And they carry those around in the back of the truck,
for then the punctures happen,
which is probably every day, let's face it.
And then they fit them, and then they glue them.
So before the Tour de France here,
which means they've got a lot of stretching to do.
Apparently they only fitted 30 to 40
new ones the other day.
I reckon I've fitted about 10 in my life.
And I feel like I've done a lot.
- So what is the worst job that you have to do
as a pro cycling team mechanic?
- I think it's gonna be working in the rain.
And especially in the race, when it's really (bleep) wet
and you have to pull out to change a wheel or something.
That's (bleep).
- Well, there we have it.
A non-exhaustive sample of some of the least favourite
jobs of the mechanics of the pro cycling peloton.
But, interestingly, a few of them couldn't really
think of least favourite jobs.
Which just shows the level of dedication to their job,
and their love for the sport.
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