Musings from the jump seat of Mavic 2 (or How I spent my Labor Day weekend)

I got the call a while ago that I would be on the Mavic crew for the US Pro Championships weekend in Greenville. Labor Day weekend couldn't get here fast enough. I had some major news throw a kink in life early in the week, but by the weekend, I was ready to go.

I arrived on Friday, just in time to take care of some of the mundane tasks involved with the running of a neutral support crew. That involved washing the truck (the BIIIIG yellow one - fortunately, the trailer was staying at the hotel for the weekend so we didn't have to wash that), sorting the wheels (yes, all of them) and neutral bikes, and just making sure everything looked good for the sponsors. The first lesson I learned was to make sure you have plenty of clearance when jumping into the truck. I jumped in to grab some gear and BAM, caught a SRAM Force rear derailleur in the top of the head. OUCH, lesson learned and only minor bleeding.

Saturday was the time trial. We set up five pits along the circuit. I spent the day under a yellow tent watching the riders scream through a pretty hairy off-camber turn. I was sure someone was going to stack it in that corner, but everyone made it through safely. These are pros after all. However, you could still definitely tell who had spent some time training on their TT bikes. They were sailing through the corner in their aerobars and maintaining speed. The others...SKETCHY. Sitting up, grabbing the brakes, and changing lines several times through the turn.

We finished our official duties in time to head out for a ride. A group of 6 of us went and did the long loop of the road race. This included the ascent of Paris Mountain. Paris Mountain is a nasty little bump that gains about 1,000 feet over 3.5 miles. The pros would tackle it 4 times, we opted for only once and it HURT!!!!!!

Stay tuned for the road race report...