Instead of boring you with a race report I am writing to show you how a world cup looks from a mechanics perspective.
However, because I am too egotistical not to touch upon my race, I got 32nd. Plus, I want to share some sick pics Meg snapped.
My ribs were not, and are still not, 100% from crashing in Italy. Therefore, I was going into this race timid. Not timid to the point where I wouldn’t go hard but rather unsure how it would go. Training this past week was helping my skepticism to hang around. Wrenching hard on the bars when givin’er up hill or off the start line was causing me to wince. I was sure that the adrenaline would numb the pain but, I am sure, the two ibuprofen and Redbull I shot gunned before the race helped too.
This proved to be true for the first 3/4 of the race, however, the last 3 laps started to hurt and after crossing the finish line I couldn’t stand up straight.
But who cares! The work was done and I was pumped to put in a good result.
More pressing matters: I sat down with Doug Sumi, my main man, to ask him how a world cup weekend goes pre, during, and after. Doug starting on the road with the Jamis road team, has since moved to the Hincapie Citadel road team, and started wrench CX tw0 years ago for Raleigh-Clement. He came to Europe last year as Caroline Manni’s mechanic for world cups and her World Champ silver, so he knows the ropes in the Euro pits.
I asked him how working with USAC is and some other questions to better help you all understand how mechanicing works. Listen to our conversation at the youtube video below.
I didn’t know how to embed an audio file so I had to make a picture slide show over the audio. Sorry in advance for the background noise… I am a hack and Doug was getting ready to head over to the service course while I was recording.
It’s off to Luxembourg on Wednesday! World Champs in 6 days. Woot Woot!
Kerry Werner 