James Stanfill
It’s been a while since I was in Europe. Not much has changed. People still understand that if you are in the left lane and a car approaches behind that you’d better get the fuck out of the way…
This time however, was different. I was doing something I didn’t have a ton of experience with and I was doing it at nearly the highest level it could be done… supporting a team of athletes at the Para Cycling World Championships, the Olympic Games being the next biggest.
This go-round I was supporting Cycling Canada and a group of athletes riding two-and three-wheel bikes, a tandem, and hand cycles and competing in both individual time trials and road races – four days of racing in total.
I’ve supported Para Cycling before during National Championships here in the US, and I have been to World Championships in a few different places supporting Track to Juniors to Women to World Tour… but I’d never been to this level of a Para Cycling event and it was awesome.
In total I had 10 athletes to look after and 13 bicycles. Luckily, racing was divided into four days so pre-race prep wasn’t a lump of 13 athletes needing something all at the same time… Especially since the road racing days were 12 hours at the venue each day! The team took home 5 medals and a keen eye on this year’s Olympics.
What did I learn? Well, I took a trike rear end apart. Apparently, this is the only way to change the cassette, not something you want to do roadside and something you want to make sure you have the right tools for. I didn’t, but I knew I could call my pal Steve Donovan (USA Para Head Mechanic) and make sure I was on the right track… Luckily, I had a handful of tools you can improvise with when you don’t have a slide hammer to remove the axles.
I learned a lot about the hand cycles. If it weren’t for electronics, I think my job with these expensive machines would have been exponentially harder… In fact, every rider was using either Shimano or SRAM electronic on all the cycles… it was nearly a dream come true.
How did it all work? In usual Euro fashion the team keeps some equipment at a base in Belgium. I flew Austin to Denver to London to Belgium, took a cab to Sixt car rental, drove a box truck to the service course in Tielt-Winge, loaded up, drove to Amsterdam and slept. The next day we made an airport pick-up and drove onward to Emmen… Just reverse that whole process for the return. A nice 1200km road trip through Northern Europe, if only U-Haul or Penske had trucks so nice here in America!
2020 Starts in a few weeks, I agreed to work with this same team starting with Track Worlds at the end of January and concluding with the Olympic Games in Tokyo later this summer.
I’m excited to watch these athletes perform and to bring my technical knowledge to aide in their quest for Gold.