The Pro Mechanic. Is that a cigarette and is that diesel in there? Photo: HBStache
I love working on my bikes. I feel closer to them, like a samurai sharpening their blade or a soldier cleaning their pistol; this simple act of preparation prepares us for the suffering that is to come, with the notable distinction that a Cyclist chooses this suffering with no tangible consequence while the warrior faces probably death. Apart from this minor detail, the analogy feels complete.
The cathartic beauty of working on a bicycle was taught to me many years ago, by a Dutch bike shop owner named Herman in Zevenaar, the Netherlands. He had been the team mechanic for Helvetia la Suisse, a good but not extraordinary team in the late eighties. His tools were a work of art; they didn’t match, they were all different brands; some of them weren’t even real “tools”, he just made them himself, purpose built for a specific function.
His truing stand was a homemade affair constructed of metal bits to hold the wheel and a rudimentary mechanism which might have come off a medieval torture device, repurposed in this particular case to check the trueness of the wheel. There was also a micrometer attached to said thumbscrew-turned-truing stand which was so finely adjusted that should the meter not be spinning in circles, the wheel was already well within true. He never stopped trueing until the needle stopped moving.
While my dad taught me the mechanics of caring for and servicing a bicycle, Herman taught me to love doing that work. His master lesson was in the care that goes into wrapping the bars. My dad had bought a Merckx from him, and (correctly) insisted on Scott Drop-Ins as the handlebars. The challenge with those bars was that they were a bit longer than regular drop bars, and so a roll of bar tape didn’t make it all the way up. Herman, unable to tolerate the lump at the juncture of the two rolls of bar tape, meticulously spliced the two rolls together so the point of intersection was indistinguishable.
This was a crucial moment in my development as a Velominatus: bar tape should always maintain these three essential properties: be white, be clean, be perfect.
Only one of my bikes has white bar tape, and that’s Number One. But Number One always has white bar tape, never black. And all of my bikes, irrespective of its level, always has clean, perfect tape.
I have a hard time leaving the house on a dirty bike. I always wipe the chain down, and wiping the chain down usually leads to wiping the rest of the frame and the wheels down prior to departure. One simply feels better setting out on a spotless bike. This is common sense, I know.
Not to mention the pride one has in pushing the gear levers and feeling the crisp, perfect shifts escape into the drivetrain. A clean bike has loads of perfect shifts stored up, just waiting to be released; a dirty bike has nothing but mis-shifts waiting to disappoint you. A well-tuned bicycle is also a quiet bicycle, and while I always prefer to announce my arrival to anyone I might be overtaking, I do take a small degree of enjoyment in their startled surprise which belies the fact that my bicycle moves as silently as a ninja in the night, were it not for the heaving pilot.
It feels to me like a perfect job is to be a Pro Tour bike mechanic, apart from the fact that I know it’s a thankless, difficult, and demanding job. When you’re not wrenching into the wee hours of the night, you’re sitting in the team car with your head bobbling about out the passenger window and a frisky freewheel tickling your sphincter. But on the plus side, it’s the only vocation in Cycling that encourages heavy drinking and smoking combined with the liberal use of white spirits (diesel fuel).
If you can’t make it as a world class Cyclist, then hopefully you can at least make it as a death-defying alcoholic.
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View Comments
@Oli
Man, you got the year right, but this was the Tour of Lombardy, not the criterium international... Check out the Gazzetta dello Sport logo painted on the road. Richard was reportedly furious at the end of the race... Delion was supposed to lead him out for that sprint! Loved Gilles Delion (we were born in the same area) but the truth is, if some pros didn't like him, that wasn't only a question of him being strongly against the juice...
@wiscot
That whole scene is pure poetry. It has a rather beguiling cadence. I could listen to it over and over again. Watching it is even more sublime.
I love working on my bikes, most especially the end of winter strip down, re-cabling and application of fresh new bar tape. There's a zen like calmness to be found in that. It can't be far off, the current bar tape is beginning to look a bit worn and the coating on the exposed rear shift inner is beginning to look past its best. It'll almost be a shame to switch to the new #1 after that (That'll get the same treatment in September or October.)
@Mick
Thanks Mick, I'm going to kill that caption writer I ripped off!
@wiscot
After writing this I stripped my rear hub down, to the extent of removing the pawls from the freehub, cleaning it all out and then re-greasing and reassembling the whole thing, removing the small amount of play from my rear wheel in the process.
It's exactly the sort of job I'd have previously fucked up, so I feel mighty for taking it on.
A typically timely article which encouraged me to go for it. Cheers Frank.
@wiscot
I call your raise. Looking forward to watching the whole thing, I've never actually seen it.
@MangoDave
Set aside the full time. ASiH is great, but S&W is just incredible. The narration verges, at times, into pure poetry.
Let's not forget the finishing touch.
And if anyone has some tips on cleaning skinwalls please, PLEASE, let in on the secret.
@wiscot
Agreed. Actually I watch both of them at least once a year. Great winter viewing while on the rollers.
@DeKerr
Not sure how it goes with gumwalls, but my tyre cleaning technique is as follows.
Get a reasonably sturdy cloth or rag
Dump it in some hot water & detergent
Lay the rag over your open palm & then wrap your hand over the wheel pinching your thumb & forefinger either on the brake tracks (if you also want to clean them) or the sidewall of the tyre.
Rotate the wheel through a few revolutions & you should be golden.
If you're doing this each time you clean the bike, then they shouldn't ever get so dirty that you can't get something off.
@Ron
This is the difference between wrenching on your own bike and doing it for a living (outside of being a pro team mechanic). The vast majority of people who bring bikes into a shop to have a mechanic work on them don't take care of their bikes and don't know the first thing about even simple maintenance. What we take for granted, they are completely clueless about. And they have no idea what's involved to "fix" their bike. They just know that they don't want to pay a lot of money for it and that they want their bike back tomorrow (if not today).