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Fresh ‘Korn - Portable comforts

By Will Frischkorn, Team Slipstream-Chipotle
Published: Apr. 26, 2007

Mid-way through a long stint on the road and with what feels like a revolving door of hotel rooms, flights and long drives, I’ve begun to notice some of the quirks that we cyclists end up adopting in an attempt to make hotels and restaurants seem just a bit more comfortable and similar to home.

To lay a bit of groundwork, a bit about the Slipstream Sports setup here in Europe: While almost all of us live in Girona, when at the races our one constant is the team RV. The team’s growing and on a bit of a shopping spree right now but at this point we’re hanging out in what most people think of as a “Camper” - one of those moving clusters that most people associate with mid-western grandparents.

Unlike the grandparents’ rig, ours is covered in argyle and logos. It has two seats up front with storage above (in the form of a bed), a couple of benches mid-way back, a small kitchen and bathroom, and then wraparound seats in the back - just enough room for the eight of us in back and two soigneurs up front.

We also travel with two team cars and a truck. The truck is mainly for the mechanics and all of the equipment (it’s amazing how much stuff a team of roughly eight riders per race require) but has a little section for the soigneurs with a fridge, freezer, washer, dryer and storage for the race food, a few hundred bottles, spare clothes and the massage tables. In most stage races you transfer from hotel to hotel each day and our luggage ends up in the soigneurs’ section as well before magically appearing in our rooms just pre-arrival.

So, back to the core of this piece, just what do we bring along? These days EVERYBODY has their laptop, iPod and either blackberry or cell phone along with an assortment of SIM cards for each country. Not five years back people would travel with a portfolio carrying pictures of loved ones, important papers, business cards, CD collections, DVDs, notes and letters, calling cards, etc. but these days it’s all condensed into one handy little five pound toy with a few plug-ins dangling all over the place. We’re pretty much a roving Mac advertisement. In addition to the standards more and more people are carrying the second most addictive time filler to the blackberry, the PSP. I’m still holding out.

After technology most of us turn our thoughts to food. I’m about the biggest food geek out there, I’ll admit that, but everybody cracks on race food. To this day Jonathan Vaughters will not eat pasta. Race food? It’s a standard menu: platters of overcooked, watery pasta; rice when you’re VERY lucky; mystery meat - bird or grisly beef; shredded carrots; pickled beets; dingy lettuce; fromage blanc; and the old French hotel standby desert of slightly soggy apple tart. Sometimes you get lucky and snag some cheese from the tray reserved for paying customers. From time to time the standard is broken and we’re fed a reasonable meal, but far too often it’s probably coming from that fictitious company we fondly call “Race Meal Inc.”

To supplement this fare and make it a bit more palatable the team carries around the “Flavor Box.” Built around a few foundation items this box can dress up some of the most boring fare into something that when you’re starving can get crammed down the gullet. Starting with the block of Parm and a cheese grater, we also carry bottles of pesto, tomato sauce (not warm v8 juice), salts, a pepper grinder, spicy ketchups, hot sauce and a little army of herb and spice shakers. The notorious Euro breakfast of “Ham and cheese, cheese and ham” on a baguette also gets a bit of help from our well-stocked food box stocked with cereals, granolas, soy milk, fruit, Nutella, PB-and-J, various breads and a huge tub of homemade muesli that the soigneurs whip up every morning.

One can only slug down so many cups of brown French water (“coffee”) before a man dies and I now travel with my own beans, a hand crank grinder and press to get a good morning brew. Needless to say, presses dot the table at pretty regular intervals. It’s amazing what a difference starting the day on the right foot can make when you’re looking out a window at rain-soaked, wind-whipped trees and it hits that you’re about to have the privilege of racing for 200k in thos conditions. Not surprisingly there is often a reasonable stash of chocolate to be found if you make the rounds…

Some of the many other miscellaneous items you’ll often see around: Hand sanitizer – in jugs; Mixed bags of cold and flu medicines – these days it seems like somebody is always sick and we’re a paranoid crew; Pillows from home, when space allows – nothing makes a closet sized room more like home; The plug-in water boiler – tea whenever; Plastic zip-locs of mate and tea bags – caffeine anytime, even cold brewed; Books – we essentially run a book share program with the same group recycled for a period of time before being refreshed from back home; and clippers – somebody always seems to have a pair around and many of the hacked away mops of hair show it.

With a one bag, plus one carry on travel limit, despite wanting to bring the kitchen sink along we’re spatially restricted and most of our room is consumed by the essentials: the masses of cycling clothing required for all weather conditions, a set of warm-ups and a few T shirts. Pretty basic.

Fortunately you’re only on the road for so long and before you know it the race is over, you’re back to something familiar and the travel quirks fade quickly back into the comfortable normalcy of home.