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Peeing, crashing, eating, teasing and riding really fast: a day in the Garmin team car.
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Editor's Note: Mark Johnson spent stage 4 of the Amgen Tour of California in a Garmin-Slipstream support car with team director Matt White and mechanic Tom Hopper.
Two Garmin cars follow the field. We are in the first car, in third position behind the Astana and Columbia. Position in the caravan corresponds to each team’s best rider on GC. Garmin’s Dave Zabriskie is in third, so that’s where we sit.
We begin three parade laps through downtown Merced. The crowds are off the charts. White pulls up next to the Fly V car and talks with directors Steve Hegg and Henk Vogels. White and Vogels, both race-hardened Aussies, tease each other through open windows. Immediately after the neutral start, much of the field stops by a river to pee. Three riders attack. White gets on his radio and tells his riders that he wants them to protect Zabriskie and Tom Peterson.
Race radio — constant announcements in English and French of information about breaks, time gaps, and upcoming road conditions — says a Garmin rider has a flat rear wheel. It’s Peterson. Hopper has wheel in hand when we halt behind him. Straddling his bike, Peterson calmly lifts his rear wheel from the ground. Photographer Graham Watson pulls up on his motorcycle and starts snapping. Ten seconds and Hopper is pushing Peterson down the road on a new wheel. White grabs the microphone dangling from the ceiling and instructs Steven Cozza and Tyler Farrar to drop back. Within seconds, they are pacing Peterson back to the field with Freddie Rodriguez (Rock Racing) in tow. After about ten minutes of hard pulling, Cozza and Farrar deliver Peterson back to the field.
At the bottom of the day’s first climb the speed ramps to 27 mph. The back of the field looks sketchy as riders try to hop around gaps that are shredding their wind protection. White pulls up to the Astana car. Johan Bruyneel and White discuss how the roads have been plowed of snow at the day’s higher climbs. “There’s ice on the road,” Bruyneel observes, driving 15 inches from the Garmin car.
White, 34, became team director in 2008 after a career that had him race all three grand tours. Nearly every rider who passes by the Garmin car on their way back up to the peloton gives him a hello, from Belgian grunts to Spanish holas. He often responds with encouraging words. When OUCH's Australian rider Karl Menzies is gapped on the day’s first climb, White points to the rider’s chiseled legs. “That’s Australia’s answer to the He Man. Look how ripped he is.” White rolls down his window. “C’mon Karl, stay in the cars.”
Three kilometers into the climb, Cozza is at the back of the field. He drifted back in the process of removing his knee warmers. “Steve, just stay there mate. Relax. Don’t panic mate. Just stay where you are.” Cozza tosses a jacket and the knee warmers into the car. White radios his riders: “That’s half the climb boys, that’s half the climb. Guys, Columbia is being very aggressive today. Watch for them. Especially you Christian, Tom Peterson.” We hit the steepest part and the field climbs at a steady 16 mph. “It’s blown to pieces,” White tells Hopper.
After the KOM, race radio announces that we are 50 kilometers into the race. White gets on the radio. “OK guys, the bar is open.” Suddenly riders spread all over the road. It’s now legal to drop back to team cars for food, and domestiques go to work fetching bottles. Taking advantage of the slackening pace, a long line of riders stops for a nature break. Spectators and a California Highway Patrolman look on bemusedly.
We enter the small Sierra foothills town of Mariposa, a gateway to Yosemite National Park. The streets are jammed with spectators. People yell “Garmin, way to go!” The high school’s cheerleaders belt out cheers. From the car, the race is a blurred spectacle of excited people, awe-struck kids, dogs straining at their leashes, and lots of cell phones held aloft to get a shot.
Outside town, White checks his Blackberry. We eat sandwiches. Near the bottom of a descent, riders crash. Several Garmin guys are involved, but all hop back on their bikes. Floyd Landis stands next to his bike, which is missing a front wheel. Oscar Freire (Rabobank) is on the ground, as is Team Columbia’s Kim Kirchen — his face is wracked with pain. Later, race radio notifies that Kirchen and Freire are both on their way to the hospital.
White notes that the race dynamic will now change. Rabobank will take the pressure off since they no longer have their three-time world champion sprinter, Freire, to deliver to the finish.
White gently reminds riders to stay fueled. “Keep tapping away at the drinks guys. Fluids are important today.”
He answers rider questions before they need to ask them. After the first KOM, Rock Racing’s Francisco Mancebo drops back from a break that formed at the gun. White grabs his dangling radio microphone and tells his riders, “Mancebo is dropped. You can relax. Guys, we’ve got JMac (Jason McCartney), Tyler Hamilton, and Serge Pauwels from Belgium in the break. None of them are a threat.”
“We are 15k from the climb.” “Now we are 5k from the climb.” “We are on the climb.” Descending from the day’s highest KOM, the road is wet and covered with sand. “We’ve got two more miles of this, boys. Then the roads dry out.”
Not all riders seem to get this much information. Near the bottom of the slippery descent, a Jelly Belly rider hits the deck. He jumps up and yells “Why didn’t anyone tell us?”
Five kilometers from the sprint in Oakhurst, Christian Vande Velde crashes. He’s up quickly, and two teammates immediately pull him back to our car. Vande Velde tosses a pair of knee warmers into the car. He utters a few cuss words, says he banged his knee and that it’s a bit sore. White tells Vande Velde to go to the medical car. There, the race doctor sprays his knee with an abrasion treatment and Vande Velde is pulled back up to the peloton.
After topping the final, snow-covered KOM, the field hits 59 mph on the descent. White radios the riders. “Guys, make sure you keep eating and drinking on this long descent.” A Bissell rider pees from his bike while descending. It’s an impressive feat.
At the bottom of the descent, White radios Farrar to come back to the car. There is still a break up the road, but the gap is plummeting and it’s going to be a day for sprinters.
A BMC rider goes down. It’s Scott Nydam and it looks bad. Blood is pouring from his face. Our car goes silent. Spending a day witnessing so many crashes makes you realize just how dangerous this sport is. In a split second, a happily pedaling, sun-dappled peloton can turn into a scene of blood and catastrophe.
Farrar makes his way to the car. White asks, “How are you feeling?” Farrar says he’s good. “You going for the sprint today, mate?” Farrar says he is game. White encourages him — “Do it for confidence in you and confidence in the team.” After dropping clothes into the car and getting on-the-road chain lube, the 25-year old rider fills the front of his jersey with bottles and returns to the peloton.
White gets back on the radio. “Alright guys, Tyler has good legs today. Can I have Peterson and Trent (Lowe) rolling through with the teams? We are here for the stage win today, guys.”
We pull up to the Columbia-High Road car. White rolls down the passenger window and says “We are going to ride today. We are going to ride.” He gets a thumbs up response. We move up to the Astana car and White gives them the same message. Asked why he tells the other teams of his intent to race for the win, White explains. “They may put more guys up there if they know you are in.”
We barrel into Clovis. Viewed from behind, the charging peloton sends up clouds of yellow chalk dust — from fans writing encouragement on the streets. Riders sit up after the 1k to go kite and we are shunted off the course.
White stops and waits for the results to come over race radio. Mark Cavendish (Columbia-High Road) first, Tom Boonen (Quick Step), second, Juan José Haedo (Saxo Bank) third and Tyler Farrar a very respectable fifth.
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