This is an excerpt from the new book Of Crank & Chain: Cyclocross, by Drew Coleman. You can buy it here.
The race mechanic has a special soul. Nomadic, they exist in the blurry background of cyclocross and toil in relative obscurity. To be a race mechanic is to be part of a kind of guild. A realm, really, that's defined by taking care of everything and everyone else—the bikes, the gear, the schedules, the cleaning and the building and the breaking down, and most importantly...the racers. The race mechanic spends their time in service to others with their head down, staring at chains and cleats and spokes and listening to the language that the bike speaks; a language that only they know and understand.
It is about details and routine and getting it right and dirty clothes and greasy hands and going weeks without a haircut and dialing in specific PSI and checking and rechecking pressure and shifting and braking and it is early mornings and long days and cleaning and more cleaning and doing it all over again after openers and course preview. Most of all, the race mechanic problem solves and supports and listens and manages and organizes and cooks and goes to bed long after the others. Only to rise amid the early morning hours, before everyone else, and nurses a hangover (sometimes slight, other times strong). All so that the riders we all love and who we cheer for at the tape and whom we follow on social media and who we watch on live streams can do their thing: train, race, compete and, if everything comes together, win. I was once told that a good day for the race mechanic is when they are not noticed. That the only things separating a rider from a good race day and a bad race day are luck, the legs or the course and whether or not the bike does what it's supposed to do. Once the light turns green, the race mechanic marinates for an hour in the anxiety of what can be controlled—the shift, the glue, the brake, the PSI, the torque—as well as what cannot.
The race mechanic is an ER doctor of dirt and mud. They must be calm and problem solve quickly, oftentimes while also using their neck as a stand to dial everything in on the fly in the pit after executing a bike exchange. Which, if you've never seen it, is a ballet of dismount, release, roll, catch, throw, roll, catch, run, and remount followed by the mechanic setting off in a dead sprint—clad in rain gear or shorts but always, it seems, in rain boots—to the power washer on an already wet and nasty day so that they can clean and check PSI and shifting and braking in a matter of minutes before their rider shows up at Pit 2. After which that same bike will return to the mechanic in Pit 1, clogged and filthy and rattling and in need of a 3 minute wash and a triage overhaul. In this frantic fashion the beehive of the pit continues for roughly 50 minutes or so. But only after the hustle and rush of simply getting from the start line where the race mechanic held for their dear racer an umbrella on a hot day or a jacket on a cold day and then bolted to the pit with the B bike in tow and got situated just before their rider came through pit 1 for the first of many times. And always before the race mechanic spends the final 20 minutes rushing back to the finish to be there for their rider as they cross the white line for the last time, offering up water for dousing on a hot day or for cleaning up on a muddy day and gathering the bike and maybe their rider's body in support of the effort so that the rider can quickly recover and muster enough strength to eventually stand up, tell war stories, and hug the riders they just battled, and then make it back to the tent.
The ethos of the race mechanic is about helping out the lone rider who has no team and program and no support and who is having a go at it independently, no doubt on their own dime and the race mechanic is about the privateer who needs a little help with all the things that the race mechanic has to offer, or who needs a little shelter, or a small space for warm up, or to stay warm when the weather gets shitty because racing is about hugs and helping one another out—at least until the light turns green. And, the race mechanic always abides.
The race mechanic packs coolers with ice and stuffs cubes into pantyhose and sets up trainers and tables and hydration and snacks and white boards. The race mechanic sets up the team home base for the weekend in a parking lot or in a field or next to a boat or in a barn and takes it all down long after the riders have gone home or onto the next event. The race mechanic cleans the bikes and packs the gear into a van in order to get everything on the next flight or to the next venue by driving long hours on the road in a van packed to the gills with frames and wheels and tires and tools and gel packs and water bottles and kit. Along the way, the race mechanic experiences bad coffee and shitty hotels and good music and radio static and then...The race mechanic gets to do it all over again.
Drew Coleman is an award-winning photographer and filmmaker based in Portland, Oregon. He created the popular short documentary "State of Cyclocross" and has travelled across North America working with some of the top teams, riders, and brands in cycling telling their stories in still and moving images. His photographs have appeared in multiple publications online and in print.
