The Unsung Heroes of Team GB

 

2007 European Track Championship Home Page

Story posted July 18
By Larry Hickmott

 

The GB pit was always busy. Centre of picture is manager Helen Mortimer.

 

Whilst it’s the cyclists in the Great Britain Cycling Team who have to pedal their bikes to victory in races worldwide,  it’s the support staff in the team who help them get to a position where they can achieve these great deeds on two wheels. The Great Britain team is known world wide for its professional back up which ranges from the staff in the offices back in Manchester to those who leave their families behind and go on the road for weeks at a time at major events.

 

Those who are ‘lucky’ enough to go to the events are in for a long week as the days at a Track Championship are always endurance tests for one and all. And if the World Track Cups and World Championships are difficult enough, the Europeans are worse because there are two age categories competing – Under 23 and Juniors. There is also an open Women’s age category Omnium but GB does not compete in that.

 

Before I go any further – life on the road with GB is far from glamorous but rewarding in various ways. The team is made up of riders, coaches, carers, mechanics, performance analysts, a manager and me! You travel to a team hotel by plane or van and then spend the next week or so going between that and the track before jetting off home the day after the competition finishes. Not that anyone complains because it is a job they are all signed up for with eyes wide open but a holiday it is not!

 

Coach Rod Ellingworth joins his riders for breakfast to chat about the day ahead.

 

Long days
A typical day for a ‘carer’ or mechanic started at 6am and it would be non-stop until after 1am in the morning. The first day, as I found out doing similar hours to them, is easy enough but as the week moves on and the weather gets hotter, you can’t but help but admire the staff for their dedication to the cause with four or so hours of sleep a night and big demands made of them during the day. This is no ordinary 9 to 5 job!

 

The riders in Germany for the European Track Championships were certainly well supported with a wide range of staff to help them. Manager for the trip was former downhiller Helen Mortimer who oversaw the staff/rider comings and goings as well as the daily routine of which riders go to the track when, and with which coaches and even down to what colour kit they wear. Casual clothing for GB (staff and riders) comprises Red, White and Blue shirts and unless you want to be the odd one out, you need to keep an eye out on the team information sheets posted daily in the hotel foyer.

 

Each of the riders had their national coach there in Cottbus. These were Rod Ellingworth (Olympic Academy Men’s Endurance), Dan Hunt  (Olympic Academy Women’s Endurance), Darren Tudor (Olympic Development Men’s Endurance), Simon Cope (Olympic Development Women’s Endurance), Iain Dyer (National Sprint Coach) and Jan van Eijden (consultant sprint coach).

 

Left: Coach Simon Cope gives a final breifing to Alex Greenfield and Katie Colclough before a race. Right: mechanic Mark Ingham talks over the schedule with coach Iain Dyer.

 

Coaches would spend their mornings helping riders prepare for the days competition and then once at the track, be there for the rider to keep them informed as to when to get on the rollers, when to go to the line, what to do on the track and then afterwards a debrief on how the ride went. The coaches would also have to liaise with the carers and mechanics so their riders were well fed and their bikes equipped with the right wheels and gears for various efforts, whether they be training or racing ones.

 

The Great Britain coaches would also work together to provide support where needed. In the team events for example, sprint coaches would help their endurance counterparts getting race bikes to the start line and get the riders in position on the track until the officials took over the holding up of riders on the start line. Helping a fellow coach was also important at times when a large group  of GB riders were required at the start.

 

On the final day for example, three of the four categories had their Keirin event and these heats were all run one after the other. With two GB riders in  each category, the Sprint coaches were kept on the run for a while and as one race finished, they were required to help the next set of riders to the line.

 

Coaches Iain Dyer and Jan van Eijden brief their riders before an event.

 

Caring for the riders
In pro teams, the soigneurs are there to look after the riders needs and with GB the title given to these staff members is a ‘carer’. It is their job to take care of the 24 riders and with only two carers for GB in Cottbus (a third, Dave, arrived from London for the final few days), that task was to prove to be a long and difficult one for Andy Naylor and Luc de Wilde. Whether it’s getting to the track at 7am in the morning to prepare food and drink, to the cleaning of bottles and preparation of food for the next day when the clock is long past midnight, it is a non-stop job for the carer.

 

At his first track champs for GB was carer Andy Naylor.

 

As well as the tasks before racing and after it which can include driving staff back and forth to the track, the carers too have many other jobs whilst the team are racing. The pinning of numbers to riders skin suits is one, whilst taking hand chalk, a rider helmet, warm clothing and drinks to the line for the rider is another. With as many as 8 or 9 riders in the pits at once, it doesn’t take Einstein to work out how stretched they can become with tasks to be done in the pit and at track side. And we haven’t talked about them going shopping yet! As one said to me, time to sleep is when we get home!

 

Luc de Wilde gives Jason Kenny a push up the ramp to the track whilst right, Mark Ingham and Martyn Ashfield carry the bikes up to the track.

 

Mechanics

Make no mistake, the sacrifices the staff make for the good of the team are of their own choosing and there is a great deal of camaraderie between the carers, coaches, mechanics and managers. Everyone works hard and the mechanics are perhaps the ones that appear at least, to be the hardest working although there isn’t a lot in it as the carers too work similar hours. Looking after the 24 riders in Cottbus were Mark Ingham and Martyn Ashfield.

 

Both are experienced mechanics and Mark has worked on bikes at major track championships for years now whilst the European Track Champs was a first for Martyn. Being a mechanic isn’t just having a lot of experience in dealing with putting bikes together but in continuing to problem solve. Whether it’s rear drop outs which prove to be a pain for adjusting the tension of a chain to continually changing gears and wheels for riders, the life of a mechanic at  a major championship is not for the faint hearted.

 

They are the first down to the breakfast table at 6am and the last to go to bed which last  week was generally around one in the morning. The time in between is spent at the track and as one said, when its one in the morning and you can see a tubular needs changing and all you want to do is go to bed, its then that the demands of the job require difficult choices to be made. Thankfully for GB, our mechanics are keen to see jobs are done right no matter what the time.

 

Even during the breaks in competition, they are on duty as riders come to the track to train and will always need help with their bikes.

 

At a championship like this, the Juniors are required to do their own work on the bikes. This involves changing wheels and gears and taking their bikes back to the cabin for storage overnight. But even so, the mechanics are still required to check a lot of that work, especially that done prior to a race. There does come a time though when the amount of work exceeds the time available and some juggling needs to be done.

 

The most common task it would seem is the constant ‘gassing of tyres’. They are also required to take the bikes to be checked by the UCI officials and then carry them to the start line for the riders to race on as well as have their road bikes ready for them when they come off the track.

 

Mark Ingham places a bike in a starting gate. Not always a straight forward task as we saw in Cottbus.

 

The mechanics are also kept busy changing the gears and wheels for the Under 23’s, checking a juniors bike after a gear or wheel change has been made, packing up bikes not required anymore and carefully ripping tubulars off disc or five spoke wheels for new ones to be glued on. The team went through 50 tubulars at the championships at 50 quid a piece!

 

One insight I got was from Mark Ingham who explained how on a concrete track dust can get under a tread and lift it from the cotton base. The tyre is then changed because it is far better to destroy a still useable tyre than risk a rider getting injured when a tyre explodes at high speed causing a major fall and the possibility of a bike worth thousands of pounds getting destroyed in the process.

 

And when the races have finished for an evening and riders are tucked up in bed having eaten dinner with the team, it must be remembered that back in the cabins at the track burning the midnight oil are the people who help make the victories possible. Yes, they get paid for it but I would add they work far beyond what anyone would normally expect of them. In the five days they, like many staff, must rack up 90 hours plus and so fully deserve any credit they get for the work they put in to help the riders achieve the glory they do on the track.

 

Left: Prior to an event, the riders bike and spare wheels are taken to the line by one of the mechanics, in this instance, Mark Ingham. Right: Tyres before each race are wiped clean using vinegar. Here Martyn cleans the wheels of David Daniell.

 

Other staff
The team had other staff in Cottbus including Chris White and Duncan Locke (of the EIS)  who were there to video the GB events. Each day, morning and night, they would climb up onto some scaffolding in the stands and have their camera rolling.

This footage was used in Cottbus to help the coaches go through events with riders to prepare them for later rounds of said event and the footage used again and again in coaching sessions to come this year and the next.

 

Duncan Locke tracks a rider around the track whilst Chris White watches on the laptop.

 

I also came to see that the German efficiency I thought was so good at the start started to crumble once competition began. Trying to be in three places at once is never easy for me and when the result trays for the press are sometimes on the information desk but more often not there at all, getting results was never easy especially when the odd pdf uploaded to the event website was corrupt.

 

The scoreboard was also not of the same standard we come to expect at Manchester these days and so getting information sometimes meant a lengthy wait when there wasn’t time for hanging around.  So piecing together reports at 1 in the morning could well become frustrating but we seem to be getting there and who knows, I may even get round to posting some galleries of images which are still to be sifted through.

 

My thanks to the staff and riders who helped me bring you pictures and reactions to the great success the team enjoyed in Cottbus.
 

Photos

Martyn Ashfield helps hold Mark McNally during a training effort for the Team Pursuit.

 

Martyn checks the tension of the chain after one of the Juniors has changed their wheels.

 

Gassing tyres is one of the tasks performed most.