I had a busy Saturday at then bike shop, so I didn’t have much time throughout the day to keep up with goings-on in the cycling world. I got home after work, opened up the social media feeds and saw two rockstar mechanic pals with stories on opposite sides of the good day/bad day spectrum.
One of the pro mechanics had the best day ever. His rider won the UCI XC Marathon World Championships. Hugs at the finish line, gold medal and rainbow stripes for the rider. The bike worked to perfection, until a flat tire near the end of the race. The rider had such a big lead that the flat tire didn’t matter.
Being a team mechanic and having a rider win a big race (not to mention THE BIGGEST RACE) is such a good feeling. I was lucky enough to work with some extremely talented athletes, and had the opportunity to experience such wins on the domestic road racing circuit and at UCI races. You can’t beat those days. There is SO MUCH pride in having a winning bike, whether your legs did the pedaling or not. You did your job well. The machine performed as intended. The top step of the podium for your rider is the best.
Not a lot more to analyze on the winning performance. The plan worked. Pop the champagne. Great work.
Another of my pro mechanic friends had the worst day ever. He was working as a neutral support mechanic for a big US event, which drew some big teams and high-profile UCI ProTour riders from the US. One of those riders needed a wheel, his team car was already up the road, and my mechanic buddy jumped out of the car to assist. The wheel he took to do the change (correct wheel for the job), had some end caps fall out and go missing during the jump. He went back to the car for more wheels, and in a panic, grabbed the wrong wheels for the fix. He went back to the rear again to grab a spare bike, but it was too late. The rider started running until he could get to his team car. Race day was over for him. No chance for a good finish, at that point.
I have been on that side of the race day, as well. Once upon a time, I had a team rider that was in contention for a big win on the final day of a stage race. She powered up the hill and a chainring bolt fell out and she bent the ring, dropping the chain, rendering her out of contention. She was upset about the result, as was the team director, and I was to blame for not checking the chainring bolts when prepping the bikes the night before. Totally my fault, but couldn’t change the day or the result.
How do you recover from a bad situation like that? Here are a few things to do when your day goes bad:
- Figure out what happened – What went wrong? If you didn’t have the right tool for the job, made an error, did something less efficiently than you could have…
- Find a way to prevent it from happening again – Get the tool, find a way to fix the error next time, develop a more efficient way to get the job done.
- Don’t get in your head about it – If you think you’re the first one to make an error of that magnitude… you’re not. You won’t be the first, and you won’t be the last. Your victories, wins, and accomplishments FAR outweigh the blunders.
- Don’t EVER read the comments! – In today’s world, social media is extremely prevalent. Everything is on video, and everyone has an opinion about what happened, what should have happened, how bad you suck, how they would have done it differently. Don’t obsess over people’s words. They weren’t there. They don’t have any idea what your pressure situation looked like, and they definitely couldn’t have handled it any better.
- Wake up the next day and GET AFTER IT! – Get up and keep moving. We live to fight another day. You won’t forget the blunder, but you are a professional. It’s your job to get back up and put it behind you. Just like professional cyclists have bad days, so do professional mechanics, and so does everyone else. Don’t let your bad days hold you back. There’s too much good work to do to let one moment at one race get in the way.
Because the bad days are few, those amazing days are plenty, and the next one is right around the corner.
PROBIKEWRENCH 