Amgen Tour of California 2019 Official Program

18 | AMGEN TOUR OF CALIFORNIA | OFFICIAL 2019 PROGRAM 2019 I t’s no small task to organize the fleet of mechanics responsible for the Amgen Tour of California peloton, but that’s ex- actly what SRAM Neutral Race Support chief Mark Niemiec does. He shared his insights into the logistics and equipment involved in this giant undertaking. You do more than people think. How many vehicles, mo- tos, bikes and wheels do you need to oper- ate during the week? I’m responsible for six cars, a truck and trail- er, and several motor- cycles. I have a fleet of bicycles. I think last year I had 60 bicy- cles and 200 sets of wheels. I also hire all the crew. I’m also the point of contact for the race itself. Say the race organizers or officials need something, everything goes through me. Really, working on bikes is the smallest part of my job. In the race, I’m the one who directs where the neutral service vehicles need to go, and I coordinate that with the officials, usually the day before. Our team has ra- dios that we communicate on during the race, and also has race-provided radios so we can listen to radio tour and the race officials. How big is your crew for Amgen Tour of California? For the Amgen Tour of California, I’ll have 16 people on my squad and a couple an- cillary mechanics. They’re all contractors for the most part. I arrange their travel to get to the race and deal with those logis- tics as well. What are some of the things you have to coordinate with the race officials pri- or to the start? It’s all about where we are on the course at what point in the race.When would they like us to move forward in the peloton? A mile up? Two miles? I already have it marked on my map and in my head, so they don’t have to tell us again during the race. Also, if there is some sort of issue that they’d like us to pay more atten- tion to, for example if they want us to carry extra water bottles for feeding during a hot day, we’ll make that happen. There are so many different group sets, wheel combinations, etc. How do you keep track of it all when dealing with the entire peloton? Typically, a few days before the race starts, our team of mechanics will go around and see what everyone has – if they are on disc wheels, rim brakes, and what groupsets they are on. This year it’s going to be a little more complicated be- cause not all the teams have 12 speed groupsets, so we have to carry extra. Then, we have to account for the 12 speed teams who are on disc wheels and some who are on rim brakes, so we bring two sets of those. Then some are on 11 speed, then there’s the difference between the front and back wheel, different rotor size, skewer size, the list goes on. There are about 12 different possibilities for wheels, and we can’t carry everything. THE IN-RACE BIKE SHOP