Behind the scenes with Bissell’s Head Mechanic Ben Oliver
The early season was a busy time for Bissell’s Head Mechanic Ben Oliver, known as BenO. In January, the team raced in the Tour de San Luis in Argentina followed by a week long training camp which left him 10 days to get ready for the Amgen Tour of California working with the other team mechanic Jim Oliver.
“So it was just 10 days and we had some stuff show up late and I was building TT bikes that week and just kind of praying to the god of products.”
Every year, brand new equipment is received and bikes that fit each rider’s specification must be built. For the race in California, a total of 20 Pinarello Prince were built for the 8 riders on the roster.
“Every rider has two road bikes, a race bike and a home bike, and fourteen time trial bikes in total. So for this race, there are 8 guys, 8 road bikes, 8 TT bikes and 4 spares.”
Each bike is put together in about an hour and a half to two hours with time trial bikes taking a bit longer.
“The road bike usually go together pretty fast. Time Trial bikes have external cables, housing going through cable bars and all that stuff, that’s going to take more time, it’s always takes a little extra effort for a TT bike. We use carbon paste on every single piece, if there’s a bolt we use carbon paste even on shifter clamps, handlebars, all that stuff. It’s just ind of a little extra.”
Not only do time trial bikes take longer to build, but each rider has specific requirements to get as aerodynamic as possible.
“Ben [Jacques-Maynes] and Tom [Zirbel] both run very different setups as far as where their hands are, the width of their bar, the extensions and obviously Tom has some different issues because of his size. As far as TT stuff, everyone is kind of unique, it’s what they like and we try to make it happen.”
Sometimes, extra modifications are needed. After Zirbel did some testing at the wind tunnel, changes had to be made to his setup.
“Tom found that he likes to run with much more width between his extensions so Jim did some magic to make that happen, we chopped up a $5000 time trial bar and made it work for him, that was the fun part of the day. The chopping stuff is always fun, every time we get to customize it’s a good day.”
Not just the riders were impacted by the weather during the eight days of the Tour of California. It also meant extra work for the mechanics, extending the cleaning time after each stage.
“We wet lube stuff, like it was last year, we were greasing chains last year, just trying to fortify everything against the elements. We use Vredestein TriComp Pro tubulars for rain or shine, it’s a pretty soft compound, people run lower pressure in the rain, it’s a good all weather tire.”
And then there was the dust cloud caused by the yellow chalk at the finish of stage 4 in Clovis.
“It was pretty funny because every leading edge of the bike was covered with yellow dust, spokes everything but only the leading edge. It was kind of weird, it was very obvious, it was very caked. Same old thing, wash it off, it came right off so that was nice but we are still finding wheels with yellow hubs.”
The hardest stage was Friday February 20, the time trial in Solvang, as BenO and DS Glen Mitchell headed out to Solvang the prior evening after a late night to get ready.
“TT are always tough. Transfers have been pretty killer. Glen and I went down to Solvang the night before so we could make sure to get a good spot but getting out of that place was a madhouse, so much traffic, it took us 4 hours to do a 150 mile transfer. It was terrible.“
Long days that can start at 6am and end around 9pm don’t deter BenO. The 29-year old likes his job.
“I like it. I got to go to Argentina this year and a lot of cool places. We have a really good group of guys that are very happy with what we do, we get thanked, it’s not a thankless job, so that’s nice.”
Even if sometimes it can get tricky to travel, but after four years on the job, BenO has all his equipment ready to go.
“It’s always a challenge, you have to pack what you normally carry in a 20-foot trailer into a suitcase. I’ve got a couple of cases that I carry, I’ve got a rack that I’ve built that fits into that case, just trying to find the balance between what’s going to get the job done and what is portable and easy to carry.”
But he still “finds those little TSA papers in my luggage.” Always.
By the numbers:
- 8 road bikes
- 8 time trial bikes
- 4 spares bikes
- 4 flats during Amgen Tour of California (compared to almost 30 last year)
Ask questions directly to BenO via his blog
