Well I am just back from the Pan Am Championships in Mexico. I had the opportunity to work with one of the greats, TJ Grove. TJ was our mechanic for the whole event (he did road, track and MTB). This portion of the Pan Am Championships was road and track. One of my new job duties is to travel with the team pursuit team, so I popped down for a few days to work with them.
In the above pictures you can see some great stuff. The very "official" UCI measuring jig made from fencing and tape. TJ Grove moving some equipment (at track event you can count on spending at least an hour a day just moving stuff around, either from the hotel to the track or your locker at the track to your box) and our mechanics work table. That is my super sweet (thanks FSA) ultra portable tool sack. For track events you don't need a lot of tools and I find this works great as I can stuff it in any piece of checked luggage (only 12lbs).
In the above pictures you can see some great stuff. The very "official" UCI measuring jig made from fencing and tape. TJ Grove moving some equipment (at track event you can count on spending at least an hour a day just moving stuff around, either from the hotel to the track or your locker at the track to your box) and our mechanics work table. That is my super sweet (thanks FSA) ultra portable tool sack. For track events you don't need a lot of tools and I find this works great as I can stuff it in any piece of checked luggage (only 12lbs).
TJ GROVE
TJ here making himself useful as the best work stand money can buy.
The airport in Aquascalientes is super small and super not like most airports you will travel through. Here is the team and all the goods we travel with. We had 11 folks departing on the last day of the event. We aren't talking jumbo jets here folks. It took a couple days for all of our USAC luggage to arrive back at the offices.
Each and every package had to be hand inspected! The team arrived at the airport at 4am for a 6:45a flight. The good news is that the security line is not like LAX or DEN! The bad news, wow it takes a long time to hand inspect luggage.
The championships were a great success Team USA walked away with 2 World Records (team pursuit and individual pursuit, both for women), 10 podium appearances; seven gold, two silver and one bronze. A huge success!!!
