It’s been referred to as Christmas in March. The time of the year when all the bits and pieces from you team fall into place and are delivered in one nice package. In the past I have received such packages from SoBe/Cannondale, BearNaked/Cannondale and then LaGrange. This year, I was lucky enough to have received the package I was also on the team that built all 12 packages for the riders. I have a whole new appreciation for the efforts involved. Team members Kris French, Zach Spinhirne-Martin and myself, along with two volunteer mechanics Dave Fike and Mike Marrow stayed late into the night (past midnight) to get everything built, sorted and palletized for the Panther Expedite pickup the next morning.

We started with egg carton like containers of SRAM Force derailleur’s, brakes, cassettes, shifters, cranks, BB’s and chains. We then assembled the pieces from Easton/Giro that included both EC90 Aero carbon race wheels and EA70 aluminum training wheels. Giro supplied an Ionos and Advantage 2 TT helmet, along with new Havik sunglasses. Easton came through with  handlebars, stems, and seatposts. We all run aluminum handlebars because of the nature of the racing and travel involved. Aluminum can be crashed over and over and you need less worry when repeatedly removing your bar from you stem during travel.  Next was sorting through a box of Capo apparel to find each members allotment of jerseys, bibs, and skinsuit.

We keep all members sizing info on a Google Doc that lives in the “cloud”. This way each mechanic could simply log on and build the bike to spec. Further, if we get to a race and need a new bike on short notice we can log onto the doc from our phones and get the exact sizes and measurements for each rider.

After building for six hours we were done. The Panther truck showed up the next morning and gathered the goods. The driver got word that he was picking up the companies team equipment and was genuinely excited to be the one doing the job. Now that everyone has their goods it’s time to get down to business, we will be seeing you at the races.

-Noah Singer