Standing on a shaded Fort Lee, NJ side street, shooting the breeze, waiting for the inaugural Gran Premio New York to begin, one of the team directors said, “you at the driver’s meeting last night?”
I answered in the affirmative.
“You know that guy, the moto driver who said he was worried about getting sued?”
I did remember it. I was kind of surprised by the guy’s question. Mostly because he was wearing an official-looking moto vest and I had assumed he had experience driving a motorcycle in race caravans.
“I wonder if he bailed. I don’t see him around. When he asked that question, they should have excused him on the spot and sent him home.”
Another team director, also a long time racer and part-time director, smiled a bit, and said, “we can’t have normal people concerns here. There’s no place for that in bike racing.”
I don’t know if he was joking or not.
That is one of the things with bike racing. The sport is sustained by a mix of professionals, dedicated amateurs, middling hobbyists, and dilettantes, most of whom let what should be serious concerns about all sorts of things slide at times, “because it’s bike racing!” There’s an agreement that bike racing can be dangerous, but there’s no agreement on where the line is, where something goes from being safe with some risks, to an unacceptable risk. And I didn’t know if what I offered to do constituted an unacceptable risk or not, to the race or myself.
Through a friend, I had agreed to drive one of the commissaire’s cars at this inaugural UCI race that was part of a new concept; a pro bike race at the head of an amateur gran fondo. Gran Fondo New York. I’ve been a racer in UCI races, I’ve been in the peloton and worked my way back and through the caravan at races, gotten a sticky bottle or two, have had help making my way back after a crash and mechanicals. I wasn’t good enough that I was doing these things on a regular basis, but enough that it was different, and thrilling, and probably somewhat dangerous. I’ve been in a press car and got a few rides in team cars at pro races as well. Not enough that I was comfortable when the driver decided to go 100mph on a small road because she could; it was the fastest way to get from the field to the break to observe it.
At the driver’s meeting, I was on the hobbyist/dilettante side of the spectrum,
Though it seemed that probably many there were as well; I recognized about a third of the attendees and they ran the gamut. Which is probably why the UCI mandated the meeting, with drivers old and new having to sit through a power point presentation on what not to do, complete with replayed video clips of drivers and motos (motorcycles) causing crashes and mayhem in bike races. After being shown everything that can go wrong, and how those mistakes injure riders and change the outcome of races, the chief official left us with a positive note so we didn’t go away fearing we’d be hitting racers.
I didn’t think I’d really need to know any of it, as I was told I’d be driving the first commissaire’s car, Comm One, which is the one immediately behind the peloton and contains the lead official who directs the rest of the caravan. I figured it would be pretty straightforward; follow the pointy end of the race.
Only it turned out I was to drive Comm Three, that of another official, the floater.
That’s the car of the third UCI Commissaire. The first drives immediately behind the pack, directs the caravan, and follows the break once it’s established. The second is on a motorcycle. The third sets up 3-5 cars behind the Comm One, and floats around, acting passively, functioning as an observer, until called upon by the chief commissaire to do something. Whatever. I’d never done it before, so it was all new.
A challenge is that I would have to navigate around 12 team cars, a neutral support car, and various race motos—official, photographer, videographer, maybe some others. I figured they’d all be competing for position—trying to get the best views of the rear of the pack, so they could get their picture, service their rider, see something other than the rear end of another car.
The chief commissaire closed her presentation by stating to think about driving in the caravan as an auto race wrapped around a bike race. An explanation which made it feel as if the caravan was almost its own event, and the bike race was secondary.
While I wouldn’t see nearly as much of the race as I would have driving Comm 1, the third car is in the scrum with all the team cars and the dropped racers. It might be more chaotic.
The answer is very.
Staging was on a side street in Fort Lee 4km into the race, in a spot where the cars could line up and then jump behind the pack. Another bit of team director advice; you go to the bathroom when you can, not when you have to. The race started at seven. Everyone got into their cars at 6:55, and rolled into position one behind another. Silence, other than the occasional update from radio tour (race radio). Then the whine of motos, horns, and THE RACE.
The pack went by at 50kph, the cars ahead of me rolled out, and I had to floor it once onto Bruce Reynolds Blvd. 0-80kph to stay behind car three, and then slow a bit. Then more like 90kph as the commissaire in my car yelled at me to get into better position down the hill to the River Road entrance, which I knew had a 150-degree turn into the park. That was one of the things about driving in this circumstance; the official didn’t know the roads, so it was on me to tell him what was coming up so he could better prepare for whatever happens next.
Considering the risks and the job, and that I didn’t know the guy, I was ok with some yelling. I agreed to the job, could stand somebody for a few hours, even if I didn’t like him, but I figured the job would take most of the time and getting to know the official, outside of our duties would be minimal at best. I had met him only the night before, and spoke with him for a few minutes—just long enough to agree when and where to meet early the next morning. I got to the rally point early, and put my bike in the trunk. He was there earlier.
Strangers working together.
The commissaire I was driving I had never met before, nor did he live around here. He came in from California, and apparently, goes around the world officiating races, as a part-time thing. He had become an official in college when he was running his school’s bike racing team, and needed to become a race official, probably in the USCF days, to hold a race, which they needed for his collegiate racing association. He got the official’s license; a friend suggested he take the test for the UCI official’s license, which he couldn’t afford to do, so he audited the class, took it as a practice test, and scored high. The next year he paid for the class, passed the test, and has been doing it ever since.
Onto River Road, which is narrow and potholed and lined with rocks, I was expecting a crash and a few flats—at least if the whole Gran Fondo amateur event was barreling along the road. Some at least. Nothing. The 96 rider field did fine. But, as expected, gaps started to open climbing the 1.6km rise up to 9W at the end of the park. The commissaire, as part of his job, directs me to be in certain places at certain times. lots of ‘wait!’ ‘close that gap!’ ‘Get around that rider!’ He didn’t want our car to tow anyone back who was dropped, but the slipstream of follow cars offered a draft to many.
While he was barking, he was also taking hand-written notes, listening to radio tour when it was working, and checking his phone for messages, as well as sending text messages—there was at least one whatsapp group he was on for the race, a backup if the radio didn’t work—and making the occasional call.
The front might look steady, but the back is a mess.
Riders seemed to be almost constantly coming off the back and chasing back on. Cars in the caravan were racing past us, laying on the horn, getting to the back of the pack, stopping, then disappearing behind us, only to reappear. The Canadian and American teams seemed to have smaller cars for the caravan, while most of the foreign teams seemed to have larger cars—possibly because the rental was easier. I wanted a smaller sedan because of the narrow, bumpy roads that made up the course.
More complicated was that there was supposed to be 100% road closure and there wasn’t; occasional cars were driving toward the race. On more than a few occasions, I was on the left side of the road passing a rider and a team car as a car was coming the other way.
In order to get around cars and riders, even on flat roads, I was going close to 80k an hour and then slowing down to 40k. I think I went over 90k through downtown Haverstraw and nearly 120k on 9W on the way back. On a few of the bigger downhills, I was taking the left side of the road on a right-hand curve passing another car and a racer.
Climbs break legs.
Lots of racers started falling off the back once they forked off of 9W to go to Cedar Flats a little before half distance. The radios weren’t working well ,and were off at that moment. It was time to lay on the horn—only done in bursts of 2-4 taps–drive around racers, team cars, weave through commissaire and photo motos to pull alongside Comm 1 so my guy could talk (yell) with the chief official.
The position of Third Commissaire is to make sure that the racers are safe and the caravan is following the rules–service on the right side of the road, minimal motorpacing, no sticky bottles (for more than a few seconds). And to replace the Comm 1, if that car has to go somewhere else, like up to the break. When we’re in the caravan, the commissaire I was driving is ‘passive,’ observing what’s going on, taking notes on who’s dropped, who takes an illegal service (left side of the road is a fineable offense). When Comm 1 drives away, Comm 3 takes that position behind the main pack and is ‘active,’ aka directing the caravan while observing the race, which in our case meant the guy taking off his seatbelt (the seatbelt alarm eventually turns off), opening the sunroof and climbing halfway out the car to direct the team cars behind us.
It’s not normal driving.
Lots of pedal-slamming accelerations followed by almost as hard braking and returning to bumper-to-bumper traffic.
Weird bit of advice for driving in the caravan. The commissaire told me I should take a bad line through the turns, so racers and motorcycles can take the good line. This means taking the inside line, which means going hard on the brakes, making sharp turns, and then going hard on the gas. Kind of hard to get used to doing what years of bike riding has taught me about physics, and, like a crit, you have to pretty much floor the pedal coming out of turns.
Also hard: having someone driving on my left as the passenger in that car yells at the passenger on my right. It’s hard not to look left and then right to feel part of the conversation.
The pack was directed off course in the final hour at the 303/Western Highway intersection. We went straight when we should have gone right to ride to 9W. The pack (and cars) had to turn around to go back. Oy! When we raced back to our position behind the pack, it seemed like the racers were trying to get back into racing mode.
But they did. There wasn’t much of the race left, and it was possible a place or two with UCI points, which is probably what several teams came for, was up for grabs.
A moment to relax. But only a moment.
The pack started to break up as it climbed back up Stateline Hill into New Jersey. With the road clear of cars and the pack on the left side, I was struck by how pretty the climb was when I didn’t have to worry about cars, other than the cars behind mine, coming in both directions.
As a chase of 10 guys started to roll away on 9W, with about 30 minutes left, the Team Skyline car drove up to us and asked for permission to follow the chase, as their only rider was up there and they wanted a result. The Commissaire told him he couldn’t do it unless we went first. He wasn’t sure, so he unbelted, climbed up, looked back at the team cars and riders behind us, sat down and told me to bridge to the chase, which meant flooring it up to 120k (I think) for a few seconds to make the bridge. The Skyline car came with, but no other car did, which is what the commissaire wanted, as he was afraid a caravan would give a slipstream to the pack to making bridging up to the chase possible.
The rest of the race was easy. We watched that first chase group ride River Road back. There were some attacks. But with only ten riders sporting tired legs, they were easy to watch and the attacks looked half-hearted—though they were surely on their limit.
The race finishes with a two-kilometer climb, the last 500 meters of which is after the “diversion,” aka the place where the caravan is supposed to exit the course. As opposed to being a parking lot or quiet road, it put us on a street that led to the George Washington Bridge. We went from ignoring traffic laws and driving where we wanted to stuck between cones and lights and cars inching along. Slamming back into the reality of driving.
I should have gotten more pics before the start. I wasn’t going to be futzing with my phone during the race. I was still waking up and couldn’t quite figure out what was going on with the Vini Fantini’s team socks. I did eventually.
Did I mention the car was a rental? Glad it wasn’t a GM.
Superb description of hellish job. Bravo, JP.
Loved your take on this topic, very unique and thought-provoking.