Punctures on Péguère: A wild day for Mavic neutral service
- By Caley Fretz
- Published 6 hours ago
- comments
- Share
-
Evans’ wheel after the tack attack. Photo courtesy Petar Tomich | Mavic -
A tack in an Astana wheel. Photo courtesy Petar Tomich | Mavic
PAU, France (VN) — Mavic’s neutral service team enters a race like Paris-Roubaix expecting battle. Flats will happen, the peloton will be splintered, and team cars will be nowhere in sight. Neutral service will be the only thing standing between many riders and a DNF.
At the Tour, though, most days are different. Even on the biggest mountain stages the race splits into only a few groups, easily covered by team cars and mechanics. Neutral service is usually only called on a few times per stage, if at all.
Sunday’s stage from Limaux to Foix seemed to be the same. The first Cat. 1 climb, Port de Lers, saw the main field split — the breakaway was up front, as it had been all day, followed by the GC favorites and then a few smaller grupettos. The situation remained the same most of the way up the Péguère, with none of the favorites able to make a difference. Ordinary proceedings, completely manageable.
Then the tacks hit.
“We had already summited, then there were three calls over our radio,” recalled Petar Tomich, the “jumper,” or back-seat mechanic, in one of Mavic’s yellow-wrapped neutral support cars.
“The calls came in from the car behind us. Flat, then another flat, then another. Three consecutive, which is very irregular. The road seemed fine. I thought it would be odd to send people down a road they knew was going to shred tires.”
Tomich spends July behind and to the right of driver Freddy Bassy, a long-time Mavic employee and a man Tomich describes as “the best driver I’ve ever been with. Period.” Tomich himself is a five-year veteran of Mavic neutral service, and spent years as a professional mechanic.
The two were ahead of the GC favorites, rushing over the top of Péguère in an effort to get a head start on the large group. Even the
To read the whole story, visit here: http://velonews.competitor.com/2012/07/tour-de-france/punctures-on-peguere-a-wild-day-for-mavic-neutral-service_230265