{"id":16343,"date":"2017-10-26T13:10:00","date_gmt":"2017-10-26T12:10:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/2017\/10\/26\/tables-turn-for-team-spur-mechanic-and-team-manager-r6948\/"},"modified":"2023-02-08T06:21:27","modified_gmt":"2023-02-08T06:21:27","slug":"tables-turn-for-team-spur-mechanic-and-team-manager-r6948","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/tables-turn-for-team-spur-mechanic-and-team-manager-r6948\/","title":{"rendered":"Tables turn for Team Spur mechanic and team manager"},"content":{"rendered":"

In something of a change of roles, the Team Spur staffers will saddle up and crank out some watts when they tackle the FNB Wines2Whales Ride from 30 October to 1 November.<\/p>\n

Team Spur Assistant Manager and Soigneur, Tim Bassingthwaighte and Technical Manager, JP Jacobs are usually responsible for looking after the every racing need of XC hotshot (and newly-crowned Cape Pioneer Champ, with Matt Beers), Alan Hatherly, and marathon queen Ariane L\u00fcthi. Now it\u2019s their turn to pull on the red-and-black lycra\u2026 And there is some disagreement as to how this is all going to pan out.<\/p>\n

\"ccs-62657-0-24401400-1509023137.jpg\"<\/a>Team Spur Assistant Manager and Soigneur, Tim Bassingthwaighte and Technical Manager, JP Jacobs awaiting the arrival of their riders in the technical zone.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cA week or two ago JP was joking, saying what I do is easy,\u201d laughs Alan Hatherly. \u201cHe reckons, \u2018I just have to ride my bike and can go have fun all the time.\u2019 This is a bit of a role reversal for him and he can go and experience three days of hurt! So he can learn a lesson. Hahaha!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, they\u2019re incredible guys and just the best support any rider could ever ask for. Everything is always sorted, you know, I don\u2019t need to worry about anything. Tim does so much behind the scenes: Flights; car hire; buys the food; cooks the food. A whole bunch of other stuff\u2026 I\u2019m really happy they get to do something fun together and I hope that they come out the other side with their friendship intact.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHuge respect to them! I really hope they survive it well because we are going to need them a weekend later,\u201d Ariane echoes Alan\u2019s sentiments. \u201cAnd, I don\u2019t think they would want us to do their jobs – they\u2019re going to be a lot better at doing ours than we could ever be at doing theirs.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnyone who knows my mechanical skills know how important JP is for me, I\u2019m really reliant on a good mechanic! Body and legs are crucial, but equipment plays a big part in successful mountain-bike racing too. JP is not just a mechanic, I\u2019ve worked with many different people in my career and I can honestly say JP is the best mechanic I\u2019ve ever worked with, in all aspects. He\u2019s a perfectionist, when it comes to stock and those kinds of logistics too, which is a big thing,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\"ccs-62657-0-68670000-1509023133.jpeg\"<\/a>Team Spur technical manager JP Jacobs hard at work. Photo credit: Johan Badenhorst.<\/span><\/p>\n

According to Ariane, not even the toughest of stages will test the bond JP and Tim have forged while on the road. \u201cI mean, these are two guys who \u2013 when we go to Spur to eat \u2013 they\u2019ll order different things and then share, going as far as to count out the chips. Double beds\u2026who knows what else they\u2019ve shared while on tour,\u201d Ariane jokes.<\/p>\n

Team Director Nic Lamond looks at it from a practical, stage-race riding point-of-view. \u201cMuch as some of our top pro teams have to work out the strengths and weaknesses of their riding partners, JP and Tim are going to have to do the same,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cJP is an incredibly skilled bike handler, but travels the most of anyone in the team. Supporting both Ariane and Alan, and, has come off the back of a very successful but also very strenuous season, so probably hasn\u2019t put in the kind of time he probably should have. I think Tim probably has more of a diesel engine, so look for Tim to lead up the climbs and JP to fly the downhill singletrack sections.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Nic the sacrifices that pro athletes make is well documented, the sacrifices these two make behind the scenes of a successful racing outfit, is not. \u201cReally it\u2019s an opportunity to have the freedom of riding their bikes for a couple of days, without any worries of looking after someone else.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"ccs-62657-0-99946400-1509023143.jpg\"<\/a>Tim Bassingthwaighte providing Alan Hatherly with a fresh bottle at the recent Cape Pioneer Trek.<\/span><\/p>\n

So, what do the boys think about these up-coming three days of \u2018freedom\u2019? Well, they are under no illusions:<\/p>\n

\u201cPreparation wise, it is quite simple – JP and I aren\u2019t prepared\u2026at all,\u201d Tim says. \u201cWe\u2019ve been on one or two rides, wouldn\u2019t call them training rides. Having said that, we really are looking forward to the event. We\u2019ve heard some great stories and stuff about the route – some people say we will be fine, others have a complete opposite point-of-view.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe didn\u2019t prepare for the event, because earlier this year we planned to ride but couldn\u2019t get an entry,\u201d JP explains, playing down the lack of time they would\u2019ve had to prepare for a three day stage race of this nature anyway. \u201cThen, at the 11th hour, Specialized gave us a ticket. At first we were going to turn it down because of the lack of training. However, after a bit of back-n-forth we decided, \u2018screw it we\u2019ll show them what we made of!\u201d<\/p>\n

See just what the Team Spur boys are made of by following their antics at the FNB Wines2Whales Ride, on Team Spur\u2019s social channels. Indeed, Tim might just have enough time at the top of some of the climbs to tweet\u2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In something of a change of roles, the Team Spur staffers will saddle up and crank out some watts when they tackle the FNB Wines2Whales Ride from 30 October to 1 November. Team Spur Assistant Manager and Soigneur, Tim Bassingthwaighte and Technical Manager, JP Jacobs are usually responsible for looking after the every racing need […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":33499,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[483,404,15],"featured_location":[],"class_list":["post-16343","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-events","tag-team-spur","tag-w2w","tag-wines2whales"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16343","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16343"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16343\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33499"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16343"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16343"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16343"},{"taxonomy":"featured_location","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/featured_location?post=16343"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}