About a month ago, Pete, the service manager at Freewheel Bike sent out an email to all the mechanics about working support for a week long bicycle ride covering nearly 450 miles, from Edina MN to Green Bay, then on down to Milwaukee for the finish. The ride was organized by a group called Ride 2 Recovery. Their mission is get get wounded veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan into bicycling as a way to promote recovery, both mental and physical. For me it sounded like a way to get out of town for a week, see some parts of the country that I hadn't seen before, and participate in what seemed to be a good cause. Thankfully Freewheel Bike provided me with a company car and fuel. R2R supplied the food and shelter. I didn't need anything else.
I didn't really know what to expect. I had never worked as a support mechanic for any kind of event like this, and the ride had a unique mission, with unique participants. I guess I had a few pre-conceived notions. As it turned out, pretty much all of them were wrong. Such is life. Throw yourself in, and learn. Let your preconceived notions be dissolved and replaced.
The following is my experience over the week, working as a support mechanic for R2R.
