Gerryattrick

I bumped into a friend I hadn't seen in over a year last week. He told me he has just got a job as a mechanic for one of the European racing teams and showed me around the lorry/mobile workshop he was driving. Inside was a workshop with a dozen of the team bikes, plus a spare set of wheels for each. What an amazing set-up, and if I wanted a carbon bike I'd be drooling with envy. Each bike weighs next to nothing, and even then have had to be made heavier than they could be to comply with UCI regulations.

The downside is he is terrified of being responsible for that amount of expensive equipment, plus he says he feels under an awful lot of pressure knowing how important his setting up of the bikes and in-race maintenance is for each rider and the team result.

And to think I used to work alongside him at the community bike workshop a few years back, often on knackered BSOs.

There's hope for me yet.......

Rick@OCRR

While there certainly is hope for you (yet) are you sure you want that kind of high-pressure job? Guess it probably pays well too so big picture it's no doubt worth it and a great experience he'll always remember; even the tough bits!

Rick / OCRR

baron von trail 

Somewhat related: years ago I used to want to be a professor at a major university. My thoughts were teach a few classes and ride bikes the rest of the day. Well, one day, I actually talked to a professor, and asked him how was the gig.

What he described sounded worse than my job. The bulk of what he did was chase after grants. Lots of schmoozing and tours on the cocktail circuit. What he did not do was teach classes or ride bikes.

I've loved my job ever since.

TimothyH

Being away from home, sleeping in strange beds, eating whatever is available...

About eight years ago I walked into my manager's office and announced that I would no longer travel and that I was comfortable with the consequences of making that choice. It worked out for me and now I work from home but pro tour or not, traveling for work gets old after a while.

Gerryattrick

My friend is only 30 years old and is still a keen mountain bike and road bike racer. This is an exciting opportunity for him while he is still young and I doubt that he has plans to do it into his 40s. I think he is right to go for it for the experience and the memories.

ltxi

That was my hard core, road warrior life for 42 years. I now haven't been on a commercial air flight since May 2014 and have been fully retired since the first of this year. To say I don't miss any of it would be a gross understatement!

John E

Been there ... done that. As an applications engineer in the early 1980s, I used to travel about 10 weeks/year, and that was before crowded low-fare flights and heightened TSA security. When you are 30, building a career, and don't yet have kids, it is OK for awhile, and I was able to give my wife a delightful and pretty inexpensive 3-week European vacation in November 1982, but I don't know if I could handle that much travel now.

beechnutC23

Until 2002, I travelled globally for my employer; Europe, South America, Africa, Korea & Japan, USA, and all over my native land, Canada. It was fun when I was in my 30s. Then when I hit my 40s I started to notice it taking a bigger bite out of me. I made a career switch from being a chemist in the pulp and paper industry (which was dying anyway) into IT (I had taken many elective computer science courses in university and had developed some of my own apps for my lab).

Now I'm retired as I found that commuting for my job was also starting to take a bigger bite out of me as I hit my 50s, and the area I lived in was far from where the jobs were.

Life is short, and cars, airplanes and hotel rooms are about the worst places to enjoy it. Now when I travel it's for fun, and I stay in monasteries, B&Bs and vacation rentals mostly, depending on whether I'm alone or with my wife.