On The Pegs September 2019 - Volume 4 - Issue 9 | Page 116

On The Pegs
116
If You Want It, Bring It!
Yes, they have hardware and grocery stores overseas, but it is much easier if you
bring what you think you’re going to need. Wandering around lost in a hardware
store looking for a set of Allen drivers is much harder when all of the signs are
in Slovak. You also never know what you’re getting into with the food situation
either. They will have bananas, sure, but you might not be able to find your pre-
ferred flavor of Gatorade or Clif bar over there. It never hurts to stick a jar of your
favorite peanut butter in there either, just so that you always have a backup plan.
This mentality may have also been why I earned the “team’s heaviest crate” label
every year I went to the ISDE.
Your Trusted Companion/s
Every Club rider is required to bring at least one companion with them. This
will not be a vacation for them either. Those who aren’t riding are still expected
to contribute to the team effort (If you’re interested, Dirt Rider did a really cool
story on the behind-the-scenes efforts of the workers and volunteers at the ISDE).
If your wife or mom or girlfriend doesn’t know the first thing about motorcycles,
that’s no free pass. They can slice bananas or carry gas cans or keep time at the
checkpoints, or they can work the spaghetti tent at Parc Ferme and help clean up
the work area and reload the container at the end of the day. More experienced
volunteers do the allowable bike work (oil changes and radiator refills), prep fresh
tires and air filters, gas the bikes and patiently explain to a panicky rider how to fix
the (fill in the blank here) that got broken or quit working since the last check.
My mom, who by now might be able to tell a two-stroke and four-stroke apart
(one of them has that big pipe right?), always worked the Parc Ferme, where she
was given a clipboard and told to keep time for all of the riders in the work area,
making sure they knew how much time they had and when they needed to leave.
This doesn’t sound complicated, until you have fifteen riders in the work area who
are all on different minutes and need to be told every few minutes how much
time they have left before they need to go. While not all jobs have the same level
of responsibility, you definitely want to make sure whoever you bring is reliable
and willing to work hard in whatever capacity they can. Each worker that comes
with a rider gets a day or two off to go spectate, so it’s not a total grindfest. But
everyone is supposed to pull their weight, and assist any American rider, not just
their own.