Interesting comments

[Johny]

I was reading the Jan issue of CYCLE SPORT. One Story (written by Lionel Bimie and Richard Hellett) is about the new Giant frame and Shimano DA 1O the team T-Mobile is using for this new season.

One team mechanic, Dirk Tyteca, was commenting on how the riders are gonna respond to the new frame and group. " A lot of riders don't take as much interest in the bikes as you'd think. As long as their position is the same as always and the bike works well, they are happy. Of course, they wouldn't want a bike that is much heavier or doesn't work as well, but there's so little difference between the top bikes now, it's just a case of getting used to something new. After a couple of week's' training everyone will be used to the new stuff."
"Erik Zabel is different. though. He will be fascinated because he wants to know about everything... Some of them (riders) don't know how to do even very simple repairs..." Tyteca also revealed that there was a rider who trained for a week with his brake block rubbing because he couldn't adjust it.

PS. There is a lot more interesting stuff than the minor points I cited here.

[Bill Bove]

A buddy of mine got to go to Europe to work with a D1 team a few years ago and came back with a story about a top pro who brought his bike to the mechanic after racing on it all day and complained that the bike worked fine but there was something about it that "just didn't feel right". So the mechanic starts looking over the bike and he notices that it wasn't that riders bike at all. He, the rider picked up the wrong bike before the start. It was a much taller teammates bike, 4 or 5 c bigger than his. The mechanic said that most of the riders were brain dead, they could ride fast but other than that they were lost.

[Redturbo]

My guess would be if these guys don't pay any better attention to details, they probably aren't the guys on the podium at the end of the day.
turbo

[sellsworth]

With the nature of sponsorships pros aren't in the position to critique their bikes publicly. So if course they are only going to talk about positioning and fit. I’m sure that they do care more than the quote indicates. There may not be much difference in the weight among the bikes, but there are so many other variables that could make a slight difference in a pro race.

[JohnS]

I remember when I was shooting competitively at the national level. All the civilians were interested in new gadgets. The military shooters shot what was issued and usually won the matches. Theri guns were good but nothing special.

[Redturbo]

I'd bet you could of taken that rifle apart with your eyes closed.
turbo

[JohnS]

You're right. When you'd talk to the military shooters, they wouldn't know much. You'd ask, "what make barrel is that and what's the twist?" and they'd say, "I don't know. It was issued to me". When you're REALLY good, equipment isn't as important as long as it's "good enough".

[Kevan]

but when his own personal equipment began to falter he decided to compensate by buying that high-zoot Ottrott...

Sans, just remember this... you too can breakdown that bike with your eyes closed.

So for Pete sakes keep'm open!