A Day in the Life of MASH on the Tour

We’ve had some questions about our daily routine on this little road trip. Of course, every day is different but here’s what a typical schedule might look like.

Photo by Josh Kadis

We usually meet in the hotel lobby at 7am and head out to breakfast at Denny’s, IHOP, or something like that. A couple of the hotels have had edible breakfast in-house, which has been rad. By the time we eat, fiddle with our bikes, load up the vehicles, and drive to wherever we’re starting from, it’s usually between 9am and 9:30.

We have a great setup in terms of vehicles and support. The riders and photo/video equipment are transported in a rental passenger van, while the bikes and luggage roll in a biodiesel Dodge Sprinter provided by Clif Bar with a trailer. A lot of the taping happens from a Honda PS250 scooter, which travels inside the trailer as well.

Photo by Josh Kadis

Mike Martin is shooting video and photos, along with Gabe Morford for the first few days. They’re the two filmmakers behind MASH. Will Meeker plays the role of production assistant and gets a litany of little things done. Steve MacDonald has been driving the passenger van and making sure that all the riders have what we need during the day. Matt Sharkey from Clif Bar has been with us the whole time, driving the Sprinter and helping us in innumerable ways. All the support has been awesome. It’s what makes this trip possible, really.

Photo by Mike Martin

The riders, by the way, are Rainier Schaeffer, Jonathan Burkett, Garrett Chow, Blake Van Knopka, Walton Brush, Andy Peterson for the first couple days, and myself, although I won’t be riding all the stages due to some other commitments at the Tour.

Anyways, once we hit the road it’s pretty free-form. Sometimes we ride in a paceline and sometimes the group breaks up, it depends on the terrain and how people are feeling. We eat a lot of Clif product, supplemented by “real food” like ham and cheese sandwiches. I’ve been drinking 6-8 bottles per day.

Photo by Josh Kadis

The pro peloton usually passes us during the ride. It’s kind of amazing how many cars are required to shepherd them. There’s a “rolling enclosure” around the race, meaning that CHP officers shut everything down before the race comes through, then the roads open back up. We just have to wait. If there’s a breakaway with a big lead on the main field, it can take well over half an hour.

A few of the pro riders know what we’re up to, especially the Garmin-Slipstream team since we did an event with them at Clif Bar HQ in Berkeley last week. Svein Tuft always gives a head-nod. And it’s been surprising how many spectators know MASH. A lot of people have seen us out there every day and cheer when we come by.

Photo by Josh Kadis

We’re treating this as a road trip, not an official race. So we just ride as far and as fast as we can until we get as close as we can to where the race finished that day. Our arrival time has varied, but it’s usually dark by the time we climb off our bikes, mill around for a minute, put on dry clothes, and load up the vehicles. We’ll grab some dinner on the way to the hotel, and then get some rest.

-Josh