| (CP) - The first hint of trouble for Lance Armstrong at the Tour de France and Canadian Geoff Brown will be ready. The 44-year from Ottawa is a bike mechanic for Armstrong's Discovery Channel racing team. He will follow Armstrong and other Discovery riders in a support car, ready to make repairs as needed. It's Brown's 12th Tour. Armstrong, meanwhile, is bidding to win a seventh straight Tour before he retires. "I would be lying if I said I wasn't excited," Brown said Thursday from France on the eve of Saturday's opening segment of the Tour. "Last year he made history when he won the Tour de France for a sixth time. That was a huge historical moment in cycling. Now we're making history with probably the greatest Tour rider ever riding his last Tour de France and he wants to win it." Brown has worked for the Discovery Channel team since 1997 - then the U.S. Postal Service team. He believes victory No. 7 is within Armstrong's capabilities. "I believe he can and that's not just as aspirational opinion," Brown said. "I've seen his competition in recent races and I would say he's as good as they are at this particular time. "One thing that Lance has over everybody else is he's very strong mentally. I've never seen anyone who can concentrate or channel their mental energy into physical energy." Brown is one of four mechanics on Discovery's staff and will be one of two who will follow the peloton in the support vehicles. The mountain stages are not just hard on the riders as the mechanics have to be high alert. "If you're going to have a tense moment, that's when it's going to happen," Brown explained. "If there's a flat tire or a crash, you have to be ready to go to change the bike or change the wheel. "You're in the car for an average of six or seven hours every day following behind. You have some very dull moments, but then you have some very intense moments. You have to be ready to jump out of the car at the drop of a hat." Brown's days start at 6 a.m. and can go until 8 or 9 p.m. After each stage, the mechanics collect the bikes and transport them to a hotel. Each bike has to be serviced and locked up securely each night since they are worth between $6,500 and $15,000 Cdn. "We'll keep Lance's bike in a special place, not with the other bikes," Brown said. The mechanics feel the pressure of making sure the bikes perform as well as the riders do. "If it turns out a guy lost the race because of one of us didn't do our job, that's the worst thing possible," Brown said. "You're always thinking 'Did I adjust that, did I adjust this correctly?' which, of course, you would have done." With all the attention on Armstrong this year, Brown is grateful he has a lot of Tours under his belt. "If this was my first Tour de France, I would think in this situation I would probably be out of my head," Brown said Thursday from Nantes, France. Brown came from cycling family and worked in a bike shop in Ottawa. He spent five years as a mechanic for Canada's national cycling team from 1988 to the 1992 Olympic Games. Ron Hayman, a former pro cyclist and the Canadian Cycling Association's managing director at the time, then helped Brown get a job with the 7-11 racing team, which later became the Motorola team. Brown has enjoyed six team parties in celebration of Armstrong's Tour de France victories. "I hope I'm going to be part of another one. This would also be his retirement party as well," Brown said. "Four Mondays from now, I hope I have a stinking headache, that's all I can say." |
