Oregon Cycling Magazine

Interview with Daimeon Shanks

by Dave Campbell

I met Daimeon Shanks as a student in my Freshman Science class at Newport High School in the fall of 1994. He was a bright, energetic, and pudgy kid. The next year he and a number of his friends got mountain bikes and joined my high school mountain bike club and Daimeon took to it in a big way, training hard, shedding his baby fat, and turning into a fierce competitor in local races. By the next year he got a road bike and an improved mountain bike, both of which were assembled by him in my basement and ridden to the max rain or shine! For his graduation, a number of his friends in the Oregon Cycling Community, most significantly Candi Murray and I, all pitched in and bought him a high-end Cannondale (at a special deal from Hutch’s Eugene), on which he promptly won the Junior State Criterium Championship.
After many more years of competing on the road for the University of Oregon, Hutch’s Eugene, and other teams Daimeon earned a degree in Italian from U of O. This would come in handy in his new job…Pro Team Mechanic for Slipstream Sports, America’s premier professional road team which competes here and abroad. He just finished “wrenching” for them at their first ever Grand Tour, The Giro d’Italia. It was a historic event and the twentieth anniversary of the only American victory and in fact, the only American to ever wear the Pink Jersey, Andy Hampsten. Team Slipstream celebrated that event in grand style by WINNING the opening Team Trial and putting its rider Christian VandeVelde in Pink for stage one. Daimeon took some time out to answer some questions during “Philly Week” on the East Coast…immediately after the three week Giro! No rest in his world!

Describe a typical day for you at the Giro d’ Italia.

A typical day at the Giro would always begin at an ungodly early hour, usually around 6 or 6:30. Myself and the other two mechanics would meet for a typical Italian breakfast (i.e. light!) and then head out to our vehicles to prep for the day. We would inflate all of the wheels that we would be using for the day and arrange the spare bikes on the racks on the two race cars. Two mechanics would head to the race and the third would break down the work area and drive the transfer to the next hotel with our truck. The Giro is known for long transfers and this edition of the race was no exception. After an hour or so drive to the race start we’d do any final adjustments for the guys and maybe hit the start village for a coffee or a chat with a sponsor. During the race the mechanic is in the car with spare wheels and tools in case there are any mechanical issues or flats that need to be repaired. Luckily we have very good equipment sponsors, so most of the day I would spend napping or feeding our directors chocolate. For a mechanic, any bike race is much like an episode of HBO’s The Wire—hours of boredom punctuated by five minutes of absolute panic. The race starts are timed so that the finish will always be around 5:30 or 6 in the evening so that it’s prime time for the live TV coverage. After the race we’d have another drive to the hotel and then begin the real work. Each rider has three bikes (one for the race and two spares) and each needs to be washed, adjusted, and lubed before being put away in the truck for the night. Then we’d wash the cars and finish up any other small tasks that would need to be done. Dinner would be the only time to relax during the day and we all took the time to enjoy some good Italian food and some even better Italian wine before crawling to bed around 11 or so to get a couple hours of sleep.

How does a “kid from Newport” end up as a Pro Team Mechanic?

Like most things in life, it was a mixture of blind luck and hard work. After college I moved to Colorado and was racing for a team that had on its roster several members of the Junior National Team which gave me the opportunity to work a couple of races with them as a mechanic. That became a full time job at USA Cycling as the resident mechanic at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, which was mainly working for the track team. In 2006, Jonathan Vaughter brought his TIAA-Cref team to the LA World Cup where I helped one of his athletes after a crash, building him a new bike. A week later, Jonathan called me and asked if I wanted to join the squad at the inaugural Tour of California—and I’ve worked for them ever since. In the last three years, the team has gone from a domestic development squad into an international professional team that will be competing in the Tour de France this summer.

What is your work like?

It really begins in December when the new equipment begins to arrive. Each rider will have six to ten bikes for the year which means some long days in the warehouse building bikes. We’ll have a three-week training camp in January and then immediately jump into full race mode by the start of February. The season will last until the end of September and most of my time in those eight months is spent traveling to and from races. As a mechanic I’m responsible for driving all of our equipment to the races so that all the riders need to do is hop on a plane and show up. There’s supposed to be a couple of breaks during the year, but I’ve yet to see one! With such a busy year I will get most of the winter off to recover. I like to spend the off-season skiing and actually riding my bike!

What are the biggest challenges you face in your job?

Being away from home. I haven’t had a normal relationship in years. Even my dog had to go live with my mom, because I’m always away so much. My roommate in Boulder is a mechanic for another professional team so we both pay rent on a place that’s never, ever occupied.

What is the most rewarding part of your job?

Getting a nice thanks from the riders. I think a lot of mechanics would say that watching their team win would be the most rewarding, but for me just getting a little gratitude for all the hard work and sacrifice that goes into this team is the best. I’m lucky that we have such a great group of guys, even the big names that we signed for this year. Most of the people that I’d describe as my best friends are riders on Slipstream.
Aside from the travel, what are the major “perks” of being a pro team mechanic?
That’s funny, because I would say the travel is the worst part of the job! I’ve been all over the world with this job, places as exotic as China and Russia, but all I get to see are bike races and hotels! For me, the best perk is the satisfaction of saying that I work with the best athletes in the world in one of the most demanding work environments around.

It is a very demanding gig…How long can you do it? How long do MOST do it?

There are two mentalities to this job that I’ve observed. In the US, a typical mechanic is a kid just out of University that wants to travel for a couple of years and have a great experience before settling down to a ‘real’ job and a real paycheck. In Europe, it’s seen as more of a career and that’s reflected in their salaries and in their longevity in the position. For me, I’m somewhere in between. I make a very good living for a mechanic, but I still don’t want to spend the next 20 years washing bikes and gluing tires. I turned 28 this year and I’m pretty sure that if you talk to me when I’m 30 I’ll be doing something that’s a little more intellectually stimulating.

Describe Team Slipstream…philosophy, management—what is this group all about?

Team Slipstream has a reputation as being “The Clean Team,” which I’m very proud of. With our internal controls and our policy of complete transparency we can guarantee that none of our riders are cheating by doping. That’s huge in the current climate of cycling. We do everything possible to ensure that the riders are the best prepared to perform at their utmost, but without the demand for results that often leads to bad decision-making and drastic measures to ensure those results. We have the best equipment, the smartest doctors, and the most committed staff in all of cycling. Jonathan describes it as “perfection in the process”. At the same time, we have a lot of fun, which is important—it’s only bike racing, after all!

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