By Vinny Owens

Director Sportif Haldane Morris offers guidance as Vinny Owens experiences taking bottles from the team car for the first time at the Foothills Road Race in Merco

On Sunday at the team meeting before the Merco Credit Union Foothills Road Race, I was asked to do a job that I had never done before. Usually I am asked to do things such as cover the early attacks, drive the break for the designated leader or to conserve my energy for the hills. On this day, however, I was asked to be designated bottle carrier.

Haldane Morris, our Director Sportif, explained to me that my job was to make sure everybody on the team had everything they needed. My duties included dropping back to the team car and ferrying water bottles from the car to my teammates. While I was happy to do the job, I had never even had a team car in the caravan, let alone being assigned this task. I know it’s not rocket science, but there is a right and wrong way to do everything.

Haldane and Adam Switters filled me in on the basics before the race started. There wasn’t a need to collect bottles on the first lap since the team started with full bottles. On the second lap, the temperature rose and the riders started to peel off their clothing. I collected clothes such as arm warmers and jackets and fell back to the team car to drop it off.

Vinny Owens taking his load of water bottles back up to the peloton

The way it works is that you fall to the back of the pack and hold your hand up with an empty water bottle. The communication car then informs your team car that you need a feed and the team car moves up to the first position and then you drop back to your team car. The first time back was a little uneasy, I have to admit. You are riding 25 to 30 mph next to a car trying to put bottles on your bike and as many bottles as you can fit into your jersey. Then after you get all the bottles you have to ride back to the peloton with 6 bottles squeezed in your jersey, which is not easy when you are carrying an extra 10 pounds! Once I caught back on to the group, I tried to recover for a minute and then made my way up to the front of the pack and disbursed the bottles to all my teammates. Doing this 3 or 4 times throughout the day really starts to wear on you!

Vinny Owens final run back up to the group -- a job well done

Another way the team was able to get support was through the feed zone. That day, our team staff Allen Bean and Kristy Morrow along with Evan Huffman’s mom, Lory, stood in a designated place and fed the team as they rode by. I would try to collect at least 1 bottle from them after every lap. This was nice as I wouldn’t have to drop back to the car. I would like to thank them for taking the time to support the team, we greatly appreciate it!

In the end it was a fun day and the team rode great and we had 4 guys in the top 15. The team experience has been amazing so far this year and every race I am learning a different aspect of the sport. I also would like to thank our sponsor Yahoo! and team management for the opportunity, because without them none of this would be possible. See you on the road!