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ZAP: COMEDIANS & RACE BIKES DON'T MIX - KEEP BEN STILLER OFF LANCE'S BIKE!
Zap
July 8, 2010
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The Ben Stiller & Lance Affair From 2009 (as told by Alex Wassmann)
While traipsing through the Village Depart on day two of the Tour, I ran into Alex Wassmann who is Sram’s top man when it comes to maintaining all of Lance's drivetrain needs. As we exchanged banter about the various goings on with the race, he mentioned that the actor Ben Stiller had visited the Radio Shack team bus in Rotterdam. He also alluded to there not being any repeat of the Stiller nightmare that the team endured at last year’s Tour at the Team Time Trial in Montpellier.
One year after Ben Stiller wreaked havoc with Lance's TT bike, Sram's Alex Wassmann was sure to keep the comedian away from Lance's 2010 bike.
"When Ben showed up last year he jumped on Lance’s bike and just started drilling the shifters and some of us were just standing there somewhat horror stricken. The bike was perfectly prepped, Lance was getting ready to do his warm-up and the clock was already ticking towards the team’s start. Somebody finally got Stiller off the bike and when Lance got on it it started making a weird noise. We couldn’t figure it out so we had Lance get off the bike. He went into the motor home and we adjusted everything and had Lance come back out. When he started pedaling it was still making the noise and at that point we started getting freaked out. We swapped the bottom bracket and crank out in full NASCAR mode. Lance got off the bike again and while he was inside I laid down on the ground while someone pedaled the bike and I noticed that the outer link on one of the chain links was tweaked out and about to break. We swapped the chain and got it running properly. When I went into the team bus Lance just looked at me somewhat nervously and asked what was up with his bike. “Nothing,” I said, “it’s fine.
With not a lot of time to spare, actually, only about five minutes before the start, Lance got on the bike and pedaled off. When the team went out and won the race, well, that was when we all breathed a lot easier.”
No thanks to Ben Stiller.
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