Do you like the prospect of being yelled at by under-strain riders? Would you like to work out of a sweaty truck in the parking lot of an industrial estate? Do you want small children to bother you for drink bottles every minute of your waking life? Well, great news: Visma-Lease a Bike is recruiting a new mechanic, and this is the future that awaits one lucky applicant.
The job ad doesn’t get into the nitty-gritty of things in such direct terms, but it does show that Visma-Lease a Bike’s ‘limitless thinking’ extends to its corporate tone. That’s a sign, perhaps, of the professionalism that the Dutch team brings to the sport, but it’s also a bit jarring in conjunction with the off-beat sport that the team operates in, and it’s downright weird to discover that the boring corporate tone of job ads in ‘normal’ businesses can be applied to an opening for a WorldTour mechanic.
The job ad has the usual tropes: reference to the workplace as “a dynamic high performance environment”, reference to the “eye for detail” successful applicants will possess, reference to the “thorough knowledge of the bike” that is “essential when diagnosing and solving problems”. But there are some interesting glimpses into the working life of a Visma-Lease a Bike mechanic: the 95% v. 5% split that is building and maintaining road bikes versus working on cyclocross and mountain bikes, and the fact that the mechanics are tasked with keeping track of supplies in the cars and making sure that there are ample “wheels, tyres, and other important parts”. There’s also a surprising glimpse behind the curtain in the revelation that “communicatively and commercially … the team is the second largest team in the Netherlands in terms of sponsor revenue,” which tells us that DSM-Firmenich-PostNL is punching above its weight in at least one area.
Any prerequisites? A few: at least three years’ experience as a mechanic and “knowledge of building road bikes”, with a preference for “knowledge and experience … working with SRAM group sets”. A driving license is essential, as is the key personal traits of being “willing to work flexible hours and be away from home for longer periods of time”, which is a very gentle way of referring to month-long stints at Grand Tours working until midnight, missing dinners and toiling thanklessly under extreme pressure.
That’s not to say it’s all bad: for lovers of professional cycling, there’s all the majesty of being part of the biggest races in the world, working for one of its greatest teams, working with the best equipment. Perhaps there’s something desirable in the work environment too – ”an enthusiastic and very ambitious team of mechanics where there is room for personal growth and development” with an “innovative approach to material improvements”.
For the right applicant – once they’ve gotten through the interview process and a day of testing at the Visma “High Performance Centre” – a career in the back of a Skoda station wagon awaits, desperately trying to remember which spare bike on the roof belongs to which rider so that you’re not single-handedly responsible for the team’s sporting downfall.
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