Cycling is full of unsung heroes that go the extra mile and without them our racing would be made so much harder.
Andy Malfait and his friends are among these heroes at GreenEDGE Cycling. The group of Belgians have been supporting Team Jayco AlUla during the spring classics campaign for the past three years.
Working alongside the team’s soigneurs, he and his friends spend most of the spring stood on the side of the road passing bottles and musettes to the riders and providing spare wheels to those who need them.
Cycling has been a lifelong passion for Malfait, and he’s spent many years supporting teams around the peloton. It was at one of those other teams that he got to know Team Jayco AlUla sport director Tristan Hoffman, who brought them on board.
“The first time you’re always a bit nervous but after a while you get used to it and you get better at it,” Malfait says of handing out bottles to racing riders. “I’ve always been into cycling, starting with some younger teams. About 15 years ago, I started working with the Cervélo Test team. One of my friends worked in the team, he was a soigneur, and he asked me if I could organise the bottle points.
“It started then and, as the years went on, I got to know some of the sport directors and other people in cycling. I worked with some other teams and then I started with this team about three years ago. It has been really nice working with the team these last three years. There’s a nice atmosphere in the team and we support the team through the whole year, even when we’re not at the race.”
Malfait and his friends volunteer for the squad right across the classics period from the opening weekend at Het Nieuwsblad and Kuurne-Brussel-Kuurne at the end of February to the Ardennes races and Liège-Bastogne-Liège in late April. By the time classics period is over, he will have spent close to 20 days helping the team out.
As a Belgian, you might anticipate that Malfait’s favourite race is perhaps the Tour of Flanders, but no. Instead, it is one across the border with France.
“My favourite race is actually not one of the Belgian ones, it’s Paris-Roubaix. It is just next to us, and it is kind of an honorary Belgian classic,” he says with a wry smile.
Planning for success
The logistics of racing is always tough, but it is even harder at the twisting and technical classics of northern Europe. This is where the trusted team of supporters are vital to keeping the riders in the race.
With narrow roads and few lulls in the action, there is little time to drop back to the team car to pick up refreshments. Mechanical issues are an ever-present issue, too, and the car can be trapped minutes back at any given moment so being able to pick up a new wheel from the side of the road is hugely important.
Planning for this takes time and can begin some months before the races take place. Knowing the roads comes in very handy because getting between each point takes time and it’s easy to get lost in the warren of roads around Flanders.
“We plan for the bottle points together with the team. It depends on how many cars we have but we look to have a bottle point almost every half hour, minimum, to make sure that we can get there,” says Malfait.
“We also have to make a plan about how we get from one point to another and that depends how the race looks on the map. You always need at least half an hour or 45 minutes to get from one point to the next. It’s something that you get to know after so many years. You get to know the roads and the points, so it gets easier. The routes change over the years, but they don’t change so much.”
Making time
Each day has its own pattern depending on how far away the races are from the team’s Belgian base. However, it always starts with a visit to the GreenEDGE Cycling hotel and the group has become part of the family there alongside the team and its staff.
“It depends on each day but normally it takes an hour to get to the team’s hotel. We like to be at the hotel an hour before departure and we have a bit of breakfast and then we help to arrange the cars. Then it depends where the finish is to how long it takes to go home, if it is closer to the hotel then we will go there and have a few drinks and go home after the race,” Malfait says.
It can’t be stated enough just how important of a role that Malfait and his friends play for the team, particularly as they often take time out of their working days to come and help. Alongside supporting the Australian squad across the spring, Malfait also runs his own businesses.
“I have a normal job also. I have a small hotel and I also have another business. One of the advantages of that is that I am independent, so I am able to take days off when I want. Sometimes it can be hard to do the race days in the week, but we have people that can help,” he says.
A massive thank you to Andy and all of the GreenEDGE Cycling volunteers, we couldn’t do it without you.
