Almost all my interactions with riders were positive. I was really happy to help people, and to contribute to their ride. I actively told people to go and eat while I sorted their bikes out, even if it was just pumping their tyres up. I was there to help, and I got a lot from doing so. (Plus, I hate having an audience while I'm working on people's bikes, I always make a mistake)
I think everybody who's ridden it should volunteer to help out. I had a fantastic time. I only had one sense of humour failure the whole time.
There was only really one negative interaction which I'm still brooding about a bit. One of the riders from the group of Spanish riders was really rude. I'd been covering the mechanics area since 2:00am that morning (thursday), having been on shift with only a few hours break since mid day on Wednesday. The rider was pretty grumpy, and demanded that I look at his wheel, him having changed 4 tubes over the previous section. He was fairly condesending and rude when he left the bike with me, breaking in on me as I was dealing with somebody else. As he had more time in hand than the person I was dealing with, I said that I'd look at his wheel when I could, so he told me he was going to sleep.
After 10 minutes or so he was back, asking if I'd fixed his problem yet as they weren't sleeping now due to lack of time. I was just starting to look at it, and told him that he most likely needed a new tyre, as there was nothing wrong with the rim that I could see. So I fitted him a new tyre, unfortunately pinching the tube when I fitted it, so I had to change that again (which came out of my pocket, he was gumpy enough I wasn't going to try and sell him another tube that I'd broken).
He then came back with his friend, to find that I'd misplaced his through axle. This was such a stupid thing, I'd been so busy dealing with people and interruptions that I completely forgot where I'd put it. It was still pretty dark, the lighting in the mechanics area was fairly rubbish, and I just couldn't find where I'd put this black through axle. I couldn't believe that this persons ride might end now, because I'd put this axle down somewhere and couldn't find it. There were three of us looking for it, when I eventually found it resting on the vice where I'd left it with the broken tube hanging off it.
While I was now refitting the rear wheel he and his friend were scowling at me, muttering in Spanish and occasionally chuckling in what sounded to me like a fairly insulting manner (sounded like they were laughing at me). His expression when I asked if he wanted his old tyre back was a picture. Perhaps he thought that I was just trying to make money off him by selling him a new tyre. What I was thinking was that if his other tyre had a catastrophic failure, at least he'd be able to fit this as a spare and carry on.
Oh well, it's about the only thing that left a bad taste in my mouth. Tired worried rider, tired stressed volunteer.
My only sense of humour failure was right at the end, we were transferring hundreds of bags into the bag drop van for delivery, there were fish and chips waiting and getting cold on the table, it was now midday, I'd been awake almost 24 hours, I was hungry, and three riders were asking us to stop loading bags onto the van so they could find their bags. And we did. I was of the pretty firm opinion that somebody needed to learn to say "No". I did cheer up quite a lot after we had our fish and chips though, I was ready for them.
In short, I had a fantastic time. There were periods of frenetic activity followed by lots of sitting around waiting for riders to appear again. I would do it again, but I'm going to try and ride it next time.
