The Driver's View

For the last seven days, I have had the privilege of being the driver for the Turn It Around Tour. Well, I may not actually be privileged as the driver, but I am thanked each day.

My roles as the driver are simple, and comprises of a few main things.

1. Clean up camp in the morning, and ready the truck and trailer. 

2. Drive to meet the cyclists at an alarmingly slow pace, at least for a truck and trailer. Try not to run over the cyclists as I pass.

3. Set up the trailer for lunch at the side of the road somewhere, and wait for cyclists to catch up. 

4. Pack up trailer after lunch, and proceed to the daily destination. Along this portion of the journey; I buy groceries, fill the fuel tank and arrange sleeping accommodations for the night.

5. Get to the camp site and set up the trailer for the evening.

Since all that sounds relatively simple I need to put it into true perspective. I have to drive a truck and trailer for four older, athletic, and exhausted (at the end of the day) gentlemen. All the roles for my job are simple, except for the customer and they demand the best. The trailer must be level, and takes time to set up. For the nightly locations; wash rooms, showers and laundry are usually a requirement, not to forget electricity, water, and sanitation dump sites. Oh, and then there is WiFi, this is possibly the most important aspect, otherwise the cyclists may resort to spending their evening in a McDonald's checking their emails and doing whatever else it is that they do.

Since the cyclists need to consume a higher than usual amount of food each day, grocery shopping is a daily routine, and the food is quite comical. Chocolate milk, bread, cold cuts, cheese and pop seem to be the more regular purchases. But then there are the nights that we have to splurge, and calories really aren't that important. So cake, and ice cream are possibilities, and danishes, and cinnamon buns, did I mention chocolate milk? Essentially the food is that of a child's dream. Everything is full of sugar, and that is vital as each cyclist needs roughly 6000 calories each day.

Just as a demonstration, to obtain 6000 calories you would need to consume:

500g of peanut butter and depending on the brand up to 28 slices of white branded bread

or 5 litres of Chapmans maple walnut ice cream

or 14.2 litres of Pepsi

Beyond the shopping and daily set-ups, my role is rather simple, make sure the cyclists have a place to stay each night, and to make sure each member makes it to the destination. So far this has not been an issue, though we almost lost one of the cyclists today as they rode straight past the camp site.

I will be reporting more along the journey, as this has been the view of the driver for the first week.