BikeRadar was recently in Cairns, Australia, at the second round of the UCI mountain bike World Cup. While there, we spotted plenty of fancy new bikes, components and accessories, but easily missed are the people hiding in the pits, ensuring the bikes remain reliable for the riders to do their jobs.
It's often not a glamorous job, but the mechanics are arguably the hardest working at these races and often a huge asset toward a winning performance. As we saw earlier in the year at the Tour Down Under, the international mechanics must pack the bare minimum to deal with the travel logistics of racing in Australia.
Mountain bike mechanics don't share this same luxury and often must pack a huge array of tools to cope with the demanding conditions, unforeseen major repairs and the generally greater complexity of the bikes.
We take a look inside the tool boxes from around the pits including those from the factory support of Fox Racing, Shimano and SRAM.
