Another story is that if he finds a rider eating something naughty the whole team had to go out for a ride even if it's dark, with the boss driving behind with the headlights on so they can see where they're going. Quite often I would see riders from this team in races with only one bottle cage on, given that we raced in 40 degrees celsius heat a lot of the time I can only imagine what minor offence they must have committed for the manager to take one of their cages off.While my team wasn’t quite this bonkers there were a few incidents. One time the woman who cooked for us did us sausages as a treat. During dinner the president arrived so our cook shouted at us to hide the sausages quick before he saw them. On another occasion when eating at a hotel the night before a race, we went to dinner without our manager and sat down to a delicious tasting meal of roast potatoes and pork. Nothing wrong with that you’d think. Well when the manager arrived he went ballistic at the hotel staff telling them we should have been eating pasta and chicken instead.
Wow -- having been involved with the sport for some years now, this sort of thing doesn't really surprise me. But reading someone's firsthand account of it is still strangely fascinating!