Catching up in a hurry
Cumberland Gap, MD9:30pm, tuesday, 6/17Not much time left in this race!We had a sensational day today. Christian and I started up in Indiana and rode some exciting, up-and-down, twisty, small, forested and dark roads (St Mary's Road) in Indiana, just barely staying within the headlights of the follow vehicle. The flashing, rotating lights on the Prius were shot after the other team's shift; apparently some heavy objects in the car had damaged the wires leading to the relay; they had fixed it but did so without a fuse, so the fuse blew and so no electronics! We thus used Bruce's van to follow the riders (Christian and me) in the dark this morning through Indiana and part of Ohio. By the way, the riding in Ohio was beautiful, perfect weather, green, rolling all the time. The Prius served to shuttle the rider ahead and pick up the finishing rider, since it had no flashing/rotating lights working. Once daybreak occurred in Ohio (officially 6:30am), Dave took the Prius to an autoparts store and replaced the lights and fuse. So we did not have the Prius for a few hours. Meanwhile, we were first to reach time station (#42) in Ohio that morning, and learned that there would be a detour due to some construction, and new directions would be printed out for the ensuing leg on that day. Only they weren't! The official had to be awoken out of her RV and make some decisions - we were held up for about 10 minutes, and tried to get RAAM HQ to give us a 10-minute time credit - we will see. The directions were very complicated, with frequent turns. One such turn was a small county road that was not labeled as the directions showed. We had caught a British team, Team Inspiration UK earlier, but due to the 10-minute delay at TS 42 they got back in it. What followed after that was complete chaos! Out of TS 42, they started duelling with us like it was some sort of short race. They had all 4 riders available, and even used 2 riders at a time to try and stay ahead of me (it didn't work!). They then brought out these 2 time-trial type riders (big guys) and started trading them out every 10 minutes (we have only 2 available and trade every 30 minutes or so), much to my amazement. But, me being the type of guy to never turn down a challenge, I passed them again and again. They hung right behind me and then, at a traffic diversion, where we both stopped, I let their team (rider and team vehicle) go ahead. About 1 mile later, my follow vehicle, Bruce, turned around inexplicably, leaving me with no support! So I stayed behind these blazin' Brits for about 4-5 miles alone, wondering what was going to happen. At that point, Bruce catches up to me again and says:"Get in the van I will explain later!"It turns out that the Brits and I (and Bruce) missed the small insufficiently labeled county road, heading about 5 miles at a high, but fruitless, effort, in the worng direction!!! Bruce, knowing the rules very well, acted quickly though. When he turned around, he had realized the error in his ways, went back to the small county road and dumped Christian off to continue where I had failed to make the turn (very legal). So Christian went up the correct road for several miles, and as far as I know, the blazing Brits were still blazing in the wrong direction! (And no, we did not plan this as a "rope-a dope"!) Bruce returned me to relieve Christian and then Dave with the repaired Prius, joined me soon after. Another few miles, and Bill and Brian passed me and I knew that the reinforcements had arrived! All in all, we passed 4 teams today. We are now in 4th in our division, but look out - we are now, at the last time station only about 1/2 hour out of 3rd and 4th! Bill and Brian have been doing very well, hammering the extremely tough climbs up into the Appalachians, and both the 3rd and 4th place teams have penalty time that will have to be served at the Mt Airy time station. If we get the 10-minute time credit, and factor that those teams start something like 10 minutes before us in Oceanside, we are in the running for the podium!! It will be a sensational run into the finish. We will use all of our firepower, maybe even all 4 riders. We should finish tomorrow afternoon or late morning.There is a nice little story on the www.raceacrossamerica.org website, on Christian; check out:

http://www.raceacrossamerica.org/subwebraam/blogx.php?N_webcat_id=86&PHPSESSID=18402a096e53e4eafef054bc09e45978

Wish us luck!