End of an Adventure

Once again, a day of chaos. On 1-2 hours of sleep, took over for Bill and Brian earlier than expected, due to their fatigue in crossing the Appalachians. Started in West Virginia, then into Maryland, and into Pennsylvania, then finally Maryland again. The Appalachians and their foothills were excruciating, steep and repetitive, and definitely tougher at the end of the trip. In fact, the legs were out of gas by mid-morning. We caught one team that started 35 minutes ahead of us; it was still dark when we had caught up to them - due to our climbing strength. They were not cordial either, began accusing us of not stopping at stop signs completely, not pulling off the road completely, doing improper exchanges in general. When my legs started weakening, they caught and passed us in the flatter/rolling sections of Maryland. By this time, reinforcements (Bill and Brian) arrived, and Christian and I hit them with renewed energy - we buried them, putting all 4 of our riders on the road at one point, and that felt especially good due to their poor sportsmanship.

So we finished in 6 days and 21 hours. It has been a nerve-wracking, pressure-packed, draining experience that relied on our ability to get through tough times. Relationships between crew became very strained at times, and that could have greatly harmed our team - but it didn't. We had 12 - 14 hours off the bike, but who knows what would have happened had we pushed on with double-shifts and even less sleep?
I am happy it is over, and can't imagine doing another one. But I am proud of what we have done.

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!

Sleepless in...?

(These images came from the RaceAcrossAmerica website, under the title: "Slight Oldies but Goodies")

Monday, June 11th, 11pm
Greensburg, Indiana
Well once again, we pulled into our motel late, and will get maybe 2 hours of motel sleep (we sack out in the back of the van while driving several hours to meet up with the other team members). The crew is much more sleep-deprived, working slavishly for the riders. They drive, we sleep and ride. Right now they are out purchasing provisions for the ride ahead. Eating is usually sports bars and drinks, but Fritos and Egg McMuffins have certainly helped at times. Coffee is usually bad, so I requested some Starbucks bottled mocha drinks for the road tonight.
We started past Camdenton, MO, early this morning about 2am. Rode through the capital, Jefferson City, and caught one team there. Rode through a dramatic and scary thunderstorm at about 3am. There was water everywhere and frogs were hopping into the road as I rode through. We made one wrong turn that ended up with us just going back to on on-ramp to the interstate a bit. (The mandatory follow vehicle, a Prius, has been invaluable in helping us find directions, in particular, when we pass through a city. Dave and Karyl drive in it and shine the headlights just right for us to illuminate the dark roads.) Then, in eastern Missouri, there were several steep climbs in and out of creek basins, eventually breaking into the daylight and flatter sections of Missouri, and then Illinois. We caught another team coming out of the Missouri hills, and then made a wrong turn at the time station. I had to re-pass them and they played “cat-and-mouse” with us, trying to stay with us as if it was a 20-mile race! We eventually dropped them for good before crossing the Mississippi River (yea, 1000 miles to go!). However, Bruce’s van sustained a flat tire while driving on the shoulder. We would have to rely on Christian to keep riding, while Bruce and I (he was shuttling me at the time) fixed his flat. Fortunately, there was a mandatory 17-mile car ride to avoid a flooded bike trail, and that gave Christian a break; eventually, about 1 ½ hour later, we caught up and I took over. Now riding in Illinois, we had tailwind, and my average speed went up to about 25mph (using the time trial bike mostly - this is very fast when ridden aggressively, but one has to watch the cross winds with solid wheels!). We caught another team in Illinois, this team from Brazil. They put up a fight as well, even according to Dave, tailing me with one of their support vehicles as I chased, trying to figure out how fast I was riding so that they could try and hold me off! (I passed their rider with “authority”, about 3 mph faster, and they cheered me as I went by their support vehicle!) All in all, we caught 4 teams today on our shift alone!
This morning, we will cross into Ohio and try to make it all the way across to the beginning of the Appalachian climbs. (Out of "Tornado Alley"?) With all the obstacles we have had to overcome, we are looking to finish early Wednesday morning (less than 7 days)!

Team UNR Back in Business

Er...it does help to have a brain surgeon on your team! Christian was cleared to ride, he has obviously been doing well, other than some painful road rash, and wanted to ride. But we lost about 14 hours (no riding for the team while we attempted to hash things out). So, he joined the rotation last night at 1am. He had about 30 hours off the bike. I must say, he did very well last night, he and I sharing duties from 1am to noon today. We pushed through the plains of New Mexico and then Kansas. Currently, Bill and Brian are making it through the roller hills in Missouri. We are gaining all the time, with the other teams flagging through the time stations, and we keep getting stronger all the time. We have put it together, despite having several large obstacles, having to use different rotations, completely changing the shifts polar opposite, having to put riders out for 40 miles or so by themselves, injuries, and the usual tough conditions. If we could get back the 14 or so hours we lost to the crash, we would be in the lead right now! We are just doing the best we can, and are motivated to show what we can do. We really believe that we are the strongest team in the race. For tonight, we have thunder-storms forcasted for Missouri - wish us luck, as we are resting here (since about 6pm local time) in a motel near Collins, MO, and will resume duties in about 6 hours! Please be sure and check out the www.raceacrossamerica.org website for updates.

Friday the 13th

Thanks blog-fans for tuning in. I am sorry to report some very bad news: Christian Clerc crashed today, in a combination of side-winds and rumble-strips, on the way to Taos, NM. He sustained a concussion, but he will be OK. Dave and Karyl were following close behind and were on the scene immediately. Bruce and I were not too far behind and we saw him go down too. It was a horrific crash. We checked Christian over and determined that he did not need an ambulance (differing from the RAAM website posting), and I continued alone riding for the 40 or so miles into Taos. I knew that our competitive ambitions were finished, but hoped Christian would be OK mainly, and thankfully he was. I continued on thinking that Bill and Brian would want a say in what we would be trying to accomplish as a team. (Had I jumped in the car we would have been DQ'd.) They were called and Brian came down to Taos from Cimmaron, NM, where they were staying in a motel. Brian, and crew member Dave talked me out of my dejection and fatigue, and we have decided to take a night off and start again as a team of 3 to get to Maryland before the race deadlines. So Brian and I will start up tomorrow after a stay in Taos and join Bill in Cimarron. We will try and cycle one rider out for a 8-hour break with 16-hour shared shifts. 2,000 miles to go.

Christian feels terrible and keeps begging us to let him ride again, but we have said no. It's a shame because he was feeling well until then, having crested the high point on the RAAM race course, La Manga Pass, at 10,200 feet.

Day Number 2: hammering!

Christian and I had an extremely good day (and night!); we picked up our leg in Sedona, AZ. Winding up through the cottonwood-lined canyons, we climbed up to Flagstaff, from about 5,000 ft alt. to 7,000 ft. We set a mean pace, exchanging frequently, blistered the steep climb, and continued the same past Flagstaff to the next time station at Tuba City. Cross-winds were very strong, which had me basically leaning my aerodynamic bike with the deep-dish front wheel and rear disc much of the time, as I descended to the desert floor from Flagstaff at speeds of 30mph+. We had the fastest time of any team between those 2 time stations, and this continued for the next 3 or 4 time stations. We made it all the way past Mexican Hat, UT, much to the surprise of everyone, including our other team of riders, who had to high-tail it on the highway in their vehicle to exchange with us. As a result, we ended up exchanging at 2:30 (MTN standard time) instead of our anticipated 1:30 exchange. We caught a few teams along the way and took 35 minutes out of the 1st place team. We were only about 10 minutes, I think, from the 2nd place team. Overall, we averaged about 22mph, I heard, for our leg, which is really good considering the mountainous terrain we covered. There were no mishaps or miscules this leg, our team has learned the system and performed near-flawlessly today. Our second team (Bill and Brian) looks solid so far today, and we believe that many teams are burning out due to their propensity to ride too fast the first day or so, and not take the longer rest breaks (ours is 12 hours vs their 8-hour or even 4-hour sleep breaks). This should help us in the last 2-3 days of the race when I think it will really count.

Day Number 1

Today we got our first taste of what RAAM would be like. It is intense riding thus far. We have been locked up in competition with other teams, and looked to have emerged well. Towards the end of our 12-hour shift, Team UNR was in 1st place! With about 2 hours to go in our shift we were passed by an Irish team that was really moving well. It turns out that they are doing 4-hour shifts, so we will see how they hold out! Frankly, I think they will fatigue severely with little to no sleep. The other thing that happened is due to our rookie status and unfamiliarity with the course and rules, we ended up having our rider, Christian, stop at the time station in Blythe. This cost us several minutes. Bruce and I were up the road waiting, before we got the call from Karyl and Dave wondering where we were. To make matters worse, we ended up taking a wrong turn and having to call headquarters to get the right directions, losing the flow of the race. Another team passed us during that period. Overall, Christian and I handled the mountains and desert of California with flying colors. Hopefully, we can make it up today with Bill and Brian in the hills of Arizona. We should then do well in the mountains, as I expect that Christian and I are better climbers than our competition.

We stopped riding last night at 1am, drove to a town near Flagstaff, and checked into a motel where I am blogging this. It is now 7am! We will try for a little sleep here, in addition to the sleep we got in the back of Bruce's van, before we eat and get ready to ride again at 1 this afternoon.

The Toughest Race in the World

I can't believe I am doing this! To be in the parking lot at the Oceanside Pier with all of these racers ready to embark on such a journey; I have dreamed about this, imagined it (and shrunk back in abhorrence!) several times before. Only this time it is real and I am ready! Our day began with driving down to the race from my parents place in Orange County. We arrived in Oceanside, drove down to the Pier to find a lot filled with well-funded teams with buses and RVs from places as far off as Norway, the U.K., and Brazil. We pulled all the bikes down, got out all the equipment and began the process of preparing for inspection. This involved placing small strips of reflective tape all over each of the two bikes and all spare wheels we use, placement of numbers on the bikes and helmets, securing the bike lights, verifying the function of the safety lights on all 3 vehicles, placement of vehicle signage, logos, etc. My crew chief broke the news to me that my Zipp aerodynamic front wheel had been lost off of the roof of his van; so we had to get another one from Nytro Triathlon shop in Encinitas. Christian glued a new tire on for me, so my time trial bike will be good to go tomorrow. Inspection took awhile, took a few tries to pass - I can't believe how much chaos there was, with equipment strewn in the parking lot in and around the vehicles. Bruce, the crew chief, did a great job hanging with it and staying cool and organized. I met two other crew members today: Karyl (from Chelan) and Andras (from Vancouver, B.C.). We had team photos and a mandatory race meeting later. We chewed on numerous rules and regulations, and discussed the coordination of these, as a team, over both lunch and dinner.

Tomorrow, Christian and I will start the race together, and will work together as a unit for the first 21 miles. After that, crew support begins, and our vehicles will enter the highway. After another 10 miles are so, there are some substantial climbs to about 4,000-feet altitude, and we plan to attack these in "tag-team" style, each of doing hard 10-15 minute stints. We then descend what they call "the glass elevator" to go below sea level to the Salton Sea. After that, 200 flat, hot, wind-driven (hopefully) miles. Our highly aerodynamic time trial bikes will make their race debut there. I think that Christian and I could roll up 270 miles or more tomorrow, in 12 hours - and that would get us to Hope, Arizona. In any case, Bill and Brian will take over for us in Arizona tomorrow about 1:30am, if all goes well.

I am really impressed with the race organization here. There is a tradition of greatness that arises year after year in "the toughest bike race in the world." The race director, Terry Zmrhall, made a point of honoring and respecting three places we will pass through during this race: the Navajo Indian Reservation in northern Arizona (with its own law enforcement), Greensburg, KS (which was leveled to the ground 2 years ago by a tornado, and Gettysburg, VA, where thousands of Americans gave their lives in the Civil War. It is really an honor to be doing this race.

Team UNR Tactics

Coming down to the wire...

We are all packing up and heading out to So Cal. Some of saying goodbye to our families for awhile. I want to take this opportunity to express how much I appreciate my wife, Aimee, for supporting my lofty amibitions in preparing for this race and also "holding the fort" while I am gone. I know that my activites have exacted a toll!
Thank you!!!

Team UNR will operate as two teams of 2 riders; team "A" will be myself and Christian, along with support crew Bruce, Karyl and Dave. We will start the race from Oceanide, and ride until 1am (maybe 1:30 for the first night since the race starts at 2pm). Team "B" will be Bill and Brian, along with support crew Ellen, Howard and Andras, who will ride from 1am to 1pm. Thus, we have two 12-hours shifts intended to divide the nighttime riding equally. Each team and support crew will try and adapt to the shift they are "working" by moving up or moving back their bedtimes in the days prior to the race.

Each rider on the team of 2 will take a 30-minute (or perhaps longer, if the conditions are favorable, i.e., tailwind, or flat road) pull. This system is designed to allow the team to carry forward high speeds, with the rider able to focus on his heart rate and perceived level of exertion for that chunk of time; I reckon that the riders will be shooting for heart rates of 150s-160s (typical "threshold" HR - where lactic acid / muscle "burning" starts to occur - would be about 175 - 180). Exchanges between riders will occur by the first rider signalling by 2-way radio piece to the crew that he is ready for that to happen. The second rider will be ferried by vehicle ahead of the first rider enough to allow the second rider to get set up and rolling; the first rider will pull even with the second, and that marks the beginning of the second rider's pull.

Anyways, that's how it happens in theory....

Thank you Michael Hansen

Michael Hansen, my good friend and owner of Biosports Physical Therapy, is going to loan Brian his super-fast Zipp 404 wheels. These wheels can pretty much be used on any part of the course. Of course, they have an 11-tooth cog on them - indispensible for hammers like Michael and Brian. Sweeeet!

Banana Power!

Check out the interview of our Organic Athlete, Brian Bauer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bpCjATg1QA

What's this stuff about "7 days", Brian?

Crunch Pak signs on!

I am very pleased to announce the signing of Crunch Pak, the industry leader in sliced apples, as a sponsor for Team UNR.
Tony Freitag has given a financial contribution to our cause; as well, he has donated a supply of Crunch Pak sliced apple packages for our trip! Thanks so much, Tony. I also want to thank my friend Mauro Felizia of Dovex fruit, for facilitating this awesome deal!

For info on Crunch Pak, check out: http://www.crunchpak.com/

Contributions.

We are very grateful for the support we are receiving! I would like to recognize our most recent contributors:
Spiro Koulouris, who owns Apple City Fence (Commercial & Residential Fencing and Repair Security Fence) in East Wenatchee, WA. has donated a major contribution to our cause. Much appreciated!
I have just heard from my good friend Vaughn Randall. His dad, who owns Jeff Randall Trucking in Idaho, has given us a significant donation to our cause, thanks!
Vaughn's cousin works at Liberty Gold Potatoes who is also stepping up with a major contribution.

For those who would like to donate to Team Utah Neuroscience Research: please send check to : Department of Neurosurgery, University of Utah
175 North Medical Drive, East.
Suite 5323
Salt Lake City, UT, 84132.
make check payable to University Dept of Neurosurgery.

Remember all donations are tax-deductible.
Any questions call Lanette Dunbar at 801-581-6554