20min. ON / 20min. OFF / 20min. ON / 1hr40min OFF / REPEAT 52 TIMES!
20min. ON / 20min. OFF / 20min. ON / 1hr40min OFF / REPEAT 52 TIMES!
After your rides, you will strip out of your sweat-soaked skinsuit, clean up, force yourself to eat and drink and probably beg for a leg rub-out. Your immediate job is to help your van-mate get ready for his ride. Checklist: Helmet, glasses, head/tail lights,
tire-pressure, no brake-rubbing and he’s GONE but so are 20 minutes of your sleep!
Now, try to relax, your heart is over double its normal resting rate. You won’t be able to fall asleep like this for maybe about 30-36 hours. You have one-hour before suiting up
But the van is bouncing along on the shoulder at 28 m.p.h. and every one of your four vehicles is screaming for radio time trying to find the course and plan the next transition.
If you can sleep through that, “Team RAAM” is for you.
More than half of your rest time will come during daylight hours and your body will not shut down. This will last 5.35 days if you’re on record pace. My average sleep over four races is 4 hours coast to coast. Your eyes will close, you will try to relax and that will be enough to not fail. When the sun is up, you won’t feel the “Sleepless” pain. It is at night two, three, four and five that your eyes will cross and you’ll scream to stay awake, WHILE RIDING! There are no windows to roll down. It brings new meaning to “Hell on wheels.”
When your van-mate falls asleep, you now take his turns and your turns until he wakes up. You’ll be so tired that you will finally fall asleep, hopefully, he returns the favor.
By the way, this is the best formula we have found out of my teams five RAAM’s.
You will with a 100% guarantee end up in a three-rider rotation for periods of time.
Now the rotation goes A-B-C-A-B-C, … NO rest for the weary. Your output now jumps 25% and your chance of a cat-nap drops to 1%. This is when you’ll see the importance of having four riders that can climb and time-trial. When you’re on time-rotations, riders can’t cherry–pick terrain. Not many know that in RAAM you follow a pre-described route kind of like a century ride or a car rally. You have to stop at every stop sign and red light. You ride always on the shoulder with the tire scraps, broken glass and the occasional rumble strip. But wait there’s more!
Let’s talk about the crew. Twenty people that don’t get angry, don’t need sleep and let all adversity roll off their backs. Perfect, you’re ready to roll. You need one person to manage all crew transfers and rotations. Each “Pace-van” needs a driver, a navigator, and a massage therapist. The Massage therapist doubles as mother-hen prepping the foods and force-feeding the chicks. Each vehicle needs two crews that should rotate every eight hours.
It is ideal to have medical help of some level with you. Our team had a doctor, a nurse and a chiropractor as crew in 2004. Half of our crew were seasoned veterans of RAAM,
PRICE-LESS. We had a couple of “MacGyver’s” and a bike mechanic. We brought some great kids from an ROTC program because we needed someone that could take orders. Pick crew members that are upbeat and positive minded. The more level headed the better. Wives, girlfriends or mates of racers should not be with racers in pace vans, they either get protective or jealous. Women crew will be faced with peeing behind corn stalks and tumbleweeds, or no cover at all, get over it! Nudity is inevitable, changing and showering in close quarters. You will all be closer when you get home!
The often quoted “Your crew can’t win it for you, but they sure can lose it for you” is accurate beyond Pi. Your team is at the mercy of the crew. All training should be done before you hit the starting line. The crew needs to know not to impede other teams. I’ve seen crews use vehicles to block, slow or congest down-hills and transition sites of their competition. RAAM is a bike race, not the “Gumball rally car race”.
WHAT DO YOU WIN?
Every crew member has come home from RAAM with a new belief in the way they should work-out. They watch a racer jump onto the bike with no warm-up and go 25 m.p.h. plus. It doesn’t matter that it’s 4am on night three, the crew now sees and feels the energy. The crew is now a family with stories that will permeate every gathering for years to come. All of these things are what the crew WIN!
The racers will, without question, have a new sense of confidence or belief in their abilities on and off the bicycle. No rider has entered this race and not questioned how they would do under near sleepless conditions. Most of the riders on my teams have cracked emotionally at one point or another. The reward the riders get is seeing the terrain, smelling the trees, flowers and plants. It is seeing the state signs, watching the locals shake their heads while clapping for you. The reward is one you have given yourself. It’s knowing that you have slayed yourself not for you, but in the name of your team and crew,
The new “Family” has been adopted. My former teams and crews are second families with nothing but smiles when we see each other. The WIN is entering the race and putting 24 people through the ride of their life. Every ride is like a USCF race when your team sends you down the road on a flier. You “Took one for the team”. In RAAM you just happen to do it anywhere from 52 to 100 times in the course of five days.
24-hour races are getting a lot of play right now. If you’re one of these racers, or contemplate a
24-hour race, YOU SHOULD RAAM.
FORMULA FOR SUCCESS
BIKES
Aero time-trial bike
Light climbing bike
Disc rear wheel
Aero front wheel
Light climbing wheels
Aero & light vented helmet
Camel Back H20 system
Lots of Skinsuits
Extra shoes
Extra saddle
VEHICLES
40’ motorhome
3 large vans with:
4-bike rack
GPS/laptop
2-Way radio
3 ice chests
Solar shower
Spare gas can
Top racks w/lights
BUDGET
Hotels-24 people pre/post
Gas there and back
Food crew and racers
Airfare home X 8-10
CB/PA system
Wages-professionals
Entry fees
Vehicle damage/cleaning (and they will need both)
Post party homecoming
$50K SHOULD COVER IT!
RIDERS EXPECT:
150 miles a day
6500 ft of climbing a day
19 to 24 turns per day
average over 23 m.p.h.
No drafting
Inclimate weather
The record holding team consisting of Sean Neely, Billy Innes, Kerry Ryan and Nat Faulkner
Looks like fun
