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On the Road: Notes from RAAM 2
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VeloNews contributor Vic Armijo is following this year's Race Across America and - when he finds a WiFi signal - is sending in regular dispatches from the road.
Saturday — Fatigue has taken its toll in the 2007 Race Across America. Jure Robic is still in the lead, but his average speed has dropped to 15.21 mph, ending any hope he may have had of breaking Pete Penseyre’s 1986 record of 15.4 mph. And there’s a very real possibility of there being no women finishers in this year’s event.
First, the men. The order at the front remains unchanged — Robic is out front, with Wolfgang Fasching still in second, nearly 100 miles behind. Two and half hours back of Fasching is Daniel Wyss in third, with Austrian Gerhard Gulewicz about 100 miles behind Wyss in fourth.
An update on Friday’s departure by Fabio Biasiolo: While the cause of his DNF was officially listed as being “medical,” it was rumored within the RAAM road show that conflict within his crew was the real reason. That seems to have been confirmed — the RAAM website has been changed to show his DNF as being due to “crew problems.”
Phillip Baker, the genial British expatriate from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, has also dropped out. The 66-year-old’s hope to become the oldest rider to ever finish RAAM ended Friday in Trinidad, Colorado, where he pulled out, too exhausted to continue.
The women’s field has lost two riders. Caroline Van Den Bunk and Lauren Fithian have both dropped out, unable to meet the time cut-off. Patty Riddle is still listed, but her last position report is unchanged from Friday when she checked into time station 16 in Pagosa Springs, Colorado. It’s unclear if she is still riding or not. She’s obviously not going to make the time cut-off, so it’s also unclear if the organizers have given her some extra leeway or just don’t have the heart to pull her out.
The last woman with any chance of staying in the race is Kerry White. She checked into the Pratt, Kansas, time station Saturday afternoon, where she was under orders from her mother to take a nap. But it better have been a quick snooze, as she’s dangerously close to missing the cut-off. To stay in the race she must reach El Dorado, Kansas, by Saturday night.
Getting ’bent at RAAM
Consider how few Americans are are competitive cyclists. Now ponder how many of those few will ever do RAAM. Finally, how many of that tiny group will ever do it on recumbents?
We’re talking a very small group here — recumbents make up less than 1 percent of all bike sales — which makes the race unfolding between Team Velokraft and Bachhetta B Team / Military Families Foundation in the two-rider-team category all the more interesting.
Team Velokraft, currently leading, rode through Yates Center, Kansas, about an hour ahead of the Bachhetta riders. Team Velokraft's lead, which they took Friday evening, was a long time in coming. The team has endured three crashes. The first was what crew chief David Bradley describes as a “first-night, adrenaline-type thing.” Recumbents can be a bit unwieldy at low speeds, and it seems Glenn Druery took off and powered up before he really had the bike pointed straight and went down. Happily, the only damage was to his bike shoe.
The second crash came later that night. “Driving the follow car I was having a hard time myself dodging all the roadside debris in the dark,” said Bradley. “But I was amazed at how many pieces of debris the riders were able to avoid. Glenn especially. He’s more at one with the bike and moves it like a mountain biker. Anyway, Tim Woudenberg was going about 25 mph, and got into the gravel trying to avoid debris and went into a slide and went down, chewed up his elbow pretty good.”
Druery’s bike-handling skills weren’t much help in the worst crash. It happened on Interstate 10 when a front tire blew out at 40 mph. “There was this big puff right in the headlights as the tire blew,” Bradley said. “He went down on one side and was skidding along pretty good when the edge of the rim catches traction and flips him over onto the other side, the derailleur side. So sparks are flying. It was pretty spectacular.”
Asked how he fared, Druery deadpanned, “Well it hurt. In fact, it hurt a lot.” He’s fine now, though there was some muscle bruising.
“It slowed his pace over the next 24 hours,” Bradley said. “His road rash is all scabbed over now. So performance-wise he’s back up to normal speed.”
The bike suffered considerable damage, too. The derailleur was reduced to shrapnel; the chain idler system was chewed up. The wheels were wobbly but savable — the team mechanic, Fernando, was able to true them up fine. The tires, however, were done. High-performance 20-inch tires and the idler pulleys that the Velokraft bikes use can’t be found in just any bike shop. So the team had some Fed-Ex’ed to the time station in Pratt, Kansas.
All this put the team two and half hours behind Bacchetta at the worst point. But they turned up the throttle to close in and pass.
While both teams are serious about their racing, they’re also friendly rivals. Back in Oceanside before the start, Druery and John Schlitter hopped on each other’s bikes and did laps around the parking lot. Velokraft’s crew chief, Bradley, actually owns a Bacchetta, and will be crewing at the Race Across Oregon for Bacchetta.
“It’s like a family,” Bradley says of the recumbent endurance-racing world — a world he predicts will get bigger in the coming years. “The concept that recumbent can’t climb comes from the early days when they weighed 30 pounds and were ridden by old men with potbellies and beards.” (Bradley sports a beard and a slight gut.)
Consider that this year's 24 Hours of Sebring in Florida was dominated by recumbents and his prediction begins to make sense. We may be seeing more of these laid-back machines in the future.
