Post Race Thoughts

The Finish: Standing on the podium in Atlantic City was a tribute to Bob Biyleu’s hope for a new liver that made this race meaningful. I’m so happy I could ride in his honor this year. Team Race4Life was successful from the crew that provided the support and encouragement, to my teammates that gave every ounce of effort. Not only did we finish this monumental race across America and complete our goal, but we did it with panache. With complete disregard for conserving energy needed to finish, we raced head-to-head from town-to-town against our rival teams.



Monument Valley: Unbelievable scenery. The sunrise light intensifies the red rock formations. Words cannot describe how awesome this looks on a bike. This feels more like a bike tour. Are we really racing?


Mexican Hat Tacos: Fred Boethling, the president of RAAM, came to Sacramento to meet with Team Donate Life and highly suggested that our crew treat themselves the local tacos in Mexican Hat, Utah. Tacos made in the Navajo Nation were apparently worth the effort. Our crewmate Danny made an all-out effort to find the tacos. When found, he was told that they were only available after 10:30 am. Hearing this I radioed that Danny “bring back anything; we’re starving for real food”. Fortunately, Danny brought back the absolutely best homemade breakfast burritos that I have ever had, complete with eggs, hash browns, chilies and salsa. I then yelled out to my teammate Lorenzo who was racing at the time “there’s a burrito waiting for you!”. His speed immediately increased… Gotta love it.

Name That Tune: As the long hours of the evening wore on, crewmember Lee Smith came up with a novel idea to keep everyone awake. Following a rider for endless hours becomes quite an ordeal. Lee’s idea was to broadcast a song across the 2-way radios to the other support vehicles, playing just a few seconds of music from his iPod. The first crew to correctly identify the song and album (bonus points) wins. Fun stuff. Thanks Lee!



Racing The Local Guy: Somewhere along the Interstate in Maryland, I was riding in the shuttle vehicle when our crew made an emergency pit-stop for bladder relief. A local guy watching the race from his vintage bicycle asked if we would mind if he “chased-down and caught our rider”. We all unanimously said “Go for it!”. As we drove the shuttle vehicle back up to catch our rider Jason, we told him of the impending rider rapidly approaching and wanting to race. Hearing this, Jason turned-it-up-a-notch and kept his distance on The Local Guy. However, after a couple miles of racing it appeared that the Local Guy was desperately closing. So, you ask, what was our strategy? Do what we always do; drop a new fresh rider to take over and kill the competition. Given the fact that I took over on an uphill portion of the freeway shoulder it took me a few minutes to get my hear rate under control and increase speed. I was asking myself how I got into this mess… Just as the Local Guy was closing in, I increased speed and began to distance myself, only to hear him yell “You set me up!”… We all laughed.



Racing the 4-Women Team: Team 416 – Kalyra Women’s Race Team is strong. Very strong! All racers. Before the race began the women mentioned they had ambitions of setting a RAAM record. As we raced across the U.S. we were constantly looking at the times of the other teams as we came into the Time Stations. Amazingly, after racing the entire U.S. and with only 2 Time Stations to go, we saw that we were only 15 minutes behind Team 416. This information lit Jason’s fuse and he was more determined than ever to catch someone, anyone... The heat was on and we gave an all-out effort. Within only a few miles from the end we passed Team 416 but they were not going down easy. As we approached the end of the second-to-last Time Station, the team was only 30 seconds behind… Chris and Jason decided to pair-up and draft each other and I joined in the paceline just a few miles later. Adrenalin must have been oozing because we were otherwise spent. Fortunately this all-out effort gave us the advantage we needed and we were able to hold off the women to the finish. Yahoo!