Day 7, June 17

We would begin our final shift at 6PM.

Remember I mentioned the frogs crossing the road in Missouri? We found evidence on both of my bikes. Dried baby frog legs on rear brake calipers!


RAAM 2010 Day 7: 10 mi past Grafton West Virginia to 25 mi past Cumberland MD

This shift through the mountains of West Virginia are notoriously difficult, with repeating climbs with elevation gains of 1000 - 2000ft. I started the day on a 1500 foot climb about 10 miles past Grafton, WV. I did the first 2/3 and Andrew pushed it over the summit and then down the other side. This one wasn't so bad, with an average of 7% grade.



We arrived in Clarksburg WV in the morning and actually had the whole day to rest.

There would be MANY more climbs like this, through the forests of the appalachian mtns of WV and MD. Most of the climbs averaged 8% grade, but were actually around 9-10% with a small break in the middle.

West Virginia is a very colorful part of the country. Very small towns, and people just seem to do things their own way. It seems to be a very common past-time to mow your lawn after 9PM in these parts, just before dark. As I was coming to the top of one of the climbs I approached a young kid on a beat up bike. He was watching my approach, and as I came up to him he tried to outsprint me...just like a rabid dog chasing me. Totally funny, no shirt, dirty kid, classic. I guess it's summer. I gave him a thumbs up. He had some talent, and certainly some guts.





By the end of our 5 hour shift I had done about 5,500 feet of climbing, and around 55 miles.

Ryan and Tobias met us at the foot of a 900ft climb for the start of their shift.

As we loaded up our car we debated the idea of hanging around and helping Ryan & T on some of the steep climbs early in their shift. We ruled it out since we were pretty well spent.

We jumped in the car and passed Tobias as he was going up the climb. It didn't look like he was having any fun. This made the decision for us to jump back in and lend them a hand.

The next climb on the route was 1,700 feet, with an advertised 8% grade. I would take the

bottom 1,000 feet at full gas, then pass it to Andrew to finish it off. I jumped in and descended down about a half mile, then started the climb. Sure enough it was never less than 8%, with some 9 and 10. I kept the speed between 10 - 12 mph the whole way up to our exchange. Andrew emptied his tank on the last portion. We then handed it back to Ryan and Tobias. Our job was done.

This was our last shift. The third shift of Kevin and Larry would bring it into Annapolis on Friday morning.


Time Station data data:
Andrew and Jeremy Average this shift: 21.63
Team Type 1 Average this shift: 21.36

Interesting fact: 4 RAAMs completed, zero flats on road!

Day 6, June 16

RAAM 2010 Day 6: 10 mi past Bloomington IN to past Oxford OH

After getting some rest in Bloomington all afternoon, we were back on the road at 10PM. The route would be fairly flat with some steep climbs sprinkled in. As we wandered through the small towns of Indiana we were very thankful for the GPS units on our bikes. Lots of fast turns and no streetlights to speak of.

We traveled the backroads of Indiana and into Ohio, crossing through cornfields and many tiny small wooded roads. Some of the roads were so dark we would need to slow down just to stay in the headlights of the follow vehicle as we twisted through the country.


We finished the night at 3AM, quickly found a clean gas station lot and I took a sun
shower...without sun. Yes, the water was cold, but definitely refreshing. Some yogurt, oatmeal, and a PBJ sandwich would get us up the road.


Time Station data data:
Andrew and Jeremy Average this shift: 22.55
Team Type 1 Average this shift: 21.57

Day 5, June 16

RAAM 2010 Day 5: Camdenton Missouri to Hermann, Missouri

Usually this is the hardest day, both mentally and physically. Our shift was from 1AM to 6AM local time. Missouri is known for endless rolling hills, today would be no different.

Ed picked our hotel location perfectly. We literally exhanged with Brad and Tyner a block from our room. This did mean that they were stuck with the 400ft climb out of Lake of the Ozarks into Camdenton.

We got rolling in pretty good weather, probably about 60deg and no wind. We did encounter lots of fog as we made our way through Missouri.

After passing through the capitol of Jefferson about halfway through our shift, the terrain flattened out for 25 miles or so as we followed the Missouri river. There was one section which had hundreds of baby frogs that were trying to cross (I guess). Some were getting smashed, and one even leaped right into my leg as I rode by.

The last 20 miles or so of our shift consisted of nasty steep rolling hills, with a max of about 12% grade and 400 - 500 feet, over and over...Still they were actually a nice break from the fast TT bike work we had done all night.

We got news in the morning that Tobias had been suffering from severe dehydration, and actually had to go to ER in the night, He apparently got 2 liters of electrolyte pumped into his system. Somehow he is still able to ride. We've been hearing great things about Ryan's form in the past couple days, so he's offsetting the bad luck Tobias is having.

Now we're headed to Bloomington Indiana to get some sleep. We ride at 9PM tonight.

Time Station data:
Andrew and Jeremy Average this shift: 23.96mph
Team Type 1 Average this shift: 23.31mph

Day 4, June 15

RAAM 2010 Day 4: 10 miles after Ulysses, KS to 10 mi past Pratt, KS

Stayed at a pretty decent place in Ulysses, KS. We would ride at 5AM local time. The weather was definitely on our side today. There were heavy thunderstorms through the night, but when it was time to pack up things were drying out nicely.

More good news for the team through the night. The rest of the guys made some great
progress, and took a bit of time out of TT1.

Our day was relatively flat, with lots of straight roads. We probably made no more than 10 turns the entire 5 hours. The wind was very light, and temps were in the high 50's when we started. Certainly not typical summer Kansas weather.

We spent the entire day on TT bikes given the nature of the course. Speeds were quite high.

My GPS had an average of 27mph for the 65 miles that I rode. Much time was spent near 30mph.

We wrapped up the day past Pratt, KS. Much thanks to Ryan, Tobias, and Dave for relieving us 5 - 10 mins early.

Time Station data:
Andrew and Jeremy Average this shift: 26.43mph, 27.04mph
Team Type 1 Average this shift: 26.43mph. 26.3mph

Day 3, June 14

RAAM 2010 Day 3: 30 miles before Pagosa Springs, CO to Alamosa, CO

Six straight hours of sleep, what a luxury.

I rolled out of bed, grabbed a shower, then headed to the breakfast at the hotel. 4 bowls of cereal, with lots of added protein powder and I was stuffed.



Needed to do some minor bike maintenance today and discovered an invention I'm pretty proud of. The bellboy workstand.



We started our day at 8AM local time with the temperatures hovering in the mid 40's. Andrew gets chilled easily. so he opted for the taliban garb early in the day. It slowly warmed up as we climbed our way back into Pagosa Springs.







Somewhere along the way Ed managed to impale the rear bumber of METAL-1 (our car) with a bent snow level marker. We were lucky it didn't actually damage anything.



After rolling through Pagosa Springs, our job was to tackle the Wolf Creek grade. This is an epic climb that rises to 11k ft., also the highest point in this year's race.

As we approached the grade we decided to split up the 8 mile climb in 1 mile pulls so that we could maximize our speed. Most of the climb was between 7 and 8% grade, Not tremendously steep, but at that altitude, the engine isn't quite as efficient. The 1 mile pulls worked out great, but about 2/3 of the way up the climb we shifted to 1/2 mile pulls so we could effectively sprint and then exchange. At about 10.5k ft elevation the slight bit of rain became ice. I topped the summit (also the continental divide) and began to descend into a flurry of ice coming down. Pretty quickly I was descending at 50mph. Fortunately the roads were still dry. The storm was just coming in. Back down at 10kft the snow/ice quit and we enjoyed a fast 40 mph descent down to about 8500ft.








We wrapped up the last 2 hours of our shift on a very gradual descent down the East side of the Rockies. Fortunately we had some pretty generous tailwinds most of the way.

Time Station data:
Andrew and Jeremy Average this shift: 21.37mph, 20.95mph, 27.16mph
Team Type 1 Average this shift: 20.95mph, 20.5mph, 24.11mph

About 30 mins before the end of our shift we got news from group #2 that Tobias was not able to keep any food down, so they may be a bit late. When they did show up to relieve us Tobias took the first pull, so it appears that he recovered. Sure hope he's OK.

Day 2, June 13

RAAM 2010 Day 2: 20 miles past Prescott, AZ to before Tuba City, CA

After some decent sleep in Prescott, I got up and ate about 3 bowls of cereal and a yogurt.

We woke up to a new, unexpected challenge. TT1 escaped, and another team, 4mil, had passed us also. We were in 3rd. Our work was cut out for us.

We started our day outside of Prescott with a climb over a 6k climb. I wrapped up the climb and continued for the long descent throught Jerome AZ, then down to Cottonwood, at about 4k ft. It was a pretty long first pull, about 30 mins and 17 miles. No problem, it was a fun descent.

After Cottonwood, we started to ascend into Sedona. After Sedona, we continued through the red rocks canyon and climbed back up to 7k ft. This is some of the most beautiful country you can imagine.





After the peak at 7k ft, we rolled through Flagstaff. In Flagstaff we finally caught team 4mil. We had no problem pulling away from them the rest of the day. About 10 miles outside of Flagstaff, we began the long descent toward Tuba City and Monument Valley. We finished our day 8 mins ahead of team 4mil on the road, and 14 mins ahead officially.

Time Station data:
Andrew and Jeremy Average this shift: 20.21mph, 27.08mph
Team Type 1 Average this shift: 19.71mph, 27.08mph

Today no hoses were around to rinse off, so I used the sun shower that we had on the roof of the car all day. The only problem is that there wasn't much sun all day, so the shower was a bit chilly. Andrew opted for the sponge bath, not wanting to catch a chill :).

Day 1, June 12

RAAM 2010 Day 1, Old Castle Rd at Hwy 15 to Brawley, CA

Wow, we tore it up today.
Brad and Tyner started the race and did the first 20 miles or so to Hwy 15. I started the day for us and had about 1k of climbing in my first seven miles. When I started, team type 1 was 3 minutes in front of me. They actually started the race 3 mins ahead of us, so kudos to Brad and Tyner for matching their pace for the first 20 miles. Six miles into my first pull I caught the TT1 guy (thats 30 seconds/mile). I passed it off to Andrew in Valley Center and he rode it down to the taco shop in Pauma Valley. It was my job to do lots more climbing. With TT1 somewhere behind us still, I powered up about 2/3 of the Orange Grove climb, probably another 1k feet of climbing. Andrew wrapped up that climb and we shared the rollers out to the first time station at Lake Henshaw, still minutes ahead of TT1.

TT1 apparently was not happy to see us ahead of them, since they're not used ot losing. About 10 miles out of Lake Henshaw, there was a right turn toward Ranchita. Andrew overcooked the turn and lost grip on both of his tires. Crap, this is a rough way to start. Good thing is that Ed and I were close to the crash, so I just jumped on the road quickly while he picked up the pieces. Probably only a minute or two lost to the crash here.

By the time we hit Ranchita, TT1 was about a quarter mile behind us. Andrew took the descent down the glass elevator. When we relieved him in Borrego, TT1 was barely ahead of us. We were in for a battle until 8PM. We stayed on TT1's tail all the way out to our exchange point just short of Brawley. We were still ahead of them on paper since we started the race 3 mins behind them.

So typically Brawley is just an armpit that you just want to get out of. Not tonight. We rolled into a crappy hotel that had a small garden and a hose. I saw this as a much needed opportunity for a shower. We rinsed off with the hose, and grabbed some much needed food out of the cooler. Off to Prescott we went in the big suburban,with lots of legroom.

Time Station data:
Andrew and Jeremy Average this shift: 20.83mph, 27.94mph
Team Type 1 Average this shift: 20.18mph, 28.69mph