Originally Posted by
lhbernhardt
Crewing is much harder than you can imagine. I think most successful teams are made up of members of the rider's immediate family. Otherwise, if you just get a bunch of strangers together, they'll be at each others' throats after the first week, if they last that long, even if they seem to be great friends at the start. The days are long and tedious, you're stuck together in close quarters, and you don't get much sleep, so you'll be snapping and gnarly. Stuff that others do will annoy you, but if you tell them, then they'll be annoyed with you. If you're paying your own way just to be part of the experience, you'll have no reason to stay once you've been ticked off too often. And if they're paying you to be there, it won't be enough for all the crap you have to put up with!
The stars have to be aligned pretty well before I would enter a RAAM! As a rider or as part of a crew!
Luis
Actually, you have that backward. In most cases, it's worse to have family members crewing for you. Mainly because family members tend to have a very difficult time watching loved ones suffer and that can be very detrimental to the rider/s ability to complete the race. Family members can be great crew members but it's the exception not the rule. I've seen more family members get sent home in the middle of RAAM than "stranger" crew members. We've had great luck with"Craigs list" crew. In fact, some of our best crew over the years we got off of Craig's list. What's more important than the crew is the crew chief. A good crew chief is worth his weight in gold. With a good crew chief, there is no sleep deprivation with the crew and small issues between crew members do not become big issues. I won't say that it's all rainbows and unicorns but it doesn't have to be the way you are portraying it.