Long Distance Competition/Ultracycling, Randonneuring and Endurance Cycling - Raam 2009

Who else is stoked? I am sad there isnt more mass media coverage of this event. I will be reading all the webcast stuff for sure. I have a feeling Jure Robic has this one in the bag.

Guess not.

I live right along the route in southern Pennsyvania and I allways enjoy seeing them ride by.As allways I will be following the race once it gets started but I don't know about the riders very much.

For the fourth year in a row I am on a support crew. Last year it was for a solo woman. This year it will be for a 4x recumbent team. They want to finish in 6 days flat. After last year's experience I said "never again." So much for that.

What is odd is knowing that some riders rolled out today and yet our team won't hit the road until Saturday afternoon. Still, we expect to catch up to some of those solo riders by the halfway point. We may or may not catch the fastest riders.

first ones came thru town last night a little before midnight pst.

a 6 day crossing would be epic. Some day I might find my way onto a crew of folks. I know my LBC "Bicycle Johns" sponsors teams. I think they have a 4 man in RAW this year. That sounds like a great time though. A 4 man recumbent team sounds like it would require an enormous caravan.

RAAM is awesome. Compared to the freak show that is UCI racing, RAAM truly demonstrates riders' strengths.

a 6 day crossing would be epic. Some day I might find my way onto a crew of folks. I know my LBC "Bicycle Johns" sponsors teams. I think they have a 4 man in RAW this year. That sounds like a great time though. A 4 man recumbent team sounds like it would require an enormous caravan.

We are using three vans and an RV. I don't know what size the RV is. Most of the crew and team are in Oceanside already. I will be joining them this evening.

For the fourth year in a row I am on a support crew. Last year it was for a solo woman. This year it will be for a 4x recumbent team. They want to finish in 6 days flat. After last year's experience I said "never again." So much for that.

What is odd is knowing that some riders rolled out today and yet our team won't hit the road until Saturday afternoon. Still, we expect to catch up to some of those solo riders by the halfway point. We may or may not catch the fastest riders.

GO TEAM RANS! And good luck to you and the rest of the crew!

Does anyone know where you can get regular real time updates on RAAM? The RAAM site has the blog, but I am utterly amazed at how poor the coverage is on there. There are a lot of fluffy posts and not a lot of simple updates on who is arriving at what time station when. Are there any teams or individuals who are covering the event better?

The RAAM site has the Leaderboard, which lists
Rider
number
country
timestation
arrival
elapsed time
timestation split
average speed
timestation average

***edit***

OK, it keeps changing and they don't have the timestation split/avg info up right now. And there's some discrepencies in their reporting because earlier they had Baloh at TS-8 about 1h 15m ahead of Robic with a split listing of 1d even. Now his TS-8 split is 1d 3h 36m, and behind Robic and Strasser.

Are there any teams or individuals who are covering the event better? Yeah, there is some info exchanged among several crews and riders. But since the official do so much "leap frogging" no one source exists for delivering any kind of "play by play."

RAAM is awesome. Compared to the freak show that is UCI racing, RAAM truly demonstrates riders' strengths.

Incorrect. x9999.

RAAM is awesome. Compared to the freak show that is UCI racing, RAAM truly demonstrates riders' strengths.

I think you have this backwards.
Or maybe RAAM is the freak / sleep deprived show and the UCI is like big time wrestling or pro baseball. Or both.

As best I can tell, they have certain events that are "RAAM Qualifiers"- these are to rule out the people that are half nuts, because for RAAM, you need to be fully nuts.

I found this info on RAAM qualifiers:

http://www.ultracycling.com/images/qualifying_for_raam.pdf

I am watching RAAM progress, I am very excited about Team RANS and hope they keep up the good work.

...I am very excited about Team RANS and hope they keep up the good work.

I've crewed for Tim on Team RANS before. Looks like he's having a good run. They are in first in their division as of this morning.

Wow, according to Jure Robic's site (which is updated live by his crew) Dani Wyss passed him in Greensfield Ohio. Jure also has to serve a 1hr penalty at TS51. If Dani keeps his lead, he might win this thing.

It is quite a race between Robic and Wyss.

Incorrect. x9999.

Sure, "normal" racing is the one where they shove drugs up every possible orifice and race leaders barter purse shares to their competition to guarantee a win. I have nothing but contempt for road racing. It's like watching World Wide Wrestling, only more boring. People who think with a pack mentality rarely have anything of interest to show me. Dishonest groupthinkers are even less interesting.

There is not a purse involved with this one is there? If not, I think that would take away some of the extreme behavior.

Thanks for making that distinction, projo. Yeah, I'm talking about professional road racing, not amateurs. Most of the amateur racers I know are incredibly tough, hard-training guys for whom I have tons of respect.

I would watch -- and enjoy -- an amateur road race.

congrats to Wyss, well done . I didn't think anyone would beat Robic in a 3000 mile drag race.

" Why the hell would I want to do that": what I imagine any sane tour racer would reply if asked if they'd like to do RAAM.

congrats to Wyss, well done . I didn't think anyone would beat Robic in a 3000 mile drag race.

Congrats to Wyss on his 1st place finish, but we'll never know if he would have actually beat Robic. For the past 500 - 600 miles those two have been trading the lead by just a few minutes based on who stopped for a catnap. Based on unfairly applied penalties (not that Robic didn't deserve them; just that for similar infractions, Wyss' team was not penalized), Team Robic chose to leave the race at TS51.

I think it would have been the finish to end all finishes had they been allowed to continue on without penalty holdings at TS51. They were dead on matched going into TS51, and the final 50 miles would have been the most astonishing test of mental/physical stamina and just plain brute force.

I understand Team Robic's decision to drop out as a protest against the unfair distribution of penalties, but at the same time I'm disappointed by it as well. I'm certain it wasn't an easy call for them to make, either.

On Jure's site they say he was "the fastest rider at Raam", seems a little bad-sportman-like to make that little dig after quitting.


Jure was the fastest cyclist on this years RAAM. On the last time check TS51, he came few minutes before Dani Wyss. Because of the penalties, issued controversially, because of the rules not aplied always in the same manner and because of not issuing penalties to others, Jure and his crew decided not to finish the race as 2nd, but step out of it on TS51.

Today it was written the history of RAAM. Jure and Dani staged the toughest fight ever and on the end the fastest didn't won.

Expect more in next days when we will be relaxing before traveling back home.

Regardless of why he called it quits, once you're out you aren't the fastest anything. Fastest quitter, maybe. He should have ridden to the end, and had he maintained his (virtual) lead then he could make such a claim.

It's hard to judge what happened from my arm chair, but he's not handling this very well. Btw huge update on his site explaining the DNF was posted today, I'm still reading it.

a 6 day crossing would be epic. Some day I might find my way onto a crew of folks.


If you do, it'll be the hardest few days you can ever imagine. It's an incredible amount of work, crewing. Been there.

On Jure's site they say he was "the fastest rider at Raam", seems a little bad-sportman-like to make that little dig after quitting.

Regardless of why he called it quits, once you're out you aren't the fastest anything. Fastest quitter, maybe. He should have ridden to the end, and had he maintained his (virtual) lead then he could make such a claim.

There's at least a congratulatory line to Wyss on Robic's blog, and they even state that he had his best race ever; so that's nice.
I don't think Robic loses the right to claim "fastest" because he dropped out in protest at TS51. The explanation is that at all the time splits he was riding quicker. OK, no denying the clock, I suppose. The list of penalties he was assessed, I think, shows that he wasn't granted an unfair advantage by anything: Nav error which took him on a longer route, that weird passing misunderstanding/issue with a RAW rider, and his pre-race whiz behind the stage.
I'm curious what the officials' reasoning is for not levying similar penalties to Wyss' team for blatant advantageous infractions; especially when the evidence is already publicly posted (YouTube). I don't think he should have dropped out. I think he should have continued on after serving his time penalties, and then worked through whatever appeals process there is regarding the race. The possibility would have existed at that point to become 5-time winner. Now, there's no chance of it. Although the official clock is still open, as he isn't listed as DNF yet.

On Jure's site they say he was "the fastest rider at Raam", seems a little bad-sportman-like to make that little dig after quitting.



Regardless of why he called it quits, once you're out you aren't the fastest anything. Fastest quitter, maybe. He should have ridden to the end, and had he maintained his (virtual) lead then he could make such a claim.

It's hard to judge what happened from my arm chair, but he's not handling this very well. Btw huge update on his site explaining the DNF was posted today, I'm still reading it.

I absolutely agree!! The fastest, the most enduring, and the best sportsman stood on the podium in Annapolis, Md. on Thursday evening.

"Our clear message to them by stopping our race in first place at time station 51 is that it is unacceptable to mistreat a four time champion in the way they did." -Robic's crew chief, from Robic's blog

Whatever the validity of his complaints, Robic's not going to get much of a hearing with this attitude. That's not how most of us roll in the States.

By his own admission on the blog, he violated two rules -- taking a leak in public, which a police officer saw and reported to the race officials. What were the officials supposed to do under those circumstances, not penalize him? And then he admits he went off route and failed to return to the point of departure. It doesn't matter that his route was longer and harder. Them's not the rules. Who knows about the penalty for passing another rider/crew. Perhaps he's got a beef there, but the proper thing to do is to finish the race as best you can and then take up your issues using the proper channels. Quitting the contest and then claiming on the internets that you're the best -- and, worse, that your opponent is a cheater and that the refs were unfair -- is just lame. My analysis is that Wyss kicked his ass and broke him mentally and that without question, the fastest racer and the best sportsman won RAAM this year.

All that said, how about Kevin Kaiser? What a stud. Guy rode a super-smart race.

I was very pleased with the performance of Team RANS who won the 4man category. Very nice work.

A bit off topic, but I was driving out of Tuscon on the 14th and saw a RAM rider doing a time trial down toward Tuba City. I have been trying to figure out who it is so I can put a proper label on the pic I snapped from my car window. thanks.

"

All that said, how about Kevin Kaiser? What a stud. Guy rode a super-smart race.


No doubt, go Kevin! For those that don't know, this was Kevin's first solo RAAM attempt... he's not a pro, just a joe like most of us. Finishing 5th is phenomenal. Not to mention his crew got him there with no penalties! He rode RAAM last year as part of the two man fixed gear team "Gran Fondo Fixies" with partner Jeff Bauer. Kevin is also a seasoned Randonneur, and hosts the Augusta GA Brevet rides as part of Audax Atlanta. Many here in the southeast have had a blast following his epic ride.

I was very pleased with the performance of Team RANS who won the 4man category. Very nice work.

It was quite an event. They finished first of the 4x teams, beat some of the 8x teams, and beat the 8x tandem team. We saw a lot of other riders up to Kansas, and then it got lonely. The four riders were strong. Tim W. was super strong the last day.

I drove the follow van from ~midnight to 8:00-10:00 am, and I drove it for the final 24 hours, right into Annapolis. Good stuff.

There has been a lot of discussion about Robic. What it comes down to is that they disappeared at TS 51, and haven't filed an official complaint.

If you do, it'll be the hardest few days you can ever imagine. It's an incredible amount of work, crewing. Been there.

This was my fourth RAAM in a row. By far it was the most rewarding. It is an incredible amount of work.