Race Across America

Anyone else following it? A friend is competing so I’ve been glued to the live tracking site.

Christoph Strasser has just finished as first solo male – a little over 3000 miles in 7 days, 15 hours, 56 minutes. Over 16mph including eating, sleeping (not a lot of it) and everything else. Incredible.

Didn’t realise there was a tracking site, damn. Reading ‘Hell on two wheels’ again after following the first 1/2 of the Trans-Am race. RAAM is nuts, the lack of sleep side of it particularly.

Watched some documentary about a little German dude doing this race. Absolutely horrendous. If I remember correctly he got less than 2 hours sleep in 7 days and could barely function.

What is the difference between TransAm and RAAM? Is it simply a different route?

offthebrakes – Member
What is the difference between TransAm and RAAM? Is it simply a different route?

AFAIK
RAAM = supported
TransAm = Unsupported

Oh yes – I forgot that important detail!

Trans Am is 1200 miles longer also, further north so not as hot to start with. Uses the ACA BikeCentennial route.

Mike Halls got a 76 mile lead ATM.

There’s another Englishman in 3rd and an Irish fella in 4th

There’s a story in Hell On 2 Wheels about Jure Robic (4x RAAM winner?) going out riding in California with half a dozen road Pros who’d recently raced the Tour of California inc David Zabriskie, as pre-RAAM training. They wanted to try Robic out on a big climb well into a 120 mile ride but were all dropped by the top.

Hard to imagine being able to operate on 1hr or so kip per night over 8-9 days and probably not possible without a support crew to help, but what the RAAM soloists can ride through seems pretty incredible.