Stage “Eleven”: TS 46-48, Grafton, WV- East of Cumberland, MD

When I woke up in the RV to prepare to ride this stage & asked where we were, I was thrilled to be in West Virginia. Challenging hills! Closing in on Annapolis! Whee!

It was a very sunny, humid (of course!), and warm morning. Mike and I got started with a few small warm-up hills then the rest of this ~ 100 mile segment to Cumberland had several 500-1500′ climbs that reminded me of Old La Honda Rd. at home.

It was here that we started passing very tired solo riders. I was so honored to pass RAAM legend Chris Hoppo Hopkinson. That guy is tough as nails. He was one of the ‘stars’ of the 2005 RAAM documentary film, Bicycle Dreams. Bravo, Chris! We passed Maria Parker here, too. I wanted to give her my congratulations & encouragement for overcoming the tremendous challenges of her race, but she pulled into a TS in front of me & I needed to continue on. Bravo, Maria!

I got to climb the last ascent to where the RV was parked about 18 miles outside of Cumberland, MD. Whew, what a great end to a shift: a hot, exposed, warm-water-in-my-bottle, all-alone climb. When I got off the bike & took off my helmet, there was a giant bee-like insect in my hair! No sting, though..:)

Stage “Twelve”: TS 49-54, Hanover, PA- Annapolis, MD

This was a bittersweet stage since it was the last one of RAAM. Part of me didn’t want it to be over, I must admit. Mike and I got on the road about 1:30am en route to Mt. Airy, MD which was about 36 miles down the road. The TS was where penalties are served & we all were very pleased Team Crank It Up again had none 🙂 So we rode on through! The TS is at a very RAAM-friendly bike shop so I was a little sad to miss visiting but RAAM goes on.

It was around here that I passed solo racer, Mike Wilson. Probably the only time in my life I will zoom by a dude with thighs about as big as my waist. Yes, I made sure to savor that moment 🙂 And, of course, yell out encouragement to this brave, tenacious, soon-to-be-a-RAAM-finisher. We rode on through the warm night toward Odenton, MD, about 40 miles from Mt. Airy. The road had a gradual downhill trend with some little ‘bumps’ along the way. I could smell the hay in the barn by this point! Mike did the last long pull into Odenton and then graciously offered to allow me to ride the last 9.5 miles of the timed portion of RAAM.

This was the crown jewel of my RAAM. My legs still felt good (how is that even possible?), Brandon was playing some of my extremely motivational music, and I was ready to spend all I had left in me.

The ride into Ram’s Head Roadhouse was one of the best 9.5 mile rides of my life. The first mile or so I was sobbing with accomplishment & joy listening to Bob Schneider’s The Other Side (from Bicycle Dreams), then all-out hammering to Eye of the Tiger. I was so happy to get the privilege to finish this magnificent thing called RAAM. I hope this satisfaction and resultant personal sense of “anything is possible” never fades.

Friends have asked me if I’ll do it again. Before the race, I said, “Nope, once will be enough.” The all-time great RAAM champion Jure Robic was right when he said that RAAM gets like poison into you. (It’s a good poison, Jure!) The sun will rise tomorrow and a lot of miles & adventure are waiting for me 🙂

Thanks to the rest of Team Crank It Up for riding your hearts out & meeting our goal of a safe, official finish in “7 days and change”. As rookies, we were neck-and-neck with the other team (with lots of RAAM experience) in our division, which makes me even more proud of us! Mike, Lonni, and Doug were spectacular!

Extra special thanks to our just *phenomenal* crew: Sara, Dan, Jordan, David, Brandon, Guy & Raoul. I am in awe of your beyond-excellent work getting us across!

Thanks lastly to all of you for reading this & taking an interest in this thing called RAAM. I fully realize this is the “lunatic fringe” to most folks, even folks who ride. I hope this at least made you smile and maybe want to get out on your bike and see what adventure awaits you!

Cheers & peace,

Tina

2013 RAAM finisher, Team Crank It Up!

Stage “Nine”: TS 37-39, Effingham, IL-Bloomington, IN

This stage was another over-nighter. This was my most difficult shift of RAAM. The fatigue of riding a lot of the day in hot, humid conditions plus little sleep during a fairly short turnover had a grip on me as our shift passed through rural farm country outside Sullivan, IN and toward Bloomington. I knew how even more important calorie/electrolyte/fluid (CEF) intake would be during this segment given the fatigue that was threatening to consume me. I was using the same Spiz mixture in my bottle on the bike + Ensure off the bike. When my crew called a “pow wow” on the side of the road and said I wasn’t taking enough CEF & they were concerned about safety & could easily call back one of the other riders from the RV to replace me for the rest of this stage, I woke the F up! I got in the van, grabbed some paper & a pen and did a quick calculation demonstrating that YES indeed I had been taking in adequate CEF. There was no way in hell anyone else was going to ride even ONE MILE of my RAAM & I got a little..angry. Which was EXACTLY what I needed! All of a sudden, my focus and clarity were back and I knew what I had to do. RIDE and ride hard. So my 30 minute pull turned into an hour as I hammered up those little rollers and basically rode an hour time trial until I wasn’t so pissed off anymore 🙂

I thanked my crew afterward for teaching me something new about myself that night. The way to wake me up is to piss me off..

Stage “Ten”: east of Oxford, OH-Athens, OH

We got on shift just west of Lebanon, OH, a cute little town full of civic pride. I am from this area (Middletown; Lonni & Doug rode through there) and it was fun riding through. I knew we had a fan waiting in Chillicothe: Bruce Smith, in whose front yard two years ago, Brandon’s well-meaning attempt at an RV u-turn got us stuck 🙂

Bruce was our RAAM angel in 2011 & is now a huge RAAM and Team Crank It Up fan. As I rode into Chillicothe in the late afternoon humid heat, I got a unique surprise-a Harley-Davidson escort by Mr. Smith!

We stopped at the Time Station briefly to chat and take pictures. Bruce had all kinds of fun goodies for us: cans of silly string, bubbles, sparkling apple cider, glow-in-the-dark bracelets & a lovely hand-carved picture frame. Brandon found out Bruce doesn’t mind the ruts in his yard. Mike, David, and Bruce got to meet. For me, this was a wonderful but brief infusion of RAAM enthusiasm and fun. I left Chillicothe with a smile on my face and renewed joy in my heart.

The road to Athens held even more magic. As the sun was setting, the lush green grass next to the shoulder began lighting up in lazy pulses of green. Fireflies! What a beautiful treat. We had the pleasure of their company for at least several miles until the road widened & the grass disappeared. We rode into Athens quite late on Friday night. This is a college town and on this night, the streets were full of kids out having fun. They were incredibly supportive-cheering us on.

RAAM is not just a race. It is a journey and a metaphor for life actually, that presents so many opportunities to experience pretty much the entire spectrum of human emotion, connection & growth if one’s heart and mind are open and ready. I came to ride and I came for this.

 Stage “Six”: TS 23-26, Ulysses- Pratt, KS

As Mike and I waited in the RV in Ulysses for Lonni & Doug, we watched a thunderstorm arrive from the west in front of them. The clouds were fascinatingly beautiful and changing by the minute: purple-gray, and “pimply”. I knew we were going to get some interesting weather on this shift and I was not disappointed.

We got started about 7pm local time. The sky was dark with thick clouds and frequent “heat” lightening in all directions. It had already begun “spitting” on Lonni and Doug. As we headed east further into Kansas, the spitting turned to actual rain with gusty crosswinds of around 20mph. It was warm, though, and I was determined to enjoy the light show!

Soon I needed my rain jacket, so I stopped & put it on. While this was occurring, a local law enforcement officer pulled up behind us, got out and said the weather was going to get “worse” and 2 miles away, there were reports of “quarter-sized” hail. I thought: good thing it’s not hailing here 🙂 Let’s ride. We saw very steady, heavy rain with even stronger winds but no hail that night.

Soon it was time to don my entire “goretex princess” outfit: showercap on helmet, Showers pass jacket, latex exam gloves over the regular ones, goretex pants & goretex socks. My shoes were soggy very quickly in this torrential rain which I could see was coming horizontally in the van’s headlight glow. The road was covered in water; the falling raindrops “bounced” as they hit. I started noticing rather large frogs on the road. Big, fat bullfrogs and more than a few. I giggled as I thought, “OK, this is becoming almost biblical here.”

I was down in my aerobars to get small against the wild wind and realized the hardest part of riding in this was getting out of the van & in IT. Once I was going, I could put myself in “cruise-control” and just go. Mike agreed so we lengthened our pulls to 40-45 minutes and got ‘er done.

Also saw a beautiful (but dead, unfortunately) yellow snake on the road. It was large enough I initially thought it was two of them, mating. Now THAT would have been epic.

By the time we reached Greensburg, the rain had tapered off to a drizzle but the winds kept on giving. Heading into Pratt, the wind backed off as the rising sun pinkened the dissipating storm clouds. They looked like upside down boiling water. As I rode through Pratt looking for the McDonalds which was the Time Station, I felt a strong sense of satisfaction creeping in. We had ridden through the night and through the storm. Yep, this was really RAAM!

Stage “Seven”: TS 28-30, El Dorado- Ft. Scott, KS

This was a hot, humid, rolling stage through what I called the foothills of the Ozarks. As we progressed east, the rollers became more pronounced and I noticed fewer grain silos. We experienced a minor turn mishap just west of Ft. Scott, but quickly realized the error & packed Mike and his bike into the van to get us back on course. By the end of the stage, it was past 7pm local time so we were back in direct-follow mode.

Stage “Eight”: TS 32-35, Camdenton, MO-Mississippi River

This stage crossed the Missouri River three times through hilly green countryside. I recall riding more or less parallel to the river which was on my right for a long stretch. There was a very nice elevated bike path to the left of the road which had fairly heavy bike traffic on it for a weekday. It turned out that there was a local cycling event going on (yay, local Missouri cyclists!)

There were several surprisingly steep little hills east of Jefferson and east of Washington, MO. Due to local flooding, the RAAM route detour had us get into the van in St. Peters, MO and be driven across the mighty Mississippi into Alton, IL where Lonni & Doug got back out on the road. Both the Missouri and Mississippi rivers were very high. The water was up at mid-tree level on the banks. So much water!

2013 RAAM Report-Tina Waitzman

Team Crank It Up!

6/26/13

Stage “One”: East of Borrego Springs-Blythe, CA

Stage 1 (prologue):

The starting parade–

Jim “the machine” Dover, from Temecula, CA, was our team escort. He led us on his bike through the first several miles after a staggered start. RAAM rules say a maximum of 15mph during this non-racing section. Apparently 22 is the new 15! We were a smoking fast train along the San Luis Rey bike path which runs along an old winding levy kind of thing out of Oceanside (my guess is an old RR track). It was so great to finally be underway! At the point where the racing began, Lonni got into the follow van, Mike and I got into the “errand” vehicle (the Tracker) which took us back to the RV which had not left the hotel (all going according to our plan). Off to Borrego Springs in the RV. Except Lonni and Doug got there faster than the RV did! So our first exchange was between Borrego Springs & Brawley.

East of Borrego Springs-Blythe :

The RV, our mothership, was quite a bit slower over the mountains than expected; Doug & Lonni beat us to Christmas circle. They kept going until the RV caught up. Mike and I were more than ready to ride when we did our 1st of many complete exchanges and my RAAM really began!

I got on Candy 2.0 (yes, my bike has a name!) for my first pull and quickly settled into a “high endurance” to “tempo” zone. The heat (high 90s to low 100s) was very manageable while wearing my long sleeved white jersey with a camelbak filled with ice water. I kept my sleeves saturated and it worked like a charm to keep me cool enough to push hard. I was down in my aerobars riding a very strong tailwind, flying along. THIS was the way to begin my RAAM!

Some things one notices more when out on the bike rather than in the van:

Imperial Valley is so incredibly unnatural- heavily irrigated, green, stank of fertilizer/chicken manure, lots of bugs, even a cattle egret (in the DESERT). Just wrong. Although the temperature dropped at least a few degrees, I was glad to get out of there.

Off the bike in Blythe for food & a nap!

Stage “Two”: TS 5-7, Salome – Prescott, AZ

Mike and I got on “shift” in the morning and rode through the Arizona desert as the sun came up and the day began to heat up. We really got very lucky. The high was only 102, there was a nice breeze on Yarnell Grade which kept the suffer factor down, and our wise crew took us down to 20 minute pulls. Neither one of us had any setbacks & climbed strong up the Grade and then into Prescott. The TS at Congress was a hoot & I was lucky to be off the bike then to enjoy a cold/wet towel straight from their pool & some delicious watermelon. Love the Bullshifters!

Stage “Three”: TS 9-11, Flagstaff-Kayenta, AZ

This shift was an all-nighter that began at dusk & ended after dawn. The descent out of Flagstaff was very fast, straight, and major fun. There was very little moon with solid darkness except for thousands of stars keeping me company. Our wonderful crew, Brandon & David put on my tunes & allowed me to really enjoy myself. We got down to Tuba City riding a nice tailwind then gradually climbed back up to Kayenta, arriving around dawn. This stretch of road was where Maria Parker’s van/bikes were rear-ended and totalled a few days before. Joan Deitchman’s van was also rear-ended on this road in 2012. I was happy to have an uneventful trip here. From the Time Station, I could see a few monoliths which mark the entrance to Monument Valley. Lonni and Doug got the honor & privilege to ride through this sacred place at sunrise.

Stage “Four”: TS 14-16, Cortez-Pagosa Springs, CO

The next Time Station after Cortez was Durango, CO, which was our first RAAM cut-off point. Of course, we wanted to hammer it into Durango to see by how much we could beat that cut-off! I was pretty happy with ~ 10hrs. Mike was on the bike through Durango. We had accrued no penalties, so we didn’t need to stop.

This shift was a bit of a “warm up” for the high Rockies soon to come. My legs felt great as I pedaled up, over, and down several hills. Most of them were very gradual climbs which reminded me of the top section of Tunitas Creek, minus all the curves. The little climb out of Wilhoit was a bit of a kicker, though. I had to laugh; it was certainly no Quinnhill! It was sunny, breezy, and in the 80s with a stunning mix of puffy white and gray-purple clouds; another day in RAAM paradise.

Stage “Five”: TS 18-20, Alamosa- Trinidad, CO

This shift was another graveyard one. Began in the dark on a very gradual, long climb up La Veta Pass, el. 9426′. The temperatures were in the 60s to begin, which was just perfect. As we climbed higher, it got a bit cooler but was still comfortable with arm warmers & a vest. Once again, the weather gods were smiling. It was only 44 (could easily have been freezing with precipitation) at the top and the sky was clear and full of stars. I consider myself super fortunate in that I got to ride to the summit of this magnificent pass with birds singing at high volume as the eastern sky was just beginning to lighten. I could begin to see the lush green hues of the different trees that make up the dense La Veta forest that blankets the earth up here. It felt very right to scatter some of my Bumble’s ashes at the summit. His ever-adventurous spirit belongs in this beautiful place. He would be sure to stir up some trouble 🙂

After donning a jacket, toe/hand warmers and full-coverage gloves, we descended into the town of La Veta very quickly and then began the surprisingly narrow, twisty ascent of Cuchara Pass, el. 9938′. The road looked like a driveway in some spots; it was that low-profile. We passed a property whose gorgeous fence I recalled from my crossing two years ago. It was a beautiful structure of stone and wood with just enough pattern repetition to please the eye. The sun was well into it’s rise with birdsong going full blast, a light breeze, and everything so vividly green it almost hurt my eyes. Mike rode to the summit of this beauty. We stopped briefly and scattered more of the Bumble’s ashes so he could investigate all those little birds 🙂

The descent off Cuchara was just as twisty & narrow and seemed to carry some bad juju. I flatted but fortunately I caught it while the tire was soft, not completely flat. The crew had noticed my tail light was too dim so they pulled me over to give me a new one; I checked my tires as I always do & discovered the soft front tire. The crew quickly changed out the wheel & I was on my way again. Further down the descent, we came upon a German rider who had crashed when his front wheel malfunctioned (the language barrier made more details difficult). His crew was taking care of him while he lay on the side of the road, looking ashen. They had already called 911 and had him bundled up in a blanket using their own body heat to warm him. I still do not know how he did; I hope he’s home and recovering.

We pulled into the Trinidad, CO Time Station mid-morning. I got off my bike & there was my CTS coach, Dave McIntosh! Since he lives in Colorado Springs, I had never met him in person before. What a thrill and extra motivation. Thanks, Dave for making a long, early morning drive just for a brief visit with Lonni, myself, and the rest of our team.

Testing!

This is a test post from Tina’s e-mail to Team Crank It Up