Upcoming Week of RAAM Pre-Race Events

RAAM kicks off tomorrow with a week full of festivities, meetings, and bike racing! Between RAAM required meetings and everything we need to do to get Team Ride Red ready to hit the road, it's going to be a busy week.

With a big thanks to friends and crew, all 8 bikes are already in California along with the leapfrog van, the follow car, and the RV. The team leaves for Oceanside starting tomorrow with Fred and Leary, followed by the rest of the team through Thursday. Here's what's on the team's agenda for next week:

Monday (6/13) - Leary and Fred fly to Los Angeles, pick up the minivan with 6 bikes.

Tuesday (6/14) - Leary and Fred drive to Longbeach, pick up the Xterra and me, drive to Oceanside, pick up the Gopher rental car and the second rental RV, and pick up our RAAM vehicle signage.

Wednesday (6/15) - Kevin (a crew member) starts RAW at noon! More team arrives. Crew prepares all vehicles and bikes for inspection on Thursday. Rider meeting and team meeting Wednesday evening.

Thursday (6/16) - More team arrives in Oceanside in the morning. RAAM required vehicle inspection at 11am. RAAM required Crew Chief meeting at 1pm. Crew spends most of day getting vehicles supplied and ready for race. More team arrives in the evening. Team meeting Thursday evening and massage for riders.

Friday (6/17) - Final bike equipment check-over, crew training on bike lights and wheels. Mandatory 4pm Team Photo and 5pm Team Racer meeting. Team pasta feast Friday night. Then sleep, sleep, sleep!

Saturday (6/18) - Team breakfast and get to start line by noon. RAAM teams start at 2pm! Here we go!

Follow Team Ride Red at: http://www.ridered.org/.

Perp Spray - For All Our Intruder Needs

During one of our team planning sessions, someone brought up the fact that most of the time there will only be women in one of our RVs (resting riders plus medical and massage crew) AND raised questions about safety. As much as I hated to admit it, they had a point. A small group of tired women in some RV park in the middle of who knows where? In my mind, this just screams, "WELCOME ALL AXE MURDERS AND PERVERTS!"

There was much discussion about how to handle the threat of intruders, including hand to hand combat techniques and what to do if you find yourself engaged in a knife fight. I can tell you right now that after riding many hours in the saddle and being hungry and sleep deprived, we riders are NOT going to be in the mood to deal with any perverts.

Since firearms are not allowed in RAAM (Texas teams should be granted an exception) and this probably holds true for flair guns as well, I thought the next best thing would be bear spray (see footnote at end*).

So my mom and I went into the local sporting goods shop, marched up to the firearms counter, and requested a canister of bear spray. The older gentleman behind the counter took one look at my mom and I and asked in a very helpful manner where and how we planned to use it. I said, "I'll be taking a cross country trip and we will be staying in some parks and you just never know." He knew my main target wasn't a bear. He responded with, "Well, if you have other intended uses, you may want to consider Hornet spray because it's just as effective on bears, critters, and perps." Perps? He was on to me! Perps (e.g. perpetrators) in the form of axe murderers, perverts, and robbers were indeed my target audience! He then proceeded to informed me that Hornet spray has a range of up to 20 feet and a very accurate spray but not to get the foaming kind because it has a much shorter and messier range. He said it also blends in with the camping decor so any unsuspecting perps wouldn't be alarmed.

I smiled, thanked him, handed back the $40 bear spray, and purchased a $4.00 can of RAID Hornet spray.

Perps - we are ready for you. Come and get it if you dare!

-------------------
*A few weeks ago I went to buy pepper spray at REI & the sales guy said all they sell is bear spray. I asked what the difference was & he said it was illegal to spray a human with bear spray. I informed him that if some guy is going to jump out of the woods and grab me, I don't care what the law says, he's getting sprayed!

RAAM Nutrition by the Numbers

They say it takes a village to accomplish great tasks. What I recently discovered is that it also takes an entire village's monthly food supply to fuel one RAAM rider for 8 days.

I put together my usual all-encompassing-race-nutrition-spreadsheet-from-hell and came up with my overall nutrition numbers for 8 days of racing based on my "typical" race requirements for cycling / per hour = 300 calories, 400mg sodium, 45 oz fluid.

Calories: 28,800 -- equivalent of putting on 8.2 pounds
Sodium (mg): 38,400 -- glad I have really low blood pressure
Hydration (oz): 4,320 -- 33 gallons

Did I mention this is only for WHILE I'M RIDING and doesn't include "off the bike" meals?

I laid out all my gels, bars, powders, chews, salt tablets and I stood back in awe of the massive pile on the kitchen counter top. I will be taking in 80% of my cycling calories in liquid form. To give another perspective, these calories include 115 scoops of powdered glucose (yum!) and 50 scoops of Hammer Perpetuem (both are essentially powdered calories added to water). And the Hammer Gels? Forget the individual packets. I bought multiple jugs.

At this point ultrarunner Dean Karnazes flashed through my mind and he may have had it right. When he would be on one of his epic training runs, he'd simply call a pizza place and tell them to deliver at an intersection that he would be running through. Then he'd simply take an entire pizza, roll it up burrito style, and enjoy. Maybe I need to rethink my nutrition strategy. Then again, do I really want to be tasting and re-tasting tomato sauce or cheese while I'm grinding my way up Wolf Creek Pass? Not so much.

Dad...Will You Fix This?

There is a frequently used saying in my family -- "Dad...will you fix this?"

My dad is an engineer by trade and he has a machine shop in the basement so anytime something needed fixing, he was THE go-to guy. It didn't matter what it was, from a broken Rubics cube or cracked prom shoe heel to overhauling a 454 Chevy big block engine or reroofing the house, if it needed fixing he could always "make a part".

I went home for a quick visit last week and brought "the van list" which included:
1. Reinforce the Thule bike rack so it won't wobble.
2. Figure out how to mount a light to the back window so it would provide light at night to riders/crew outside.
3. Create some type of table/tray for the center section between driver and passenger seats but it has to pivot so we can get to the race radios and outlets.
4. Figure out how I can simultaneously listen to music AND have a race radio plugged into one ear piece (RAAM rules require one ear to be open to traffic).

In his usual form, Dad came through on all accounts and far surpassed expectation. I "supervised" (aka: I stood there and kept him company while staying out of the way or made the multiple trips to Radio Shack or Home Depot with him) and he worked his usual magic with the band saw, welding torches, metal cutters, and lathe.

This is one instance of all the help and support the team has received from friends and family in preparing for our race. The van is now on it's way to Oceanside and between all the work that Leary did to get it ready and with Dad's final touches, the "leapfrog" is set!


Thanks Dad!

Just plug it in!

Electricians of the world - I salute you.

Apparently it takes more than just a cigarette lighter to plug in 4 cell phones, 4 rider headlights and batteries, 2 race radios, a laptop, a GPS system, a coffee maker, a hair dryer, and yellow flashing safety lights.

Last fall we sat down and figured out all the things we wanted to have in the leapfrog vehicle (mini-van) and what the electrical requirements would be. Being a creature of comforts, I included things like a hair dryer (because when I ride, my hair is perpetually wet) and a coffee maker (7-9 day endurance event without coffee -I don't think so). And then there were the "necessary" items such as cell phones and GPS units that would actually help us get across the country.

After compiling the list, crunching some numbers, looking up the specs to the van alternator, calculating battery juice, and listening to my Dad and Leary have riveting conversations about "modified vs true sine wave patterns", we finally determined that we would have to get a 1600 watt inverter to ensure we could power all the devices we wanted. Correction - power all the devices we NEEDED (my coffee maker and hair dryer got booted from the list because they would suck too much power and pretty much ensure we would NOT make it out of California during RAAM).

We ordered a Whistler PRO-1600 watt power inverter. With specs like this, we thought we were set:

"Turn your vehicle into a mobile office with the Whistler PRO-1600W 1600-Watt Pro Power Inverter. The Whistler power inverter allows you to run AC appliances, with start up loads of 1600-watts or less, right from your vehicle, boat or RV. They're great for weekend use and life on the road. They're also great for power outages. "

I would like to point out to the Whistler people that you can't have a power OUTAGE if you can't get power TO BEGIN WITH!

Leary took the inverter in to have it professionally installed 5 days before our Kerrville training weekend. We wanted to test it out and make sure everything worked. During installation they ran the cables, hooked everything up, went to test it...and....NOTHING. They moved a few wires around, retested again...and...NOTHING. This went on for 4 hours with the final determination that the unit was shot. Leary called Radio Shack who informed us that even though we bought it from RS, we would have to work directly with Whistler. Leary called Whistler who said we would have to ship it back to them because it falls under warranty and no, they could not just send us a replacement. Needless to say we didn't have the unit set up for Kerrville.

3 weeks later, new Whistler unit in hand, Leary went back to have the installation finalized and it took them less than 20 min to put it in the van. Leary went to test it and long story short, it turns out that our original plan of running 3 extension cords and a multitude of devices off the inverter WON'T WORK and that everything has to be plugged directly into the unit itself.

Are you kidding me?

So Leary is at Home Depot right now buying a bunch of those multiple outlet units where you plug one end into an outlet and then you can plug multiple things into the other end. When I asked him what the difference was between that and an extension cord (other than the obvious "cord vs no cord") he said it has something to do with power traveling through a cord and now the inverter won't allow that.

Again, are you kidding me? This device sounds like something a guy would invent.

So I have no idea how this whole thing will work and I'm beginning to think that maybe we should just buy cases of batteries and run everything off the Energizer Bunny. It seems a lot more straight forward!

UPDATE: Leary is now back from Home Depot with a completely exasperated look on his face. Imagine if you will, Leary in the Home Depot parking lot, van doors flung open, power cord wrappers everywhere...three separate trips into Home Depot (with three returns), and finally finding the right combination of cords, plugs, and wires. We are up and running!

However he did mention that when the inverter is running, there is a slight "electrical smell" that is emitted from the floor compartment (where the inverter is being stored). As he was telling me about the possibility of punching a hole in the floor and installing wire mesh so the inverter could breathe, I couldn't help but start to giggle (which turned into full on crying laughter). After I finally recomposed myself, he smiled. I think we should rename our team to "Team Sanford and Son". Bwah bwah bwahhhda....

Going Commando

According to my mom, when I was a baby I did NOT like a wet diaper. I realize this is probably true of most babies, but in keeping with my usual "I'll just take care of the problem myself" approach, when my diaper was wet I would simply pull it off. Ahhh!!!!

41 years later and not much has changed. While I thoroughly enjoy going for a long ride or run in the Texas heat and sweating up a storm, when I'm done working out I want to air out and be dry. NOW!

With all the cycling I've done over the past several months in preparation for RAAM, I've reverted back to my baby ways and have started going commando again. I should clarify. I'm not running around without any bottoms on (although I have been known to streak in the house - who doesn't?) but let's just say that sometimes my "too much time in the saddle" pink parts are not in the mood to deal with women's underwear. And even the most soft, smooth, supple elastic is STILL ELASTIC! I've come to fully appreciate men's cotton boxer shorts or even light airy skirts and so have my pink parts. Because sometimes a girl just needs some air!

*I had to go buy my own since Leary doesn't wear boxers :-)

47 Days and 50 Bazillion Details

We are T minus 47 days to RAAM. Where has the time gone? I'll tell you. It has gone to 20 months of planning, preparation, training, more planning, trial runs, trial errors, meetings, e-mails, discussions, documentation, and more planning. At one point last year I remember thinking, "Oh, we can do that later. We have PLENTY of time." In the words of my Dad, "It's later than you think!"

Photo 1: Setting up the leapfrog and follow vehicles.
Photo 2: Testing out race radios.


As of last week, we are in the final throes of RAAM planning and the core team decided that the best approach is to meet weekly for a few hours to hammer out remaining details. At the end of our last meeting, Crew Chief Fred sent out this list of what's left to finalize - yikes!

RAAM Route Review
Vehicle Power Requirements
GPS Navigation Equipment
Vehicle Role Definition
Gopher Vehicle- rent or borrow
Crew Rotation
Vehicle Supply Inventory
Bike Equipment
PA system for communication to riders and/or provide music
Bike Light Battery Charging
2-way Radio Battery Charging
Spare Bike Light Batteries
Vehicle Signs
Medical Supplies
Financial Mechanisms
Off-shift Activities/Procedures
Satellite Phones/Long-Range 2-way radios
Rider Tracking
Safety Emergency Procedures
Gopher Vehicle Implementation
Info sharing with riders
What to Pack
Improve vehicle logsheets
Improve Dashboard Checklists
Pre-Race Food Preparation
RV Practice Plan
Pre-Race Activities
Crew Photographer/Videographer
Crew T-shirts (round 2)
Agenda/Schedule for Kerrville
Maps for Kerrville

And of course a little extra training is built into these meetings because I get to ride 20 miles to them! Awesome!!!

----
Photo 3: Got tires?
Photo 4: RAAM Planning meeting.