It's a Bird....It's a Plane...

Nope. A bike.

Hey! The Park is on a Top-25 List / And Other Year-End Posts

In a year-end post, our Australian friend Treadly&Me listed 30 sites that generated the most referrals. Research Trailer Park came in at ... All right! We cracked the top 25.

Treadly's site is listed as one of the links we like. His site is always worth a look.

A few other notable year-end posts:

* Giving the body and bike a break. RUSA Prez Mark Thomas explains his recent cycling hiatus. The explanation: an ailing ankle that now appears to be on the mend. Read about it here…

* Mileage Markers. Our pal Surly Dave explains why his ambitious mileage plans for the year have been scaled back to a manageable 6,000K. Here’s his latest post.

* Cycles of cyclists. The holidays bring families together. Chuck Lathe writes about a visit from his son and chronicles his efforts to pass along the cycling gene to the next generation. It's here...

Why Cyclists Like the Parkway: Part 2

Poem: Mulga Bill's Bicycle

Greg Combs, a cyclist in the Southern Pines area, posted a poem on ThePilot.com by Australian poet Andrew Barton "Banjo" Paterson. It was first published in the Sydney Mail in 1896.

Mulga Bill's Bicycle
by A. B. "Banjo" Paterson

'Twas Mulga Bill, from Eaglehawk, that caught the cycling craze;
He turned away the good old horse that served him many days;
He dressed himself in cycling clothes, resplendent to be seen;
He hurried off to town and bought a shining new machine;
And as he wheeled it through the door, with air of lordly pride,
The grinning shop assistant said, "Excuse me, can you ride?"

"See here, young man," said Mulga Bill, "from Walgett to the sea,
From Conroy's Gap to Castlereagh, there's none can ride like me.
I'm good all round at everything as everybody knows,
Although I'm not the one to talk -- I hate a man that blows.

But riding is my special gift, my chiefest, sole delight;
Just ask a wild duck can it swim, a wildcat can it fight.
There's nothing clothed in hair or hide, or built of flesh or steel,
There's nothing walks or jumps, or runs, on axle, hoof, or wheel,
But what I'll sit, while hide will hold and girths and straps are tight:
I'll ride this here two-wheeled concern right straight away at sight."

'Twas Mulga Bill, from Eaglehawk, that sought his own abode,
That perched above Dead Man's Creek, beside the mountain road.
He turned the cycle down the hill and mounted for the fray,
But 'ere he'd gone a dozen yards it bolted clean away.
It left the track, and through the trees, just like a silver steak,
It whistled down the awful slope towards the Dead Man's Creek.

It shaved a stump by half an inch, it dodged a big white-box:
The very wallaroos in fright went scrambling up the rocks,
The wombats hiding in their caves dug deeper underground,
As Mulga Bill, as white as chalk, sat tight to every bound.
It struck a stone and gave a spring that cleared a fallen tree,
It raced beside a precipice as close as close could be;
And then as Mulga Bill let out one last despairing shriek
It made a leap of twenty feet into the Dead Man's Creek.

'Twas Mulga Bill, from Eaglehawk, that slowly swam ashore:
He said, "I've had some narrer shaves and lively rides before;
I've rode a wild bull round a yard to win a five-pound bet,
But this was the most awful ride that I've encountered yet.
I'll give that two-wheeled outlaw best; it's shaken all my nerve
To feel it whistle through the air and plunge and buck and swerve.
It's safe at rest in Dead Man's Creek -- we'll leave it lying still;
A horse's back is good enough henceforth for Mulga Bill."

Benson & Back

Just back in from a 47 miler with Dean and BobO. The route from Dean's house to Benson was surprisingly hilly. I was expecting an easy, flat out & back. My GPS showed about 2,000 of climbing. Not too shabby for that part of the state. I think we dropped down to every possible creek along the way and climbed back up to every ridge.


Here's the intrepid trio ready for take-off.


Here's our route.


Now a Trailer Park quiz for you loyal readers, suggested by Deano: See if you can spot the jackass in this photo...I vote for the guy behind the camera...


We rode under this mottled sky and beside this muddy field on the way down....


And passed by this old mill pond and waterfall....


We lunched at the Benson Main Street Cafe...and everybody ordered the special: turkey and stuffing with two sides and corn bread. Dean and I had the chocolate pie for dessert.




We had lots of sunlight on the return. This tree begged to be photographed.


A roadside shot of Dean...



And one of Bob....


A fun time was had by all...

2007 Doublewide Awards: Most Popular Permanent

When you've only got three established routes, it ain't hard to become the favorite. N.C. randonneurs nearly wore out the 208K Kerr Lake Loop in 2007. It was ridden at least once a month as a group ride, and several riders did it solo. The biggest ride took place in September when a dozen riders looped the loop.


Here's a picture of 10 from that ride.

In October, nine riders completed the Loop under picture-perfect skies.


Here's a photo of that hardy group.

2007 Doublewide Awards: Best Dressed

Okay, we've got a clothes horse among us. It's Jerry, who took top honors in the "Best-Dressed" category with these two jerseys.


1) This Houston Rando shirt with the mad-eye dog.


2) This jersey from the Open Eye Cafe in Carrboro, one of our favorite coffee shops.

Runner-up goes to JoeRay for his Curious George T-Shirt. True, he didn't wear it on a ride, but he bought it because we saw a woman wearing one in Clarksville as we ate lunch during a Lake Loop.

Doublewide Awards: Best Posts of 2007

Here are the nominees for favorite posts of 07, in no particular order. The swimsuit competition is likely to considerably thin the field.

The Spartanburg 300K: A lesson in surviving mistakes and miscues…

Team N.D.D: Big Adventures don’t get much bigger than this….

Blackbeard’s Permanent: A great crew + a great route = a great night ride.

My PBP Bike: A look at the vintage ride that carried me and the day in 03...

Oasis: Not just a band… Discovering the joys of the roadside eatery…

The 600K Pre-Ride: Me and Branson ride right through the battlefields…

My Fling with Little Debbie: The snack cake steals my heart…

Bagging Mount Mitchell: Hours of hills and cold were a perfect warm-up for PBP… The garbage bag was a bonus...

Chicken Stories: The Siler City Express. A joy ride with two of my favorite riding buddies, Joe and Wes.

Fun things to do in Paris before PBP: Title gives it away.

2007 Doublewide Awards: Best Convenience Store Purchase

When you're packing for a brevet, it's often easy to overlook an item or 2. On last month's Gappity Gap, I forgot a light for reading my cuesheet in the dark. Not to worry. I made do with this lime green beauty, purchased for $2.99 at one of the ride controls.

2007 Awards List: Best Permanent

It was always great to get out with buddies for our monthly permanent. But one ride stands out: the Blackbeard Permanent in July. A great summer night, great friends and a great route made for a magic moment. Here's the write-up and a couple pictures.

2007 Awards List: Hardest Ride

In the Doublewide Awards, Hardest Ride, hands-down, goes to last month's Gappity Gap. While only a 200K, it was anything but short & sweet.

Here's the write-up, and a photo of Nick Bull and myself taken by Texas riding buddy Edward Robinson.

2007 Awards List: Best Q&As

As PBP neared last summer, I did e-mail Q&As with several of the Tar Heel riders who were heading to France. In looking back through my blog posts from this year, I was struck by the gems from these great riders. They’re worth another read. I only got half of the Tar Heel riders. I'll do better next time.

Here they are, in alphabetical order: Adrian, Branson, Byron, Cap'n, Caroline, Chet & Cyndy, Jerry, Keith, Paul, and Wes.

2007 Awards List: Best Video

The Doublewide Award series continues.

Best Video Honors in 2007 goes to...

Yo Adrian! Who can forget the immortal video of Yo A, astride a microbike, reliving the glories of PBP? A classic!

2007 Awards List: Best Ride Poster

Big Adventures don’t get much bigger than the snow-capped ride of Flèche Team N.D.D. Talk about classy -- these guys even had their own poster. However, the team merchandise sales fell well short of predictions. The Team N.D.D. Store, saddled with an inventory of 3,500 unsold T-shirts, was forced into bankruptcy in October.

2007 Awards List: Best Photo

Here at the Trailer Park, it's time for our First Annual Doublewide Awards.

First up: the Best Picture of 2007. The envelope, please....



Laundry, by Capn John Ende, taken in July during Mountain Training Camp.

Ripe with past glories and future challenges, this picture was shot off the bike, between rides. Here, Capn Ende’s son Patrick helps hang the day’s road kill on the porch of the mountain house. A refreshing change from all those shots of smiling bike helmets.

My fling with Little Debbie

I have a confession to make. For a month there, I had a mad crush on Little Debbie.

It happened so quickly, I still have a hangover from the sugar buzz.

Over the years, I’d seen Little Debbie hanging around convenience stores. Once I saw her watching me from the snack cake aisle. I never paid her much mind. Sure, she was sweet, and such a tidy little package. But she lacked substance. In a world of complex carbohydrates, she was a simple sugar. And a little fat.

Something changed last month on the Gappity Gap ride. When we rolled into the first control, my low fuel light was on. I needed some calories and fast.

And there she was, that cookie coquette, gussied up in a new get-up. The Little Debbie Double Decker Oatmeal Crème Pie. Two servings of sticky sweet cream filling in a triple bed of oatmeal cookies.

When she wasn’t looking, I checked her out from the back: 470 calories, 1/3 of em fat. Also, about half a shaker of salt.

Mon dieu! This little lady packed a culinary wallop. And all for 50 cents.

And so, my brothers, I gave into sweet temptation. Before the day was done, I would have Little Debbie twice. Each time, she left me light-headed from the sugary rush. Afterwards, I felt slightly queasy. Could this be love? Perhaps, although I couldn’t rule out a peculiar sensitivity to one of her essential ingredients -- annatto extract, a color additive that represented fire, sun and blood in early American Indian civilizations.

Was Little Debbie a Native American? This was a promising development. I had a box of arrowheads, collected during my teenage years in rural Virginia. I couldn’t wait to share them with her.

When I returned home from Gappity Gap, I wrote Little Debbie. I took a risk, laid my feelings out like cards on the table.

I waited in vain for a response. Nothing. Lil Deb had gone cold on me. Maybe it was an age thing? I did what all love-bit pups do these days: I googled her. And I learned an encouraging tidbit: Little Debbie had been around since 1960. Hell, she was my generation: a Baby Boomer, with the emphasis on kaboom.

So what could explain this sudden distance? Was this destined to be a one-ride stand?

Sadly, that was the case. In the last month, I’ve had a chance to cool off and come to my senses. I now see things will never work out between us. She’s the heir to a baking empire. And me? Just another love-struck fool with a sweet tooth and a dollar bill.

These days, anytime I enter a convenience store, I try not to let her catch my eye. True, I broke down on Saturday’s ride and had a single Oatmeal Crème Pie, just for old time’s sake. It left a bittersweet taste in my mouth. When I was done, all I wanted was a toothbrush and moist towelette.

But late at night, when I can’t sleep, I picture her in her Little Debbie outfit, bent over a steaming commercial stove. Her sweet voice cuts through the darkness: “More fat! I need more sugar! Where the hell is the annatto extract?”

Lexington 200K / Barbecue Heaven

Yesterday I joined Tony G, Tony F and Joel, the son of High Point RBA Richard Lawrence, for a shake-out ride of the Lexington 200K. A good time was had by all. A personal thanks to Tony G and Joel for pulling me along all day.

The ride started and finished at a Wal-Mart parking lot just off exit 91 on I-85. Richard Lawrence showed up a few minutes before the start to see us off.



I brought my Silk Hope for the second 200K this month and was delighted to show it to him. He is the proud owner of this magnificent 25-inch Silk Hope.



For those heading up for the Jan. 1 brevet, here’s the route according to my GPS.



If you look closely you’ll see where we rolled into several controls along the way.

The elevation gain is about 5,700 feet over the 126-mile course, or 450 feet per 10 miles. That’s pretty typical of the rolling hills in the western Piedmont.



I looked at the other 200Ks I’ve recorded. This has as much gain as Bethany Davison’s Caesars Head course. However, there’s nothing too steep and nothing too long. I’d say it’s easier than that ride or the Siler City Express permanent. But it's still plenty challenging.

Most of the Lexington route is on extremely quiet back roads, which allowed for lots of side-by-side socializing. Here are the two Tonys rolling up to a stop sign.



One highlight of the course: Bringle Ferry Road below the High Rock Lake dam (where that first photo was taken). Here's a shot of Tony, Joel and Tony with the dam in the background.



Another highlight: The quiet run into the former boomtown of Gold Hill. Here's a shot of Joel rolling up to the historic marker.



There were a few busy stretches, including a four-mile stretch on Highway 64. Apparently there’s not a good way to avoid that because there are only so many bridges across the Yadkin River. However, there was a pretty good shoulder along that section. It also got a little busy as we headed back into Lexington.

Lights and reflective gear were a necessity. We rode the last half-hour in the dark.

Here is the crew riding into one of the controls.



For those who like western N.C. style barbecue, this ride will be heaven. I’d say we passed four roadside restaurants with pigs on the signs. By the time we rolled back into Lexington, I’d built up a powerful hunger. Joel arranged a dinner at – where else? – the Lexington Barbecue Restaurant, also known as Honey Monk’s after the owner’s nickname.

Richard and his wife joined us for a post-ride chowdown. Talk about local knowledge: Joel ordered what was essentially a plate of chopped pork edges. I followed suit. Delicious!

Postscript: Joel filled me in on the local history after seeing my barbecue commentary.

Discussing BBQ can get you in hot water very quickly. The topic borders on politics and religion. (Okay, around here it is a religion.) The type of BBQ you had on Saturday night was “Lexington style”. To me “western style” conjures up the image of a ½ ton spit of beef being cranked beside a Conestoga wagon.

I’m not sure where you heard the local name “Honey Monk’s”. (You were pretty much dead on.) I have never seen it printed anywhere. Growing-up, we always referred to the place as “The Monk” or “Lexinton BBQ #1”. Every once in a while, I would hear an old timer refer to it as “The Honey Monk”. Several years back, I asked Wayne Monk, the founder, the origin of the name. He told me that originally a guy named Honeycutt was going to be his business partner. About the only thing the guy contributed was part of his name. “Lexington BBQ #2” was located at the other end of town and was run by Wayne’s brother, Tommy. It closed a number of years ago. Although Wayne’s son, Ricky, runs the place now, Wayne is still there helping out. He was the older gentleman behind the counter on Saturday.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

For those who can't get enough of all these maps I've been posting, here is the route in mapmyrides and bikely.com.

Lexington 200K

Share your bike routes @ Bikely.com

Another Cotton-Picking Ride

What a great day on the bikes.

RUSA’s membership team, Don and Phyllis Hamilton, are in from Dublin, Ohio to spend the holidays with relatives in the Triangle. And that’s my good fortune.

Have tandem, will travel. Phyllis and Don brought theirs along on vacation and invited me to show em the back roads. Hey, you don’t have to ask me twice. And so we snuck off as a trio, meandered in the countryside east of Raleigh for a 40-mile social.

I picked one of my favorite winter routes: the Frostbite Loop, the perfect choice for cycling chitchat. It leaves from Archer Lodge, about 20 miles east of Raleigh. We occasionally had to pull in single-file for cars, but mostly we rolled along side-by-side under a mint-blue sky, custom-ordered from a high-dollar catalog. The landscape is flat and decidedly Tar Heel rural: weathered tobacco barns, newly planted winter wheat, black creeks, doublewides and old farmhouses. And speedy dogs.

The Hamilton tandem is a big steel monster that gallops down the hills. I had a hard time hanging anytime the road developed a slant.





Along the way, Don filled me in on a few of their big biking adventures. Like their first 600K, which wandered into Johnny Bertrand’s backyard, and their tandem tales from two PBPs. I also got the skinny on how Don and Phyllis met. An interesting story, and one I won’t repeat here. But after 25 years of marriage they still make a cheerful tandem team.

We made one stop along the way for drinks, a Little Debbie cake and a gooey grilled cheese sandwich. Here's Phyllis out front.



The Frostbite Loop features a 10-mile run on one of my all-time favorite stretches of pavement: Antioch Church Road, the road that time forgot. There must be better, faster ways to go everywhere else because cars are a rarity. We owned the sparkling blacktop for the afternoon. Antioch climbs ever so slightly past abandoned barns and vast swaths of open fields.

We passed several cotton fields where the crop is gone but plenty of cotton bols remained. Phyllis had never seen cotton growing before, so we stopped while she gathered up a few handfuls as a souvenir.



I guess that made it a cotton-picking ride.

After the slog up Covered Bridge Road, we finished at the Archer Lodge rec center. A handshake, a hug and off we went to our separate holiday cheer. Another great day on the bikes.

Postscript: I wasn't the only one with a camera. Don just sent along these pix. The first is at the convenience store, the second at the cotton fields on Antioch Church Road. Notice the moon rising over my shoulder. Also, I added a couple more shots I took.

Another Kind of Race Across America?

Dale Brown in Greensboro, the brains behind the Classic Rendezvous Web site and list and Cycles De Oro bike shop, just forwarded an email about the "Tour of America." See the press release below.

Dale has a healthy skepticism about the event. "Organized in that hot bed of cycling activities: Lumberton, NC?" he wrote. "Heck, sounds great and stranger things have happened but the betting windows are now open as to whether this event will really take place."

LUMBERTON, NC
Aqu, Inc., organizers of The Tour of America, a multi-stage coast-to-coast professional bicycle road race, have revised dates and a tentative race route for its September 2008 event.

Based upon feedback from racers, professional racing organizing bodies, the media and enthusiastic supporters of the event, the following changes have been made to The Tour of America: The race has been shortened to 21 stages; it will now cover approximately 2,200 miles (more than 3,500 km); and it will run from September 6-28, 2008.

Additionally, The Tour of America will start in New York's Central Park and finish in Palo Alto, Calif., a city known for its cycling culture. Click here for the complete schedule.

Frank Arokiasamy, Aqu's president, originally announced details of the event during a press conference at Interbike. As originally conceived, the race would have covered 4,000 miles (more than 6,000 km) with 27 stages during 30 days of competition.

"During and after our announcement at Interbike, almost daily I received emails and phone calls with positive and negative comments about the race," Arokiasamy said. "The overwhelming response showed there was an interest and a need for a 'Tour de France-style' race here in the United States. Based on the feedback from everyone, we realized our first plans were perhaps too ambitious and that the original race schedule didn't fit within standard racing protocols. To ensure the race would attract the best international racing teams and the support of both cycling enthusiasts and sports fans alike, we've modified the race schedule and route to its current form."

The 2008 Tour of America will be the largest spectator event in the history of U.S. sports, traveling from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean. The event will invite 25 of the most elite cycling teams in the world to participate and will boast a prize purse currently pegged at $10 million, the largest purse of any international cycling event (reduced from $11 million, due to the new shortened schedule).

Until this venture by Aqu, all major international cycling races were held outside the U.S. Smaller stage races are currently held across the country and draw respectable spectator crowds and provide significant economic impact to local communities. However, these races are geographically located within single states, while The Tour of America will span approximately 18 states and will travel through hundreds of towns and cities along the way. As such, The Tour of America is expected to attract millions of spectators along the 2,200-mile route.

Cities along the race's route include New York City, Philadelphia, Cincinnati, Indianapolis, St. Louis, Denver, Las Vegas, Sacramento, Napa, Santa Rosa and Palo Alto, to name a few. Of note to industry members, the Las Vegas event includes a time trial, to be held the evening of September 22, the first day of Interbike's OutDoor Demo.

"Our goal is to make this race happen in September 2008," Arokiasamy added, "There is a lot to accomplish between now and then. With help and cooperation of host cities, racers, bicycle racing enthusiasts and potential sponsors, we can make it happen. The United States needs its own world caliber race and one that will be around for a long time."

Lost? It Ain't Just a TV Show..

I've spent the last week or so extracting data from my GPS and figuring out how to turn that into electronic maps.

Now, for your reading pleasure, is another terrific post by N.C. rider Chuck Lathe. He takes great joy in getting lost on our chip & seal back roads. GPS devices threaten that kind of "bumble," he says.

The global positioning system is poised to become truly bicycle friendly -- well, maybe unfriendly depending on how you think about those things. From what I am reading, a lack of battery power will keep the little handlebar mounted GPS receivers from most brevets over 200 kilometers long this year, but the day is coming when even a bad cue on the cue sheet won’t allow us to become blissfully lost again.

And:

When you realize that you’ve gone down the wrong road and that you will have to backtrack to get back on course, it isn’t always immediately apparent that you’ve added something special to the ride, but later, the wrong turns are often the part of the brevet that remains most clearly in your memory. In fact, all randonneurs understand at some deeply internal level that getting lost is something special. We reveal that deep understanding by calling those extra miles ridden in wayward directions, bonus miles.

I'm reminded of the time when Capn John Ende led a team of N.C. riders astray on the Cascade 1200K. We wound up with 6 bonus miles on top of the very hilly first-day total of 230. Ouch! But Chuck's right. I now look with the great fondness on our little detour. It's one more notch in the belt of a Big Adventure.

BTW: I should make it clear that I don't use the Garmin Edge for navigation. I use it to show me where I've been, not where I'm going.

I don't like reading cue sheets while riding and prefer to leave that to others. When I ride solo on a route I don't know, I typically copy pages from the N.C. topo map book. That gives me the option of making up the route as I go.

The first time I rode the 175-mile route from Raleigh to the Swan Quarter ferry, I stuck the entire topo book in a Carradice seat bag. Besides being a handy reference guide, it also gave the bag a nice shape.

RAAM News

This just in. You'll see Kevin Kaiser listed in the two-person teams:

RAAM Field at 250 Racers
Record Field for 2008 Edition of Transcontinental Bicycle Race
BOULDER, Colo. (December 17, 2007) -- More than 250 courageous athletes have pre-registered to compete in the 2008 Race Across America (RAAM). View 2008 roster here. RAAM is a non-stop, coast-to-coast race in June that will pass over two major mountain ranges, through the desert and across the American plains, and into the face of the severest weather patterns on the North American continent.

Now in its 27th year, the legendary event, known as the "world's toughest endurance race," inspires men and women of all ages, who spend a year out of their mostly ordinary lives training for the monumental challenge of pedaling across the United States to test the utmost limits of their physical strength, mental spirit, resilience and commitment.

The event has grown tremendously in the past few years, especially with the addition of team relay divisions. In 2006, 151 racers started RAAM, and last year, 192 racers pulled their wheels to the start line. Race Director, Terry Zmrhal, says, "Registration for the 2008 race is exceeding our projections. We usually receive many of our registrations in late winter; however, the surging popularity of RAAM around the world, is building a sense of urgency for our racing community."

To date, this year's field includes 23 solo racers and 53 relay team entities in either 2, 4 or 8 person configurations. The solo racers currently include 2 women and 21 men, representing the U.S.A., Canada, Germany, Italy, Austria, England, Switzerland, and Brazil. No previous champions have registered yet, however, traditionally, many solo racers will not commit to RAAM until early spring.

Of the registered solo racers, five racers are veteran RAAM solo competitors. David Haase (Fond du Lac, WI) finished in 4th place in both 2005 and 2006. Haase's experience should allow him to better his 2006 time of 9 days, 21 hours and 41 minutes, and make him a contender for the overall championship.

David Jones (Canoga Park, CA) is set to return in his third attempt at RAAM. He finished the 2007 race in 12 days, 1 hour and 15 minutes, and at age 61 became the oldest solo finisher of the RAAM.

Four of the registered solo racers have graduated to the solo division after participation on a relay team in the past. These racers will face the challenge of adapting their training from the short, intense efforts needed for team relay racing, to the non-stop ultra endurance needs of the solo division. One benefit that previous team racers have in converting to the solo division, is that they have experience assembling the logistical needs to race across the country, and have experienced a glimpse of the sleep management issues needed for a non-stop, 3,000 mile race.

Team categories will also offer up their share of suspense, as men and women, aged 18-75, join up as teams of two, four or eight, to race across the country in relay format, and attempt to finish in five to seven days (compared with the 8-12 days of a Solo effort). The 2007 race saw intense competition as several of the lead teams stayed within minutes, and sight, of each other for the first 4 days! Zmrhal said, "The excitement of the team racing amazed me. Watching the teams hammer at time trial speed, in the middle of the night, just blew me away!"

There are 53 teams currently registered. Currently, teams are representing the U.S.A., Canada, U.K., France, Switzerland, Austria, Norway and Luxembourg. Highlights include a team with several 75 year old men, two teams of women aged 50+ and 60+, and at least 5 teams competing in the mixed-gender division.

For those inspired by the challenge of RAAM, but lacking the time off or resources, RAAM now offers a two additional events that occur simultaneously with the signature cross-country race. New for 2008, RAAM presents the Race Across the West, which is a 1,000 mile race that finishes in Taos, NM. RAAM also continues to offer a 24-hour race on its first 500 miles, to Flagstaff, Ariz. Each of these events, start with the signature event in Oceanside, CA on June 8th and utilize the same route, rules, and logistics of RAAM. Registration for these races has been well accepted with over 30 racers committed.

Racer registration remains open; although a field cap is expected. Interested racers should act soon to secure a spot in the 2008 field. Registration information can be found at the event webpage www.raceacrossamerica.org, or, you can e-mail questions to the Race Director at director@raceacrossamerica.org.

Gyro Century Route

Duration: 6 hours, 9 minutes, 53 seconds
Length: 103.3 miles
Vertical up: 2969.6 ft
Vertical down: 2925.4 ft
Average speed: 16.8 mph
Ride time average speed: 19.3 mph