End or beginning?

Three and a half days, 857 miles, pedaling on 6 hours of sleep. 5000' climbs and descents, a massive lightning storm in the night through Monument Valley, brutal headwinds, welcome tailwinds, navigating through towns and 120 miles on one stretch of highway...

Samim rode well, proved he is a rider who belongs at a race like RAAM, and gave it everything he had, including an amazing stretch getting to Durango yesterday. He was diagnosed with influenza pneumonia this morning at about 3am. The X-ray and lab results confirmed what we had become sure of as he tried to ride in the cold of early morning: his lungs and body were succumbing to a bacterial battle, had trumped his training and mental toughness, and his compromised body was just unable to continue the race. It took a lot of convincing even after the diagnosis (no no, I can keep riding...), but Sam's bid for the RAAM this year is done.

The fact that he's been riding with this for the last couple of days just underscores the amazing mental and physical strength that he brings to this race. I keep trying to find words to describe what he must have been going through yesterday, but I just can't. I know it was hard beyond any physical endeavor I've ever engaged in.

Which is not to say that crewing for those four days was easy either! We averaged about 3 hours of sleep a day, alternating between trying to find supplies in whatever local town, and being in the follow vehicle, trying to get Sam what he needed and keep him on the road. I spent the last three nights driving about 40 feet behind him at 20 miles an hour, trying to keep him in the headlights but not run him down, for hours and hours at a time. We'd pull up next to him, hand him drinks and food, and fall back to our follow position, all while watching out for vehicles flying by on these open western roads. Whew!

So we're here in Durango, CO, hoping that with a lot of rest and down time and the medicines he was given, the pneumonia will heal and he'll be able to travel in a week or so. He actually completed the course for the parallel race, Race Across the West, which ends here instead of Annapolis. We're hoping that with the experience and knowledge gained from this shortened time, he'll be able to come back next year dialed in, knowing how it all goes, ready to rock the RAAM. Go Samim, go!

On your marks...

Would you believe I've never been to Southern California before? It really is 70 degrees here all the time! I was able to get in a couple of runs along 101, beside the ocean with surfers and everything, but our time has largely been spent organizing and getting ready for the Race Across America (RAAM).

Packing for an expedition is always the hardest part - most stressful, complicated, and least rewarding. But this is way worse, especially since it's something none of us have done before. So there's T-shirts to get printed, flashing lights to fit to the top of the van, inspections to be on time for, food to buy, bike supplies to get, and those weird extra things, like finding a cigarette lighter extension so the lights can actually get to a power outlet. Six people tripping over each other, all with ideas on everything, trying to run this thing like a democracy instead of having assigned roles. An interesting cultural experience in my own country!

The most frustrating thing has been the difference in sense of time. I've spent some serious time getting to understand the sense of time (or lack thereof) in India, so I've come to understand that 5 minutes actually means as-long-as-it-takes. But here, we get a 15 minute penalty on Samim's final time if we're late for vehicle inspection. So leaving the hotel at 10:30 really does mean 10:30, not 11:00 or whenever we get around to it. Despite what must be extremely annoying nagging on my part, we're still en route to get our food, at 6pm the night before, let along organizing the vans or getting to bed early. It should all be fine as long as we're ready to go and Samim gets to sleep early tonight, but it has taken a fine balance between patience and trying not to let us get too far behind!

Tomorrow, though, at noon, Samim will start riding from the beach here in Oceanside, CA (just north of San Diego), and be on the clock until he arrives at the other side, in Maryland, in 9 or 10 days. 18 other solo men will be riding the same route, along with five women who started today and assorted other teams of 2-8 people. They're all crazy. But inspired, and that's why I'm here, to help him achieve his dream. (Different than hallucinations - those will come later, when lack of sleep sets in...)

We'll have internet connectivity in the van, so I'll be able to update. There will also be lots of forms of electronic media (live streaming video from the van, twitter, facebook, blogs etc), but I'm not sure where or what they all are, or when they'll be up. There's always Google, but there's also the leaderboard at http://www.raceacrossamerica.org/raam/rcrank.php

Go Samim, Go!!!!

Check it out...

Took the overnight bus to Bangalore this weekend, and have been hanging out with friends here that I met at the bike race. For now, check out this link to a CNN/IBN special on the bike race we did. 15 seconds of fame, baby!

This YouTube link is best: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xx2YvSJ-Fpc
(the second half is in "Related Links" to the right)

http://ibnlive.in.com/videos/76808/mountain-bikers-at-shimla-romance-the-harsh-trail.html
(broken up into four segments online - click on Videos: 1 2 3 4 below the frame)

What a ride

That was, indeed, interesting. One never knows what to expect from an event like this, so it's always interesting. Unfortunately, I had a crazy stomach bug for two days during the race, so didn't complete days two and three, and therefore wasn't in the running for any competition. But there were a total of six women riding at various levels, and about seventy men - Indian Army guys, an organized Aussie group, the barefoot farmer who completes this every year, and many amazing Indian riders from Bangalore, Delhi, and Pune, some competitive, some here for the same reason I was, just to see if we could do it. Nine days, 32,000' elevation gain and loss, 650 kilometers.

The actual logistics included staying in canvas tents set up for us each night by an industrious crew in various school grounds and cricket fields, and mostly Indian food served buffet-style until we couldn't eat any more. Each day saw a variously ignored start time, usually with a freeride section before the first of two or three race stages. I'd never done a stage race before, but the idea is that you have to ride the whole distance over the day, but only certain sections are started in a race format and timed. Finish that section, ride along at your leisure to the next section, and race again. Eventually, get to camp, take your bucket of hot water into a little personal bath tent, splash around with the soap until clean, and get ready to do it again tomorrow.

Terrain? Well, in the mountains there's rarely much flat ground, so days were spent variously climbing and descending 2 to 10% grades, sometimes in race stages, sometimes at whatever pace you wish. On a good day (for me), the road was decently graded, with at least some sections of pavement, making for relatively smooth going. On a bad day, the road was either broken rock or these incredibly obnoxious slate cobbles, laid with the sharp edge pointing up, or an 11km bike-and-hike through steep forest and hillside. Most of the time it was a mix of dirt and gravel with the occasional large rock or muddy section thrown in, and of course a landslide or twenty.

The monsoon this year stayed much later than normal, ending perhaps only a week before the start of the race, so there were a huge number of landslides all across the state of Himachel Pradesh. One or two days saw the entire course rerouted to get past still-closed roads, and every day saw many spots where rocks and dirt had been mostly pushed aside, leaving compacted bumps to remind you to look up to the fresh dirt of the collapsed hillside. Local workers were clearing this stuff by hand, piling rocks and scraping mud aside to open the roads that keep them connected and supplied. Fun times.

The most enjoyable aspect of the ride for me, however, was the people I got to meet. From all over the world and mostly all over India, there were sponsored racers, casual riders, adventure racers, military branches, and a few who had just started biking. And being around the same people for ten days, you get to see a lot about them, much like climbing in the mountains. What they're like when they're tired, hanging out, hungry, overheated, cold, frustrated, racing, taking it easy... You get past the barriers of pleasantry and start to glimpse peoples' motivations and weaknesses, dreams and disappointments, vision and history. We're all standing around waiting an hour or two for dinner - how did you come here? Lin's friend is the hub of the Delhi cycling community and I ended up hanging with a cadre of Bangalore racers and riders, learning and joking and having time to just be.

Probably 30 people were actually competing (the prizes were not-insignificant sums), but many others were there largely for the experience of riding that far for that long and seeing some breathtaking terrain. It is beautiful here, and everyone I ran into was great. Stops for chai, kids cheering by the side of the road, women in fields, men watching us ride through their village - what a amazing way to see this place. The race was actually incredibly organized, in an Indian fashion, with water and road markings and people to help just when it was needed. An incredible experience awaits if you ever want one...

Lin and I have stayed on just north of Manali, in Solang, preparing for our next phase of mountain climbing. The weather has been a little strange this fall, so our dayhike today will buy some time to see what the weather will do. If all's well, we'll leave in two days for a week or more trip to whatever the weather and snow conditions dictate. The good news is we're well-acclimatized and feeling strong, but we'll have to wait and see what the mountains let us do.

Shimla...

Wow. Having been to northern India last year, I remembered much of the idiosyncrasies and chaos inherent in doing anything here, but trying to participate in an "organized" event such as a mountain bike race is a whole other ball game.

We arrived in Shimla from Delhi yesterday after a 11-hour drive that was supposed to be 8 (only 11 due to Ram's creative driving and explanations - I've never been a diplomat from the embassy before, at least not since last year), and I crashed out after we reassembled our bikes, still a little jet lagged despite a wonderful yoga session in Delhi. Today we had a nice short ride down and back up some hills here with a posse of other (Indian) riders, feeling good and excited about starting the race tomorrow. Following that, a little frisbee and a puja blessing ceremony for the ride. Then Lin and I were asked to accompany one of the organizers to the residence of the Chief Minister of Himachal Pradesh State for an audience asking him to be at our start tomorrow morning (international delegation here to see you, sir) only to be turned away. Bummer. Then off to tonight's orientation (two hours late, much to a German rider's dismay in waiting punctually) and headed for some good sleep.

Essentially, nothing is on time, even for an event such as this. Leading up to the ride, the schedule was for a rest day on Day 5, Sept 31. When we all finally realized that September only has 30 days (huh...), the decision was made to just push back the end of the race a day - something that would never fly in the States, but didn't cause much notice here. Essentially, whenever I start to wonder whether something will actually happen in any sort of functional fashion, the advice is to just wait - eventually it will get itself ironed out. And crazily enough, it usually seems to. Not necessarily on time - in fact, that's nearly guaranteed - but eventually. Hmm. We start the race tomorrow, landslide detours and all, and I'm sure, in the end, we will get there. Not quite sure how, never quite sure how, but here goes nothing... More in 10 days!