It's Not a Bike Race

It's been a busy week in the Race Across the West.  As I've told many people, RAAM & RAW are not really bike races; they are logistics races.  Cyclists can only go so fast and many times they are evenly matched with the cyclists on other teams.  Barring injury and illness, the riders are a constant.  The variable, and the key to the race, is the support team.

How the support team works together, stays together and solves the plethora of problems which come up on the course determines the success of the team overall.  There are two aspects of a good team: the first is pre-race planning and the second is race execution.

It's not sexy, but the work I've been doing over the last six months will pay off big time in June.  Gathering required equipment, doing the administrative tasks, planning for hotel accomodations, anticipating problems and scheduling appointments will not be remembered in June, but if you forget or fail to do them in January, you will pay a steep price in June.

So, I was very happy with our progress this week.  My recon trip went really well and now our hotel situation is nailed down.  Yesterday, I was able to schedule our appointments at times which will make our pre-race hassles as painless as possible.

The Race kicks off on Wednesday, but there are a lot of activities during the days prior to the start.  And they SUCK all of the energy out of you!  I wanted to try to minimize the drain of Oceanside for our team.

On Monday, there's a mandatory racer meeting at 5 pm.  Since we all have to be in Oceanside for that meeting, I planned all our other functions for Monday as well leaving Tuesday free to goof off or take care of any problems which come up on Monday.

So, we'll pick up our supplies on Sunday in Oceanside, and prep the vehicles/bikes.  On Monday, we will do our vehicle/bike/clothing inspection at 11 am.  Steve will attend the mandatory crew chief meeting at 1 pm.  At 3:30 pm, we'll take team photos.  And finally, at 5 pm, we'll attend the mandatory racer briefing.  Then, we're done until the start!

Things should go smoothly and we'll all be free on Tuesday -- to go to the beach or (for me) to ride a little bit.  Or to do nothing ... always a good option!