FlyingLaZBoy
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'16 ICE SprintX fs, '16 Rocket, '12 KHS Mocha
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This was posted by Sharon Stevens on the LSR board: Race Across Oregon aka RAO WOW RAO is a major ultracycling race and RAAM qualifier hosted by ultracycling/RAAM gurus George Thomas and Terri Gooch, held this past weekend, July 11-12, 2009. This beast is 516 miles, 48 hour time limit, with an estimated 42,000 feet of climbing (I would like to see the official climbing figures). That is over 81 feet of climbing per mile – a ton!! Our LSR courses may average half that at 30-40 ft per mile. The Texas Time Trial is 42.5 ft per mile. Plus weather issues - we were baking in the high 90s in the daytime, chilled at night, some rain (although light), and the jewel was a long stretch of hellacious 35+ mph headwind. But the roads were incredibly smooth with minimal traffic, the locals were oh so kind, and WOW the scenery! The course is an artistic masterpiece of ever-changing vistas, including snow-capped Mt. Hood, endless lush green forest, to barren high desert with swirling dust devils, and even some multi- colored hoodoos. “TEAM BENT JOHNSONS.” Yes, innuendos abound. Robert, Chris, and Greg all ride Carbents, a fabulous stiff and lightweight carbon recumbent, and they ride them extremely well. Our two man team included riders Christopher Young of Portland, OR, and LSR’s Greg Gross (from Fort Worth, TX). These were two strong, determined cyclists. Factor in the crew chief – the very experienced, multi-talented, natural leader - Captain Robert Johnson - and you have one heck of a team!!! How did I end up in the other crew seat? Yes I sacrificed a weekend of centuries (well worth it). Years ago I lived in Oregon, and have since enjoyed many visits to the great northwest, so OR and WA are sentimental. I wanted to visit my Seattle-area family, and my mom’s birthday coincided with RAO. I also wanted to try the crewing role and experience a different perspective. I understood the basics, but never crewed (unless you count my self-crewing on countless long-axx rides). I wanted to help Greg, and I knew he was planning on RAO, so I quietly asked might he need crew? Yes, please! This was on the job training, sink or swim. And risky - they did not know me, nor did I know them (besides Greg and I). But potluck turned into a true blessing with this great team. Greg and Chris faced many challenges throughout RAO – relentless climbing first of all. The climbing never ended, even with a crazy climb up to the finale (George and Terri are truly evil). Fatigue. Sleep deprivation. Flaring arthritis. Sore muscles, leg cramps, etc. Nutrition / stomach / digestion issues (who hasn’t had these), and both Chris and Greg had them, pretty much at the same time, with nausea and heaving. Hey Greg, Chris is sick, cut your nap short and go ride, and vice versa. And they would, without pause. They both pushed on – when it was their turn to ride, they were up and at ‘em, never a BIT of whining! At night when Chris and Greg were sleepy, they showed great teamwork, each taking longer pulls to let the other sleep. I am extremely proud of these guys – Chris Greg and Robert – all three demonstrated true perseverance and desire to conquer this RAO beast! It was awesome and inspiring to be a part of this as it unfolded. Let’s talk about Greg. Poor Greg. Robert and I as his crew….. well we ended up kinda picking on him. On his very first pull, we did not realize Greg had a flat, so he had been walking the bike for a bit when we came upon him, ooops! (brand new tire, bead failed) Greg got stuck with a lot of the climbing. Then Chris got a lot of long downhills. It wasn’t intentional Greg, it was the luck of the draw, I promise! Then we put Greg on one hell of a hot 3 mile climb with one small water bottle and he ran out, in a “no exchange zone” so we could not give him anything, so he was cooked when we finally rescued him! On day 2, we were hot, and longing to swan dive in the refreshing John Day river, leaving Greg to pedal on and sweat in the heat. But we decided Greg would strangle us, and we valued life too much. But the worst was when we, well, oops, lost Greg. Yep, the crew lost their rider. Sorry Greg! Robert was busy re-cabling Chris’s bike, and I forgot there were turns up ahead – yep, my fault – and we were supposed to guide our riders through all turns since they had no cue sheet - so about 20 minutes later we realized this – OH CRAP! - and jumped in the van and flew 90 mph searching for Greg (needle in a haystack). We chased down another RAO vehicle and I yelled, “we lost our rider, have you seen him?” NO, sorry. OH CRAP! We tried to guess where Greg went off course, and we put Chris out at that spot to move our team forward while Robert and I traveled off course, hunting for our stray rider. Did not take too long, hallelujah, there was Greg! Greg was smarter than his crew. He got directions for one turn from a local farmer, then he unknowingly missed another turn later, but after awhile he suspected he was off course, so he backtracked, a wise move! But it was hot and by the time we found him, Greg was cooked again! Overall we estimated this cost us an extra 20 minutes, which really was not bad because it could have been a lot worse! Robert and I tried to make up for our abuse to Greg. We bought him cokes from a guy in a very small town with no store. This guy sold them to us from his refrigerator (great idea, he is making a killing!) We got Greg ice cream and Snickers bars. We got goodies for Greg from solo rider Sandy Earl’s crew (Robert’s wife, Adrienne Ruggles Johnson, was Sandy’s crew chief). There was a lot of flashing going on there, and comments relating to our name “Bent Johnsons,” but rest assured Greg did not partake. Then we tried to get Greg more ice cream, but found no open stores for a very long time. This part of the world was pretty darn desolate! On the other hand, Greg was deemed the “slippery eel.” We would send him off for his pull. We would stay stopped a few minutes to finish business in the van (refilling water, cleaning up, whatever). We would then go chase him down and almost every single time, we asked each other, “Geez how far did he go, where is he?” He is really good at slipping away as fast as possible. Chris pulled this slippery eel stunt a lot too! Chris – the surfer dude! He is one smooth strong rider with great form and powerful stance on the bike. He truly made riding look easy and comfortable on that Carbent. He would glide up the climbs, then roar on the downhills. Many times while following on downhills, Robert kept saying “easy, take it easy Chris!” while Chris wove through switchbacks and held long stretches of 40-50 mph. Chris looked like a surfer dude when it got hot during the day and he stripped down to shorts and sandals. So Chris was deemed “Laird Hamilton” and we were “Surfin RAO!” Crewing – lots of work with a 2 rider team! Our team did rider exchanges every 20 minutes, and every 10 minutes on long climbs and/or in the heat. We were constantly up and down, in and out of the van, joking that the door handles were going to break. I loved those Carbents because they were light and easy to handle. No problem lifting them off and on the bike rack a gazillion times. Crewing also involves driving, navigating, documenting ride stats, taking photos, watching their food/liquid intake, staying awake, cheering and helping other riders and teams, and anything else to get everyone to the end safely. The long distance cycling experience notched on my seatpost really helps, but not mandatory. I found the crewing job fun and fascinating! And the learning was huge, all thanks to a great crew chief Robert. I was lucky to end up learning from the best. Overall, RAO is one very challenging event. This is a brand new course and apparently much harder than the previous course. We finished way later than expected, as did many others. We took all lights off the bikes in the morning because we never dreamed we would be out after dark. We ended up finishing at nearly 2:00 am! Many strong solo riders either became too tired to go on, or ran out of time. This is all due to the unexpected difficulty of this new course. We seriously discussed that it could actually be too hard. But the amazing thing is how Greg and Chris persevered from start to finish through these challenges with positive attitudes. We had great teamwork and we had a lot of fun! In the end it was awesome to see Greg and Chris earn their beautiful official finisher medals, and to see the satisfaction of a JOB WELL DONE. Congratulations to team 202, BENT JOHNSONS!!! LSR, you should be very proud of Greg Gross for accomplishing this feat, it was a major challenge of a ride! Congratulations to Sandy Earl as well! We were all worried more about her than our own team! It was a nail-biter, but she had a great ride, and re-qualified for RAAM. She is training for solo RAAM 2010 in the new "recupright" division (alternating use of upright and recumbent). GO SANDY!!! I whole-heartedly recommend experiencing any ultra event, such as Race Across Oregon. On RAO, the dynamic scenery alone is worth the trek out west. Plus meeting new people, while visiting with old friends and acquaintances, everyone embracing the spirit of the race, the challenge and perseverance, well I will absolutely return to RAO. I may not ever ride RAO, because I will be enjoying crewing this one too much!!! Sharon Stevens
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