928.43 Miles 2 days 2 hours 38 minutes average 18.34 mph
50 – 59 Category Winner, 2nd overall teams, set a new course record by over 2 hours.
RAW follows 930 miles from Oceanside, California to Durango Colorado, traversing some of the most beautiful country in the west, leaving the beach in Oceanside, climbing the Coastal Range and the dropping into the scorching desert. After crossing the deserts of California and Arizona, racers begin a gradual climb into the mountains surrounding Flagstaff, Arizona and eventually into the Rocky Mountains, finishing at Fort Lewis College in the cycling mecca of Durango.
After finishing RAAM in 2018 we felt we couldn’t repeat that adventure but were looking for another challenge of that ilk. In late 2019 Dyl and I signed up for RAW and started training and planning to tackle the 930 miles as a pair of riders rather than a four as we did in RAAM. We had most of the logistics mapped out and booked and training was progressing well when COVID hit in March and closed down all racing and travelling. We rolled the entry over to 2021 but Covid was still in the community we rolled again to 2023.
In early 2023 it felt like the excitement and momentum of the race was a little lost now but we had committed to doing the race so we just pressed on with planning and training. Our experience racing RAI in 2022 had given us some useful insights into what support crew and logistics we would need and how we might execute a race strategy. The plan was to have two support vehicles, one principally rider support and a second to transport luggage and act as an emergency back for any situations that arose during the ride. The riders would swap every 60 minutes but flex that on weather conditions, terrain and just how we were coping with the riding.
With all the lists ticked off, training done we arrived at the start line as best prepared as we were able. There were about 10 teams setting off at one-minute intervals and we luckily we started last with the field in front of us to chase down.
Through the first 75 miles the teams stayed pretty bunched up and, with mostly climbing, those with road bikes did best (we had chosen to ride TT bikes throughout). We got to the Glass Elevator in 4th or 5th and hit the descent after cresting out at roughly 4,200 feet down to the Death Valley where temperatures were likely to be in the 100 to 120F range and extremely low humidity, generally 5 to 10%. It was like being in an oven and whilst we had set out with 40-minute pulls, we quickly dropped down to 30 minutes as the temperature raced towards 100oC
As night-time approached, we were swapping places with a couple of teams and there was one pro team way out front which we had no realistic prospect of competing with. We were still riding in the Arizona desert, and it felt at times like your head was about to boil, our pace was dropping as we suffered in the heat and one team caught up and then passed us. We were about 250 miles into the race by now and needed to lift our efforts to get and stay in front of the other team, T202. We put our race heads on and the whole crew pulled together to get ahead of the other team, it was cat and mouse as we passed and were then repassed. We opted for 45 minute turns as we were losing time on the rider exchanges, the other team having a support vehicle for each rider. Finally, about 2 AM, we manged to drop them and build a lead of about 10 miles by the time dawn came.
As the sun rose the triple-digit daytime temperatures kicked in again through Congress and up Yarnell Grade to the Prescott National Forest. We had over 6,000 feet of elevation to cover from the Colorado River crossing and the heat and climbing were really draining us, we could feel the speed slowly drifting down and the absence of any sleep starting to take its toll. As we entered the forest, we had the shock of the support vehicle for T202 pass us and when we looked at the tracker, they had closed the gap right down to a couple of miles. We rode past Lake Mary and about 20 miles from Flagstaff the rain started to come down and with the other team right on our heels we just had to keep pushing.
Between Flagstaff and Colorado, the route traverses the high desert with spectacular rock formations. Elevations on the Coconino Plateau were 5,000 to 7,000 feet. Daytime temperatures remained at 80 to 100F and nights 50 to 60F with clear skies and low humidity. Similar conditions would persist across the Navajo Reservation, through Monument valley, all the way across the “Four Corners Area” into the mountains of Colorado. The Four Corners is the only place in the US where 4 states touch – Arizona, Utah, Colorado and New Mexico.
We had a second night without sleep as we rode towards Monument Valley, dawn breaking as we reached it and rode up and over the ridge. When we checked the tracker again it showed that T202 were going backwards rapidly and it later transpired that they had a rider fall in the wet conditions, ending their race at Flagstaff medical unit.
We stretched the riding shifts back out to 40 minutes to allow the team to grab 15-minute naps in an effort to ease the deep fatigue and potentially dangerous consequences that brought with it.
Our position in the race looked secure as long as we remained consistent and moving forwards at the current pace, but we needed a new goal to keep us pushing to the line. We had thought the record for the category was 50 hours but when I checked it was in fact just under 2 days 4 hours and 46 minutes. A quick calculation on distance to the finish (150 miles) and the pace required meant we could break the record and by some margin if we cracked on. This was all the motivation we needed, we started to ride harder, and the exchanges sharpened up as we now raced for a new record. Everyone felt wide awake now and the last few hours flew by as we kept on the gas all the way to the line.
We really had emptied the tank when we hit the line, crew and riders but we were elated to have smashed the previous record and set a benchmark for future teams to have a crack at. Winning the category and second overall is a function of who turns up on the day for the race so to beat all teams from previous years felt much more significant
