Early tomorrow morning 76 solo riders will start in the Furnace Creek 508 in an attempt to ride 508 miles across the dessert of California. The 508 is where I first qualified for RAAM in 2002. Chris Kostman always makes sure the 508 Webcast is updated frequently during the race with standings and pictures of the racers out on the course.
A few weeks ago was the Adirondack 540 RAAM qualifier. I qualified the 4th time for RAAM last year at the Adirondack 540. It sounds like this year the weather conditions were a little worse at the start than last year but improved from there.
Last year I think there was at least 16 hours when it was raining or at least the roads were wet enough to have water spraying up. There were times when it was raining very hard at night and I had trouble seeing where I was going. I also think I saw more frogs during that race than I have in the entire rest of my life. At least one frog got thrown up on my back and I had frog parts on my bike after the race.
There was a 10 mile section near the end of the loop that was really rough. The first time over it wasn’t too bad but by the 4th time around late in the race it was almost more than I could endure. This year it sounds like it was still rough but they had at least fixed the worst of it.
Brett Walker took advantage of the good conditions and set a new record of 32 hours and 16 minutes. JB had a good summary of this year’s Adirondack 540 with pictures on his blog. There is also an article on UltraCycling.com.
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I’d forgotten about those frogs until I arrived up there this year. Had to ask John Fuoco if they were really there or I was hallucinating. There were thousands of them. I guess the rain brought them out.
There were none this year. The conditions were much better, but Brett’s record setting performance was still incredible.
He’ll be one to watch in RAAM ’07. He had a large well trained crew and is really focused.We’ll see.
Looks like I’ll be down to the TexasTT in a few weeks.
I might find this post insulting, but I will let my riding do the talking.
Brett,
I in no way meant for my post to be insulting and am sorry if it could be taken that way. I didn’t mean to take away from your accomplishment of setting a new course record. Even with good conditions that is quite a feat. It is my understanding that your plan is to do RAAM next year and I wish you the best of luck with that.
My response was a bit tongue and cheek. Thanks for the well whishes.