RAAM solo start - James Burger photo

The 2004 Insight Race Across America had one of the largest starting field ever: 93 riders. On Sunday morning, June 20, 19 solo men left San Diego, pedaling toward Atlantic City, 2,958 miles and 14 states away. The next afternoon the 2-person, 4-person and 8-person corporate relay teams started turning the cranks.

Solo Division:
RAAM lived up to its reputation as the world's toughest race before it even got started. Two pre-race favorites withdrew at the last minute: 2003 winner Allen Larsen because his strong religious beliefs couldn't allow RAAM and training to dominate so much over his family and devotion to Jesus Christ, and rookie Slovenian pro road racer Valter Bonca who suffered an injury at another race. However, there was still enough talent to insure an exciting race. After the 13 mile parade route from the San Diego Bay, 2003 Rookie-of-the-Year and second place Slovenian Juré Robic took off like it was a 100 mile road race and made it to the first time station in Pine Valley 11 minutes ahead of the next rider: ultra marathon runner, RAAM rookie Mike Trevino of San Diego, and 58 minutes ahead of last place Alessandro Colo'. Robic continued his fast pace well into Arizona and increased his lead over second place Trevino to an hour after 24 sleepless hours during which time Robic covered 436 miles - 43 more miles than Larsen did last year, and 80 ahead of himself last year when he slept that first night. No longer a rookie, Robic came much better prepared this year. After vivid hallucinations of mailbox people attacking him last year, he decided to train for sleep deprivation. Six times before RAAM, once a month he would stay awake for 48 continuous hours while riding 10-hour shifts Juré's crew wrote e-mails from his website guest book (got over 1,000 hits per day) onto the side of his follow minivan. I saw a message from his wife Petra, which read, "Tell Juré that if he will keep kicking like his unborn baby, he will win."

Sleepless nights - James Burger photo

Staying about an hour apart, leaders Robic and Trevino kept pulling away from the field through New Mexico where Fasching settled into third place about five hours back, and 1-2 hours behind Fasching was a cluster of four riders: David Haase, Rob Kish, Pius Achermann, and Dino Nico Valsesia all within three hours of each other. Farther back, riders were starting to drop out: the first being Russ Goodwin after his all rookie crew got so fatigued that they drove over him in his support vehicle on the second night.

On their fourth night in Kansas, Trevino finally caught Robic and beat him to a time station by 12 minutes, but after both had slept, Robic led by an hour the next day. Taking advantage of flat Kansas, Robic rode an amazing 409 miles his fourth day which was 287 miles ahead of his pace last year, and kept alive the possibility of breaking Pete Penseyres' 15.4 mph solo RAAM average speed record. Through the luscious green rolling hills of Missouri, Robic started to pull away from Trevino opening the gap to 3.5 hours at the Mississippi River near St. Louis, 1,918 miles into the race. Trevino's crew headed by Byron Rieper did an excellent job at keeping Mike going. At perhaps his lowest point of the race, Mike was about to quit when his girlfriend Amanda went running with him and reminded him of all the lousy, cold, wet weather he had trained through to get to this point in RAAM. Mike told me his daily calorie intake on RAAM was 8-10,000 per day - much less than he uses in ultra running events.

Juré Robic - John Hughes photo

"Robic rode an amazing 409 miles his fourth day."

Fasching drifted farther back, but still held onto a solid third place, and rookie Haase in fourth was leading a pack containing Valsesia, Kish, and Enrico DeAngeli all within two hours of each other. Nine people had dropped out by the Mississippi River.

Through the flatlands of Illinois, Indiana, and western Ohio, Robic increased his lead to over six hours on Trevino. DeAngeli, friend of RAAM veteran Fabio Biasiolo, went two consecutive nights without any significant sleep to break away from the Kish pack and establish a solid fourth place seven hours behind Fasching.

The road sometimes seems endless - James Burger photo

"The race is crazy, but in a positive way." - Robic

In West Virginia, Haase was the last of 11 riders to drop out. He suffered from over-hydration and bloating similar to what used to plague Seana Hogan.

Time gaps continued to increase all the way to Atlantic City where Juré Robic won in 8 days 9 hours 51 minutes. His 14.66 mph average speed ranks eighth on the list of fastest solo transcontinental bicycle crossings of the USA. He became the 14th man to win RAAM and the 16th man to finish in less than 9 days. On the victory stage with his crew, Robic took a call from his wife Petra who is pregnant with their first. Juré said "The race is crazy, but in a positive way." Robic theorized that if 2003 RAAM winner Allen Larsen was here, Larsen would have finished a few hours behind him. Robic is currently on his third year of a 5-year contract with the Slovenian Army, which allows him to train/race full time. Proof of his amazing recovery is that less than a week after he finished RAAM last year, he won a 180 km road race in Europe. He was able to get by on even less sleep (eight hours compared with 10 last year) this year because of sleep deprivation training.

Michael Trevino - John Hughes photo

Over 11 hours later, Trevino finished second and won Rookie-of-the-Year honors. He became the 17th man to finish in less than nine days. Three-time winner Fasching was a gracious loser accepting third place. Having given him much advice on RAAM, Fasching was happy to see his buddy Robic win. DeAngeli was fourth and was the only rider to post a very impressive negative split. His cumulative average speed went from 13.10 mph at the halfway point in El Dorado, KS to 13.14 at the finish in Atlantic City.

RAAM icon 49-year old Rob Kish finished his 19th RAAM in fifth place over 36 hours behind winner Robic. An emotional woman in tears, Rob's wife Brenda (she's been on all 19 Kish Krews) said, "We cheated death over and over again. I have to speak out about the dangers of RAAM finishing in the Northeast."

The first night time solo finisher was the Energizer Bunny sponsored Andrew Otto who finished sixth place in 10:10:42 with an average speed of 11.80 mph. He finished over 12 hours behind his hero Rob Kish. Andrew staggered onto the finishing stage looking drunk, but he had just accomplished his dream of finishing RAAM. 'Twas very sweet for Otto who only made it 1,326 miles in the 2000 RAAM. More than halfway into the race this year in Jefferson City, MO, the same knee that caused him to DNF in 2000 acted up again. In 2000 taking so many anti-inflammatories shut his kidneys down. In RAAM, today's solutions can cause tomorrow's problems. He consistently slept 1.5 hours each night. Crewing for his hero Rob Kish in 2001 and 2003, he saw what he had to do to finish RAAM which he did only one place behind his role model.

"50% of the four 50+ riders finished and only 40% of the 15 under 50 riders finished proves that RAAM is more mental than physical."

The final two solo finishers in the Insight 2004 Race Across America were both over 50 years old. The fact that 50% of the four 50+ riders finished and only 40% of the 15 under 50 riders finished proves that RAAM is more mental than physical. On Thursday evening Holland's Guus Moonen finished in seventh place with a time of 11:08:09 or over 21 hours behind sixth place Otto. Moonen's crew of 12 (biggest in solo race) got him to the finish line in good spirits. He had a photo of his 12-year-old daughter Trisha taped onto his stem.

Denise (wife), Randy and Rachel (daughter) Van Zee

The last finisher in the solo race was 52-year-old Randy Van Zee of Sheldon, IA. He finished in eighth place (second night time solo finisher) on Friday morning at 2:40 a.m. with a time of 11:16:26 over eight hours behind Moonen.

Riders have to finish in less than 12 days and 2 hours to be official, i.e., by noon, Friday, July 2. Randy had over nine hours to spare. He had the classic solo RAAM finish - exhausted with failed neck muscles and terribly swollen feet and ankles; he had to be helped off his bicycle by crewmembers. Having an all rookie crew with just two minivans, he slept on cement at times. Waking up at 4 a.m. to ride before work every day in training finally paid off, though he said, "I never trained enough for RAAM." When his neck gave out on him in New Mexico, he had to start wearing an Allen Larsen-inspired neck brace. His friends made it after they watched Larsen's RAAM videotape. Two ladies he works with brought him this device and adjusted it on him. He crashed near Troy, OH, injured his groin and cracked his pelvis. Although he couldn't walk, he could still ride!

Randy's daughter Rachel lives in Germany and flew to Atlantic City to see her father finish. Her husband Chris (serving the USA in Iraq) learned by e-mail of Randy's finish. Standing very proudly on the Boardwalk, Randy said, "If you can do RAAM, you can do anything." So how can a 52-year old, full time worker and grandfather finish RAAM while other much younger men training full time have to drop out? The difference has to be in attitude. Van Zee had an iron-willed desire to make it to the finish line regardless of whatever obstacles were thrown into his way. When his neck muscles gave out in New Mexico, he could have thrown in the towel. When his feet and ankles became painfully swollen, he could have checked into some hospital and had a doctor tell him things will only get worse if he keeps riding, but he didn't. My vote for the Ian Sandbach inspiration award would have clearly gone to Randy Van Zee, but then the award couldn't have been handed out at the awards banquet on Wednesday evening. So I hereby create a new award called Chew's Most Tired Award given to the solo rider who finishes looking the most exhausted/beaten-up thus embodying the true spirit of RAAM. Few people got to see Randy finish in the wee hours of the morning that night (many officials, media people, riders, and crew had already left for home), but those who did will forever remember Van Zee's courageous/heroic finish. His neck muscles will heal and the swelling of his feet and ankles will go down, but his finish will never be forgotten. Randy became the 169th person (including unofficial finishers) to finish solo RAAM - a number far less than those people who have climbed to the top of Mt. Everest.

"Van Zee had an iron-willed desire to make it to the finish line."

This year the closest time gap between finishers was 5 hours 39 minutes between Trevino and Fasching. Riders were so far spread out at the finish, it was almost as if the Race Across America had become the Ride Across America. Such a race can become very boring out for riders and crew. The biggest time gap was over 21 hours between Otto and Moonen. So much for my pre-race pick of Fasching winning. I had hoped for an exciting close finish, but Robic was possessed and Fasching had an off year.

Wolfgang Fasching embraced by his wife - Harold and Lynn Trease photo

I still can't figure out why there were so many DNFs on one of the best weather RAAMs ever. The first day in the desert was relatively cool (high temp of only 106 degrees F.); there was no precipitation for the front half of the field, and unseasonably cool temperatures (highs only in the 70s) the last few days. Lon Haldeman and I got to talking in Atlantic City as to why so many people dropped out. We think that perhaps people aren't training enough miles. I think that although it might conveniently fit into busy working people's lives, John Hughes' program of fewer miles ridden faster just may not be the ticket to finishing RAAM. The old Haldeman/Chew regimen of riding more and more miles gets you to the finish line. Consider that winner Robic rode 45,000 kilometers in the past year including 48-hour sleep deprivation sessions once a month for six months before RAAM. Also, Rookie-of-the-Year Trevino rode tons of miles before RAAM. A few weeks before RAAM, I got an e-mail from him saying that tapering sucks.

"Robic was possessed and Fasching had an off year."

Teams:
With eight different categories, Team RAAM has grown from the very first 4-person Human Powered Vehicles (HPVs, faired recumbents) team in 1989 to making up the majority of RAAM entries with 18 teams this year: Three 8-person teams, ten 4-person teams, and five 2-person teams. Leaving San Diego 31 hours after the solo riders, Team RAAMers missed the hottest part of that first day in the desert, which cooked the soloists. The big question was whether the Team ALS Lightning, the 4-person HPV team, could beat the other top 4-person teams to Atlantic City. The big climbs on the first two days saw the HPV fall behind the lead 4-person teams. Team Action Sports was first to the first time station in Pine Valley four minutes ahead of Vail - Go Fast and 14 minutes ahead of Royal Air Force (RAF).

Action Sports rider exchange - John Hughes photo

The 545 miles that the leading Team Action Sports rode the first 24 hours is 60 miles farther than 2003 leader Team Vail - Go Fast covered. Fueled by the energy of their fallen comrade Brett Malin, who was killed in RAAM '03, Vail - Go Fast took the lead (before time station #12 in Springerville, AZ) from Action Sports who had it for the first 12 time stations.

Malin's father Jim and brother Jaime were back on the crew this year. When Vail-Go Fast came upon the scene of Brett's accident, Jim and Angus McGilpin put up a sign, which RAAM people signed last year at the post race banquet/awards in Atlantic City. The riders were so caught up in increasing their lead over Action Sports that they did not stop. By TS#20 in Dalhart, TX, 1,121 miles into the race, Vail - Go Fast had increased their lead over Action Sports to 36 minutes. Leading Team Vail rode 1,123 miles in their first 48 hours. By the end of the third day in the solo race, the lead three teams had passed all but the three lead solo riders. The top two 4-person teams were ahead of the 4-person relay average speed record of 23.04 mph, but the ALS Lightning Human Powered Vehicle (HPV) team was behind the HPV average speed record of over 24 mph.

ALS Lightning - John Hughes photo

After starting out slow in the mountains, the HPV team kicked it into warp drive (posting four 30+ mph time station splits), and passing second place team Action Sports in Texas, and passing first place team Vail - Go Fast close to the Oklahoma/Kansas state line. They rode a phenomenal 635 miles their third day and got their cumulative average speed above the 24.02 mph HPV RAAM speed record. Vail - Go Fast and Action Sports also got their cumulative average speeds above Kern Wheelmen's 23.04 mph record. Through the flatlands of Illinois, Indiana, and Western Ohio, the ALS Lightning HPV team continued to pull away from all other teams. After leading in California and Arizona, Action Sports fell as much as an hour behind Vail - Go Fast because they were down to just three riders for two full days when Sean Nealy and then another rider were each sick and out of rotation and Kerry Ryan crashed. By time station #41 in London, oh, 2,329 miles into the race, Action Sports retook the lead from Vail - Go Fast. At the next time station, Vail - Go Fast was back in the lead and held it for four more time stations, but Action Sports finally pulled away for good on the long steep climbs of US Rt. 50 in West Virginia.

After leading all categories of RAAM, and opening up a four hour lead over the top two 4-person teams in the flat Midwest, the ALS Lightning HPV team had to climb the hills of southeastern Ohio and the mountains of West Virginia and Maryland which slowed their average speed too much to set a new record. ALS was the first team to arrive in Atlantic City, but their average speed was slower than the team Bob Fourney also led to victory in 1989. In addition to the winning HPV team in RAAM '89, Fourney won the solo race in 1990 and 1991.

Nat Faulkner, Action Sports, gets an IV in Kansas - Robert Giacin photo

Action Sports won the 4-man conventional bikes division (a more established division than the HPV) beating Vail - Go Fast by over two hours. Action Sports just barely (by seven minutes) established a new average speed record of 23.06 mph. They won $25,000 made up of first place prize money and the bonus for breaking the record. Having won his third four-person team RAAM, Kerry Ryan is in that prestigious category along with Joe Petersen. Team Royal Air Force (my pre-race pick) finished third some 10 hours behind. In other 4-person team races, Team Swiss Canon finished in 6:02:09, only five hours behind RAF. Brazilian Team Extra Distance finished a day later in 7:02:30, slower than the two-man record that team captain Michel Bogli set in 2001 with Jose Pinto Filho, also on Extra Distance. Bogli was happy that Team Coast-to-Coast beat his old record this year. I presented him with a Danny Chew Million Mile Man T-shirt since he gave me a Team Extra Distance jersey in San Diego. Bogli had a great RAAM with no flats and perfect weather. In the wee hours of the morning in Illinois Bogli caught and rode with Kish for 10 minutes. Kish remembered Bogli who wrote to Kish and asked him for advice on solo RAAM.

The Grand PAC Masters finished in 7:16:31 to establish a new 70+ four-person team average speed record of 16.03 mph crushing the old record of 14.4 mph. Of the three category records broken this year, this one shaved off the most time: an amazing 16 hours. When I asked PAC Masters' racer Lee Mitchell how he was able to smash the record by so much, he said because he had a better crew this year. Crewmember Patty Jo Struve, who'd crewed with Lee, said he is more fun as a rider! Lee hit the fastest speed (49 mph) he has gone in 20 years one night. The team's low point of the trip was having to battle 45 mph headwinds in Kansas - they had a headwind stretch, which lasted about 20 hours. Ron Bell crashed on railroad tracks (despite a warning about them in the route book) outside of Liberal, KS at 4:30 a.m., but continued to ride.

Team Just Sweat-No Tears: Helen Wootton, Brian Welsh, Kevin May, Russell Carter - Harold and Lynn Trease photo

The winning 4-person women's team Vail B2B Divas rode for a charity: Border-to-Border USA - raising money and awareness for Pediatric AIDS. Kerry White, on the B2B Divas, is also on the Team Vail - Go Fast mountain bike team, and knows everybody on the Vail - Go Fast Team including the late Brett Malin. All four women stopped in Pie Town, NM to pay tribute to Brett at the new memorial sign. Kerry lives by Brett's favorite phrase by Robert Cormier, "I am away, I am away with the wind and sun, I am the bike and the bike is me."

B2B battled against the only 4-person mixed Team Just Sweat - No Tears for the last two days. Just Sweat rider Russell Carter, who weighs 100 kilograms, crashed into a car at an intersection, dislocated his little finger and put it back in himself! Just Sweat - No Tears was the first to Atlantic City, finishing in 6:22:54. The Vail B2B Divas finished less than 30 minutes later! The other 4-person women's Team Fräuleins finished in 8:04:40.

Sculpture by Tom Wiper Copyright 2004 Photo by Roger Hawkins Copyright 2004

In 8-person Corporate Challenge, Ride to Remember - Kaiser Permanente beat Rim to Rim to the first time station by seven minutes, and Insight by 15 minutes. Ride to Remember led the entire race, but the battle for second place was hard fought. Somewhere in the middle of the first night, Insight passed Rim to Rim to move into second place before Blythe, CA. On the second day in Arizona, Rim to Rim passed Insight and led through the next four time stations. On the second night in eastern Arizona, Insight passed Rim to Rim again and never saw them again until Atlantic City. Ride to Remember beat Insight by over two hours, and Insight beat Rim to Rim by just 22 minutes.

"In the 2-person team race, Coast to Coast Against Cancer outclassed the other two teams, and also beat five 4-person teams."

In the 2-person team race, Coast to Coast Against Cancer outclassed the other two teams, and also beat five 4-person teams. Jeff Rushton and Kevin Wallace rode away from their competition, finishing in 6:14:07 and broke the old two-man average speed record by more than a full mile per hour. Because this is a relatively new category, the rules state that the winning team had to average over 19.5 mph to win $10,000 bonus prize money; however, they were awarded $1,500 for the record. Although their average speed was over 19.5 mph at the halfway point of the race, it dropped to 18.71 mph by the finish line in Atlantic City. Similar to the 8-person race, the exciting race was for second place. Although Team TBW from Brazil started out fast (were ahead of seven teams early in the race), they faded to next to last place by Kansas. By the Mississippi River Team New England had passed them and built up nearly a two-hour lead. TBW fought back and passed New England for good in the West Virginia Mountains, arriving in Atlantic City over 90 minutes ahead of New England.

In the 2-person mixed race, VeloWear/Co-Motion (George Thomas and his fiancé Terri Gooch who both promote the Race Across Oregon) pulled away from No Limits at the start and increased their lead to over 17 hours by Atlantic City, also beating a 4-person women's team and two 2-men teams. VeloWear/Co-Motion finished in 7:18:05 and became the first two-person mixed team to finish RAAM. George told me he loved night riding on RAAM and slept in the afternoons which are toughest on him. Mr. RAAM versatility, George has now finished six RAAMs including four different categories. George and Terri's meeting is another RAAM love story like Andrew Otto and Carol Clarke. George met Terri at Lon Haldeman's Desert PAC Tour in 2001 in Arizona. He was there to demo tandems. Terri asked George to ride tandem with her and they did their first ride (110 miles) together with George captaining; after that, all they wanted to do was ride tandem together. Within six weeks, Terri moved from San Diego to George's Corvallis, OR home so they could keep riding tandem. In 2002, they finished tandem RAAM. The tough thing about training for 2-person RAAM this year is that they had to do it on single bikes - not on tandems - their first love. They plan on getting married this October.

I guess George got the maximum performance out of his body since he crashed while carrying his bicycle up onto the finish line stage. George said, "I was able to merge together six years of RAAM experience for the perfect race." When asked what she was going to do now that her RAAM was over, Terri replied, "That's a vacuum because all I've been thinking about the last seven days is getting to the finish line." In comparing tandem and two-person relay Terri said, "Tandem was more difficult because it was more like solo RAAM." The first five days were OK, but after that they rarely felt good at the same time. The old saying, "You're only as strong as your weakest link" really rings true in tandem RAAM.

Terri and George were only about 30 minutes ahead of the Grand PAC Masters for the first 2,300 miles of the race to Ohio where PAC Masters passed them for good - beating them to Atlantic City by over 90 minutes. Riding close to Grand PAC Masters Lee Mitchell was special for George since Lee crewed for George's 2000 tandem crossing with Katie Lindquist. Unlike on tandem RAAM, George and Terri saw very little of each other except on rider exchanges, when they periodically rewarded each other with kisses during trade-offs.

So much for my pre-race picks of Fasching and Team Royal Air Force winning. I had hoped for exciting, close victories in most divisions, but except for the 4-men teams, I had to look farther back in the field to find them. What started out as a Robic/Trevino duel in the solo race turned into one of the most spread apart finishes with the majority of starters dropping out despite one of the best weather RAAMs in history. Three average speed records were set, and for the first time, 2-person mixed teams finished. Team finishes far outnumbered soloists. While the solo women's race had no entrants this year, and hasn't had a finisher since Cassie Lowe in 2001, a record 14 women raced on teams this year. With 18 teams representing eight categories, perhaps this was the year that team RAAM surpassed solo RAAM, but it is always nice to see how much respect and admiration team RAAMers have for soloists. George Thomas, who has now finished six RAAMs in four different (4-men team, solo, tandem, and 2-person mixed team) categories, still considers his 1995 solo finish his crowning accomplishment.

Complete results and more photos

More photos James Burger's website