Race Across America 2015 – Part 1 – Colorado
50 hours and 850 miles of riding into the Race Across America, new difficulties arise. Welcome to Colorado.
Posts by Adam
2014 Year In Review – Winter Overnights
Winter Overnighters I first planned these big January rides with eyes on the Strava “Granfondo Challenge”…tracking the biggest 24 hour rides, but lost big chunks of each ride due to Garmin failures (the below totalled ~330 miles each). Never try to keep a ride of longer than 200 mi rolling on the Garmin! Save and reset. In
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On RAAM Goals
What’s your goal? Past the “why?”…this is the next most common question about RAAM. What it really means is – how fast are you? What place will you get? How many days? It is a race across America after all. This is a competition, and by its very nature, sport is a competitive enterprise. But
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Are You Ready for RAAM?
I still haven’t come up with an answer to the question that I hear most often, now that we’re just a few weeks away from the Race Across America. In a way I answered it back in August, when I submitted my registration, wired and exhausted in my hotel room in St. George Utah –
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2014 Year in Review – Riding home from afar
Vegas / Joshua Tree / OC 600k, then the ride home to Solana Beach From a smoky casino on the Vegas strip to my front door, and all 445 miles in between. Well, except for the 10 miles I was shuttled over I-10 at 3 AM in a ferocious windstorm. From the sheer desert beauty and utter
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Year in Review – Part 2 – Recon Rides
Preparation is huge in ultra cycling. Getting to know the race course may be my favorite part. Understanding its challenges, strategizing on how to pace, and becoming familiar with where and how it may exact its suffering on the racers. The route is just a series of roads, but the it holds a special significance for me – a constant
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Year in Review – Training Thoughts
When discussing RAAM and ultra cycling with others, right after “Why would you even want to do that?” I often hear – “How do you train for that??” Or…”You must go crazy with all the training…”, or…”wait, you have a job!?” Even those that do understand, and aspire to race the longer ultra events
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On The Lows of the Journey
The pain and difficulty of the moment is all too familiar. The road , stoic and unmoving, companion of the traveler – looms sinister now. Once simply observing, it now sneers at your suffering as it zooms above and ahead, challenging your faltering pace from the far off horizon. The surrounding hills watch the show. The roadside begins to beckon. Just a
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The Nature of the Beast. 5 Studies in Suffering.
Ultra cycling is not defined by the inherent suffering in the sport – but the overcoming of its hardships is key to what makes it so rewarding. There of course is no way to truly quantify and compare the pain of a single event. But over the past 5 years, some memories persist, and I’ve put
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