day 2, 3 and 4
Day two and three.
So the last few days have been extremely busy and fast moving. I haven't really had time to update this. Well the truth is that there was time, but I used it for sleeping.
So After our first shift we got back to the hotel, had 4 hours sleep and got back on the bus to catch up with Team A. I tried but failed to sleep on the bus.. it just wasn't going to happen. It nearly worked but I was always in the space between being awake and sleeping. Not a good way to start another 12 hour shift.
Once the riders were on the bikes everything was moving... but a bad transition between teams meant that a rider was left out on the course for 50 minutes instead of 15. This is not the best practice.. the rider held up pretty good. The reason was when we switch teams we need to change over all our gear in the vans.. only one set of vans and two sets of bikes and gear. When we caught up the rider we realized we needed quicker and shorter shifts in the heat to keep our riders hydrated and fresh.. this mean a lot more work for the crew shuttling and finding transition places.
Transition places are not easy to find on some roads. The rules state you need to be at least 5 feet off the road to pull over. This is hard in some areas since there are ditches and soft sandy areas all over. For the first time we had real issues finding locations. We tried to keep the shifts to 5k or less but often the only place to switch was either too soon down the road or way too far. Leaving the rider out on the course too long, or leaving him with too many hills to climb.
As we got into darkness 3-4 teams were getting bunched up. Our nemesis team 602 decided to put all their best riders on the road in one shift and hammered us hard. They passed us and quickly put a gap on us. Our spirits were down a bit, but at the time we didn't know they were trying to blow us away in the one shift. We kept our pace as we knew we should have.. just doing what we can to keep the gap low.
At some point the power system in the Follow Vehicle died, losing our interior lights, our dash board and our warning lights on the back. Jill and I in the Scout quickly took over as the others stopped to fix the issue. For a couple of hours we were out of contact with the follow vehicle and unaware of its status. We carried on..nearly taking out a donkey on the side of the road. Just after the Time Station the follow vehicle rejoined us and we were a full crew again.
The last bit seemed to take forever, lots of steep hills, no places for transition and our pace was low. the riders fought hard but it was taking a toll.
It was like seeing a mirage on the side of the road when the team bus showed up. We weren't sure where they would show up, but were happy to see them. A quick switch of riders and gear was made in the dark, under the lights of the vans.
An hour later we were pulling into the motel and hitting the beds. Of course there is never enough sleep and we were up again and moving in 4 hours. The breakfast was good however. The drive to catch Team A was pretty fun, tight twisty roads snaking along the sides of the mountains but because of that it took a long time to catch Team A.
Day 3, Friday the 13th.
Spirits were pretty good in the bus until we heard word of a rider crashing and going down. Kirk had been going downhill pretty fast and entered a high speed wooble and ended up crashing. We passed the scene on the way to the planned team swapping area. Three emergency vehicles passed in the other direction. Team A did a great job of carrying on after the crash. They immediately checked his condition, Jay our rmt with his First Response training stayed with the rider, as well as the sprinter van as the rest of the team soldier on like good troops and made the Time Station without delay. We also learned that over the course of the night that Team A was able to catch and blow past Team 602.
The switch was preformed excellently, the plan was to focus on one vehicle and get it down the road behind the rider that was already going, and then focus on the other vehicles in order of importance. There was no delay, and no rider left out long. We started off with short shifts keeping good time and the crew vehicles played leap frog with team 602. Jill and I were in the scout vehicle finding good transition locations up the road.
At some point 100kms down the road we notice some sort of issue with the other vehicles not catching up as expected. Turns out the follow vehicle had died completely. I rushed ahead to get jumper cables, giving a guy 20$ to borrow his which turned out into a sale since we never returned. By the time we got back to the follow vehicle we realized it needed more than a jump and turned back to the course, and left Will and Lindsay there. Once we caught back up with the riders we made Mike the team chief and the riders decided to use us as an emergency follow van, and the shuttle would carry on. Mike would stay in town and find a way to get the van running again and catch us down the road.
We carried on as a two vehicle crew, making efficient rider exchanges while Jill and i tried our best to stay awake and not pee our pants. We were expecting a bathroom break at 7pm local time but once we became the follow vehicle we could not stop without causing a delay since the riders must remain in our light. We fin ally got to pee at 6am, over 12 hours for us.
Shortly after the Time Station we started a 25km, 2000 foot climb up a mountain. The climb asked a lot from our riders and they responded with short but energetic shifts. As we crested the hill and started going down we reached speeds of 60kph on the tight and twisty decent with the follow vehicle 10-15 feet behind the rider lighting the way. This is a difficult balance act of staying close to light the way, while giving yourself some enough space to not run over the rider (it has happened).
We actually got passed on the decent by one of the faster 4 man teams that had some fresh legs on the road, and some real balls to fly down the hill faster than us. Its great seeing the other teams do well, there is no hard feelings or anger. We are all in this together and we wish everyone well as long as they behave on the road.
After the downhill we made good time on some rolling flats, the night didn't seem to drag on like the night before, in fact i think the riders were having fun tonight. The riders appeared to have some zip in their legs, and were very cheerful on the road. The crew felt the same way. Consider the issues we had, a rider down, losing a vehicle and 3 crew down the road, and pulling a long shift, we were in good spirits. At 7 minutes to midnight we called in our position and joked that nothing had bad had happened in the last 30 minutes... only to hit a deer on the side of the road. Not a hard impact since it didn't leave a mark, but it topped off along and weird Friday the 13th on the road.
The last 20-30kms down of the shift felt the best. Jill and I kept ourselves awake all night listening to Spanish polka, death metal and some other tuns on the radio. The last few kms we had the windows down, the tunes cranked and smiles on our faces.. yes we are going crazy. I think we like it.
It is now Saturday, our team (Team B) has had 3 shifts, and we feel great. We are missing our official follow vehicle and our crew chief mike, and will and Lindsay. They stayed in the small town over night and should catch up with us today. Team A is still out on the road for their 3rd shift, riding strong with 3 riders. We are in 5th place but feel pretty snappy and refreshed despite another 4 hour sleep at the hotel. The bus is moving, we had a violent bump on the road that sent most of our supplies all over the place and snapped our backup tow chain. A quick repair by our awesome driver ken and we are on the way.
Feeling good, talk to you soon!
Day 4.
The drive to meet team A was not that bad other than the huge bump in the road. The riders got massages from Jill to wake up their legs. Over the course of the day Team A was in hot pursuit of our rivals team 602. Just at the checkpoint the pass was made. Our crew swap was pretty decent, we got the follow and the sprinter out on the road fast. We were still missing the official follow backup vehicle but the word was that it was repaired and starting the long trek to catch up to us. We were expecting a 2am reunion.
Today we had a new plan, since team A was short a rider, and getting little to no sleep, less than us. The plan was for our team to ride for 14 hours, or however long it would take to get Team A a decent 4 hour sleep. We planned for 14 hours but i figured 13 was a better guess.\\
On the road we went, starting at 6pm local time and having only 90 minutes of freedom before our bastarized follow vehicle would be tied to the rider on the road. We refueled both vehicles, stocked up on supplies, and took one last bathroom break before 7:30 local time.
The riders responded to the plan with a small surprise.. speed! The riders were flying down the road today. level terrain and a cross-tail wind helped, but the other teams had the same conditions and our guys were putting serious space on them. The team and crew felt energetic to finally gain distance on a team that has beat our crew up over the last two nights. They seemed to pick on team B, but now the team has countered with a monster day of 290miles, or over 450kms. A 10 minute ga was opened up fast, from the 1 minute gap at the Time Station, and throughout the night it grew.
Midway through the night the sprinter van got lost, but the rider on the road and the follow vehicle kept going. Tim did a 40 minute shift, never dropping below 35kms/hr and keep our lead over 602. Once the Shuttle was back we switch him out, and gave him a few easy rotations to keep him fresh. All the riders were flying up and down the gentle rolling hills today.
The time flew buy just as fast as the miles. I was able to stay awake much easier than the night before. Jill got a few naps in there as well. Right around 7am, or 13 hours after we started we swapped out with the Team A and were finally able to rest. Jill and i did another 12 hour shift without a bathroom break, saving the team a few minutes along the way.
We are now on the way the hotel, just east of St. Louis. Normally the hotel is close to our end point but in order to maintain forward progress of the Bus and crew we needed to travel a few hours on the road first. Not the best way to end the day but most of the crew and riders will nap on the bus, and then get 4 more hours in the hotel. this might work out to our advantage with more overall sleep. We shall see.
Day 4 is over, we are on pace for a 6,5 day trip!
So the last few days have been extremely busy and fast moving. I haven't really had time to update this. Well the truth is that there was time, but I used it for sleeping.
So After our first shift we got back to the hotel, had 4 hours sleep and got back on the bus to catch up with Team A. I tried but failed to sleep on the bus.. it just wasn't going to happen. It nearly worked but I was always in the space between being awake and sleeping. Not a good way to start another 12 hour shift.
Once the riders were on the bikes everything was moving... but a bad transition between teams meant that a rider was left out on the course for 50 minutes instead of 15. This is not the best practice.. the rider held up pretty good. The reason was when we switch teams we need to change over all our gear in the vans.. only one set of vans and two sets of bikes and gear. When we caught up the rider we realized we needed quicker and shorter shifts in the heat to keep our riders hydrated and fresh.. this mean a lot more work for the crew shuttling and finding transition places.
Transition places are not easy to find on some roads. The rules state you need to be at least 5 feet off the road to pull over. This is hard in some areas since there are ditches and soft sandy areas all over. For the first time we had real issues finding locations. We tried to keep the shifts to 5k or less but often the only place to switch was either too soon down the road or way too far. Leaving the rider out on the course too long, or leaving him with too many hills to climb.
As we got into darkness 3-4 teams were getting bunched up. Our nemesis team 602 decided to put all their best riders on the road in one shift and hammered us hard. They passed us and quickly put a gap on us. Our spirits were down a bit, but at the time we didn't know they were trying to blow us away in the one shift. We kept our pace as we knew we should have.. just doing what we can to keep the gap low.
At some point the power system in the Follow Vehicle died, losing our interior lights, our dash board and our warning lights on the back. Jill and I in the Scout quickly took over as the others stopped to fix the issue. For a couple of hours we were out of contact with the follow vehicle and unaware of its status. We carried on..nearly taking out a donkey on the side of the road. Just after the Time Station the follow vehicle rejoined us and we were a full crew again.
The last bit seemed to take forever, lots of steep hills, no places for transition and our pace was low. the riders fought hard but it was taking a toll.
It was like seeing a mirage on the side of the road when the team bus showed up. We weren't sure where they would show up, but were happy to see them. A quick switch of riders and gear was made in the dark, under the lights of the vans.
An hour later we were pulling into the motel and hitting the beds. Of course there is never enough sleep and we were up again and moving in 4 hours. The breakfast was good however. The drive to catch Team A was pretty fun, tight twisty roads snaking along the sides of the mountains but because of that it took a long time to catch Team A.
Day 3, Friday the 13th.
Spirits were pretty good in the bus until we heard word of a rider crashing and going down. Kirk had been going downhill pretty fast and entered a high speed wooble and ended up crashing. We passed the scene on the way to the planned team swapping area. Three emergency vehicles passed in the other direction. Team A did a great job of carrying on after the crash. They immediately checked his condition, Jay our rmt with his First Response training stayed with the rider, as well as the sprinter van as the rest of the team soldier on like good troops and made the Time Station without delay. We also learned that over the course of the night that Team A was able to catch and blow past Team 602.
The switch was preformed excellently, the plan was to focus on one vehicle and get it down the road behind the rider that was already going, and then focus on the other vehicles in order of importance. There was no delay, and no rider left out long. We started off with short shifts keeping good time and the crew vehicles played leap frog with team 602. Jill and I were in the scout vehicle finding good transition locations up the road.
At some point 100kms down the road we notice some sort of issue with the other vehicles not catching up as expected. Turns out the follow vehicle had died completely. I rushed ahead to get jumper cables, giving a guy 20$ to borrow his which turned out into a sale since we never returned. By the time we got back to the follow vehicle we realized it needed more than a jump and turned back to the course, and left Will and Lindsay there. Once we caught back up with the riders we made Mike the team chief and the riders decided to use us as an emergency follow van, and the shuttle would carry on. Mike would stay in town and find a way to get the van running again and catch us down the road.
We carried on as a two vehicle crew, making efficient rider exchanges while Jill and i tried our best to stay awake and not pee our pants. We were expecting a bathroom break at 7pm local time but once we became the follow vehicle we could not stop without causing a delay since the riders must remain in our light. We fin ally got to pee at 6am, over 12 hours for us.
Shortly after the Time Station we started a 25km, 2000 foot climb up a mountain. The climb asked a lot from our riders and they responded with short but energetic shifts. As we crested the hill and started going down we reached speeds of 60kph on the tight and twisty decent with the follow vehicle 10-15 feet behind the rider lighting the way. This is a difficult balance act of staying close to light the way, while giving yourself some enough space to not run over the rider (it has happened).
We actually got passed on the decent by one of the faster 4 man teams that had some fresh legs on the road, and some real balls to fly down the hill faster than us. Its great seeing the other teams do well, there is no hard feelings or anger. We are all in this together and we wish everyone well as long as they behave on the road.
After the downhill we made good time on some rolling flats, the night didn't seem to drag on like the night before, in fact i think the riders were having fun tonight. The riders appeared to have some zip in their legs, and were very cheerful on the road. The crew felt the same way. Consider the issues we had, a rider down, losing a vehicle and 3 crew down the road, and pulling a long shift, we were in good spirits. At 7 minutes to midnight we called in our position and joked that nothing had bad had happened in the last 30 minutes... only to hit a deer on the side of the road. Not a hard impact since it didn't leave a mark, but it topped off along and weird Friday the 13th on the road.
The last 20-30kms down of the shift felt the best. Jill and I kept ourselves awake all night listening to Spanish polka, death metal and some other tuns on the radio. The last few kms we had the windows down, the tunes cranked and smiles on our faces.. yes we are going crazy. I think we like it.
It is now Saturday, our team (Team B) has had 3 shifts, and we feel great. We are missing our official follow vehicle and our crew chief mike, and will and Lindsay. They stayed in the small town over night and should catch up with us today. Team A is still out on the road for their 3rd shift, riding strong with 3 riders. We are in 5th place but feel pretty snappy and refreshed despite another 4 hour sleep at the hotel. The bus is moving, we had a violent bump on the road that sent most of our supplies all over the place and snapped our backup tow chain. A quick repair by our awesome driver ken and we are on the way.
Feeling good, talk to you soon!
Day 4.
The drive to meet team A was not that bad other than the huge bump in the road. The riders got massages from Jill to wake up their legs. Over the course of the day Team A was in hot pursuit of our rivals team 602. Just at the checkpoint the pass was made. Our crew swap was pretty decent, we got the follow and the sprinter out on the road fast. We were still missing the official follow backup vehicle but the word was that it was repaired and starting the long trek to catch up to us. We were expecting a 2am reunion.
Today we had a new plan, since team A was short a rider, and getting little to no sleep, less than us. The plan was for our team to ride for 14 hours, or however long it would take to get Team A a decent 4 hour sleep. We planned for 14 hours but i figured 13 was a better guess.\\
On the road we went, starting at 6pm local time and having only 90 minutes of freedom before our bastarized follow vehicle would be tied to the rider on the road. We refueled both vehicles, stocked up on supplies, and took one last bathroom break before 7:30 local time.
The riders responded to the plan with a small surprise.. speed! The riders were flying down the road today. level terrain and a cross-tail wind helped, but the other teams had the same conditions and our guys were putting serious space on them. The team and crew felt energetic to finally gain distance on a team that has beat our crew up over the last two nights. They seemed to pick on team B, but now the team has countered with a monster day of 290miles, or over 450kms. A 10 minute ga was opened up fast, from the 1 minute gap at the Time Station, and throughout the night it grew.
Midway through the night the sprinter van got lost, but the rider on the road and the follow vehicle kept going. Tim did a 40 minute shift, never dropping below 35kms/hr and keep our lead over 602. Once the Shuttle was back we switch him out, and gave him a few easy rotations to keep him fresh. All the riders were flying up and down the gentle rolling hills today.
The time flew buy just as fast as the miles. I was able to stay awake much easier than the night before. Jill got a few naps in there as well. Right around 7am, or 13 hours after we started we swapped out with the Team A and were finally able to rest. Jill and i did another 12 hour shift without a bathroom break, saving the team a few minutes along the way.
We are now on the way the hotel, just east of St. Louis. Normally the hotel is close to our end point but in order to maintain forward progress of the Bus and crew we needed to travel a few hours on the road first. Not the best way to end the day but most of the crew and riders will nap on the bus, and then get 4 more hours in the hotel. this might work out to our advantage with more overall sleep. We shall see.
Day 4 is over, we are on pace for a 6,5 day trip!