Believe it or not, the most fun I’ve ever had on a bike is the Race Across Oregon (RAO). The current version of RAO starts and ends in Hood River and is a giant clockwise loop that covers about 520 miles and a whopping ~45,000′ of climbing.
I’ve previously raced RAO in 2008 as part of a 4-man team comprised of friends from Eugene and Seattle-area speedster Mark Mirante (who currently races for Garage), and in 2011 I crewed for Mick Walsh’s solo attempt. This year I’ll be racing as part of a 4-man team with some High Performance Cycling teammates.
In ultra races, racers can compete as teams or as solos. As a 4-man team our basic game plan is for each rider to be racing for 30 minutes at a time, then exchange with another rider, get in a support vehicle and rest for 90 minutes. We race non-stop through the night with a racer on the road at all times and the two support vehicles leapfrogging down the course. All things being equal, this works out to a relatively modest ~130 miles and ~11,000’+ of climbing per racer.
Unfortunately this year’s field is not as large as we had hoped, but but we do expect competition from some strong 2-man teams (one of which includes Furnace Creek 508 veteran Jim Ryan from Sammamish), and a mixed gender team from Oregon. The race could very well go down to the wire with the other 4-person team, though we have a few tactical tricks we plan to deploy to distance ourselves from the competition.
High Performance Cycling’s 2013 RAO team includes:
* Danny Warner, who has recently discovered an affinity for 24 hour mountain bike races. A 4-man RAO will be a piece of cake for him.
* John Pottle, who is a very strong recreational rider and is a strong climber. I think John has only competed in one individual time trial
* Scott “Stoli” Stolnack, who is an avid individual time trialist and is training for the upcoming masters national time trial championships.
* David Longdon (me): I am the “glue” figuratively and literally holding the team together and to the pavement. As the weakest climber in the bunch I definitely feel pressure to deliver the best I can this year.
Ultra events can only happen because of the support crew. This year’s crew includes:
* Mark Vohr
* Rob Snyder
* Sam Huffman, who is a recovering Randonneur from the Portland area, and who has previously crewed the Furnace Creek 508.
And a thanks to Cycle University and Craig Undem for the generous use of their suburban!
The team race starts at 7 AM on Saturday and there are a number of ways you can follow our progress:
Live GPS Tracker
Facebook
Twitter
Periodic video clips and interviews
