Race Across America
More importantly, the race has no stages, i.e., it is a nonstop event from start to finish, with the fastest competitors needing slightly over 7 days to complete the course.
By contrast, the Tour de France features a different route each year (alternating between clockwise and counterclockwise circuits around France) and is about 2,300 miles long; the distance is divided into individual daily stages spread over the course of about 3 weeks including rest days and contested at much higher on-bike speeds, but much lower overall average speed.
The course started in Santa Monica, California and finished at the Empire State Building in New York City, where Haldeman emerged as the winner.
In 1989, team divisions were added to introduce new elements of technology and strategy: a category for HPVs and faired bikes resulted in record speeds, and a four-man team division[1] gave racers the option of riding together or taking turns, allowing them to balance higher speeds against longer rest periods.
[8] As noted above, unlike most multi-day bicycle races such as the Tour de France, RAAM has a single stage, i.e., there is no specified distance to travel each day.
[9] Each racer or team has a support crew that follows in vehicles to provide food, water, mechanical repairs and medical aid.
In addition, the race takes place on open roads, forcing participants to deal with sometimes dangerous traffic conditions.
In 2006 the race format changed significantly with the addition of a Solo Enduro division, in which riders were obliged to rest off the bike for a total of 40 hours at specified points across the country.
These changes were made to improve safety and shift the emphasis to long-distance riding speed and away from the capacity to endure sleep deprivation.
Because the intention was to phase out the traditional format, it was announced that henceforth the official RAAM champion would be the winner of the Solo Enduro division.
For many years, the shortest elapsed time for a solo crossing of the United States was outside of an official RAAM, by Michael Secrest in 1990, in 7 days, 23 hours, and 16 minutes.
[10] In comparison, in 1953 Corporal Donald Mainland, USMC (retired), raced from Santa Monica, California to New York City, a distance of 2,963 miles.
With his sixth win in 2019, Christoph Strasser passed the late Jure Robič of Slovenia as the all-time record holder for solo RAAM victories.
Robič was killed in September 2010 in a collision with a car while training for the Crocodile Trophy, the endurance mountain bike race held annually in Australia.
HPV RAAM was slated as a platform for technology advancement in cycling aerodynamics and human powered propulsion, but it also paved the way for more team competitions thereafter.
Team Lightning set the overall fastest RAAM time of 5:01:08 over a shorter course of 2,911 miles (4,685 km),[10] a record which still stands over 2 decades later.
[11] In later years team members could ride together to take advantage of drafting, so speeds improved, but in the 1989 race there could only be one rider on the road at a time.
The team, whose members were Nathaniel Faulkner, Kerry Ryan, Sean Nealy, and William Innes, averaged 23.06 mph (37.11 km/h) to complete the 2,959 miles (4,762 km) in 5:08:17.
