Thursday, June 30, 2011

Food in a Bag - Just like the Astronauts

RAAM food is food in a bag.  We generated an immense amount of FIBs, as I call them, for the RAAM.  Sweet potatoes with cinnamon, butter, sugar; Crack peas (sauted onions and butter, mash potatoes, frozen peas, organic meat; pasta and sauce packets; rice and eggs.  Gotta love it.  Clip the end, put it to your lips
and squeeze it like yo mama.



In addition to FIBs, we produced about 257 burritos. They are "dinner in your hand". Anything you can wrap in a tortilla you can function with. Burritos are mobile, whether you are driving the get away car or running across the border or swimming a river. You can move with a burrito.  It ain't pretty but it is functional.



Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Duct Tapers

Duct tape has always been around, since the dawn of time - like fire, like the wheel.  But it took man a bit to learn how to USE duct tape.


It takes a certain type of person to survive on a RAAM Crew. To survive RAAM you gotta have a duct tape kind of attitude.  When things begin to crater, no time to whip out the welder or the soldering gun. No time to wait for the drying of the glue, just pull that "duct tape" attitude out of the hoister and fire away.  When you get finished, it is never pretty, but it is working, functional.   Some people hate duct tape.  They think it is messy, it is ugly, it is cheap looking.  It might be all of those things, but those who have a duct tape attitude will be sitting on the East Coast enjoying a scotch when others are trying to stitch, glue and solder their way across West Virginia.


Tuesday, June 21, 2011

A DEATH IN CORTEZ - NOT A DEATH IN TUBA CITY



We made our way across Arizona, through Monument Valley, up into southern Utah, then over to southwestern Colorado where our Soccer Mom van promptly died. Really, completely died in Cortez. Apparently the van decided that 48 hours of continual abuse was enough and it preferred death over the prospect of being abused for 7 more days. I can relate. If dying were an option, I might go there. But with RAAM dying is not an option.

Take for example our fellow cyclist with another team who apparently was hit by a semi in Tuba City, Arizona, suffered broken bones but, thank god, is alive.  Cycling is dangerous no matter how you cut it.  I am always amazing about people who "got hit by a semi".  I mean give me a break!  Cyclists must be like Superman.  A semi whacks a person on 20 pounds of bike and the person comes away with few broken bones.  I think that is amazing.  You should have seen the semi!


Wednesday, June 15, 2011

I'm Talkin' Traffic

I mean how can these Californian's talk about green this and green that and justify all these cars on the road.  Every time I have come here I have been struck by the incredible amount of people here.  This is my first view of San Diego/Oceanside.

RAAM - The Topographic Profile of America

RAAM is officially underway.  Our Crew Mate Kevin headed off on his pre-ride with his partner.  They are team Texas Flyboys and their race finishes in Durango, Colorado, probably on Friday and then he will fly down to Arizona with his wife and he will go with us BACK up to Durango and finish with the team in Annapolis, MD.  Animal.
The ocean is great, but it is cold and overcast, lookin' perfect compared to 105.   I was down at the start to RAAM and there was this team from German and they were talking in a animated fashion to a couple from Ohio who were here on vacation I think.  The couple had stumbled into this bizarre scene of cyclists, crews, people from all over the world who where doing something, but the couple could not figure out what was going on – an international convention of some type.  Anyway, there guys were so friendly with this couple and the man said “where are you from” and it was apparent that Rolf, Gunter and his buddy were German.  Anyway, these guys had rolled out on the pavement about a 20 foot by 12 inch roll of paper that showed the profile of America, all the sections of the race laid end to end.  I gotta tell you the Appalachian Mountains look minute compared to the mighty Rockies, and basically  it is downhill all the way from Trinidad Colorado to Ohio – really.  I found it fascinating.  I am a geologist, but I don’t think that I have ever seen the Profile of America quite laid out that way.  The Rocky Mountains are impressive, the Sierras are impressive.  The east coast looks --- old and worn down.  I'm sure it will look more impressive when we get there.