Last weekend, Claire and I drove down with 4 of our friends who were doing the Furnace Creek 508 bicycle race. They were in the two tandem relay division. If you have some time, check out the website, and check out the video. This is a race that I have completed once in 1994, and have crewed for various riders 4 times. Claire has crewed 5 times since she crewed for me in 94. The race rules say that each rider must have a crew that drives behind him or her during the night and provides all of the food and water and support that the rider hopefully needs. This race starts in Valencia and ends in 29 Palms. It goes through Death Valley at about the half way point. Anyway, if you check out the website you can get more info on that if you want. Suffice to say that this race is always very difficult and has a high drop out rate.
This year many people felt that we had the worst conditions in the history of the race. The heat wasn't bad, but the head winds from the 210 mile mark on were horrific. There were many stories of riders getting blown off the road going through Death Valley. Claire and I witnessed our own riders hanging on for dear life as the winds pushed them across the road and to the very edge of the pavement. We witnessed this for an 8 hour stretch through Death Valley. This was a stretch the they should have been riding at almost 20 mph, but instead were riding at 6 to 8 mph.
Well, we are very happy to report that our riders finished the event, and were the only participants to break a record. This record was broken by 5 minutes. It was incredible to have been a part of that. I wish I could say more, but I don't think that time or space would allow me to really convey what this event was like.
No comments:
Post a Comment