More Highlights from RAAM 2008

Before I get on to 2009, I thought I'd write a little more on 2008 from my annual journal.
"We started setting up on Saturday June 14 at 2pm with Kristen and Dan, two of the SDSU interns. Jim Lang came out a little later and helped. At 5pm Joe and Barb Anderson came with another tailgate tent from the BBC storage shed. So, everything was ready and where's the riders?

At 6:45pm the Gran Fondo Fixies came through. The resting rider of the 2 man team jumped out of the car and offered us cookies! Shouldn't it have been the other way around? This was the first fixie category of RAAM, and the organizers weren't quite sure just how "fast" they'd be going across the country, so they had them start 1 or 2 days before anyone else. We were quite surprised that they were the first ones here. We chatted with them at length about his fixed gear biking. Wow! The Fixie came through and missed the turn on 2nd St. Time to mark the wrap around.



Jan Christiansen, solo woman, coming through.
Paul Stern and his wife stopped by. He's the time station director, and we met after all the e-mailing we've been doing the past six months. We talked for quite some time, and Jim Lang recommended Truffles for a fancy supper. Hope they liked it, while I had a cold Wendy's double, however Jen did deliver some cookies and banana bread.




Jim Lang, Klaus R, Jen M, and a couple of RAAM officials waited for the Slovenian Army to arrive. Johnny Boswell and friend have been following the Robic contingent since California. We found out they're from Fredricksburg, Texas and invited us down to Hell Week. They decided to bed down awhile in the tent and lounging chair.









The Bloomington police came by to check us out. Naturally, they knew nothing about RAAM, but after some educating, they were cool. Some Cutters came by to be there for Jure, but still no Jure. Finally, at 4:47am, Robic went by and we exchanged some souvenirs to the Slovenian Army."





more photos

2008 was the first year that Race Across America (RAAM) came through Bloomington, IN. In the past, whenever RAAM passed through Indiana it followed our club's, BBC, RAIN route on US 40. The current owners of RAAM, Fred and Rick Boethling, were looking for new venues for the RAAM route, to market RAAM. Jeff "Bubba Shrimp" Stephens, a RAAM finisher, and marketing director of RAAM, suggested Bloomington due to its cycling history of Hilly Hundred, Breaking Away, and Little 500.The Bloomington Bicycle Club was quite experienced in ultra-marathon cycling. Ty Waltermire, sponsored by BBC, completed solo RAAM a couple of times in the 80's, and Dave Tanner rode solo RAAM once, and has ridden two 4 person RAAM's in 2007, the Hoosiers, and 2008, Team Theraplay. BBC also has put on RAIN, Ride Across Indiana, since 1987. Jeff also knew that I now lived in Bloomington and a reliable time station could be manned in Bloomington. It was a challenge that I enthusiastically accepted. Jeff and Dave spoke at our annual end of winter banquet to stir up the fire.

The first solo rider through was Jure Robic, the 2 time RAAM winner from Slovenia. According to his time breaks, he was to come through at 1 am, as a few of the BBC members were patiently waiting.Unfortunately, Robic decided to bed down on the other side of Bloomington, and finally came through our time station at 4am. He still had a couple of us BBC'rs along with the Slovenien Army cheering him on.
Dave Haas came along about 13 hours later.
Currently in 2nd he was the American hope to unseed Robic. He was quite a sore man and quite grumpy. His major complaints were his feet and heels. He was overtaken by Marc Patinson, a Brit, later in West Virginia.

Teams started coming through regularly The excitement peaked when Team Theraplay came through with our own Dave Tanner riding his leg past his alma mater,
his house, and ended at our time station 38 in front of about 75 fans at midnight on a weekday.
The time station continued its services to the riders, the crews, and the officials till the last rider came through almost a week after Jure came through.

We learned a lot in our first year, but we were appreciated by all. The Boethlings came through and enjoyed our town and Hoosier hospitality and promised that RAAM would be back in 2009.