Detour de Plans

Shortly after we finished our stakeout, we arrived at the Missouri State Capitol Building. Since I was born in Missouri (or "misery" as I often say, in jest), I asked Jody to pull over so I could take some pictures.

Jody told me that he had stopped there before, in 2009, while crewing for a solo racer, Michael Cook (Team Cookie Monster). It was about 100 degrees out and the RV's air conditioning had gone out, so instead of resting in the RV, Michael decided to take a dip in one of the fountains. We even took a picture for Michael of that exact fountain.

Hats off to ya, mate!

From the Capitol Building grounds, we also got our first look at the Missouri River, which we would be crossing over almsot as soon as we got going again.

While on the bridge, we caught up once again with Beau&Babe, that mixed 60-69 team. Besides the two leading solo males, Beau&Babe are the only riders we will be following for the rest of the race, assuming they keep up, which seems pretty likely, at least for the next several time stations.

John (or "Beau") is one of the more talkative riders we've met. When we came across him one time, for instance, about two days ago, he seemed totally pumped up and happily exclaimed something like, "Dude, I don't know about you, but I'm riding all the way to Annapolis!"


I told Jody how awesome that was, but also mentioned that with so many miles to go to the finish, I'd save the excitement for later.

This time when we chatted, Beau mentioned that he and his wife had started the race with 11 tubular tires but were down to two. I'm not sure if he meant two total or two for each bike, but whatever the case, the lesson is that you can never be over-prepared.

One of the biggest "events" of the day came another 20 miles down the road (after we had again passed Strasser, too, who was about 12 minutes by car ahead of B&B) when we saw a giant "Road Closed" sign ahead of us, followed by a big, orange "Detour" sign pointing left.

Because the route was supposed to go straight, we knew we had a problem on our hands. Problem #2 was that Reto was ahead of us and we didn't know if he had taken the posted detour or figured out another way to proceed.

Just then, the owner of RAAM, Fred Boethling, appeared out of nowhere behind us, driving a yellow Rider truck, likely filled with RAAM gear.

After all of us discussed the situation and made some phone calls to headquarters (which wasn't easy, because we could barely pick up a signal), Fred told us to drive ahead along the detour until we found Reto.

According to our GPS, the detour was going to take us way, way, way off course, however, so we didn't think Reto would have gone that way. According to what HQ told us, though, Reto's crew had reported that the detour was "clearly marked," so off we went, in hot pursuit.

About 10 minutes later, we got a phone call from Fred telling us that the (ahem) "French" guys, who were actually the Austrian guys, i.e., Strasser and crew, had found a gravel road that they could take that got them right back on course with only the tiniest of deviations.


Since Strasser's crew found that other detour so easily (we also saw it on our GPS), we figured that Reto's crew must have found it, too, but we couldn't figure out why they would have said the detour was "clearly marked" (since only the "official" detour was). Unsure of the best thing to do, we decided we should just follow orders, stay on the detour, and hope to spot Reto.

No such luck.

By the time we had looped all the way up to Fulton and then back down to the original route, which was about a 33-mile detour, we were basically back where we had started from. By then we knew that we had been on a wild goose chase, but there was no sense in getting frustrated about it. Jody told me that detours are just another part of RAAM and that they happen every year, so we just carried on as if nothing had happened.

In the meantime, headquarters had notified all of the riders of the alternate detour so that they wouldn't have any problem continuing on their way.

An hour after we had last passed Strasser, there he was again, just ahead of us, riding with his jersey unzipped, in an effort to beat the heat. (I've never seen Reto riding with his jersey unzipped, but again, maybe that is just coincidence or comfort or whatever. To each his own, right?)

There was still no sign of Reto, however, but he was obviously ahead of us.

Somewhere along the road (roughly 20 miles to go to the Time Station), we eventually came upon one of Reto's support vehicles. When we asked the crew where he was, they told us he was inside the van, taking a quick break from riding. The last thing we wanted to do was disturb Reto, so off we went, to Time Station 34 (Washington, Missouri).