Update from Trinidad

Christian Strasser (Austria), the RAAM defending champion, is slowly creeping up toward the front of the pack, picking off one rider after another.

Yesterday morning, as we drove through Monument Valley, we caught up to him for maybe only the second or third time since we left Oceanside. We didn't have a chance to stop and talk, so all we did was drive right past him. Luckily, I was able to grab a picture of him as we zipped on by. His follow vehicle is pretty close behind him, since it must be within 50 feet of the rider during the 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. (local) time period. (The photo was taken at 6:34 a.m.)

Here's another shot of Monument Valley.

Somehow, we timed our arrival perfectly so we could see the sunrise here. The weather also cooperated fully, making this a nice day for picture taking.

This is a shot of Dave, one of the older riders (60-69) doing RAAM, as he rides near Mexican Hat, Utah, 30 minutes (by car) past Monument Valley. That's one of his support vehicles just behind him. Since this picture was taken after 7 a.m., the support vehicle did not have to be close to Dave.

Dave is one of only three riders in his age group, but only two of the three remain in the race. Sergey Zimin (Russia), the guy riding that funky recumbent bike, is now listed with several other riders from several categories as "DNF" (did not finish).

By the time we reached Durango, Colorado (about 3:15 p.m. local time), which acts as the finish line for RAW as well as Time Station 15 for RAAM, Daniel Wyss (Switzerland), the solo men's RAW winner, had already left, apparently to get some well-deserved race and the Time Station was practically deserted, which is unfortunate.

Danny covered the 858.60 miles in an incredible 1 day, 22 hours, and 19 minutes, zipping along at an average speed of 18.54 m.p.h. The last time we saw Danny was the previous night, when I had a chance to chat with him as he rode along. He was in good spirits and seemed to enjoy the opportunity to talk to someone, so I would have loved to continue the conversation, but we had to let him concentrate on his ride, so off we went.

By the way, about seven hours ago, the women's solo RAW winner, Leah Goldstein (Israel), made it to the finish line. Congratulations to both winners!

As you can see, as we made our way farther into Colorado, the landscape started to change dramatically once again.

Also, if you look off into the distance, you can see smoke rising from the forest fires that are raging up north.

Here's a look at Reto Schoch, the current men's solo leader, as he assures us that all is well.

Jody took this shot of me at the Continental Divide. Theoretically, one half of my body is on the western side, and the other half of my body is on the eastern side.











OK, that's just about it for the pictures from yesterday's drive. Rather than posting these at the end of the previous post, as a continuation, I figured it would be easier for everyone if I posted them this way.

Here are a few final thoughts before we move on:

Our face time with the riders is really limited, unfortunately. Just about every time we pass one of the lead riders, we try to chat with them, but we obviously can't do much of that. Jody's actually doing almost all of the driving (I haven't driven since Wednesday), which means I get to be the one who does most of the talking.

The cool thing for me is, just about all the riders at the very front of the pack, including Danny, who won RAW, speak German, so I can talk to them in their mother tongue, which probably makes them more eager to talk to me than if they "had to" speak English.

I also think it's a shame that I probably won't see some of the riders again, especially Danny, who is back in Durango; the Italian bunch, since Luigi, their rider, is 400 miles behind us; and our Austrian buddies who are crewing for Dr. Wolfgang Mader, since they are 300 miles behind us. That's just how it goes, though.


I can also report that we finally got plenty of sleep last night, since we had driven well ahead of the leaders and had a long wait before they caught us this morning.

It did take us a while to find a quiet place to sleep, however. Our first choice, Time Station 20 (a Safeway parking lot), turned out to be a disaster, since practically all of the town's riffraff was there too, keeping us awake as they eagerly revved their motorcycles and dealt drugs on either side of us.

That's why we decided to look for a better spot, which ended up being the Nissan Wyndham Rogue Inn and Suites located at the parking lot of Mt. San Rafael Hospital. A security patrolman woke us up at around 5:30, but after he confirmed who we were, he apologized for disturbing us and let us go back to bed.

Also, in case you're wondering, we are almost at Hour 72 of the liquid diet. The jokes about food continue, including this one:

"Hey, Jody, do you think we should stop at that cafe?"

"Yeah, it looks like they have bagels. I could really go for a nice, warm bagel with cream cheese right about now."

"Me, too. Maybe we can ask for the Blended Bagel Special!"

OK, we're out of here for now.