Arms race

This year, for the first time, I've been following the Race Across America (RAAM)—a 3000-mile ultra-endurance bicycle race that starts in Oceanside, California, and ends in Atlantic City, New Jersey. I won't go into how that works, but if you're interested in some details, go check out RAAM 101.

So why the sudden interest? Well, at first it was because I caught wind that Jim Kern would be making his first solo attempt (as in "3000 miles, one set of legs, and nearly no sleep") on a Bacchetta recumbent bike. Things got more interesting when I learned that there was also a two-man recumbent team (Volae Wolf Pack), that a couple people from the BikeJournal.com forums would be riding on the Cyclonauts four-man team, and that a woman I know from the local cycling club would be riding as part of the JDRF four-person tandem team.

What I didn't expect was that I'd find myself rooting for the RC-Enjo Vorarlberg six-man handcycle team from Austria. At first, the notion of cranking a handcycle not much different than Turtle's through the desert, through the mountains, through the howling prairie winds—all day and all night—was quite enough to impress the hell out of me.

It wasn't enough for the RCV team, though. While Jim Kern succumbed to pulmonary edema and had to withdraw, while the Cyclonauts struggled with bad luck and mechanical problems, and while Team JDRF and the Wolf Pack fought to keep up, the Austrian handcycle team continued to crank right along. According to the official statistics, they have maintained an average of 12.77, as of their check-in to time station 44, in Circleville, OH.

Using just their arms.

Just think about that for a moment. Most of us have to sit down and rest if we have to pull the starter cord on our lawnmowers more than a few times.