RAAM presentation - October 15, 2010

So in the end Trisha helped me with the decision to go to the seminar.  It was great; George is a great speaker and he had a well laid out presentation.  There were several RAAM riders present to add input from their personal experiences.

One of things I have had concerns about is whether RAAM will even exist in 8 years but those were quickly put to rest.  George (race director) has a clear plan to grow RAAM from its current point to nearly double in the next few years.  They will be focused on team participation which makes sense; with a really good crew, even fairly novice riders can jump onto an 8 person team and be fairly confident they will make it to the other side with a few hours of riding each day.

I think it is a great idea as it will introduce more people to endurance riding and give them an epic ride that will cause excitement among their cycling peers.  Considering there is almost a million dollars raised each year for various causes, an increase in the number of riders will greatly benefit all the organizations.

After attending I realized that Trisha and I really need to attend a seminar fairly soon.  Prior to RAW and RAAM, Trisha will most often be the entirety of my crew and the information in one of the seminars will benefit both of us on any future rides as well as help us prepare for RAAM.  I think that even if she is not part of the final crew, she will be able to provide a lot of insight into the planning stages.

For the upcoming year I need to look towards the S2S and possibly the Cannonball and Ramrod as well.  I thought about maybe the STP, but then adding the ride back.  It would eliminate the expense of a hotel and I would see how a 400 mile ride would feel.  With the excellent support down there, I think I could get back to Centralia in the daylight and then have someone leap frog me for support the last hundred plus miles.  I don’t know, it will depend on a lot of things.

It’s funny to me that I don’t tend to get excited about a ride or race until right before the event.  I may prepare, but I don’t anticipate it.  This time it’s different, I am excited to do this.