My participation in the Georgia Chain Gang's 2012 edition of RAAM began several months ago when I agreed to support the team as a crew member. On June 8 my participation began to ramp up as Lynn Teague and I drove 2 of the support vans from Atlanta to Oceanside California. We covered almost 800 miles Saturday and spent the night at my cousin Pat's house in Oklahoma. Very good to see her and Rusty. On Sunday we drove another 800 miles to Flagstaff. Had breakfast with my friend Jennifer Youngberg and then had a comparatively short 500 drive into Oceanside.
Tuesday through Friday were spent helping prepare the vans, picking up the transport vehicle (Dodge Sprinter Van), shuttling arriving team mates from airport, any many other minor tasks. I also had to find time to keep up and get ahead in a summer school class in Human Growth & Development. I took it because it is completely on line and the instructor was kind enough to work with my schedule during RAAM.
Saturday finally arrived which was the day all the teams started the race. The Georgia Chain Gang was the last team to start which gave us plenty of rabbits to chase across the country. We were an 8 person team with 8 crew members and one other person who primarily drove the Sprinter Van. My role was that of navigator in one of the follow vehicles which meant I was responsible for keeping the rider we were following on course by communicating with the driver. We were either following one of the 2 riders assigned to our van or jumping ahead of the other follow vehicle to set up the next rider. We were part of the night shift which meant we worked from 5:00 pm to rough 5:00 am the next morning. Then we piled into the sprinter van hauled ass to a hotel, slept, ate and then caught up with the day shift and started all over again.
I can't remember the towns we slept in but we crossed 12 states from Oceanside CA to Annapolis MD in 6 and 1/2 days. I wrote notes about what worked and perhaps didn't work for us during RAAM:
Crewing for the Georgia Chain Gang in 2012 was an incredible experience for me. I had 4 overall goals going into this and achieved them all. Everyone finished safely without injury (although egos & feelings sometimes suffered), we raised a lot of money for LLS and funds are still coming in, our team had a respectable finishing time, and I learned a great deal about RAAM and the aspects of organizing and moving a team 3000 miles in 6 ½ days. While still fresh here are my observations and reflections on what went well along with suggestions on things we could have done better. While I have had conversations with many crew and riders during and immediately after RAAM these are my own personal opinions. I hope no one takes anything I express here the wrong way; my goal is to help make future RAAM attempts even safer and more successful.
We were fortunate to have 5 individuals on the overall team who had ridden and crewed in 2 previous Georgia Chain Gang RAAM events. Every one of them brought a lot of beneficial experience to our 2012 effort. However, as the event unfolded it seemed like we did not have one individual truly in charge. I believe that once the race starts riders should concentrate on riding and others should be given responsibility for logistics like hotel rooms, food, van organization and who should be riding and for how long.
One area I think could have been organized better were hotels and shift changes. We should have figured out we would normally cover about 500 miles every 24 hours. Given that, hotel rooms and shift changes could have been tentatively set up in towns where the next crew shift could drive to in advance, rest and set up for incoming riders and crew. Incoming folks could then go to same hotel rooms, rest and drive to next location. Coming off a shift and having to drive another 2—4 hours before resting eventually took a toll on crew and riders. Probably unavoidable on the first shift change but could have been more organized in subsequent change overs. It seemed like Jane had to primarily manage this while riding or trying to rest.
I also had the opportunity to arrive 5 days early and help with pre-race preparations. Tony and Jerome did a great job of driving that effort and I was happy to help. Nevertheless my observation was we had to do a lot of running around getting supplies that could have easily been brought out in the 2 vans. Foot stool, extension cords, drill, more coolers, storage containers, blankets, bungee cords are examples of things we should have placed in vans before they left. We also seemed to be short on things like tubes, floor pumps and basic tools that should have been readily available in all 3 vehicles. Steve did a lot of work setting up navigation, filming, and communication efforts. I can’t comment on filming, but as a navigator all I needed was route book and GPS. The invertor/computer generated route mainly got in the way and the walkie talkies were not used in our van after the first 30 miles. A mega phone would have been useful when we had to pull up alongside rider to communicate.
The mini vans along with the Saris bike racks worked very well. One suggestion would be for each shift to have their own cooler and dry food storage containers. That would make shift exchanges more efficient. It would also cut down on some of the food waste and the fact that sometimes crews/riders did not have the supplies they anticipated having on board. If we use this set up again, we should improvise a better way to mount the reflective triangle. The sprinter van also worked fairly well. If we use a van like this again we should consider building out the back to make bike and luggage storage more efficient. This van isn’t a very comfortable vehicle for longer crew/rider transports in my opinion. I could only sleep if in the very back seat in the middle. Maybe I’m the exception but usually I don’t have a problem taking a nap in most vehicles.
I was in van with Lynn, Dave and Lisa. We benefited from Lynn and I caravanning vans across country, along with fact that Dave, Lynn and I knew each other from prior events. Although Lisa was new to us she got lots of technical advice from Dave when neither one of them was actually riding. Dave and I also each had previous crewing experience. The net result was we had an incredible amount of team work and tranquility in our van all week. I’m not sure that was the case in other vans especially once fatigue and sleep deprivation set in later on. In the future I recommend setting up rider/crew assignments early and providing an opportunity for them to actually practice together before RAAM. While this may not be as important for experienced riders/crew, I think it would be very helpful for new riders/crew.
I thought our strategy for making up time in WVA, PA, and MD by staging riders along the route was very sound. However, we should not have attempted this using all riders and crew starting mid-day Friday. While it did make up time on other teams, I think it destroyed crew and rider concentration at a critical time. Some crew and riders got too fatigued to effectively help as we got close to the finish. In my opinion rider safety became seriously compromised AND no one person took charge of maintaining safety over performance during the final portion of the race.
As I mentioned I hope these suggestions are not interpreted as criticisms of anyone. Overall I think everyone had a positive experience. I know I did and look forward to helping organize additional RAAM teams in the future.
