Success at RAW.

I had no idea. The summary is that we came, we saw and we kicked... well, you know how that goes.

RAW stands for Race Across the West. It's the first 1044 miles of Race Across America. It's a killer ride with lots of hills. Thank goodness I was crewing and not riding.

Tom entered as a 2 man relay team with George Thomas. They rode 58 hours and 56 min to get them from Oceanside CA to Taos NM. I sat in the van with 2 other people for all those hours, taking care of Tom with a little drivng and navigation thrown in when Lisa and Ken needed to be spelled off. The average shift on the bike was 1 hour at a time but got as long as 3 hours if the other teammates needed a sleep and a lot less if it was hot. Some of our rotations were as short as 30 min leaving us barely enough time to get Tom off the bike, into the car, fed, massaged, driven to the next hand off, dressed again and ready for the exchange. It was a really tough job but we did great. Tom and George made it to Taos before anyone else. Granted they had the advantage of being a team but even if you only compared them to other teams they kicked azz.

For those of you that have thought about crewing for an event like this...

Crewing for a team is MUCH harder than crewing for a solo rider. It seems counter intuitive, but it is. I've done both now, trust me.
If you volunteer to crew, embrace the silliness that comes with sleep deprivation, it makes it more fun.
Finally, stock your vehicle really well with snacks, decent food can be really hard to come by, especially when you're crewing for a team and your down time is minimal.