Racing in the World’s Toughest Bike Race

Sandy Earl is going to take part in a race that is called the World’s Toughest Bike Race. It is 50% longer than the Tour de France and racers are expected to do it in 12 days or less, and they are not allowed to draft. This 3000 mile race is called the Race Across America (RAAM) and competitors come from around the world to compete in it. Teams and even tandems compete in the race, but the stars of this intense competition are the solo racers.

Austrian Wolfgang Fasching has won RAAM as a solo racer three times and he has also climbed Mt. Everest. In his opinion, climbing Everest is more dangerous, but the RAAM is harder. In 2010 RAAM, 32 competitors from around the world will race solo and of those, only 5 are women. Sandy is in rare company and she will be doing it on a recumbent bike—the first woman to ever do so! Only one man has done the RAAM on a recumbent bike before: John Schlitter did it in 11 days, 2 hours, 50 min. Sandy hopes to break that record. “When I do the math, I feel like I should come in at 11 days even,” she says.

Sandy hasn’t been on her recumbent bike for long. She has been riding her upright bicycle for years, ever since she first decided that the cycling leg was her favorite part of a triathlon. Sandy found she had a talent for the Ultra-cycling (distances of 150+ miles) and often came in one of the top women finishers, if not the top woman of many Ultra-Cycling races. She first qualified for RAAM in 2002 and was disappointed when she had to pull out after 1000 miles. She qualified again for RAAM in the Race Across Oregon which she did with the upright bike for half and the recumbent bike for half. She has had her recumbent bike for about a year now and finds its main advantage is comfort. The recumbent has a carbon fiber hard-shell seat with lumbar support and it offers an aerodynamic advantage on flat or windy areas. The steep hills are challenging for recumbent cyclists, because as Sandy notes, “you can’t stand up.”

The All-Important Crew

To finish the race within the 12 day time limit (for solo women, the time cut-off is 12 days, 21 hours,) racers can’t afford to sleep more than 4 hours a day, and since Sandy is aiming to finish in 11 days, she plans on only sleeping only 3 hours a night. Sandy needs to have a smart, efficient crew to help keep her riding the other 21 hours a day. The six-person crew, which includes her 22-year old daughter, will make sure Sandy is drinking enough and eating enough. During the race, Sandy will need to consume about 8000 calories a day to keep her going. That includes solid foods like bagels, bananas and sandwiches as well as a fair number of gels.

Her crew will monitor her temperature, telling her to put on a jacket or pair of tights when needed, such as for a mountain descent. Her crew will navigate and will drive behind her at night, bathing her in the car’s headlights, so she isn’t blinded by the lights of an oncoming car. They may even play music for her to keep her focused. Some racers can get so tired that reality shifts and some hallucinate. Her crew will have to pay attention to her condition and keep her safe.

The Training

There is only so much you can do to train your body for the necessary endurance. Sandy often does back to back 200-mile days and uses other endurance races such as the Davis 24 hour Challenge as training races (She still holds the women’s 24-Hour solo course record there.) Living in Oregon, Sandy has to be creative when it comes to heat training. Following a 2-hour all-out stationary bike workout at the gym, she sits in a sauna for 30 min. She’s well-aware of the drop-out rate in the first two days where intense mountain climbs will be followed by riding through searing desert heat. The RAAM will start for the solo women on June 8 in Oceanside, CA and wind its way across the continent to Annapolis, MD. Physically, it is a tough race, but as Sandy has learned through her years as an ultra-cyclist: “It’s a hugely mental race.”

With the years of ultra-cycling experience, and the training she has had, I’m sure Sandy will do well in the RAAM. Sandy, we wish you a successful race and look forward to following you in the race and we hope you finish well!

To keep up with Sandy, you can check out her website here!