Race Across Oregon

  I was crew chief for Barry Dickson's Race Across Oregon adventure.  Joining me was Dave S, who has crewed for me for almost all of my ultra races. He's a capable crew member with a disposition that fits well with high stress, low sleep, close quarters situations.

Also joining in the effort was Lauren B, who has crewed for me, raced as my partner in the 2x mixed team "Flying Aquarians" and now crewed with me.  She too is most capable, and is an absolute joy to crew with.

 

 We where there in support of Barry Dickson, who's job it was to ride bike, far and fast!

 

We did our best to supply him with what he needed to keep that bike moving.

 

The crew did well.  Others were not so lucky.  Several other racers had to withdraw from the race with situations that could have been avoided if their crews had done their job.

Barry did well too.  He finished in second place.  Not bad at all considering this was Barry's longest race to date.  He was about 25 miles behind #1, and nearly 30 miles ahead of #3 with the rest of the field behind that.

 

I did manage to get an 8 mile ride in. As we were nearing the finish our vehicle said we had 31 miles worth of fuel left.  We had 35 miles left to go.  Something had to be done.  We didn't want to risk running out of gas.  Barry did not have the route on his Garmin device and there were a lot of turns as we would enter The Dalles. A plan was hatched where I would hop on the spare bike (my carbon bike was brought along as spare) and follow him in, giving him route guidance via the Cardo BK I was wearing.  I was not allowed to lead Barry or ride with him.  I followed along about 300 ft behind and called out turns over the Cardo.  I was not sure I would be able to keep up, he's a fast rider, and even though he had 500 miles of riding already, I was in athletic shoes.......... on Garmin Vector pedals. 

Dave and Lauren made a dash to the nearest gas station and I waited for Barry along the road.  As he rode up, I told him to keep going and that I would follow (hoping all the time that I ACTUALLY COULD!) Barry was peddling in the low 20's but luckily I was able to manage that.  After about 8 miles of pacing him, our support van returned with enough gas to make the finish.  I sprinted ahead of Barry and the crew pulled over and we quickly loaded the bike and got back behind Barry.

Disaster averted!  Some others were not so lucky. Race Across Oregon passes through some very remote country.  What few gas stations we pass are closed at night.  We know of at least one crew that ended up pushing their support vehicle!

As a crew, we were all very proud of our racer.  He rode hard, and placed well.

.........road bike..........rollers.........mtb..........lifecycle.......total
  Today.............8..............0...............0...............0..................8
 Jan...............765...............0...............0...............0...............765
Feb................248...............0...............0...............0................248
March...........183.................0................0..............0................183
April..............228...............0................0...............0 ................228
May................200................0...............0...............0.................200
June................199.................0..............26...............0.................199 July.................133................0...............0.................0...............133
Total............1923...............0...............26...............0..............1949