DANNY CHEW’S 2002 RAAM ABSENCE
Actually not being in RAAM as a favorite to win for the first time since
my rookie RAAM ride in 1994 is going to be extremely difficult for me to
take. I will follow the race often on the RAAM website, but that just might
make matters worse teasing myself. I might do a few 12 or 24 hour races this
year, but because of riding so much less this year, I am in much worse shape
so I would be merely going to finish/survive these events which I used to
dominate and win. I am therefore even hesitant to do any of them, but would
still like to take in the comradely and closeness which is shared in the
small world of ultracycling. Even though we are fierce competitors during
the race, we are good friends the rest of the time. I still e-mail Rob Kish
regularly. Also I will be taking 2 college math courses this summer.
To do RAAM with good enough support to win it [all of my RAAM's have been
done this way] costs between $10-15,000. Even the years that I won RAAM,
I still ended up losing more money that it cost me to do the race. It is
fairly easy for a potential RAAM winner to get all of the equipment sponsorship
they need to train year round with, but much more difficult to get money
sponsorship. The problem is that the novelty of the race has long since worn
off from back in the early days [first 5 RAAM's] when ABC's Wide World of
Sport's coverage earned them an Emmy Award and made winner Lon Haldaman a
household name. However with the current growth of cable TV, RAAM is once
again getting good airtime. The 2000 and 2001 RAAM's have aired on the Outdoor
Life Network, and so will the 2002 race. The race is still seen by many people
[even other short distance bike racers] as a sort of cult status event which
has a small yet very loyal following.
My riding this year has been very sporadic. Because I live in a big city
where it takes so long to get out into the beautiful country on nice low
traffic roads, I would prefer to ride two 150 mile rides rather than six
50 milers. So I have been averaging about 300 miles per week, but compared
to the 600 - 800 miles per week I would be averaging if I were riding RAAM,
that seems like very little riding to me. I would also ride one very long
week [1,000 - 1,200 miles] each month for the 3 months leading up to RAAM
if I were doing it.
I am still looking at my long term lifetime goal of riding a million miles,
but it just may take me a few years longer than originally predicted taking
into consideration working a full time job and getting older. So maybe I
will get it when I am in my 80's instead of my 70's. But life expectancies
are getting longer, and athletic, healthy people tend to outlive the average
age.
Yes it is harder to ride when I am in worse condition/shape from riding less
miles. So my rides end up being slower and less intense and maybe not quite
as long. The times that it seems most difficult to ride are the cold wet
or snowy days of Fall, Winter, and Spring from living in Pittsburgh, PA.
I ride much less on these sort of days than I used to, but am still sometimes
caught out in such weather conditions and have too much pride to be picked
up in an automobile and driven home. So yes I am sick of riding my bike in
lousy weather conditions, but still love to ride in good weather. Getting
more tired of the long, cold, tough winters up North, I might eventually
move South to someplace like Virginia or North Carolina with milder winters.
I still like to ride in the mountains very much even though I do not climb
or even descend [take less risks as I get older] as fast as I used to.
The downside of getting started riding so young [I rode my first double century
[200+ mile ride] at age 10]] is that I know I will gradually get slower with
age after reaching my peak fitness years from ages 23 - 27 which was before
I even started riding RAAM in 1994. But because of the ultra endurance nature
of RAAM using less power and speed, and more endurance, I would say that
a person's best or prime RAAM years are from age 30 - 43. A person who was
a sedentary couch potato all thru their 20's and 30's and 40's who discovers
cycling at age 50 has the chance to be in the best shape of their life in
their 50's which must be extremely encouraging to them. But then they might
wonder how good they could have been if they started riding earlier.
What I love and are passionate about my riding? Being outdoors and going
to new places and meeting new people. A sense of total freedom when I am
riding. A sense of being different from the many people who accept driving
around in their steel boxes known as automobiles. The euphoric high obtained
from exercising. Being with friends on group rides. Competition in races.
Satisfaction and sense of accomplishment of finishing an extremely long tough
race like RAAM. Making the seemingly impossible task of RAAM possible. Having
a crew wait on me for 8 -10 days on RAAM. Inspiring new people to take up
bicycling. Learning the complex network of roads in an area by studying detailed
maps. Choosing or picking out a route on a map for a future trip, and then
seeing how close the actual territory matches the map or what I thought it
would look like in my imagination.
What else am I passionate about? My huge music collection of alternative/progressive
and classic rock songs which I love my crew to blare at me on the follow
vehicles exteriorly mounted speakers. Reading maps of where I have ridden
and where I will ride. Science fiction/time travel and romance movies and
TV shows. Web surfing and e-mailing. My website. My detailed diaries or training
journals which date way back to 1978. My million mile goal. Cleaning and
maintaining my bike. Mathematics which I majored in college. Teaching math.
Reading bicycling magazines and books, and the daily newspaper. EATING!
Sincerely,
Danny
PS: During the 2000 RAAM, I had a crew member read to me [in the wee hours
of the morning to keep me awake and motivate me] over the minivans loudspeakers
the entire Lance Armstrong book "It's Not About the Bike" which I love! It
is a very inspirational book about his long fight back from a near death
experience with cancer [when he found out who his real friends were - the
team he was currently on gave up hope on him and dropped him] to winning
the Tour de France. Have you read this book? If so, what did
you think? If not, I highly recommend it to you.