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100-plus degree heat greets RAAM riders
It was 103 degrees in the shade as Paul Danhaus checked in at the Fort Scott time station on North National Ave. early Monday evening.
Danhaus is the only rider in the 60-and-older division of the Race Across America, a coast-to-coast bicycle marathon that began last Tuesday in Oceanside, Calif.
Danhaus, of Wausau, Wisc., was the sixth entrant to reach the time station at that point. Four other soloists and one of the team entries had reached the station already.
Danhaus has been on the road for almost six days as of this morning. Other riders will continue to come through town over the next two to three days as more male soloists pass through, the women begin to make appearances and the majority of the two-, four- and eight-member teams check in.
Slovenian rider Jure Robic, the defending male overall champion who has won this event five of the last six years, was the first rider to pass through Fort Scott, checking in at about 2 a.m. Monday morning. Next was Daniel Wyss of Switzerland, who came through shortly after 4:30 a.m.
At around 11:30 a.m., Marko Baloh of Slovenia and Gerhard Gulewicz of Austria both made it to the time station. Baloh checked in at 11:25 a.m. and Gulewicz was in about 10 minutes after.
The Great Grand PAC Masters, a four-man team, was the next visitor to Fort Scott. They checked in at about 1 p.m. Every cycler on that team is at least 75 years old. They had made it to Camdenton, Mo., at 8:14 p.m. Monday.
American Janet Christiansen was on pace to pass through Fort Scott late Monday evening as the leader of the women's solo division. She checked in at the time station in Yates Center at about 5:40 p.m. Monday night.
(Update: Christiansen passed through the Fort Scott station at about 10:45 p.m. Monday night.)
According to statistics on the RAAM web site, www.raceacrossamerica.org, 13 or 14 entrants in the race are expected to pass through town between the hours of 6 a.m. and midnight Tuesday, many of them coming through between 10:30 a.m. and 2:15 p.m. Another 21 entrants, all teams, are expected to pass through between midnight Wednesday and midnight Thursday.
Many of the riders who have already passed through will be in eastern Missouri or western Illinois this morning. Robic had already passed through the station at Washington, Mo., about 250 miles east of Fort Scott, as of 6 p.m. Tuesday.
The elite male riders are maintaining speeds around 16 miles per hour, going faster through the plains. Teams, because their riders can switch on and off and get rested, can average as high as 25 m.p.h.
Because they can maintain a greater pace, teams didn't start until Saturday but are catching up. Team Type I, the eight-man open leader, was still in eastern New Mexico at 6 p.m. Monday but should pass through tonight between 6 and 7 p.m. Team Type I -- every member of which has Type I diabetes -- has won this division of RAAM on several occasions, setting records in the process.
Division leaders as of press time Monday night (miles that the last reported stop was from Fort Scott in parenthesis):
* Solo Male Under 50, Robic (249 mi.).
* Solo Male, 50-59, Dominique Briand, France, was at Pratt (235 mi.) at 8:06 p.m. Monday.
* Solo Male 60-69, Danhaus (115 mi.).
* Solo Female, Under 50, Christiansen.
* Solo Female, 50-59, Ann Wooldridge, Great Britain, was at El Dorado (124 mi.) at 6:09 p.m. Monday.
* Team Open, Team JDRF, was at Taos, N.M. (694 mi.), at 9:11 p.m. Monday.
* Team 8-person Open, Team Type I, was at Clayton, N.M. (509 mi.), at 8:58 p.m.
* Team 4-person Male, 50-59, Georgia Chain Gang, was at Chama, N.M. (804 mi.) at 8:45 p.m.
* Team 4-person Male, 75-plus, Great Grand PAC Masters (115 mi.).
* Team 4-person male, under 50, Team RANS was at Taos at 7:14 p.m.
* Team 4-person Mixed, 50-59, Buchholz Goes America, was at Antonito, Colo. (755 mi.), at 9:37 p.m.
* Team 4-person Mixed, under 50, All Wheels 4 Fibromyalgia was at Taos at 9:49 p.m.
* Two-person Male, 50-59, Team Reaching Heights was at Chama, N.M., at 9:48 p.m.
* Two-person Male, under 50, Adventures for the Cure was at Taos at 9:43 p.m.
* Two-person Mixed, under 50, SpinVox Adventures was at Cortez, Colo. (969 mi.), at 9:16 p.m.