![]() Other riders attempted to cross the country and break that record in subsequent years. He followed railroad routes and made the crossing in just under 80 days. In 1887, Nellis crossed the country on a 45-pound high-wheel bicycle with no gears and with pedals attached directly to the front wheel. The concept of a bicycle race across America can be traced back to newspaperman George Nellis. The original RAAM was not the first time that a solo rider successfully traversed America on bike. To complete RAAM, riders must climb a total of nearly 110,000 feet, the equivalent of summiting Everest more than three and a half times from sea level. To put it in perspective, more people have successfully summitted Mt. Measured against infamous races like the Raid Gauloises, the Iditarod and the Vendee Globe Solo Around-the-World sailing race, among others, RAAM out-punished them all. Using yardsticks such as cost, distance, likelihood of participants dropping out, and an “Anguish Index,”the magazine ranked events for their capacity for pushing racers to the limits of endurance. Outside magazine ranked the Race Across America as “The World’s Toughest Event”in 1993. The best of, the greatest ever, the toughest this, the biggest that ®X Yet, 23 years after its inaugural transcontinental sufferfest, the 3000-mile Race Across America remains worthy of a few superlatives. In sports, superlatives are tossed around like empty race cups. It would prove to be one of the only years in which every racer completed the challenge. The inaugural Race Across America was actually christened “The Great American Bike Race.”It was a challenge drawn up by an elite pack of four long-distance solo cyclists to see who could pedal the fastest across the country, from the shores of California to the Empire State Building in New York City. “It was like running a triathlon in flip flops,”Haldeman recalls. He rode on junk food, little water and even less sleep for the next nine days and 20 hours to win the first-ever Race Across America (RAAM) out of a field of four. In 1982, a McDonald’s in the sun-scorched desert town of Blythe was the fueling station for the lead racer in the inaugural version of a solo cycling race across the entire continental United States. Photo: Lon Haldeman/Insight Race Across America ![]() State Park Campgrounds in the Sierra Delay Opening Dates Due to Historic Snowpack.Big Oak Flat Road Closed May 2023 through June 2023, if not longer.
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