RAAM update: Robic presses on as Redgrave Crew hits the road

Four-time winner Jure Robic of Slovenia continuing to set the pace in the individual competition of the Race Across America (RAAM), with the Slovenian now 1,145 miles into the 3,000 mile journey from Oceanside, California to Annapolis, Maryland.

That puts him at time station 20 in Trinidad, Colorado exactly three days after starting the race. Second place rider Gerhard Gulewicz of Austria is currently heading towards Trinidad, but passed trough the previous time station 11 minutes shy of three days, and with 65 miles to go till the next split, that suggest Robic has built up an advantage of several hours.

In the men’s vets 50-59 age category, Britain’s Paul Carpenter, the only UK rider competing in the solo race, is now in the lead by a narrow margin of one minute 16 seconds ahead of Germany’s Gregor Komescher, both men having pedalled 814.03 miles to Cortez, Colorado in just under two hours short of two days.

The RAAM has continued to benefit from kind weather, with not just a tail wind, but temperatures in the desert keeping below 90 degrees – a blessing in a region where the mercury tends to hit over 100 Fahrenheit at this time of year.

There’s more British interest, of course, in the team event, which has just got under way in the past half hour, the highest-profile team from these islands being Redgrave Crew, led by the legendary Olympic rower. A message on their Twitter feed a short while back simply said “Here we go. Only 3,000 miles to go. Might be the last Tweet for a while” – although their followers will be hoping for regular updates on progress.

They’re competing in the eight-person category, as is another British team, Convicts of the Road – got to love that vintage Tour de France reference in the name.

There’s also two British teams competing in the four-man category – those are Team Sharp4Prostate and Team RAF Survitec Epic, while Velocity Cycles has a team entered in the two-person competition.

Obviously, we’ll keep you informed here on road.cc of their progress, and there are also regular updates and much more on the official RAAM website.