A Quick Update

We're on the third shift of the race and flying through the time stations. The riders and crew are feeling tired but exhilarated.

We are somewhere in Colorado with team A on the road and team B on the bus. Between 4 hours of sleep and always moving on we haven't had time to update the blog. Here's Tim's note from yesterday - it gives you the story:

The race is on.We finished our first 12 hour shift at 4:00 a.m. (EST) and have had four hours of sleep. Now it is on to the bus for hopefully a few more hours of sleep. We will move ahead to Cortez, NM to take over at 5:00 p.m. (EST). The first day was chaotic with lots of riders and Following Vehicles compressed into a small area. After the parade, we quickly climbed the coastal hills and reached the first major descent before sunset. The descent was 14 miles long and was technical so we were lucky to hit it in daylight because the riders could open it up and leave the cars behind. Once off the descent, we were on the floor of the Salton Sea. This is an old sea bed below sea level and it was hot even though it was around 8:00 p.m.The temperatures across the desert dropped from about 35 degrees to 29 degrees for most of the night. They dropped down to 20 degrees just before we handed off to our team mates. It was a beautiful night in the desert - bright moon, lots of stars and a nice riding temperature. Luckily there were no beady eyes or wild life on the road.Our team mates have been out for 5 hours now and it is getting hot. The 12 hour shift is long and today will be a day of desert and climbing for us. 90% of everything went right yesterday, but there was the water jug we overturned in the desert, the inter-state that we almost entered, the wrong choice of bikes for the terrain. However, it looks like we got through our shift with no time penalties for rule violation and today should be an interesting day. RAAM lore is that the second night is the worst night, so it will be good to get the second night over. Steve Bauer has sent a message to the Team, "You have to focus on your goal and believe in your success. You can go deep if you have to but have a blast the rest of the time."Our coach, Dennis Mizerski wants the satellite phone in our rider van. Apparently, he is concerned we have started too quickly (my legs would agree). You can follow our progress on the website at http://raceforsickkids.ywd.ca/ <http://raceforsickkids.ywd.ca/> Thanks for reading.