Lancaster’s first home-grown Race Across America team will set off from Oceanside, Calif. today.
The two-man, two-woman Cycle Smart team will race non-stop across the country. They are expected to arrive in Annapolis, Md. in about seven days.
You can follow their progress on the RAAM webpage.
The team is an outgrowth of Lancaster-based Dream Ride Projects.
Dream Ride founder and RAAM team manager Mike Ridgeway is being joined by team members, Bob Ansell, of Greensburg, Denise Stone, of Long Valley, N.J., and Robin Smith, of Lancaster, in the epic, 3,500-mile race.
Team members plan to work in pairs. One pair of riders will rest while the other pair takes turns riding. The pairs will switch, or exchange, at the 54 time stations along the open course. Ridgeway said the team has been practising exchanges, and transitions, which they do when the riding passes from one rider to the other in a pair. The time stations occur about every 50-60 miles along the route, or every 4.5 and 3.5 hours, Ridgeway said.
At those stations, crew members plan to leave gifts unique to Lancaster County, such as Wilbur chocolates, or potato chips, he said. Crew members are out now gathering “things that are Lancaster Countyish” to give to the station volunteers, he said earlier.
Crew members will be following the riders in a rented recreational vehicle and in sports utility vehicle being provided by Saturn, a team sponsor.
The Cycle Smart team had set a fund-raising goal of $180,000 for charity.
