RAAM Getting ready:? choosing bikes to go to the distance

If you read my post from December 9, you know how excited I am to be part of the EY Legacy Builder team competing in the Race Across America, the world’s toughest cycling race.  I’ve had a lot of questions about what we’re doing to get ready, and wanted to share some of what I’ve learned about the range of bike equipment needed to take on this kind of challenge.

Once Trek and City Cycle generously agreed to sponsor the EY RAAM team, we had to decide on the bikes and specification. This involved a number of factors, ranging from how much each of us could afford, to what will perform best under the conditions of the race.

Basically, to get the fastest possible time on the race, we need 1 bike that is designed to climb and descend hills as quickly as possible. That is best achieved with either a super-light traditional road bike (Edmonda) or one of the newly designed aero bikes (Madone). The Madone is already being touted as one of the fastest road bikes available. This is due to the combination of amazing aerodynamics and super- lightweight (estimated at around 15.2lb). The alternative would be the less expensive Edmonda, which as a more traditional setup, including standard brake calipers, and cockpit. The Edmonda would allow for standard aerobars to be added to the handlebars, something that we were not sure we could do with the Madone. 

Secondly we have more than 1000 miles of flat terrain to cover. This is best handled on a Time Trial (TT) bike (Trek Speedconcept). A TT bike has the aerobar frontend designed to get the rider in the most aerodynamic position possible. In addition, the bike sacrifices comfort and handling for aerodynamics (actually is sacrifices everything for Aero). Why do this? A TT bike will average 1-3 miles an hour faster than a traditional bike for the same power output at the leg on flat terrain – even more into a strong head wind. It can mean the difference between a 16mph and 18mpg average speed across the entire distance. Downside: if we only had TT bikes we would be pretty slow on the climbs and very slow on the descents and might need back surgery by the end.

 The final result is that we each selected a Madone as the road bike. We felt that even if we can’t find a way to install aerobars on it, the bikes high performance on climbs and descents make it the best choice, especially since we will have TT bikes to cut through the wind on the flats.

This a newly redesigned ultra-high performance road bike that is as streamlined as possible. With this kind of aerodynamic shape, the bike ends up stiffer than a traditional road bike which generally results in a harder ride and a little more weight. In this case Trek  managed to keep the weight extremely low (15.2 lb) and have added some secret sauce (the ISO decoupler) to the seat post that increases comfort. Bottom line, it is one of the fastest and comfortable bikes in its class.  Laurence, Mark and I prefer the Madone to the Edmonda because overall, it’s a faster bike especially when you consider the headwinds, descents and aerodynamics. You might prefer this as a general bike – I recommend a trip to the bike shop and take both for a spin.

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