It's a Team's Life
20 mph 3000 miles RAAM Crossing the Finish Line
THANK YOU SCOTT GARCHER! Thank you for asking us if we wanted to chase a couple bike across the country at 20 mph!
Six days eighteen hours and over 3000 miles later what started out for us as a bunch of strangers turned into people we admired and knew more about then friends we have had for years.
When asked if we wanted to chase bikes across the country at
20 mph without much thought we said “YES†sounds like fun.
Never dreaming of what we had just said yes
to.
As the race neared and we started having
monthly and weekly calls fear and nerves set in as we heard the plethora of
rules and penalties.
We started
realizing just how many people were going to be involved in getting eight bike
riders across the country.
When everyone arrived in San Diego we started trying to put
faces and personalities to names.
We
attended mandatory crew meetings with the race officials and heard first hand
why many of the rules were in place.
One
racer spoke on how he had been hit the year before by a truck driver blinded by
the sun and his fight to recover.
We right there
decided NO ONE was going to hit our riders they would have to take us out
first.
We heard about many of the
penalties and how easy they were to get; front and rear bike light not on,
letting more then 3 cars get behind us “Caravanningâ€, not pulling 5 feet off of
the road, not having our safety vest and reflective anklets on and on and on ...
Once the race started all of the 50 pages of rules, the route and settling into the routine of following the cyclist came together. We had two groups of four riders and they worked in shifts, depending on terrain and steepness they swapped out riders from ½ mile to ten miles and continued this for approximately four hours. We would designate a meeting place and we would swap out our exhausted riders for a new set. We quickly learned their names and what they liked from the crew members to help them keep their spirits up.
We had less time to learn about our other crew members as when we were done with our 16 hour shifts we would fall onto the couch exhausted in the RV. We did learn that all of us had the same goal and would do what was needed to get to Annapolis. There were nine crewmembers with two being the parents of one rider, one being the wife of a rider, two physician’s, one bike mechanic, one photographer, and Bob and I. We all quickly found out that following bike riders is not easy work and was far from boring, following the rider on the road required the driver to watch carefully to keep close enough to the rider to keep a vehicle from getting between us, and far enough away that if the rider went down we did not run him over. We had to watch for pull-offs to exchange riders; we had to give updates on how far a rider had rode or how much further to exchanges. When navigating we had to tell the rider and driver where to turn next, upgrades and down grades, get out and help riders rack their bikes and to keep cell phones, light battery packs, and radios charged. We were constantly busy in the chase vehicle and at times the stress to keep them on the right road as they could not get off coarse and to follow all of the rules kept us very busy.
When we reached our destination we were escorted to the “parade†finish line, the feeling of relief was immeasurable. They had done it! We were thrilled with their accomplishment and our accomplishment. We as a group worked through all of our obstacles and there is not a member of the team that I did not admire and would easily call them a friend. That is the biggest accomplishment of all to have 17 people cross the country in tight quarters and still like each other attests to how well this crew was put together. Not all teams were as lucky and we heard of crew members that were left beside the road….
At times during this past week we at times wondered what in
the world we were thinking when we said yes, realizing we were in the presence
of elite athletes, that we had the best group on the road, and we were two very
lucky truck drivers to be asked to participate in this adventure of a life
time.
I am not emotional but I admit I
shed a tear at the end of this race realizing what we had just
accomplished.
One of the many memories that will stick in my mind forever is of Shawn who is an amazing athlete. We were over 2800 miles into this trip and we were playing Styx; Renegade on the radio for him, he was going down a slight incline and he let go of the handle bars and started playing the air drums.... You want to talk about a guy that loves life he would be the poster child.
To learn more about the riders and to donate to their Charity:
To learn more about the bike race and how team T805 finished:
Bob & Linda Caffee
Leased to: FedEx Custom Critical 

TeamCaffee

Saint Louis MO
Expediters 7 years been out here on the road 12 years
Expediting isn't just trucking, it's a lifestyle; 

Expediting isn't just a lifestyle, it's an adventure;

Expediting isn't just an adventure, it's a job;

Expediting isn't just a job, it's a business.