Sleep Deprivation Tales

As we have discussed, RAAM is about riding a bike fast AND it's about managing on the edge of a complete mental breakdown due to sleep deprivation.

I can honestly say that Rob has never totally lost it, but he can be quite amusing in the later stages of the race.

Some examples:

• His "main theme", if you will, is elf shoes. He sees them lined up along the shoulder of the road, all the way to the horizon.
• Dancing vegetation
• Insisting that his niece and nephew were at a time station in Alabama (RAAM 2000). They were actually in Connecticut.
• Trying to convince the crew that he had already ridden in this direction, so he was going to turn around and ride in the opposite direction.
• Insisting that there were large construction vehicles backing into the road ahead of him, so he needed to swerve to go around them. (This was also RAAM 2000 and was actually dangerous, because he was crossing the center line to the other side of the road. We told him that the shuttle crew was about a mile up the road, clearing out all the trucks, so he didn't have to swerve any more. It worked.)
• Arguing with the crew about "Why do YOU guys get to sit in the van and I have to ride the bike all the time??? How about one of YOU get on the bike and I'LL sit in the van!" (We reminded him that the RAAM race officials would probably take a dim view of that particular tactic.)

Good times!

I am sure I am missing many. Past crew members can add their own in the comments.