Cross-Country, Sans Carbon: Biking

IF COVERING 3,008 MILES on a bike over six days sounds crazy to you, then that means you're one of the sane ones.

Starting Wednesday, four D.C. cyclists will join more than 100 other four-person teams to ride from Oceanside, Calif., to Annapolis. As a team, they will pedal 24 hours per day, each rider sleeping only four hours at a time. And, if all goes well, they'll finish the Race Across America (RAAM) at an average speed of 22 mph. By comparison, nine-person teams in the Tour de France average 25 mph and cover 2,200 miles in 23 days.

Ever since he completed a cross-country ride in 1993, Eric Goetz Rivera has had dreams of racing from coast to coast. He's completed multiple Ironman triathlons, ridden his bike from Canada to Mexico, and wants to ride from Alaska to Argentina some day. Over the years, he found a team of three D.C. triathletes crazy enough to join him and, about 18 months ago, they formed Team Xtreme4. The four of them — Rivera, Phillip Schmidt, Patrick Serfass and Andrea Vasquez — each train by riding at least 200 to 400 miles per week, sometimes alone, sometimes with other team members or other friends.

"We've been through … probably hundreds of hours and thousands of miles of training," Serfass said. "But all of that doesn't necessarily prepare you for a race that's going to go 24-7 for at least six days. There's no real way to simulate that without actually doing it."

They've tried. In addition to the hundreds of miles a week they spend on their bikes, the team of four riders and 14 crew members have also done two 24-hour simulations, after which, Serfass admits, "we were totally spent." They split into two teams of two; each team alternates riding while the other team sleeps in an RV driving ahead. They switch positions between every five and 30 minutes, depending on the terrain. They say they expect to burn 250,000 calories (using "back of the envelope" math), and when they're off the bike they'll be filling their bodies with energy drinks, power cookies, granola and "a lot of pizza," Serfass says.

Since they hope to win the four-person coed division (there are also teams of eight, two and one), Extreme4 has practiced transitions, coordination and sleeping. Short catnaps along the way will supplement the four hours of sleep. "It's going to be a test in sleep deprivation as well as physical endurance," says Schmidt.

So why are they doing this? The obvious answer is that endurance athletes are always looking for the next challenge — and this has been one race that Rivera has been eyeing for more than a decade.

But they also are hoping their ride will advance the fight against climate change. They're asking supporters to pledge to not drive their cars for the week they're riding across the country, saying "If we can do this six days ... people can probably ride six miles to work."

If people must drive, then Team Extreme4 is asking them to purchase carbon offsets to become carbon neutral — as they've been doing. The team has been fundraising in order to raise enough money to purchase the carbon offsets for their cross-country trip, since driving multiple cars, including an RV, across the country is not exactly environmentally sound. "We have sort of a teachable moment, where people are paying attention," Schmidt says. And this race is hard to ignore.

Photo by Kip Pierson