Nat Faulkner Cycling Diary
Faulkner Transport - Nat Pasta NOT PRO Cycling Team

RAAM was like nothing else.

When I told my driver, on the third day, that I was seeing things, he reply was “So’s Kerry, 25min to ride your bike, are you drinking? If you’ve had more than half a bottle, you should go to sleep”. So some personal, physical and emotional things went down, some interesting times. From start to finish, everything changed with everything, and without having been there you'll never understand, after a few months I'll probably have blocked out what really happened. And I can’t thank the crew members/ parents/ sponsors/ and supporters enough.

There was lots of press from different people/ newspapers only one guy (in VeloNews) before the race tipped us to win… Thanks Man.
To everyone else Nah-nah-na-na-na!

I don’t really know what or how much I want to write, but Sean said that I should include this one excerpt:

Sometime on the 4th night of RAAM between 2am and Dawn the team in my car woke me up from a “long sleep” 30 min, and told me that I had to ride in 15 min. So completely naked save a mis-matched pair of socks (been on for 8h plus), my cycling shoes, and Aero Helmet (I’m pretty sure that I forgot to take off the helmet for most of the last 2 days), I crawled onto the floor stating “I can’t ride”.

I was so incredibly messed up, that I couldn’t ride any more, so I sat naked on the floor of the van while it drove ahead, with my aero-helmeted head on the bench, weeping. The next thing I realize is that I’m being told “5 minutes to ride” the van is stopping and the crew’s getting my bike off the rack. I’m still naked, weeping, and I can see my willy flopping up and down with each labored sob. I pull on a skinsuit, which is already wet from the ride 45min ago, but since I’ve already lost my sense of smell, taste, and now am loosing ability to sense pain it doesn’t matter that it’s 50 deg. outside and I’ll just be wearing a damp skinsuit.. The aero helmet will keep me warm! Once outside I’m struck with one of my 2 pre-ride mega-violent coughing fits (these started somewhere in Arizona, either from altitude or dust) we all got them and still have them. Van lights appear in the distance, my rider comes up and gives me a push and I’m off on my 4.5 mile time trial.

The odd part was that no matter how badly I felt, and didn’t want to ride, when I was on the bike I was riding fast and felt comfortable. Cadence good, speed high, temperature fine… just hauling balls, it took 3 minutes to go from asleep, to on the bike and another 30s/ 1 min to be at full ITT speed. After my little break down (mentioned above) I decided that this was just too much suffering to not win the race, and I started riding harder.

This was the point when we’d been 45 minutes behind team Vail for almost 2 days, and any time we’d clawed back 15 minutes or so, we’d relinquished it again. Even though that was bumming me out, it never occurred to me that we would not win. The last day or so Sean and I would ride faster, and if that wasn’t enough we would ride more often as well as faster. Once it was obvious that we would win the OLN Camera guy rode with us in our van… his comment was “Yeah, you’re the cocky One” But by that point we were over 2h ahead averaging 28 mph, as I always knew we would.

Even though the race has been done for a few days now I’ve been waking up with the re-occurring night mare that I have to be on my bike in 5 minutes. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!

Our team had somewhere in the $800 000 range of equipment which was either Loaned, given, or rented. As well as the 20 non-racers who without them breaking the world record and getting in the Guinness book would not have been possible. So stopping was never really an option. Individual RAAM is all about the ride, with the team race it’s all about the support staff. Most of our supporters booked holiday time off of work to help us out, and they did an amazing job. Without them it’s 100% fact we wouldn’t have gotten through Arizona. Extra thanks to them for making me ride my bike when I didn’t think I wanted to.

Also I got incredible support from the Town of Bracebrige, and have been getting calls and e-mails from people I haven’t been in touch with in 10 years. My parents had people drop champaigne and flowers at their house again.

Thank you to everyone for the support, the crew for their help, I’ll get around to e-mailing everyone back once my brain gets back up to speed.
My mouth has now stopped aching, though my perpetual head/ body-ache has yet to go away. Half the time I still feel like I’m going to vomit. Brain function.. yeah it’s still lacking.

Yesterday Sean’s father asked me if I wanted milk, water, or juice to drink. In a frustrated stupor I was just annoyed at him for asking me such an annoyingly difficult question!

It must be also noted that unlike some of the other teams, Team Action Sports rode every kilometer of the route, and stopped for every stop sign and red light along the way. Our tactics did not involve things like causing other teams to get red lights, or putting slow moving RV trailers in the way of the other team to hinder their progress.

I don’t really plan on talking about RAAM much more, in this diary. Not because I don’t want to but because I’m so drained. If you have questions send me a line: faatnaat at hotmail.com

If you’re one of our crew members reading this, please contact me, because I didn’t do a good enough job of thanking you guys, and I have no contact information. I love you guys.