Automotive: Endurance racing

Showing posts with label Endurance racing. Show all posts

Who to bet on to crush the record, win the race, and dominate the field... the woman that biked 2100 miles to get to the 2800 mile race. She was just getting warmed up. You better not bet against her.

Not many people who don't ride bikes for a living, or for long distances - like across continents - have heard of the people that do. Okay, we've all heard of Lance Armstrong, but you may already see where I'm going with this... he doesn't ride for distance, he rides to win the Tour de France.

There are some people who somehow can afford to not have a job, and maybe it's because they don't have to pay rent, because they never sleep in a bedroom... they sleep on the roadside, in parks, or where ever they are when they realize they are too wiped out to keep biking.

Among them, is Lael Wilcox, and to read her blog is to see that the riders know each other, they meet up on the roads sometime, in this country or other ones, and some are just well known among the bikers that read biking magazines instead of Hot Rod, Rodders Journal, Automobile, etc.

Well, I was blown away to read that Lael rode TO the race from Canada to Mexico, a 2800 mile amateur race that I've only just learned of, the Tour Divide. Just how damn astonishing is it to ride 2100 miles to get to the start of a bike race? Blows my mind. But, going back to what I said earlier, only because I had no idea that all she seems to do in this world is ride a bike. Everywhere. For the last 9 years she's biked all over the planet. Europe, the middle East, Canada, America, Africa etc etc. So, for her, getting to the race was a thing that didn't even matter, it was just what was needed.

You can read her article about the race https://laelwilcox.com/2015/09/12/tour-divide-story/ but she doesn't follow it up with remarks about crushing the previous record, by 2 days, or what she did after... the next entry in her blog is her heading out on another ride.

But Outside Magazine did a story on her https://www.outsideonline.com/1997471/how-lael-wilcox-crushed-tour-divide

and that was in 2015.

Who knew, she also runs for fun and did this REI video which really covers a LOT like the Tour Divide

For 2016, she rode the Trans Am (cross America) from Astoria Washington to Yorktown Virginia, a 4400 mile race.... and she won it. I didn't categorize that as "she won the women's category" no... she WON the WHOLE DAMN THING. And broke the record for doing it the fastest.

She's the first American to win it, and she's the 1st woman to win it. https://cyclingtips.com/2016/06/trans-am-lael-wilcox-wins-smashes-womens-record/ https://www.facebook.com/TransAmBikeRace/

Why isn't she competing in the Olympics? The Tour de France? Hell if I know.

For comparison to the worlds biggest bike race, the Tour de France

It's an annual amateur ultra-distance mountain biking race traversing the length of the Rocky Mountains, from Banff, Alberta Canada to Antelope Wells, NM.... it's the world's longest off-pavement cycling route.

The race format is strictly self-supported, and it is not a stage race - the clock runs continuously from the start until riders cross the finish line, more than two weeks later.

The race has a very low profile, has no entry fees, no sponsorship, and no prizes. Although "letters of intent" from likely starters are encouraged, any rider may turn up on the day to participate.

Challenges along the route include mountains, great distances between resupply towns, risk of mechanical failure or injury, bears, poor weather, snowfall, and significant unrideable sections that require pushing the bike.

Riders usually adopt a "bikepacking" style, carrying minimal equipment sufficient for camping or bivouacking, and only enough food and water to last until the next town. In this way, riders ride huge distances each day.

The Tour Divide has been raced and completed on both single speed bicycles and tandem bicycles. It usually starts on the second Friday in June

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tour_Divide
http://tourdivide.org/

It was tirelessly mapped over a 4 year span, and published in 1998, highlighted by long dirt roads and jeep trails that wend their way through forgotten passes of the Continental Divide. It travels through Canadian provinces of Alberta and British Columbia, and the United States of Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado, and New Mexico

Her great nieces went cross country in about 49 hours, in a Chrysler 200. Anita needed 49 days, some which were nothing more than getting unstuck from mud. I wonder if she innovated any ways for quickly getting unstuck?

http://www.lincoln-highway-museum.org/King/King-Index.html
https://unrememberedhistory.com/2016/04/27/a-paramount-girl-a-touring-car-and-the-road-to-the-movies/
http://comolasamapolas.blogspot.com/2012/06/anita-king-la-chica-de-la-paramount.html
http://www.leadertelegram.com/News/Front-Page/2015/08/16/Great-great-nieces-repeat-woman-s-historic-road-trip.html
http://anitakingfilmstar.blogspot.com/p/blog-page_34.html

http://carzhunt.blogspot.com/2017/01/indians-classic-motorcycles-and-ner-car.html

In 1903 L.L. Whitman drove a Curved Dash Olds on that route SF to NYC in over 60 days...
along with John Hammond. There is a book about it https://www.amazon.com/1903-Curved-Dash-Oldsmobile-Horseless-Carriage/dp/B0006EIGKG and they went on to Boston, and Portland Maine, and then drove that Olds on the 1903 Endurance Run up through the Catskills.

The Olds had a single cylinder engine mounted horizontally under the seat.

Then he went cross country on a Franklin, which had a 4 cylinder transverse front mounted air cooled engine driving the rear wheels through a long chain. Went across in 33 days, half the time it took with the Olds

Supposedly the 1904 Franklin Type A Roadster which set the SF to NYC cross-country record of 33 days beating Packard's 64 day record. In the LA Natural History Museum and are not on display, but it was found to be missing a couple easily verified items that the cross country car had https://books.google.com/books?id=K_ELt1oimgIC&pg=PA222&lpg=PA222&dq=LA+Natural+History+Museum+1904+franklin&source=bl&ots=X3yKQ0CH2q&sig=4K7-IZSlPAFR331DK_3aRpeToS4&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiH5_ikhL7RAhUpslQKHVTVCbcQ6AEIOjAE#v=onepage&q=LA%20Natural%20History%20Museum%201904%20franklin&f=false

thanks Steve!

As for cross country endurance races, the Franklin Company wrote to the then experts at the Automobile Magazine, and asked them to sum up the cross country races to their current time of August 16, 1906

Photo via https://www.facebook.com/Historicautomobileenduranceruns/photos/a.179238309205308.1073741828.177016189427520/203939636735175/?type=3&permPage=1

the Desert Classic (also known as the Cactus Derby) was a race I covered a couple years ago http://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2012/07/desert-classic-1908-1914-los-angeles-to.html and the winner was given a gold medal with a diamond, that pronounced him the Master Driver of The Universe http://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2012/06/june-21st-6pm-san-diego-auto-museum-is.html

https://drivetribe.com/p/Px8W_eDrRvOpVIvx3B-UQQ/R9k2x0pYSt2FdOZ202NPRg

At Pebble Beach in 2012

The Gilmore remade a circa-1910 Los Angeles dealership for their Franklin exhibit, recreating a dealership once owned by Ralph Hamlin, the former bicycle racer who became Franklin’s West Coast distributor, and the firm’s largest and most successful dealer.

Of the 150,000 Franklins built between 1902 and 1934, it’s estimated that about 3,700 have survived. Those survivors in the museum include a 1909 Model D touring car, 1925 Franklin Series 11 Sport Runabout and 1930 Series 147 Pirate Touring, among the approximately 15 cars on display.

Perhaps the most impressive Franklins currently exhibited include a 1932 Franklin Supercharged Twelve Series 17 Touring Sedan and the unrestored 1911 Model D