Weighing in at a daunting 527 miles and traversing areas of the state that are rich in both elevation and heat, this year’s Race Across Oregon is no slouch. Any rider competing in a race of this magnitude has put in countless hours of training to become a well-oiled cycling machine. Physical strength, endurance, and mental determination are key factors to success, especially when competing against other racers and not just the clock. However, no matter how well prepared they are personally, no rider is capable of accomplishing such a feat on their own. That’s where we come in.

David is no stranger to lengthy rides. He’s participated in more brevets than I can count, and has ridden several 1000 and 1200 kilometer events in the Pacific Northwest in previous years. In each of those rides, he operated alone as a self-sustaining hybrid of organic and mechanical engineering; his mind, body and bike operating together as a single unit. As any of you who know him or have followed him for a while, these rides took their toll on him both physically and mentally.

For this race, one he hopes to finish in a time considerably faster than his previous ultra long distance sessions, he’s brought a crew of three on board to assist him with the task of conquering the course that lays ahead of him. The crew will be following by David’s side every step of the way, ready to assist him with repairs, refueling, and moral support. Read on to get to know better the three brave souls who will be joining David as he takes on what may prove to be the most challenging route of his cycling career.

Justin Peschka

Justin Peschka is David’s cycling coach, via Carmichael Training Systems, and has been working with David on his training for the past two years. Justin comes to us from Tuscon, Arizona, and packs a heck of a cycling pedigree. Starting his cycling career as a hobby when he was just 14 years old. Now, after 17 years worth of cycling experience, Justin has 12 state championships for Time Trial, Criterium and Road Race, and along with his collegiate cycling team, he won the 1997 national time trial championship. Justin has also won numerous ultra cycling competitions such as the Furnace Creek 508, and the Cochise County Cycling Classic, covering distances from 252 to over 500 miles.

Justin brings his strong, successful background as a competitive cyclist to the fold as an experienced and knowledgeable coach. His insight and understanding from his own past as a competitive cyclist have helped David prepare himself up to this point, and will be invaluable during the race this weekend. Justin is also serving as Crew Chief.

Bert Lutz

Bert is a fellow randonneur of David’s who has been riding brevets for the past 6 years and has finished numerous 400k and 600k rides. Bert’s first major ride was the infamous Seattle to Portland, and soon after he fell in love with randonneuring. He has experience competing in races as well, but prefers the length and pacing of the long distance rides. He also previously heads the R-12 program for Randonneurs USA.

“Usually I’m sitting on a bike doing something…it’s a whole different thing from actually being on the bike. What we’re going to experience over the next 40 hours…we’ll be tired like hell.”

“I remember in my first brevet season we had a 25 mile climb up to Chinook Pass, and I got up there at midnight. It had been 120 degrees on the valley floor, and at the peak there my breath was frosting; it was a drastic difference. There was a secret control up there with hot chocolate, and it was incredibly refreshing. That’s what’s so great about helping out with these rides; you can provide support for the race and work your butt off, but in a totally different way. It’s really cool.”

Bert will be driving, navigating and providing general support for David during the race. He is also responsible for putting together all of the food and supplies for both David and the rest of the crew. Needless to say, this makes him quite possibly the most important member.

Evan Rowe

Last but not least, we come to me. I’ll be serving as the media and technology guru for the race, chronicling the events of the next 3 days live from the road (in areas that we have coverage). I’ll be providing updates in both textual and photographic form to the blog, twitter feed and flickr stream, and I’ll be managing our GPS tracker and ensuring it’s operating properly so that the live map up above is accurate. Of course, I will also be providing valuable moral support and whatever other assistance is required.

Some of you know me already, but most of you have likely only heard my name in brief mention before. I’m typically responsible for the design, upkeep and maintenance of the Ready to Ride blog, and for the design of the books David has written. I’m a graphic designer with my own freelance design business, and amateur photographer, so these roles on the team suit me well. Ready to Ride and its various offshoots have been part of my career as a designer from the beginning, and the two have more or less fed into and grown because of each other. The RAO 2009 micro site I’ve set up for this weekend actually shows off some of the newer web design tricks I’ve picked up, and although most of it is some serious voodoo that stays behind the scenes, it is doing some cool stuff to deliver the content you see in front of you in as elegant a fashion as possible.

And there you have it, David’s crew for the 2009 Race Across Oregon. We will be working hard over the next 3 days to help David realize his goals for the race, encouraging him and supporting him every step of the way. Later today I’ll be providing a profile of the race route itself to give you an idea of what David is up against starting at 5am tomorrow morning.