Sports
Severna Park Minister Earl Janssen Guides Cyclist Across America
Local RAAM cyclist Randy Mouri bikes across the country in 12 days with the help of a local crew.
Last summer as Earl Janssen stood on City Dock in Annapolis watching cyclists complete the Race across America (RAAM), he was enthralled by what it would take to not just ride but race 3000 miles across America in 12 days or less.
Having just recently taken up cycling, he decided that this year, he would follow the riders’ progress more closely. Little did he know just how closely he would be following.
As this year’s race date approached, Janssen learned that Randy Mouri, a former member of his cycling club, the Severna Park Peloton, would be racing in RAAM and without a second thought he volunteered to help crew.
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Janssen made the offer with the knowledge that his chances of being able to help were slim. Planning and logistics for RAAM takes months and Mouri had a full ten member crew in place. But at the last minute, due to a medical issue, one of the crew members was forced to pull out and Janssen received the call.
“I was really surprised actually,” Janssen said, “I think the first thing I said was, ‘Well, okay but first let me ask my wife.”
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Just weeks later Janssen headed out to Oceanside, CA with Mouri and the nine other crew members he would be spending 24 hours a day with for the next 12 days. The work started immediately and was just a prelude to the long hours that would follow.
Having brought three bikes that could be switched off according to Mouri’s needs, the crew discovered that one of the bikes was broken. The time spent in California leading up to the race was spent scrambling around, looking for a back up bike and cannibalizing one of the other two bikes they had available to them.
Luckily this was the only real glitch for their mission.
“It was our job as the crew to get Randy from California to Annapolis safely and under the 12 day time limit,” Janssen said, “As long as we remembered that was our goal, things went well. We watched other teams blow up, but generally we were able to stay on task.”
Janssen makes it seem like an easy task but with temperatures in the dessert hitting 115 degrees, temperatures in the mountains dropping to 36 degrees, 3000 miles to cover and 170,000 feet of climbing, the task was anything but easy.
The crew consisted of one doctor, one physical therapist, one massage therapist, a trained chef, a bike mechanic and people like Janssen who did everything from drive, to navigate, to monitor Mouri’s fluid and food intake.
Three vehicles were used a long the way. A follow vehicle that either stayed directly behind Mouri or leap-frogged ahead of him until he caught up, a support vehicle that would resupply the follow vehicle as well as go ahead and mark the next turns on the road and an RV that was used by rider and crew alike to get a few hours of sleep whenever their shifts were up.
Janssen and his crew mates worked 16 to 18 hour shifts and managed to eat just about twice a day.
“I thought I would probably gain 10 pounds along the way because of sitting in the car so much,” Janssen said, “but I ended up losing five pounds. There just wasn’t a lot of time to eat.”
Janssen spent most of his time as navigator. As such he would follow the route book and tell the driver and the rider where the next turn is. Janssen was happy to report that the crew never once got Mouri lost.
But navigating was only part of the job. As a member of the crew, Janssen constantly had to adapt.
“I had never seen anybody fall asleep while riding their bike,” Janssen said. “We had to deal with things like Shermer’s neck, which is when the muscles in your neck are so fatigued that they can’t hold your head up. We created a device for him to rest his chin on so he could still ride, see where he was going.
We had to balance letting him get enough rest with pushing him hard enough to keep him from falling behind.”
Not falling behind is a huge concern for every rider. There is a 12 day cutoff and most years fewer than fifty percent of the solo riders make it. This year 75 percent of the riders made the cutoff.
“We had a brisk tailwind almost all the way through Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, and Indiana and that helped a lot of the riders,” Janssen said. “Randy said he isn’t sure he would have made it without that.”
When asked whether he would consider crewing again, he answered much more quickly than I had expected.
“Yes, I think I would. It is fulfilling helping someone complete something like this and the riders, especially the solo riders, know that there is no way they could complete it without the crew.”
For now, Janssen is back at home in Severna Park riding with the Severna Park Peloton and catching up on some much needed rest.