Cycling: Insight race across America - the World's Toughest Race?

Monday, June 05, 2006 - 02:15 PM

Mississauga's very own Kevin Wallace attempts a world-record effort.

What do we do when we try to define or make sense of something really big? How do we explain and communicate to others something that they have no real context for? Well, we chunk it up, we try to make it smaller, we look at the minutia in the hope that we can reduce it to something we can hold, that we can weigh or measure in order to relate to, In other words to steal a phrase. How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time? The Insight Race Across America is just such an elephant. So vast, so expansive, so unfathomable that when those who have witnessed it, -participated in it try to convey it they are at a loss for words and instead lean towards conveying it one bite at a time. In statistics and measurements and spreadsheets and fun facts. And there are enough of them. Reach out and try and fathom some of them; try and gain a context to relate to. Reach into the ether and begin to try and grasp RAAM through numbers and statistics and measurements and you will fail.

Still the numbers are provocative and set ones mind to churning, and when the churning is done and the initial disbelief lingers, we start trying to grasp for perspective. So we do as Outdoor magazine did in 1993. We make comparisons to find relativity. In 1993 Outside magazine, the biggest and most popular magazine on outdoor sports, commissioned a panel of experts to rank the world’s toughest events.

Using such criteria as the “Mule Factor”—the distances involved; the “Forum”—how tough the course is; the “Anguish Index”—how hard the competitors “have to work to convince themselves that what they’re doing is only mildly insane and self-destructive;” and the “O Factor”—a combination of the cost to do the event and the drop out rate. Given these criteria, as judged by a number of multi-sport athletes and observers, the ranking came out as follows:


Race Across America - 676.2 points
Vendee Globe Around-the-World Sailing Race - 675.0 points
Iditarod Sled Dog Race - 417.5 points
U.S. Army’s Best Ranger Competition - 402.5 points
Raid Gauloises Wilderness Competition - 399.0 points
La Traversee Internationale (25-mile swim) - 301.4 points
Badwater 146-Mile Cross Country Run - 113.4 points
Hawaii Ironman Triathlon - 67.2 points


It makes for good copy, however the bravado in comparisons smacks of egotism and creates barriers. It doesn’t bring us closer to a connection with RAAM. Let’s face it. All of the challenges on the list are formidable and worth celebrating and are not served justice at the bottom of any list.