"Bicycle Dreams" bike documentary, encore – Thur. April 19, 7:15 pm

[PotomacCyclist]

The documentary about the RAAM cross-country bike race was shown last year at the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. The movie will be back for one night.

http://www.arlingtondrafthouse.com/default.aspx?page=event&refcd=NEWSLT&eid=1415

The movie only covers the solo riders in the race, not the teams. According to the team participants who spoke live at the previous showing, the majority of participants are in the team competition, not the solo race.

I’m not sure what to think of the cyclists in the movie. It’s an incredible feat to finish RAAM but I couldn’t help getting over the feeling that they were obsessive about the race. The solo race requires an incredible time and financial commitment, in some cases, a life-changing commitment. There isn’t much money associated with the race. (I don’t remember if there is any prize money at stake. If there is, it isn’t much at all.) Unlike the Tour de France, the clock never stops running once the race starts. Tour cyclists get to rest and sleep comfortably each night. Solo RAAM racers have to strike a balance between losing time to sleep or continuing to ride without sleep but risking serious sleep deprivation. Some of the cyclists fall into hallucinatory states because of the extreme sleep deprivation. At that point, it doesn’t even seem like an athletic contest any more, but more like a sleep avoidance contest.

It’s a good movie but maybe not the best endurance sports documentary I’ve seen. If you missed out on the first showing, here’s your chance to see it again.

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[creadinger]

Oh sweet! Thanks so much for posting this! I’ll definitely be there. I’ve wanted to see this for a while but I missed all of the previous local showings.

In addition to other reasons I want to see it to get a better perspective about what kind of people do these crazy races. I know similarly crazy people who do rides like PBP and the local Shenandoah 1200K and Endless Mountains 1240K in PA. Even though these rides, which are ridiculous themselves and are still on a completely different scale than RAAM, the 4 days it takes to ride 1200K is a similar physical event.

[Author]

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