Seeing the world through biking

From the Arlington Heights Bicycle Association to the finish line of the world's toughest bike race.

That's how far a group of local cycling enthusiasts have come, not by pedal power, but by working on the staff of Race Across America, or RAAM.

For the second year, Terry Zmrhal, a Buffalo Grove High School graduate and Arlington Heights native, serves as race director. He did the RAAM as a 2-person relay team in 2002, finishing in eight and a half days.

His mother, Karen Zmrhal of Arlington Heights, serves this year as assistant manager of the finish line after working on its staff last year. She is a former Arlington Heights Bicycle Association president, and she has recruited another former president, Mary Fitzwater, now of Muncie, Ind., to help, as well as Evie Weber of Arlington Heights and her sister, Norma Witherbee of Morton Grove.

"We had to do it," quipped Weber, who with her sister biked the Underground Railroad in 2006, and before that they followed the Lewis and Clark Expedition, both times filing updates in the Daily Herald from their trip.

"But there's no way we'd ever do anything like this," Weber adds. "This is absolutely incredible."

The ultra endurance event challenges riders to race more than 3,000 miles across the country, from San Diego to Baltimore - through the heat of the desert, up the mountains, through the hot and humid plains, and up the steep Appalachians - making it nearly 50 percent loner than the Tour de France.

Women set out on June 7, followed by men on June 8, and teams on June 11.

But, unlike the Tour de France, the RAAM is not completed in multiple stages. In this event, there is just one stage, consequently racers average 350 to 500 miles per day, resting minimally and literally sleeping against the clock, to finish in 12 days or less. The ultimate challenge lies in the solo division, but competitors also do it in teams of two, four and eight, officials say.

All of which makes the finish line an important function, putting enough emphasis on finishing what is considered to be one of the pinnacles of sport.

The first riders were expected to come in on Tuesday, with the last ones arriving today. Zmrhal and her crew figured they would be staging up to 60 medal ceremonies, in order to give each finisher their own moment.

"Just to be able to talk to these people," Zmrhal says, "is a real thrill. They're all heroes."