Video: Race Across America leader hits Bloomington time point @ 11:23:40 on June 21, 2022
Late Tuesday evening, Nicole Reist cycled through Bloomington, Indiana as the overall leader in the 2022 Race Across America—a 3,079-mile west-to-east bicycle race across the United States.
Racers start in Oceanside, California, and finish in Annapolis, Maryland.
Reist has been leading the race since La Veta, Colorado, which was the 1,181.9-mile mark. She hit Bloomington’s time check at 11:23:40 p.m.. That was about seven hours later than her pace a couple days earlier had projected her to hit town. Her speed slowed a bit, because she took more time off the bike in Illinois than she had up to that point.
As she came through Bloomington, Reist’s advantage over the second place rider was about 78 miles. That translates to the better part of 5 hours, based on the 16 mph on-the-bike average speed that second place cyclist Allan Jefferson has maintained.
Reist’s on-the-bike average speed is slower than Jefferson’s—when she’s in the saddle, she averages 15.1 mph. But in the seven days since the race started, she has spent just 18 hours and 13 minutes off the bike, compared to 32 hours 31 minutes off the bike for Jefferson.
The video recorded by The B Square shows Reist rolling to a stop coming off the SR 45/46 bypass to 3rd Street.. She had to wait just about 10 seconds before the light turned green. A left turn at the light took her down 3rd Street, on her way out SR 46 to Nashville, then Columbus.
One way to check race progress over the next few days, until the finish in Annapolis, is to monitor RAMM’s Track Leaders webpage.
[Updated June 25, 2022. Nicole Reist did not win the overall RAAM. She reportedly crashed twice within a couple hundred miles of the finish, but hung on to place a close third overall and first among women. According to a machine translation from a French news report, she broke a rib. After the crash, she had to be helped on and off the bike. She’s quoted in the report saying, “I have never suffered so much as on these last 320 kilometers.” Here’s footage as Reist completed the race: RAAMmedia finish line footage. And here’s where an interview with her starts: RAAMmedia interview.]
