She actually just officially dropped out because of shermens neck issues. I'm seeing so many neck a saddle issues among even the best riders and even when they drop out all I hear is "will try again next year". I believe someone once said "insanity is trying the same thing over and over expecting a different result". I'm come to learn that the RAAM crowd has fully accepted that these problem are normal and just need to be sealed with on a per case basis instead of finding a solid solution.
After struggling through so much pain on the vendetta in my first 24hr race with it I'm skeptical that a recumbent rider wouldn't have all their own versions of these problem over that length of time. Sadly Maria's effort doesn't seem to have nearly as much documentation behind it when comared to many years of DF riders doing the exact same thing. It's unfathomable to me that none of these strong racers who drop out don't even give a recumbent a moments consideration. My guess is the RAAM community really needs to see more bents out there doing will before they will see them as viable.
CruzBikes team effort isn't going to do much in this regard since it is a team effort and teams don't suffer the same problems as the solos.
Let's see over the previous decade
2008: John Schlitter came in first among solo male 50-59 and 10th for all males, on a Bacchetta I think
2009: Team RANS came in first for 4 man teams, only two 8 man teams beat them
2010: Bent Up Cycles came in third in their category (4 person male under 50), fourth among all 4 person teams, and seventh overall (three 8 person teams were faster)
Barbata Buatois won female solo under 50 on a Performer
Sandy Earl DNF at 1788 miles
Timothy Woudenberg won solo male 50-59, finishing just ahead of seventh place solo male under 50
2011: no recumbents in RAAM, but two in RAW
2012: Team Sarcoma placed ninth in 4 person male under 50 teams, though three other 4 person teams beat them and thirteen 8 person teams, they probably were on Bacchettas
Team Bacchetta placed first (and was the only team in that category) in 4 person mixed 50-59, only minutes behind Team Sarcoma
2013 Maria Parker was the first solo female finisher and finished before six men on a CruzBike Vendetta
2014 Jacquie Schlitter DNF 2349 miles on a Schlitter Encore
Dennis Johnson finished first solo men 60-69, six solo men finished ahead, likely on a Bacchetta
2015 no recumbents
2016 Robert DeCou finished tenth solo male under 50 on a CruzBike Vendetta
That's actually a pretty good record of finishing with pretty good results on various recumbents. I suspect there is a desire to ride RAAM traditionally and not on one of those weird bikes.
