Contestants have died, been maimed, and spiraled down into the nightmarish realm of madness. Half of them don't finish--in fact, only 200 racers have ever made it to the end. "Outside" magazine calls it "the toughest test of endurance in the world." RAAM (the Race Across America) is a bicycle race like no other. This epic race is the most brutal organized sporting event you've never heard of and one of the best-kept secrets in the sports world. Author Amy Snyder follows a handful of athletes before, during, and after the 2009 event, the closest and most controversial in history. "Hell on Two Wheels" is a thrilling and remarkably detailed account of their ups and downs, triumphs and tragedies. By experiencing the race from the perspective of the racers themselves, "Hell on Two Wheels" breaks new ground in helping us appreciate how such a grueling effort can be so cleansing and self-revelatory. This is more than just a race; it's a monster, a crucible, an unforgettable allegory about the human experience of pain and joy and self-discovery.
From New York Times bestselling author and Newbery Honor recipient Steve Sheinkin, Born to Fly: The First Women's Air Race Across America is the gripping true story of the fearless women pilots who aimed for the skies—and beyond. Featuring illustrations by Bijou Karman. Just nine years after American women finally got the right to vote, a group of trailblazers soared to new heights in the 1929 Air Derby, the first women's air race across the U.S. Follow the incredible lives of legend Amelia Earhart, who has captivated generations; Marvel Crosson, who built a plane before she even learned how to fly; Louise Thaden, who shattered jaw-dropping altitude records; and Elinor Smith, who at age seventeen made headlines when she flew under the Brooklyn Bridge. These awe-inspiring stories culminate in a suspenseful, nail-biting race across the country that brings to life the glory and grit of the dangerous and thrilling early days of flying. From Steve Sheinkin, the master of nonfiction for young readers who expertly unraveled the infamous story of whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg and the impeachment of Richard Nixon, comes the untold story of fearless women who dared to fly. This title has common core connections. A 2020 ALSC Notable Children's Book Also by Steve Sheinkin: Bomb: The Race to Build—and Steal—the World's Most Dangerous Weapon The Notorious Benedict Arnold: A True Story of Adventure, Heroism & Treachery Most Dangerous: Daniel Ellsberg and the Secret History of the Vietnam War The Port Chicago 50: Disaster, Mutiny, and the Fight for Civil Rights Undefeated: Jim Thorpe and the Carlisle Indian School Football Team Which Way to the Wild West?: Everything Your Schoolbooks Didn't Tell You About Westward Expansion King George: What Was His Problem?: Everything Your Schoolbooks Didn't Tell You About the American Revolution Two Miserable Presidents: Everything Your Schoolbooks Didn't Tell You About the Civil War
2020 Peace Corps Writers Paul Cowan Award for the Best Book of Non-Fiction On April 23, 1929, the second annual Transcontinental Foot Race across America, known as the Bunion Derby, was in its twenty-fifth day. Eddie “the Sheik” Gardner, an African American runner from Seattle, was leading the race across the Free Bridge over the Mississippi River. Along with the signature outfit that earned him his nickname—a white towel tied around his head, white shorts, and a white shirt—Gardner wore an American flag, a reminder to all who saw him run through the Jim Crow South that he was an American and the leader of the greatest footrace in the world. Kastner traces Gardner’s remarkable journey from his birth in 1897 in Birmingham, Alabama, to his success in Seattle, Washington, as one of the top long-distance runners in the region, and finally to his participation in two transcontinental footraces where he risked his life, facing a barrage of harassment for having the audacity to compete with white runners. Kastner shows how Gardner’s participation became a way to protest the endemic racism he faced, heralding the future of nonviolent efforts that would be instrumental to the civil rights movement. Shining a bright light on his extraordinary athletic accomplishments and his heroism on the dusty roads of America in the 1920s, Kastner gives Gardner and other black bunioneers the attention they so richly deserve.
The Race Across America (RAAM) is a nonstop, 3,000-mile bicycle race with a twelve-day limit. The race course traverses deserts and mountains in all kinds of conditions including extreme temperatures, wind, rain, and fog. Racers typically sleep less than four hours per day. The Race Across America is the toughest ultracycling race in the world. It requires physical and mental toughness, but also organization, planning, and an efficient, dedicated, well-trained crew. "One Million Pedal Strokes" tells the story of how rookie Keith Wolcott completed RAAM in 2014, with his wife Ellen as his crew chief. It gives racer, crew chief, and crew perspectives of the race. It contains details about planning and details about decisions that must be made, with sections on potential problems, strategy, training, the mental aspect, a goal pace, crew training, nutrition, clothing, equipment, and recovery---all aimed to be useful for prospective RAAM racers.
"Every chapter of Race in America examines how racism intersects with other forms of social division-those based on gender, class, sexuality, ability, religion, and nationhood-as well as how whiteness surrounds us in unnamed ways that produce and reproduce a multitude of privileges for white people. In the revised second edition, students will find relevant examples drawn from the headlines and from their own experiences. Each chapter is updated to include references to recent social movements and popular culture, making the book a more helpful tool for navigating society's critical conversations about race, racism, ethnicity, and white privilege. And throughout the book, students will find updated scholarship and data figures, reflecting the most cutting-edge sociological research"--
On March 4, 1928, 199 men lined up in Los Angeles, California, to participate in a 3,400-mile transcontinental footrace to New York City. The Bunion Derby, as the press dubbed the event, was the brainchild of sports promoter Charles C. Pyle. He promised a $25,000 grand prize and claimed the competition would immortalize U.S. Highway Route 66, a 2,400-mile road, mostly unpaved, that subjected the runners to mountains, deserts, mud, and sandstorms, from Los Angeles to Chicago. The runners represented all walks of American life from immigrants to millionaires, with a peppering of star international athletes included by Pyle for publicity purposes. For eighty-four days, the men participated in this part footrace and part Hollywood production that incorporated a road show featuring football legend Red Grange, food concessions, vaudeville acts, sideshows, a portable radio station, and the world's largest coffeepot sponsored by Maxwell House serving ninety gallons of coffee a day. Drawn by hopes for a better future and dreams of fame, fortune, and glory, the bunioneers embarked on an exhaustive and grueling journey that would challenge their physical and psychological endurance to the fullest while Pyle struggled to keep his cross-country road show afloat. "In a wild grab for glory, a cast of nobodies saw hope in the dust: blacks who escaped the poverty and terror of the Old South; first-generation immigrants with their mother tongue thick on their lips; Midwest farm boys with leather-brown tans. These men were the 'shadow runners' men without fame, wealth, or sponsors, who came to Los Angeles to face the world's greatest runners and race walkers. This was a formidable field of past Olympic champions and professional racers that should have discouraged sane men from thinking they could win a transcontinental race to New York. Yet they came, flouting the odds. Charley Pyle's offer Of free food and lodging to anyone who would take up the challenge opened the race to men of limited means. For some, it was a cry from the psyche of no-longer-young men, seeking a last grasp at greatness or a summons to do the impossible. This pulled men on the wrong side of thirty from blue-collar jobs and families."--from the Preface "No writer 'owns' a swath of history the way Chuck Kastner 'owns' the wildly crazy C. C. Pyle Bunion Derbies. The inaugural race was a truly American epic: from its massive scope to the fact that it was dominated by a handful of second-rate runners who decided there was no future in continuing in the underdog role. Chuck's book makes you want to schedule your next vacation for Route 66, there to relive the zaniness and heroics of 1928."--Rich Benyo, editor, Marathon & Beyond Magazine "Bunion Derby's narrative arc transcends the academic approach one would expect from a university press."--Philip Damon, on the Peace Corps Writers website
Where am I? What is going on? Who are all those people outside?Joni replied, You are in a bicycle race. The race is called RAAM..Baby, you just need to get on your bike and ride. "Em screamed, "Oh my God! Oh my God! He's been hit!" "There is a dark side to RAAM, a side only those who have been there know exists." My RAAM is over. I have let everyone down.. I dont deserve to finish RAAM "What I saw, I still get chill bumps thinking about it, because the man took off. I mean, whoosh, he stood up on those pedals and took off." Ultra Race News Book Review http://www.ultraracenews.com/2012/05/23/unfinished-business-an-inspirational-story-of-true-grit-and-determination/
The election of America’s first black president has led many to believe that race is no longer a real obstacle to success and that remaining racial inequality stems largely from the failure of minority groups to take personal responsibility for seeking out opportunities. Often this argument is made in the name of the long tradition of self-reliance and American individualism. In Awakening to Race, Jack Turner upends this view, arguing that it expresses not a deep commitment to the values of individualism, but a narrow understanding of them. Drawing on the works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Frederick Douglass, Ralph Ellison, and James Baldwin, Turner offers an original reconstruction of democratic individualism in American thought. All these thinkers, he shows, held that personal responsibility entails a refusal to be complicit in injustice and a duty to combat the conditions and structures that support it. At a time when individualism is invoked as a reason for inaction, Turner makes the individualist tradition the basis of a bold and impassioned case for race consciousness—consciousness of the ways that race continues to constrain opportunity in America. Turner’s “new individualism” becomes the grounds for concerted public action against racial injustice.
An account of an incredible 3,423-mile foot race across America, the Great Foot Race of 1928, and C.C. Pyle, the legendary sports promoter who masterminded the event. A year before the Great Depression, endurance fads were all the rage, from dance marathons to flagpole sitting, and spectators would shell out hard-earned cash to watch. When notorious sports agent and promoter C.C. Pyle offered a $25,000 prize for a foot race from Los Angeles to New York, 199 runners from all over the world took their marks and half a million spectators flocked to the starting line. The race was grueling, but an astonishing 55 participants made it to the Madison Square Garden finish line 84 days later. In re-creating this classic American drama, the author accessed never-before-published material and the support of several descendants of the participants.--From publisher description.
