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Christoph Strasser wins record 6th Race Across America title; Team Backstedt take 8-person win

Austrian rider crosses continent solo in 8 days 16 hours 6 minutes for record-breaking win

Austrian ultracyclist Christoph Strasser has won a record sixth solo Race Across America (RAAM) title. Meanwhile, Britain’s Backstedt Racing Project took victory in the eight-person team category.

Strasser crossed the line in Annapolis, Maryland in 8 days 6 hours 16 minutes – well outside his 2014 record of 7 days 15 hours 56 minutes, but more than a day ahead of the second-placed finisher, Denmark’s Jakob Olsen.

Here is Strasser reflecting yesterday on his record-breaking feat.

Strasser’s first victory in the race came in 2011, the year after Jure Robič took his fifth and final win, with the Slovenian killed during a training ride in September 2010 when he was struck by an oncoming car during a descent on a training ride in his native Slovenia.

Backstedt Racing Project 14, led by 2004 Paris-Roubaix champion Magnus Backstedt, won the eight-person open category in 5 days 15 hours 49 minutes, more than 14 hours ahead of runners-up, the US entry Team Oceanside.

Their time was the second-best across all categories in the race, beaten only by Austria’s Team Alpha-Tischlerei Groemmer, which completed the coast-to-coast challenge in 5 days 15 hours 33 minutes.

Backstedt wrote on Instagram: “Well, we made it. Think we missed the team win by a couple of minutes. We did everything we could as a team and I’m really proud to have done this with a bunch of really good friends and made some new ones.”

Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.

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