The Race Across America is a fundamentally different race than other well-known cycling races. The Tour de France, for example, is a stage race, each day offering a new section up to 125 miles in length. Race Across America is just one continuous stage, three thousand miles long. In many ways, RAAM is the anti-Tour de France. Professional Tour de France teams have multi-million dollar budgets for buses, trucks, bicycles, coaches, physiotherapists and chefs.

Most RAAM riders fund their efforts out of their own pockets, enlisting friends and family as crew. Witnessing the finish of the first year of the race, ABC’s Wide World of Sports producer Larry Kamm remarked, “These men have pushed themselves to the limits for a cheap trophy and a hug from Miss Bud Light.” Now, twenty-seven years later, there is no trophy, and Miss Bud Light has not appeared for quite some time.