The Furnace Creek 508 Bicycle Race is known as the Toughest 48 hours in Sport.

The 30th annual race will take place on October 5-7, 2013. Known as the Great American Bike Race, it is the world’s premier ultra cycling race.

The 508-mile race is revered all over the world for its epic mountain climbs, desert scenery, desolate roads, and its reputation as one of the toughest but most gratifying endurance challenges in the world. The course has a total elevation gain of over 35,000 feet and crosses ten mountain passes. It starts from Santa Clarita just north of Los Angeles, goes across the Mojave Desert, through Death Valley National Park and Mojave National Preserve, and continues on to the finish line at the gateway to Joshua Tree National Park.

You cannot just enter this race, to you have qualify for it. Part of the process of qualifying is to participate in a crew for a racer. Each racer is accompanied by a chase vehicle that carries provisions, spare parts and drives behind the racer for safety since it’s on the open road.

Racers fly in from all over the world, and not just themselves, but crews of many people. They rent vehicles and buy gear. They prepare for this for a lifetime, train for it for many months, and then they get on an airplane and fly to the United States for the big event.

One of the most exciting parts is biking through Death Valley in the middle of the night.

Except, when the bikers arrive this year, the road through Death Valley is closed because of an ego trip of the Tea Party knuckleheads in congress. The best bicycle endurance racers from all over the world plan for this for years, spend enormous amounts of money to participate, and then can’t do it because of American politics.

Guess what image that portrays to the rest of the world? They don’t know what a Tea Party is. They don’t understand our system of government. All they hear is that a major road used for a world-class race in a world-class National Park is closed for political reasons.