This coming out of the RANS Factory at Hayes, Kansas. Randy Schlitter, RANS Founder,  has a new Into the Ride Article [Article #79] where he describes the experience of Winning RAAM [Race Across America] 2009. Look at the faces of the Winning Team RANS:

CONGRATULATIONS again Team RANS!

The article is a GOOD read. Check it out. For those of us interested in owning a RANS Xstream, I’ve extracted the following from the Into The Ride Article:

Future XStream Development

What happens next? We think it is a great platform for racing, and with that proven it will be worthy of more investment of more development. Where that leads could be many directions — carbon, Ti, and tweaking of a few things we learned racing. The main thing is the bike is becoming iconic, and has the potential to be a top dog in racing. The design, although named Xstream, centers on being practical. Low seat height and stable handling made it easy to use, and therefore easy to love, and fun to race. That being fun could have perhaps been one of the biggest assets towards our victory, and result in a bike that can have wide appeal. It is not a beginner’s bike in the sense of performance, but plenty of first time riders have taken to the Xstream. Overall the mid-racer platform is something I am sure will we see more of from all corners of the bent world.

RANS Racer Tim Woudenberg from the RANS Website

BTW, Team MVP, Karta Atehortua, gets to keep the ti-Xstream the team used in RAAM.