There’s a good chance that a team of four cyclists from Cary-based Bandwidth.com will live up to their slogan of “5 and Change” and finish Race Across America (a k a RAAM) sometime today. There’s a similarly good chance that by day’s end Carrboro endurance mountain bike racer Matthew Lee will continue to lead this year’s Tour Divide.

For those of you not familiar with the world of insanely-long bike racing, Race Across America, now in its 28th year, is a 3,000-plus-mile bike race across the U.S.. This year’s race started Saturday (for teams, solo riders started the middle of last week) in Oceanside, Calif.; for Team Bandwidth.com, it hopefully will end sometime today in Annapolis, Md. RAAM bills itself as the World’s Toughest Bicycle Race. Tour Divide covers some 2,700 miles of mostly dirt roads and trails (some of which remain under several feet of winter snowpack) as it traces its way along the Continental Divide from Banff, Alberta, Canada, to the U.S./Mexico border at Antelope Wells, N.M.. Of it, Outside magazine declared: “The World’s Toughest Bike Race isn’t in France.”

The Team Bandwidth.com RAAM effort was launched by Bandwidth.com co-founder, CEO, President and racer, David Morken, who has an impressive endurance race resume that includes the Ironman World Championships in Kona (2005) and back-to-back Wasatch 100 Ultramarathons (2007, 2008). That Team Bandwidth is likely to finish the round-the-clock relay ride in five days isn’t surprising considering who rounds out the team: John Murdock, 46, Bandwidth.com’s general counsel, who is a Cat 1 racer; consultant Sean Matt, 43, a Cat 3 racer; and Director of Strategic Sales and Services, Joe Parke, 34, who also races.

Team Bandwith.com’s entry in this year’s RAAM, however, isn’t about four competitive cyclists seeking their next challenge. For one, the team is racing to raise money for DurhamCares, a nonprofit founded by the 40-year-old Morken and fellow Bandwidth.com co-founder Henry Kaestner. The goal of Durham Cares: to get Durham residents involved in the community. The race is also a health and fitness challenge to Bandwidth.com employees, who can compete against the team by running, swimming, cycling — whatever involves moving, and lots of it.

Team Bandwidth.com’s four riders share pulls on their 3,000-mile, round-the-clock sprint across the country. (Conceivably, each racer will put in 750 miles over the 5+ days of the race.) They’re being supported by a crew of 14 friends, family and coworkers, many of whom are traveling with the team.

Matthew Lee’s race along the Continental Divide is a different ordeal. More than 250 cyclists participate in RAAM; 48 signed up for this year’s Tour Divide (that’s about twice the number who have entered previous races). There are no support crews; Tour Divide is entirely self-supported. RAAM has 53 time check stations across the country; Tour Divide riders call a toll-free number to check in when they get a chance. RAAM racers have to contend with American motorists; Tour Divide racers must negotiate the occasional grizzly bear.

Lee has won the Tour Divide five times. He holds the course record of 17 days, 21 minutes, 10 seconds (that’s about 150 miles a day). During this year’s race he’ll be doing a lot of his dining at backroad convenience stores. He’ll get up at 4:30 a.m. to ride, finish up shortly after dark (which at the start of the race, in Canada, pushes 11 p.m.). Most nights, he’ll sleep under a makeshift tarp/tent. This year, his goal is to finish the race in 16 days. If he does, he said at a screening earlier this month of “Ride the Divide,” a documentary on the 2008 race, he may retire. As of late yesterday, Lee was about to enter Wyoming and had a comfortable lead on the rest of the pack.

You can monitor Team Bandwidth.com’s progress and see if they meet their “5 and Change” challenge by following them on their Facebook page and on the Race Across America leaderboard. I’ll also be writing about the team’s experience in a couple week’s in The News & Observer.

Follow Matthew Lee as he makes his way south along the Continental Divide on the Tour Divide Web site’s leaderboard. At the site, you can also hear podcasts of the racers as they check in with Tour Divide’s answering machine.

Top photo: Team Bandwidth.com passes through eastern Missouri.