My First 24 hour event

Slowly getting the race notches in my belt. Apart from a casual spin at the yellowmundee grand prix, this was not only my first 24 hour event, but also my first experience at a lap style team race. I have to say its a completely different style of riding/racing and its one I'm not so familiar with. I'm used to the endurance races where you lock into a sustainable rythm and just spin to your hearts content. This however I found much much harder than any other event I've done before. With the lap mentality you really do not allow yourself to let up at any point. From the word GO you're really only a few km from the end and less than an hour away. There is no excuse to go slow because you're about to finish! This does get quicker laps but it is quite tolling on the body. After 24 hours I completed only 4 laps and 57km yet I felt as shattered as I did at the end of the 100 mogo! The stop/start nature also had me unable to get into a rhythm, and when I did do the longer double lap, after having a considerable amount of dinner and refreshments, this made it quite difficult. Having had to experience waking up at 3am in the bitter cold after being asleep for only an hour or two, then head out on a Blue lap which I had never seen in the day was a bit rough and fading batteries by the end of the red lap were not welcome on the fast downhill back to transition.

The course was amazing and I wonder why the NSW govt cannot setup anything similar like this in Sydney, instead they just ban/restrict us from riding. Having done the blue lap in the morning, I was much happier to see the rocks and pick better lines.

Having thought going into this event that I was only riding 50km and doing 4 hours of riding I now know that I should not take it so lightly and have realised it is alot tougher than it sounds. I still tried to fit in alot of socialising but even in a 6 man team, its surprising how quick you are back up again. Maybe next time if I do a 4 man team it will help keep me more focussed.

Another thing this course highlighted to me is my serious need for improving my singletrack and tight riding skills. I don't seem to be able to hold the speed in the corners like many other riders and bled alot of time in this manner. I hope soon it will be me calling track more often than it is me hearing it.

I managed a 47min first lap on the red run and a 58min blue on my 4th lap. My early morning night double lap was a woeful 2:24 which was not helped by me having to change batteries halfway down the red lap pulled over to the side in the tight sniggle along the cliff face struggling to plug in my battery with thick gloves on and no light to assist.

All in all I was happy with the race and happy enough just to get away unscathed. Our team managed to punch out 25 laps which I think is respectable. Go pins screws docs nobs bocz! Looking forward to the mont now and I think I will do some things differently next time around

Honourable mentions
-Steve01 managing 4 laps in 3:22!
-Blondie managing to duck out mid race to stock us up with a case of beer
-All the early arrivers for setting up an excellent nobmob camp/social site!
-John for soloing 23 laps and coming second with the same number of laps as the winner!
-SupaGav, Damien and Vanina for coming second in the mixed muskets (Damien in SS!)\
-Tien for punching out 2 laps when we were meant to be on singles...

Dishonourable mentions
-Tien for going hard and deciding to do a second double and putting the lap order out of whack forcing me to wake an hour earlier (First time I've ever woken up hungover twice in one night....)
-That arsewhore which stole Craig's bike!
-The Kangaroo who almost ran me over on my first Blue lap in the night. These 6ft monsters give you a bit more of a shock than the 3 ft wallabies I normally come across.

Thanks to all! I really enjoyed my weekend.

Cheers,
Loz