Bontrager Twentyfour/12 2015
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JackCurzon
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Re: Bontrager Twentyfour/12 2015
...eagerly waiting a report here...
"Great minds think alike, idiots seldom differ"
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Steve Hanks
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Re: Bontrager Twentyfour/12 2015
Well, the other guys deserve the glory so I'll deliberately avoid telling their story and let them do so.
So, I arrived Friday on torrential rain, it looked really grim. I did manage a good position for my tent in the solo area, and then went off for a scouting ride in the ride to test the course. It was less technical that previous years and much more pedaly, but the single track was deep sloppy mud at that point and slippery as and eel dressed in a slippery suit. On a wet MTB course less technical suits me, so I remained in high spirits as I returned, dried off and feasted on a Meat Feast wood fired pizza with a local ale for "tea".
Saturday then, and then sun was out! In stark contrast to the previous day it was blue skys and it heated up very quickly. This caused a few clothing indecisions as my basic strategy was not to stop for 24hrs, so despite the heat I went with a mid-base and leg/arm warmers to avoid changing in the evening when it cooled. The start went off, and I proceeded on plan to knock out 24 x 1hr laps making sure I backed off the power to conserve my strength and energy for later, knowing heavy rain was predicted from 1am Sunday. All was going very well. The start of the Bonty lap is a 1km 6%-8% concrete climb - the Clif Climb - into the woods but this year on lap 2 the organiser surprised us by adding another parallel off road climb prior to that, with singltrack back down only to climb again up the Clif climb, so we had about 1.75km at 6% on each lap now. I was having good chats with people, meeting people from other forums and races and was in great spirits...
...until lap 5 / 5hrs. Some of you know I sometime have problems with a trapped trapeziod. Well guess what, pop it went, and suddenly I was riding around in extreme pain as it cramped up and was shooting pain up my neck and head which I couldn't turn. At the end of the lap I necked some high power Nurofen and hoped this would help The course had dried and was getting faster and easier, but every time my front wheel hit a root, pain would shoot up my neck to the point my vision would blur for a few seconds. On lap 7 - 7hrs riding, an attempt to pull the front wheel over a lump caused me to simply fall off in blurry agony, and after that I could no longer hold on to the bars, and was in agony when climbing. You can't really ride technical MTB with one hand, so with that, the now constant pain, and knowing it would rain and get exponentially more slippery I was pretty much finished in terms of riding so was forced to DNF.
As I got helped off the bike, despite 7 hours riding I was mentally in great shape, was not tired and had no muscular aches at all, so I'm convinced I would have been in good shape to finish the race. My target 24 laps would have dimished as on Sunday I realised the extent of the heavy rain - 6 hrs of constant pouring but I'm massively gutted for the other reason - the winning Vet only rode 16 laps. 16 laps! That was easily within my grasp on if I had been able to continue would have probably done that or have been close to that before 3am when the rain started, leaving me 9 hrs to add to the total.
Pretty much 11 months training and some good MTB results preceded this so it was a massive anticlimax to have to sit and watch for the next day. Maybe next year.
So I then defaulted to a semi-support role to Team LP. Again, I won't steal their thunder but Jon busted a wheel so I lent him my spare, and seeing that they'd continued all night and were still lapping in the downpour thought it my be nice to deliver 3 breakfasts on Sunday morning. Over to Damien, Jon and Will to take up their story, but much thanks to them also for the shouts of supports as they went past on their laps.
Edit: arrrgh!
Results: I was lapping constantly about 1hr per lap - here then is the Vets winners lap times:
(1) 01:20:42, (2) 01:21:40, (3) 01:10:16, (4) 01:24:37, (5) 01:23:58
(6) 01:17:40, (7) 01:26:36, (8) 01:24:42, (9) 01:28:46, (10) 01:30:43 (11) 01:30:38, (12) 01:42:22, (13) 02:02:13, (14) 01:54:45, (15) 01:53:52 (16) 01:12:31
All my laps were faster, I had about an hour in hand when I retired.
FFS - ah well, until next year then going for Glory I guess.
So, I arrived Friday on torrential rain, it looked really grim. I did manage a good position for my tent in the solo area, and then went off for a scouting ride in the ride to test the course. It was less technical that previous years and much more pedaly, but the single track was deep sloppy mud at that point and slippery as and eel dressed in a slippery suit. On a wet MTB course less technical suits me, so I remained in high spirits as I returned, dried off and feasted on a Meat Feast wood fired pizza with a local ale for "tea".
Saturday then, and then sun was out! In stark contrast to the previous day it was blue skys and it heated up very quickly. This caused a few clothing indecisions as my basic strategy was not to stop for 24hrs, so despite the heat I went with a mid-base and leg/arm warmers to avoid changing in the evening when it cooled. The start went off, and I proceeded on plan to knock out 24 x 1hr laps making sure I backed off the power to conserve my strength and energy for later, knowing heavy rain was predicted from 1am Sunday. All was going very well. The start of the Bonty lap is a 1km 6%-8% concrete climb - the Clif Climb - into the woods but this year on lap 2 the organiser surprised us by adding another parallel off road climb prior to that, with singltrack back down only to climb again up the Clif climb, so we had about 1.75km at 6% on each lap now. I was having good chats with people, meeting people from other forums and races and was in great spirits...
...until lap 5 / 5hrs. Some of you know I sometime have problems with a trapped trapeziod. Well guess what, pop it went, and suddenly I was riding around in extreme pain as it cramped up and was shooting pain up my neck and head which I couldn't turn. At the end of the lap I necked some high power Nurofen and hoped this would help The course had dried and was getting faster and easier, but every time my front wheel hit a root, pain would shoot up my neck to the point my vision would blur for a few seconds. On lap 7 - 7hrs riding, an attempt to pull the front wheel over a lump caused me to simply fall off in blurry agony, and after that I could no longer hold on to the bars, and was in agony when climbing. You can't really ride technical MTB with one hand, so with that, the now constant pain, and knowing it would rain and get exponentially more slippery I was pretty much finished in terms of riding so was forced to DNF.
As I got helped off the bike, despite 7 hours riding I was mentally in great shape, was not tired and had no muscular aches at all, so I'm convinced I would have been in good shape to finish the race. My target 24 laps would have dimished as on Sunday I realised the extent of the heavy rain - 6 hrs of constant pouring but I'm massively gutted for the other reason - the winning Vet only rode 16 laps. 16 laps! That was easily within my grasp on if I had been able to continue would have probably done that or have been close to that before 3am when the rain started, leaving me 9 hrs to add to the total.
Pretty much 11 months training and some good MTB results preceded this so it was a massive anticlimax to have to sit and watch for the next day. Maybe next year.
So I then defaulted to a semi-support role to Team LP. Again, I won't steal their thunder but Jon busted a wheel so I lent him my spare, and seeing that they'd continued all night and were still lapping in the downpour thought it my be nice to deliver 3 breakfasts on Sunday morning. Over to Damien, Jon and Will to take up their story, but much thanks to them also for the shouts of supports as they went past on their laps.
Edit: arrrgh!
Results: I was lapping constantly about 1hr per lap - here then is the Vets winners lap times:
(1) 01:20:42, (2) 01:21:40, (3) 01:10:16, (4) 01:24:37, (5) 01:23:58
(6) 01:17:40, (7) 01:26:36, (8) 01:24:42, (9) 01:28:46, (10) 01:30:43 (11) 01:30:38, (12) 01:42:22, (13) 02:02:13, (14) 01:54:45, (15) 01:53:52 (16) 01:12:31
All my laps were faster, I had about an hour in hand when I retired.
FFS - ah well, until next year then going for Glory I guess.
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JackCurzon
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Re: Bontrager Twentyfour/12 2015
Gutted to hear that Stan but still now you know what you can do and maybe ride for the win next year!
"Great minds think alike, idiots seldom differ"
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PaulWixon
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Re: Bontrager Twentyfour/12 2015
Damian & Stan caught on camera by my buddy Ian - must be early on as they still look quite clean!
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ALDI gear.... No Idea!
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JonDallimore
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Re: Bontrager Twentyfour/12 2015
Finally got round to writing something about this epic (may be my last ever phoenix post!):
With one phoenix slain in the week preceding the battle, Damian, Will and I gathered in our campsite 2 hours before the start in a rather unenthusiatic mood. Race plans were discussed, the most convincing seemed to include giving up at midnight and drinking lots of beer. We finally decided we would at least give it a go and if we got too tired we could always resort to plan B(eer).
Fortunately the weather-forecast was excellent, right up until the biblical rain storm which was rumoured to be wetter than a damp squid.
The racing got underway with moderate fanfare; Will volunteered to do the first lap, with Damian then going out and myself forming the rearguard.
Stan has already alluded to the course. I was pleasantly surprised- lots of singletrack with mainly fireroad or road climbs. The singletrack was not particularly difficult to ride except for a couple of slippy, off-camber, rooty sections.
Once Will and Damian had completed their first laps, I made my way out on mine, with the thought that there were still 23.5 hrs to go fresh in my mind. Unfortunately this thought only remained for about a minute or so, looking down at my watch up the main climb my HR was sitting at 180... oops. With so long to go I also felt it was necessary to feel out the course for good overtaking places; I realised the very woody section with branches around the track wasn't ideal a few seconds late, the branch had already gone through my spokes. With an ever-wobbly front wheel I completed my first lap and set about trying to true it back to shape.
Long story short it is still bent. Luckily for us (unluckily for him), Stan was able to lend me a spare front wheel later in the evening.
My first lap merged into my 3rd and so on until night had crept up on us and the lights were on. I found the night laps really enjoyable, if a little surreal, with the disco in the shooting range and quite a few well lubricated spectators offering some apocryphal chat.
As midnight passed and the fireworks had gone off, we switched to doing 2 lap stints. These were considerably harder on the mind and the legs as we were all starting to tire. To help us out, the organisers had cut out a pretty dodgy wooded section at the beginning of the lap. Although this did mean I had to be woken up by Damian a couple of times as the laps were now a few minutes shorter.
4 am and the heavens opened. What had become a quite sticky course rapidly became a raging torrent of water and mud. Damian had heroically taken the last 2 laps in the dark, sending me out at 7ish in the grey dampness. I would describe my first 2 laps in the rain as great fun, though I did learn to MTB in the roots and mud of Wales so I was at home really!
Two laps over and I sent will back out for 2 more. At this point we all felt pretty f**ked. I went and changed in to my third set of kit in anticipation of my next ride and after a toffee/nutella crepe I was actually interested in riding some more laps. While eating my crepe, I saw we were 12th team with 2-3 laps remaining, although the team in 13th would force us to do 3 laps to keep our place. With that in mind and discussing with Damian and will it was decided that I would go out and ride for as many laps as we could. This was now in the character building phase of the race with the rain getting decidedly tedious and my legs constantly asking if we could chill out a little bit. My first two laps were actually quite fast, though the third was too bonky.
Coming through the finish, found we had made it into 11th, which for 3 people was a great result.
With a little nap outside the petrol station made it back to bristol.
Thanks to Will, Damian and Stan for great day.
Though I won't be an official phoenix I would be keen for a repeat next year (or maybe pairs?!), and i'm sure i'll see some of you at oktoberfest!
Snapped a couple of pics (just Will, didn't turn on autofocus for the others!)
https://flic.kr/s/aHskgTAN7Y
With one phoenix slain in the week preceding the battle, Damian, Will and I gathered in our campsite 2 hours before the start in a rather unenthusiatic mood. Race plans were discussed, the most convincing seemed to include giving up at midnight and drinking lots of beer. We finally decided we would at least give it a go and if we got too tired we could always resort to plan B(eer).
Fortunately the weather-forecast was excellent, right up until the biblical rain storm which was rumoured to be wetter than a damp squid.
The racing got underway with moderate fanfare; Will volunteered to do the first lap, with Damian then going out and myself forming the rearguard.
Stan has already alluded to the course. I was pleasantly surprised- lots of singletrack with mainly fireroad or road climbs. The singletrack was not particularly difficult to ride except for a couple of slippy, off-camber, rooty sections.
Once Will and Damian had completed their first laps, I made my way out on mine, with the thought that there were still 23.5 hrs to go fresh in my mind. Unfortunately this thought only remained for about a minute or so, looking down at my watch up the main climb my HR was sitting at 180... oops. With so long to go I also felt it was necessary to feel out the course for good overtaking places; I realised the very woody section with branches around the track wasn't ideal a few seconds late, the branch had already gone through my spokes. With an ever-wobbly front wheel I completed my first lap and set about trying to true it back to shape.
Long story short it is still bent. Luckily for us (unluckily for him), Stan was able to lend me a spare front wheel later in the evening.
My first lap merged into my 3rd and so on until night had crept up on us and the lights were on. I found the night laps really enjoyable, if a little surreal, with the disco in the shooting range and quite a few well lubricated spectators offering some apocryphal chat.
As midnight passed and the fireworks had gone off, we switched to doing 2 lap stints. These were considerably harder on the mind and the legs as we were all starting to tire. To help us out, the organisers had cut out a pretty dodgy wooded section at the beginning of the lap. Although this did mean I had to be woken up by Damian a couple of times as the laps were now a few minutes shorter.
4 am and the heavens opened. What had become a quite sticky course rapidly became a raging torrent of water and mud. Damian had heroically taken the last 2 laps in the dark, sending me out at 7ish in the grey dampness. I would describe my first 2 laps in the rain as great fun, though I did learn to MTB in the roots and mud of Wales so I was at home really!
Two laps over and I sent will back out for 2 more. At this point we all felt pretty f**ked. I went and changed in to my third set of kit in anticipation of my next ride and after a toffee/nutella crepe I was actually interested in riding some more laps. While eating my crepe, I saw we were 12th team with 2-3 laps remaining, although the team in 13th would force us to do 3 laps to keep our place. With that in mind and discussing with Damian and will it was decided that I would go out and ride for as many laps as we could. This was now in the character building phase of the race with the rain getting decidedly tedious and my legs constantly asking if we could chill out a little bit. My first two laps were actually quite fast, though the third was too bonky.
Coming through the finish, found we had made it into 11th, which for 3 people was a great result.
With a little nap outside the petrol station made it back to bristol.
Thanks to Will, Damian and Stan for great day.
Though I won't be an official phoenix I would be keen for a repeat next year (or maybe pairs?!), and i'm sure i'll see some of you at oktoberfest!
Snapped a couple of pics (just Will, didn't turn on autofocus for the others!)
https://flic.kr/s/aHskgTAN7Y
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WillBeresford
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Re: Bontrager Twentyfour/12 2015
Nice report Jon, and good pics. Finally got around to finishing my blog!
http://ridingcircle.blogspot.com/2015/0 ... ffort.html
http://ridingcircle.blogspot.com/2015/0 ... ffort.html
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Steve Hanks
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Re: Bontrager Twentyfour/12 2015
*Takes Note*
"...I'll come back next year, great course and atmosphere..."
I'll remember that Will
, and as entries are ALREADY open for 2016, lets see if we can get an LP team into the top ten! I've already entered solo, and now I know how I'm getting my shoulder fixed in September so I can claim my Vets Solo crown in 2016*
*Bold statement I know, but they say if you make a goal public is more likely to happen...
"...I'll come back next year, great course and atmosphere..."
I'll remember that Will
, and as entries are ALREADY open for 2016, lets see if we can get an LP team into the top ten! I've already entered solo, and now I know how I'm getting my shoulder fixed in September so I can claim my Vets Solo crown in 2016**Bold statement I know, but they say if you make a goal public is more likely to happen...
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Steve Hanks
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Re: Bontrager Twentyfour/12 2015
Will's blog makes the 24/12 front page: http://www.twentyfour12.com/