Bontrager TwentyFour 12 Enduro
Cotswold Farm Park: 14/07/07
by Paul Howard
Who remembers me saying at the end of last year..."I'm taking a year out from 24 and 12 hour enduros"?
"So what the heck changed your mind to ride the 12 hour this weekend?" you may well ask.
The simple answer is that whilst pit bitching at Mountain Mayhem and watching the soloists suffer pain and joy in only the way a soloist can, was enough to renew the motivation I needed to partake in my own sufferfest. Anyway a 12 hour race is a mere sprint compared to a 24!
The Cotswold Farm Park was a new race venue so the course had been built from scratch during the winter by Rob Lee of Extreme Endurance. It was hyped as being the most technical 24 or 12 hour course ever. In some ways it was technical but the recent appalling weather was never going to show a course off to its best. Consequently the running approach was favoured on many sections as the mud was toffee like, roots became exposed and very slippery and you had to pedal as much on the downhills as the uphills to retain your speed. Though it did begin to firm up in places as the hot sun beat down on us.
With a last minute entry I rocked up on the start line in the knowledge that without training specifically for the event, the past few months of regular xc races and 100k enduros would see me in good stead to target the top five. And for once I had a race plan; start hard at near xc race pace for 20 minutes, throttle back to 6hr pace and hold it till dark, then just ride the remainder hiding from the pain! However it turned out more like 2hrs at race pace and ten hours of pain including occasional legs cramps, copius amounts of vomiting (sorry is that too much information?) and numerous crashes. I sometimes ask myself why I do these races.
Despite or because of some of the above, I was encouraged to know that during the first 4 hours I held 3rd place but knew that to survive till midnight the speed had to reduce. Between 3rd and 5th places we all started swapping positions either on course or when someone took a long pitstop. The one thing I have learned in enduros is to keep pitstops as short as possible. It's easy to lose a lot of time in the pits, but very hard to regain that time on the bike. My longest stop was two minutes attaching lights and adding warmer clothing, otherwise typically 10 seconds to a minute. Most of this was in part thanks to Lorraine for pit bitching so skillfully, always at the ready with bottles, food and position updates, plus giving encouragement or a kick up the ar$e when needed!
As day turned to night the course conditions improved but I didn't have the energy to capitalise where I should have, so slipped to fifth but with a healthy 40 minute gap to sixth. I crossed the line at 12.07am with 12 laps completed and 88 of the hardest miles ridden for a long time. My bed was now calling but considering how knackered I was I just couldn't get to sleep. The body may have stopped but the mind was still racing. I got up at 5am and cheered on the few people still riding the 24 hour team and solo race in the now continual rain that returned the course into a slippy mess. Poor sods!
So with a top five result and a podium achieved I left happy with my thoughts now turning to making the most of the summer weather to train for and look ahead to Dusk Til Dawn in October, hoping to make up for last years dnf.
P.s. I rode the Scott Spark 20 which coped admirably in the mud, albeit with narrow mud tyres on. It required nothing more than some chain lube to keep it running smoothly. Thanks go to Chris for providing such a good bike this season.
Lap 1 Lap 2 Lap 3 Lap 4 Lap 5 Lap 6
Pos Laps Time Name Lap 7 Lap 8 Lap 9 Lap 10 Lap 11 Lap 12
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5 12 12:07:48 Paul Howard 0:52:45 0:56:40 0:57:23 1:00:43 1:03:28 0:58:53
1:00:07 1:05:34 1:01:01 1:04:45 1:04:54 1:01:35
"Hands up... who enjoyed riding in the mud?"