Scott 24 Hour October 2007

24 hr races are great events that involve camping out, socializing, and riding a mountain bike. The aim is to do as many laps of a mountain bike course in 24 hours as you can, generally as a team. It's basically a relay race. Some people take it serious, some people are more casual, but everyone's there for a good time.

Well I came back again for another year. This time a little less crazy. Instead of 2 we had a 6 man team. Well, actually 5 person team, in a 6 person category.

The Albury crew arrived at Mount Stromlo, the place of the 2009 World Championships on Friday evening. I didn't get unpacked, I wanted to get out on the course, and get used to it. If there was anything that could save time, it was a good knowledge of the course, as I found out last year. This year they decided to make 2 different loops just to make things confusing. It worked out really well actually. So I rode 1 of each. They were probably about 12km each, and as a team you had to ride one, then the other. So red, blue, red, blue.

It was an awesome course, that was fast, with a fair few tight sections, some awesome downhill, and very nice berms to lean into. I did both courses in 40 minutes that afternoon. Which I thought was pretty good.

I headed back to camp. It was starting to get cold, so I decided to grab a jumper out of my clothing bag. I looked through the front of the car, and couldn't find my clothing bag. So I looked in the boot. No luck there either. I was thinking to myself, it couldn’t be! I thought someone must have been playing a trick on me. I double checked the car and the boot, and came up with nothing. So I had no clothes, except for the t-shirt and short jeans I had on. It was cold, windy and starting to rain! Just what I needed.

So I borrowed what I could off other Albury guys. I decided I would have to go buy some stuff, because no one had knicks that would fit, or that they wanted to share. So I went to the official tent where they were selling clothing, and recognized someone from the event video that was made from last year. It was the Race director. So I told him my story, and he organized some clothing for me cheap. I had 1 full kit, I bought another pair of knicks and that was it.

Saturday I met the team for the first time. We had 4 guys and 1 girl, in the team of 6 mixed category. Very quickly I knew it was going to be on. When the team informed me that last year they got 2nd, in this category and that they wanted to win this year. No pressure? It turned out to be a great group of people, with some really good riders.

We got the plan worked out and got going. I was up third. We started on blue loop. The guys busted out some fast laps! One of the guys was only a minute off the fastest lap. The organizers had put up $4000 for the fastest lap. My first lap wasn’t quite what I expected. I smashed it, pretty hard, especially on the fire trail. On the single track I was a bit all over the place and was sliding out a fair bit. Then I ran into a fair bit of traffic. But I got through it for a 41 minute lap. Which was not bad for the blue loop.

My next lap was a night time double. We did doubles so we could get a bit of sleep. These 2 laps were tough. My first lap on the red, I tried to go too fast especially in the dark, and I was struggling through the tight sections. I wore way too much clothing, and was starting to cook. Getting onto the downhill, I started going good. I was riding like a nut case.

Coming into transition, powering across the criterium circuit, I started cramping in both legs, at the same time, both hamstrings. At this stage I was getting worried because the race had really only just begun, and I was cramping in both legs! I thought about tagging a team mate, but decided it was time to just back it off a little and just keep going. My next blue lap was a little bit of a nightmare. I was slipping all over the place. There were heaps of people to over take. Somehow I had no trouble getting past people, no knocking of bars or anything. Except one occasion. I called out, when you're ready mate, I need to get past! On my right! The room on the right disappeared very fast, so I went bush which had worked for me previously. Unfortunately I didn’t see the big ditch. My front wheel rolled into it and got stuck, over the bars I went. Aaaaahhhhhhh! I picked myself up and jumped on my bike and got going as fast as I could. I rode past the dude about 30 seconds later on the fire road. "That didn’t quite go to plan mate." My bike was a little sick. I couldn't shift down to anything less than 7 on the rear. I knew my hanger was bent! So I was forced to ride a big gear the rest of the course. I came into transition a little worse for wear.

I borrowed an awesome HID head light for the 24 hour. Anyone who went to one of the Tuesday night road rides during winter would know the one. It was the one Killa was using, that was more like a car light on high beam. Potentially blinding light. So I thought that it was going to be awesome. On my first double night lap, I couldn't work it out, it wasn't bright at all. Actually it was crap. By the end of the double lap I was ready to tell killa how poor his light was. It was on this lap when I went over the hangers actually. I guess I could blame the light. Anyway, I got back to transition, went to the Shimano tent to get my derailleur hanger straightened. The mechanic said to me, You know that light would work better if you took that plastic cover off. Jeez I felt like an idiot. It's like leaving the lens cap on a camera. Turns out the Shimano mechanic previously worked for Topeak, and wrote the product manual. So he was giving me all these tips about the light, which was good. And he replaced both gear cables for free. Awesome. Killa won't let me live it down though. The light worked a lot better with the cap off.

It was my turn to sleep, so I charged my light, and went to bed for a bit. When my alarm went off, I really didn't want to get up, but I had to. I filled myself with coke and headed down to transition. Another double lap ahead of me. I knew what I had to do. But I had a problem. My forks weren't working. They had seized up. Turns out they don't like the cold. They were frozen solid. I couldn't compress them at all. I was riding a fully rigid. Which turned out to be really good at climbing, but was really hard on my hands, and not good for descending.

Instead of trying to go too fast and falling off, I focused on staying really smooth on the single track, and just going faster on the fire roads. It worked really well. Except on the downhill I was having trouble holding onto the bars, because I was getting jolted so much riding on my fully rigid. I got through it, completed my double, and proceeded back to transition. I then went to sleep. I woke up to find my forks still completely frozen solid, so I boiled the kettle, put some hot water on them and got them going again.

It was much more fun riding during the day with forks that actually worked! I also worked out why I wasn't cornering fast, I wasn't weighting the front wheel. We were back to single laps and it was time to just smash it. We were leading by a couple of laps on Team Orbea.

With the sunlight, and remembering what Geoff had told me about how to corner, I went out onto the blue course again. I don’t know why, but I always ended up on the blue loop, which was longer, and a bit tougher, so even when I rode it fast, my times didn't look that fast. I filled myself with coke. Coke is definitely a performance enhancing substance during 24 hour races, and I drank 13 cans for the weekend. Maybe that’s why I came back 1 KG heavier, but that's another story.

I did a reasonably quick lap on the blue this time, I was flowing a lot better, smashing it on the fire roads, and really leaning into the corners. I did a 43 minute lap.

We worked it out so we could just get one last lap in, which was me. I was just going to go as hard as I could. I was so wrecked. I had 2 cans of coke before the start though. I went full gas, I couldn’t get over the big gear that I could a few laps ago, but I was going fast on the single track. I spent the last lap chasing one of the guys from the Giant Pro teams. I was actually bringing him back on the fire roads and uphill sections, but on the downhill single track he would put time into me, even though I was riding like a mad man on the single track. I couldn't believe it, but I guess that’s why he's in that team. He ended up finishing about 15 seconds ahead of me.

That was the end. Our team had won the team of 6 mixed with 35 laps. So I guess we are Australian 24 hr Team of 6 mixed champions.

Sid Taberlay picked up the $4000 for the fastest lap.

The team from Albury did quite well, finishing 5th in team of six mixed. Containing Shelley & Rick Kamevaar, Jukka Pirkola, Danny King, Jayne Grubits , and Steve Glitzenhirn. That probably deserves a beer or 2, hey Jukka!

So overall a very successful weekend, even without clothes. Bring on the Mont 24 hr!

Thanks To Danny King for the clothes, and to Killa for trusting me with his awesome Light.

Also thanks to my personal skills coaches and bike mechanics, Dave and Geoff Schilg.

Random:
I was riding back from Beechworth a few days after the event, and caught up to a rider. We started Talking about riding and random stuff. Out of nowhere he said to me, you want a hard race, you should try doing one of those 24 hour races in Canberra!

Aaron Moffatt AKA Ferret