Better, late than never, as the saying goes. I finished my write-up from the 2007 Sleepless In The Saddle 24hour race many months ago but then never made time to publish it, so here it is.
After an eventful and not entirely successful introduction to team XC racing at Dusk ‘Til Dawn 2005, I convinced my team mates Roger and Andrew to have another go at Sleepless In The Saddle this year, adding in former colleague Steve to complete the “2.5 beards, an Aussie and a Dutchman” line-up in Sport Men. SITS was to be Roger and Andrew’s second ever race, and Steve had never had a number on his bike at all, so we were hoping the step up to our first ever 24 hour event wouldn’t be too big. The main aims for the event were to have fun, complete the 24 hours, and have a rider out on course at all times.
Leaving London in the early afternoon on Friday left plenty of time for a relaxed drive up to Catton Hall, and a supermarket trip en route to stock up on pasta meals, cereal bars etc. Arriving at Catton, the non- trade/soloist camping area was already really busy, and it took a few laps of the site to find a pitch, but it was a good one, near to the change-over area and the high quality toilets/washrooms, complete with shiny brass door handles – no standard Portaloos here! After setting up the tents, we went to registration to collect our impressive number boards (Roger may well frame his) and vouchers for free Fibrax brake pads for discs/V-brakes of your choice – a nice touch to have options here. We were also happy with the ‘baton’, a vaguely glow-in-the-dark rubber wristband, which would be much harder to lose than the glowstick we had at Dusk ‘Til Dawn in 2005. A quick detour to buy a mixed box of bars from Matt at Torq and it was time for an early night.
Saturday morning saw clearing skies, bright sunshine, and a chance to pre-ride the 7.2 mile course. After an opening long, flat grassy farm track section with some fun high-speed corners, the hard work started with a steep little climb heading into the single track. Much of the course was the same as EnduroPlus 2006, the last time I was at Catton, with the addition of a new section across the public road which had been shut for the event, and was a mix of farm tracks, twisty sticky singletrack, off-camber loose descents, small sharp climbs, a lot of bumps, and some long, thankfully fast and smooth, grassy sections. It wasn’t particularly technically difficult, although definitely harder than my team mates had been expecting, but we were confident it would be fun.
Steve’s jinxed weekend began halfway round the pre-ride when his left-hand crank arm fell off. After much searching around in the mud until we found all the pieces, we abandoned the pre-ride and headed for the Shimano gazebo to fix his bike, which didn’t leave us enough time before the rider briefing to complete the rest of the pre-ride: the second part of lap 1 for each of us would be ‘blind’.
We decided on a 2 lap strategy, and I drew the short straw and had the pleasure of the Le Mans-style start, an 800m run to pick up the bike followed by the opening lap. Looking for a reasonable start to avoid getting stuck in single track blockages, the run went well, and the field soon spread out over the first few minutes of flat racing. Approaching the first climb however, roughly 75% of riders had gone off far too quicky and were walking up it, meaning those like me who wanted to ride it had to politely request they move out of the way between gasps for breath. The course proved to be as much fun as we had hoped, with plenty of overtaking possibilities, loads of high-speed corners and a mix of surfaces.
One of the highlights of the lap was what we called ‘the corkscrew’, a series of inter-linked 180 degree turns up and down hill, with cross-country horse fences to bounce off if you got things wrong. Another favourite was the penultimate descent, which soon gained a crowd of bloodthirsty spectators hoping for crashes and heckling/supporting those racing, depending upon how they rode the downhill and the sharp left corner immediately following it!
The first 2 laps were over soon enough, and it was time to use the well-designed change-over area, where riders continuing to another lap walked through the left side of the timing tent, and those finishing their stint used the right, walking with the bike to hand over the wristband baton to a team mate who could join the course further down the main straight.
The early part of our race proved to be uneventful, only enlivened by our only puncture of the entire event for Andrew. We were lucky to only pick up one – the thorn hedges were freshly cut and I lost count of the number of riders changing tubes by the side of the track.
Andrew, Roger and Steve all completed their first sets of doubles, and as dusk fell, it was my turn again. Unsure of how many watts I would need later on, it was possible to turn the lights off altogether on the open sections on lap 1, but lap 2 saw a mix of 5W and 15W in the singletrack, and even this wasn’t enough in places – time to invest in some new lights…… The night laps were great fun, except for being thrown over the handlebars at 3mph when my back wheel jumped out of the frame – all the bumps must have loosened the QR. Had it happened 15 seconds earlier, in the midst of a 30mph gravel descent, it would have been a lot more painful! After another change-over to Andrew, I headed to bed for a quick 4 hour sleep, expecting to be out on course again at 4:10am roughly, so set my alarm for 3:45am.
Two more consistent stints from Andrew and Roger while I slept left Steve with his first night lap, and his cursed weekend continued. Not only did the forecast rain turn up as a short sharp shower, coating his bike and the course in mud, but his lights failed completely early in the lap. Even using other riders to illuminate the course, a few crashes resulted, and doing a second lap was not an option. Cue Steve riding to our pitch 30 minutes earlier than expected with the baton, and handing over to a still sleepy and half-prepared me. 20 minutes of delay and a swift Red Bull later, I was back on the course, which had miraculously dried and was hardly muddy at all.
Meanwhile, Andrew had slept really badly after his last session, so when I walked through the timing tent to hand-over to him, there was no-one there – he was still in his tent and in no fit state to go out. I did not fancy a third lap of my stint, and Roger and Steve were also sleeping, so we took an executive decision to have a break. Andrew got some breakfast and more sleep while I cleaned all the bikes, and we resumed with Roger’s stint, leaving Steve and Andrew to make up their missed laps later.
A quick position check from the commentary position at around 10am found us in 117th place after our 2.5 ‘lost’ hours with no-one on course, having dropped from 99th to 101st earlier. Time to get a move on..
With the sun shining and blue skies again, the final hours of the race were great fun. Andrew handed over to me at 1326 and, keen to get as many laps in as possible, I produced my fastest lap of the event to get through the timing tent with 3 minutes to spare, overtaking a number of lurkers enjoying the sunshine at the top of the last descent in the process. The final lap was very relaxed and with hardly any riders on course, the singletrack was flowing nicely, and all too soon I found myself crossing the line for the last time and receiving a handshake from Pat Adams. The 24 hours was over! We ended up 109th of 142, with the final lap bumping us up a few places.
For our first ever 24 hour event, it went pretty well, all things considered. The atmosphere for the whole race was really friendly, numerous overtaking places meant there was very little aggression in passing other riders, and the weather was great for most of the event. Granted, we didn’t manage to have a rider out on course for the entire 24 hours, and the 2.5-3 hours we lost could have been used for another 3 laps or so, but the whole team had fun and learned a lot.
Thanks to Pat Adams and everyone involved in organising such a great event, the marshals and support staff, Salsa/Thetford MTB Racing for fixing Steve’s brakes, and Shimano for adjusting malfunctioning gears.
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