Moan, moan, gripe, whinge, moan, moan….

It’s Dave I felt sorry for. Despite my near-constant barrage of whining about my sore back, running over a rabbit, my sore hamstrings, being hit by a sparrow, my headache, being smacked in the face at 35mph by a bumble bee, my lack of climbing power and almost having my head taken off by a low-flying pheasant, we rode the entire route as a pair and he even afforded me the occasional rest at the side of the road by having the decency to get three separate punctures.

166 miles and 18,500 feet of ascent was never going to be easy, even if I’d been in great shape. Which I wasn’t. I’d been happily ‘ticking over’, wining and dining and ‘recovering’ for the past seven weeks following the World champs so this was a wake-up call. A kick up the arse and a clear message for me to pull myself together and get on with some proper training before I get a similar slapping from the rest of the 2012 races and events….

The punctures weren’t a complete surprise. Even though the weather on the day was fine, the flooding of the previous week had left vast mounds of gravel, mud, large stones and other debris all over the roads which made fast cornering tricky (or suicidal) and wasn’t particularly kind to lightweight road tyres. I got away with it somehow and didn’t have any punctures at all.

Each time a puncture was being fixed, someone would catch us up and ride past but we didn’t drop too far back. Our estimate is that we lost a good half hour on punctures alone but we still managed to roll back into Garstang in 4^th place (officially 4^th and 5^th place, but we got there at precisely the same time). The local wildlife breathed a sigh of relief as my bike was placed back in the boot of the car….

photo: Sportsunday

The Bowland Badass is a new event which includes pretty much every big hill within riding distance of Preston. Starting and finishing in an industrial estate in Garstang, it costs hardly anything to enter and includes three feed stations, full signage and cheery marshals at most of the major road crossings. Saying that the route is ‘hilly’ isn’t doing it justice at all.

Climbing-wise, it’s a bit of a horror. Arriving at the second feed station at 102-ish miles, knowing that you’ve still got 60-odd miles of Bloody Big Scary Hills to ride can put a bloke right off his carrot cake I tell thee.

The mud at this year’s Mountain Mayhem was beyond belief. Being dragged onto the camping field by a Land Rover on Friday afternoon, I was already imagining how horrific 24 hours of riding/walking around a ruined course was going to be – wheels not turning, huge, heavy lumps of wet earth stuck to every inch of lightweight racing bike…..urgh.

I didn’t fancy this. If anyone fancied a crack at the solo podium, they were bloody welcome to it. I’ve done races like this before and you’ve really got to want it to stand a chance of not sacking it off.

It continued to rain. We’d been here for 20 minutes and by now, everything was muddy. Even the caravan had been sprayed by the car wheels of an idiot.

Grumpy.

In the morning, I slipped and slid over to the sign-on tent. “Might as well get on with it” I thought. Yeah, really motivated to push myself right now, I don’t think. I went to pick up some cyclocross tyres from Brant at the On-One stand. Brant was having his breakfast so I sat down for a natter and a moan.

“I’ll give you this”, he pushed a large wad of tenners across the table “if you ride the On-One fat bike for the whole race”.

This immediately sounded like fun. I’d lose any chance I may have had of a podium finish, but I’d probably enjoy myself a lot more and I’d earn a few quid. Oh, and it’d be a good story to tell.

We shook hands and sealed the deal. I think Brant might have been surprised.

I was taken to meet my fat companion for the next 24 hours.

She was fat alright. Designed for expeditions in deserts and arctic tundra, the 4 inch tyres of a fat bike run at pressures around 6psi and as you can imagine, they’re pretty comfy but not the fastest thing on earth. A bit like sitting on an inflatable armchair. She was also a singlespeed. I amended my entry details in case I was in with a chance of a singlespeed category win or something (you know, in the event of all the other singlespeeders going back to bed).  I put my three race-prepped, gleaming, lightweight bikes back in the car and pulled on the lycra.

For some reason I lined up for the run near the front.

For some reason I gave it full beans in the run.

For some reason I rode the first lap as fast as I could and I think I was in about 5^th place in the solo category. The bike was pretty hard work on the climbs (I was pushing/running up the big ones) but on the flat and going downhill it was hilariously good. Just leave the brakes alone and hold on.

Pic: Dieter

I found myself steering with the rear tyre on purpose quite a bit, every time the back end started to slide on the surface of the mud I was able to just let it go until the bike was pointing in generally the right direction then I just started pedalling.

Luckily, I was also wearing fell running shoes (the bike had flat pedals) so I was able to run/march/trudge uphill in deep mud quite effectively.

Pic: Hazza B

I was enjoying the ‘race’ when many others were justifiably getting a bit upset by it all. If I’d have been racing properly I’d not have been happy either. As the rain started to fall during the night, I stopped for a cup of tea at the Team JMC pit and attempted to stretch my back. I was in a bit of pain by now as the bike was pretty heavy and it was running a pretty tall gear. I rested for a while before setting out again after sunrise, by now the mud was in many places very, very wet and wasn’t sticky at all. As the sticky mud fell off the tyres the bike started to make sense, smashing through huge puddles of muddy water, creating huge waves that would get a wakeboarder excited , blasting across slippery roots and plummeting down hills as though they weren’t there at all. I was overtaking people! Nobody was calling me ‘insane’ any more 😉

Another cup of tea, another lap.

Pic: Neil

Rode a lap with Deb, who was taking part in her first bike race in the Team JMC ladies’ team. Tried to convince her that not all 24 hour races are this muddy.

Had a cup of tea and a pork pie.

Rode another lap. Mud was now really sticky again and the rear wheel stopped turning round. My bike became impossible to shift as I couldn’t lift it out of a rut because it weighed as much as a car.

Got to a rideable bit. Crushed everything in my path. Raced someone down a hill who was mocking my choice of bike. Annihilated him without any real effort J

Pic: Hazza B

Finally got to the end of the race having ridden six long and at times, very slow laps but I’d loved every minute of it. Collected my dirty cash from Brant and rode across the line with it in my teeth.

I’ve needed a ‘non-race’ for a while now. Hats off to the guys and girls that took Mayhem seriously this year – those conditions were at times as tough as I’ve ever seen them in a 24 hour race –  as far as I was concerned though, I’m chuffed to have had a great time just having fun when the weekend could quite easily have been all about “grinding out a respectable result”. I was a bit sad to hand the fat bike back at the end but hopefully we’ll meet again.

pic: Budge

…While we’re on the subject of ‘taking it seriously’, the Team JMC vets team of Phil, Budge, Lee and Andy took 2^nd place, the ladies’ team were 6^th and Dave was 9^th in the solo despite going to bed for a bit 😉

oh and despite not trying very hard at all I somehow managed to finish 4th singlespeeder. At least I would be if the results get sorted out 🙂

Photo: Andy Chadwick

It seems to take longer and longer to recover from anything these days. A few years ago I’d be able to ride two 24 hour races pretty much back-to-back – admittedly I probably wasn’t applying myself to the task in hand with the level of intensity that I’m doing at the moment, but still, I definitely take a while to heal nowadays.

The aftermath of arguably the hardest 24 hour race I’ve ever done – the 24 Hours of Finale – has included a persistent bad back and hamstrings that feel like they’ve suddenly become six inches shorter. Stretching and massage is helping, however once again the clock is ticking and there’s only a couple of weeks left before the next big 24 hour race, Mountain Mayhem.

In hindsight, a nine hour ride with Dave at the weekend was probably pushing my luck a little bit. Pretty much all off-road, the route was one of my regular training routes – basically Winter Hill to Lee Quarry with all the hills and bridleways in between. Once complete, we had a coffee and a panini on the Costa Del Bacup and then we rode the whole route again in reverse. It wasn’t ‘daft’ like some of our previous adventures but it was long enough and rugged enough to fall into the ‘slightly silly’ category – my aches and pains came knocking at the door after seven or so hours and stayed with me until I was able to get home and reach for the foam roller…..

Putting aside any concerns about my body’s ability to last another 24 hours at this stage, I’m determined to enjoy Mayhem and approach the race in relaxed fashion after the tense build-up to Finale.

All the ingredients for an enjoyable event are there – the Team JMC/On-One/Clif pit will be as packed with friends, family, kids and pets as usual, there are two soloists (me and Dave) and two teams (men’s and women’s) all taking part, there will be the usual chances to catch up with friends only seen at bike races and the weather will be scorching hot and sunny as usual 😉

I’m a bit of a stickler for detail when it comes to preparing for 24 hour races. I put far too much time into getting my body into some kind of shape to be able to do even reasonably well in these things to mess it all up because I’ve forgotten something, or have something break without a spare. I write lists. I have big training plans. I get grumpy when things happen at the last minute. I do pretty much everything I can to give myself a fair shout at a good result and to repay some of the generosity of my various sponsors.

Sometimes I threaten to take the fun out of it. Sometimes I have to stop and give myself a slap for taking the fun out of it. Sometimes friends stop me and give me a slap for taking the fun out of it. Good on them.

Sometimes it all pays off, sometimes it doesn’t. That’s just the way things are. If it goes wrong, there’s always the next race. I’m normally riding five or six 24 hour solos a year anyway.

That’s what I usually do.

Ever since I won Relentless 24 in October last year and was given an entry and flights to the World Championship, this race has dominated my thoughts and pretty much everything I’ve done on the bike. It’s fair to say that I’ve a lot of commitments in my life and I’m not going to get too many chances to take part in a properly big race outside the UK when the kids need shoes, the gas bill needs paying and the cat needs litter.

The fact that this race was happening in Finale Ligure, arguably one of the most beautiful and as I discovered, warm and friendly parts of Europe, was a bonus.

I had to do well. I had to be able to stand confidently on the start line without my usual thoughts of “I’ve not really done enough training for this” and it was imperative that I came away certain that I gave the race everything I possibly could. None of the usual “if only I’d not stopped for that 10 minutes I might have finished higher”.

I trained harder than I’ve ever done. I stuck to a plan as though my life depended on it. I lost some excess weight. I worked on my core strength as though it was the most important thing in the world. I did things properly. I ate beetroot.

Far from taking things too seriously, I was treating it with the gravity it deserves. I was approaching the whole race as though it would be my last.

Once in Italy a few days before the race and the weather forecasts became more certain I decided how I would deal with the race, discussed it with Michael (who would be manning the pit with Angela) and arranged my kit, lights, spares and food. A failed rear brake on the spare bike the day before the race meant a rushed trip to a local bike shop for a cheap disc brake and a missed opportunity to pre-ride the course. A little voice in my head was shrieking “omen! Omen! OMEN!” but I ignored it and prepared some more.

Race was to be ridden fast. No slacking. No long pit stops. Keep total stop time less than five minutes if possible. No fannying around with treats and hot drinks. Just head-down and suffer. Gels, Shot Bloks, carb mix drink. Small, pre-cut pieces of protein bar. The minimum variety of fuel I need in quantities large enough to (as much as possible) remove the chance of blowing up. I’ve got an iron stomach, now was the time to use it.

This pratting around moving things from pile to pile, nervously folding and unfolding small items of clothing carried on until everything was moved to the race site and it was all laid out neatly next to Phil’s and Dave’s kit in the union jack and Elizabeth II portrait-decorated gazebo.

Finally, the time to line up for the short run to start the race arrived. The three of us, me, Dave and Phil, were quieter than usual. I expect they were both as focussed as I was.

I arrived at the end of the run near the front and fought to stay near the sharp end, my limited knowledge of the course told me that it wouldn’t be long before we were riding narrow singletrack and the chances of overtaking would be few. Not a bad start. First job done.

The course was very technical. Lots of slow-speed tricky sections and lots more high-speed sections with consequences for getting things wrong. I was a severe disadvantage here, knowing full well that my technical skills aren’t anywhere near as good as many of the other riders. I had to make up for the perceived shortfall by smashing every climb. Ignore the HR monitor, I was going to have to risk pacing this one by going as quickly as possible uphill but then try to recover going back down.

Fortunately, and I think I might be unique in thinking this, there was a lot of climbing so I had plenty of chances to turn that negative into a positive. Over 400 metres per lap is a lot when you multiply that by 21.

The first few laps were a blur of “I’m going too fast and I’m going to die on my ass” worries and big crashes. I think I had four large spills onto sharp pointy rocks and gained some impressive cuts and bruises that I collected dirt in for the remaining 20 hours.

The bike, an almost brand new On-One Lurcher, wasn’t taking any prisoners though and contrary to popular belief that carbon bikes aren’t ‘trail-ready’, this thing seems to be invincible. And thank God I had a bike with a suspension fork on this course!

The brutality of the course started to take its toll on my back. All the climbs were very loose surfaces so there was very little opportunity to stand up as I would normally do, so it was looking like 24 hours of seated climbing. How nice. Good job I’d been practising those then. I was getting more confident on the downhills too, the various 30mph+, narrow, tree-lined, cliff-edge fast bits were despatched in the same increasingly-confident and relaxed way as the 90-degree slow-speed rocky drops (on the obligatory cliff edge) bits.

It was going well, this.

Deb told me that I was in 8^th. Then 7^th. Then 6^th. Stayed in 6^th for a bit. Caught the German lad in 5^th and rode with him for a while and then ride away from him at some point during the night.

I saw fellow Brit Craig Bowles up ahead and got a move on. I knew he was in front of me so if I could pass him cleanly and put in a gap, I’d continue the upward trend.

By dawn I’d ridden past most of the race and was sat in second place – the only guy in front of me now was multiple world champion and Australian Marathon Champion Jason English. He was miles off in front so no chance of catching him, but bloody hell eh? Second!

There was hours to go. Six, maybe seven hours in fact. I was really struggling now. For the next few hours I’d struggle around the course, my earlier enthusiasm and focus often drifting away, thoughts turning to ‘how much longer?’. I had to focus. It started to rain. Hard. The course became even trickier.

Occasionally I’d have a fairly good half lap after a drink of protein or a Clif Turbo gel, but generally the tough climbing and the unfamiliar heat was taking its toll on my body and mind. Sensing this and with only a couple of hours left, Craig Bowles’ pit crew alerted him to the fact that he had a chance to reclaim second place and he immediately rode faster to claw back over ten minutes. Deb and Michael then told me this less-than-wonderful news and I knew right then that I needed one more fast lap. I had to go anaerobic for over 11 miles immediately after riding pretty hard for 23 hours. Was this even possible? Michael handed me two caffeine gels, I stood on the pedals with the sound of loud cheers from almost the entire pit lane and I got the hell out of there.

That last lap was the second fastest I rode in the whole race. I’ve no idea how I survived but I did and I rode to second place overall.

Better than I expected, then 😉

Dave and Phil also finished in the top ten, Dave having a few physical and ‘falling off a cliff’ problems early on to scorch the final two hours to overtake 8 riders in front of him to finish 8th, Phil riding a controlled and perfectly-paced race to finish in seventh place.

A round of applause to Fraser, Spook and Chloe at No Fuss Events for making my passage to Italy possible in the first place, to all my ace sponsors, Team JMC, On-One Bikes, Mount Zoom, Exposure Lights, Squirt Lube and 2Pure and extra special thanks to those of you that have helped make the whole trip possible/more enjoyable – Andy and Jane Chadwick, Phil (for translating, being a brilliant training buddy and for generally sorting things out in Italy), Michael, Angela, Deb and Jacqui for being the best pit crew imaginable and to everyone that supported us all during the race via the magic of the Internet.

As for the race, the 24 Hours Of Finale, as it turned out, was one of the most enjoyable, and yet completely brutal, races I’ve ever had the privilege of taking part in. Both laid-back and extremely competitive at the same time, the amazing course is immense fun to ride at first and then becomes a real test of endurance as the physical demands take their toll. It’s also pretty cool watching portaloos being flown to the various marshal points by helicopter…..

 ^results 

‘official’ video

It seems like longer than a year since I last did the Enduro 6. Maybe I deliberately blocked it from my mind following last year’s puncture-fest or perhaps the fact that I seem to have ridden the course at Catton Park so many times over the years that things are simply becoming too familiar.

If I’m honest, my head wasn’t in this race at all from the start. After the short , elbows-out run, the first lap was brilliant – I was riding my new On-One Lurcher for pretty much the first time ever and I felt like I was flying. The bike was doing everything I wanted, it felt as fast as anything else I’ve ridden and it had the added novelty of a suspension fork. Comfort! Grip! More comfort! Everything was ace right up until the point, around a mile into lap one, that my rear tubeless tyre sprung a leak. Here we go again. The Catton Park Curse.

Back to the pit, a few minutes lost (Dave rode off into the distance as I slowed to ride two-thirds of a lap on the rim), onto the spare bike. 2 more laps. Slower this time. Not really pushing hard. Didn’t really know why, similar to my state of mind at the 12 hour champs a few weeks ago, I just wasn’t interested in racing. That said, at UK12 I did at least manage to pull my finger out a bit plus I had the excuse that I had a cold. I’ve no idea what was going on this time though.

Lap 4. Really losing interest now. Lap times extending into proper ‘slow’ territory. Massive swamp next to a ploughed farmer’s field starting to really piss me off. Sticky, draggy mud also getting right on my wick.

Extended pit stop. Moaned a bit. Sighed and set off again.

Phil tells me I’m in 5^th place. Whatever.

Rode some more laps, regularly checking my watch. Clockwatching! In a bike race! Jesus.

Deb told me that Dave was also struggling to keep his mind on the job. I suspected he was bloody miles in front of me by now (he was) but that made me feel a bit better, in a “maybe I’m not having a crisis after all” kind of way.

Did something on my last lap that I’ve never done before – I ‘lurked’ to avoid going out for yet another lap of sticky, spirit-sapping mud. I’d done my prescribed-by-the-training-plan 6 hours of riding a bike today, however  I still felt like one of the morons who leave the stadium before the end of the football match. What was the bloody point in coming if you’re not going to at least give it 100% attention all of the time? Oh well.

Dropped to 11^th place.

I’ve never had such a spectacular loss of focus in a race before. It wasn’t even a long race as such.

Still dwelling on the ‘result’ and worrying about how I would find my ‘old steely resolve’ in time for Finale Ligure, I swapped the mountain bike for the road bike and rode a hilly 100-ish miles the day after the Enduro 6 to prove to myself I’ve still got long distances in my head as well as in my legs.

I rode a route that included as many hard roads, big climbs and big views as possible – legs felt great, the forecasted rain didn’t appear, I didn’t get lost once and I started to feel better and more optimistic.

After one of the most enjoyable afternoons on a bike I’ve ever had, I’m pleased to report that my riding mojo returned as quickly as it faded. The big test comes in two weeks’ time….