Sleepless in the Saddle

A few weekends ago ago it was SitS, a 24 hour MTB race at Catton Park. We did it as a mixed team. Very mixed in fact, 3 on singlespeeds, two on gears, and the girly member was on her first ever 24. I haven't done a team 24 for a couple of years, and this was a great way to get back into it.

The course was rolling, fast (early on), with some great twisty singletrack that was deep in dust. It was just technical enough for decent riders to have a blast riding it flat out and easy enough for everyone else. I'd just got used to two wheel drifts on dusty bends when I set out on a dusk lap and it started drizzling. It got very slick very soon, and the dust started to get very sticky. I got back and handed over to my team mate before things got too bad, but a few hours later I had a lap from hell. Big 2.3" tyres and not much clearance on a Reba fork meant I was pushing lots and at worst, my wheels were locking up with claggy mud every 10 metres. Trudge, stop, clear tyres, trudge, stop clear tyres .... it was a long long lap, but I kept a smile on my face.

The team held it together really well, and kept going all through the night. Lots of teams gave up, the handover area was almost deserted at one point. Pathetic really. It was a pretty chilled out effort, we even stopped using the handover area for the last 12 hours and just rode back to the campsite to pass on the baton, but we still got 18th out 94. Either we were pretty quick or the opposition were really poor.

We all had a cat on the handlebars, not live ones (at least not by the end). It's something to do with the murky virtual world that our team captain inhabits on Bikemagic and his twisted wit, and I'm not sure I understand it. At least it gave me someone to talk to in the grimmest parts of my hell lap. Some hallucinating soloist shouted 'Hey, nice bear' at one point.

SitS - great event, good course, fab team, all very lovely really. And I passed shit loads of other riders on my laps. It makes me feel fast and fit, but really it's just them that are slow and a bit rubbish.