It's Going to be a 24 Hour Mudfest!

[pinkbikes]

I've been looking forward to the Insomnia 24 Hour all year. Now it's almost here. My DH, friends and I have three teams and a solo entered. This is THE race that convinced me to forsake my "roadies only" policy and become a part-time mountain bike rider. I have been looking forward to it SO much!

And it's been raining NON-STOP for the last three days! It's going to be muddy and miserable! I've had a cold and I've shut my thumb (that'd be my SRAM shifter thumb) in the tailgate of the 4WD! I've just made a hole in the nail to drain out the blood (man that feels much better now!) but it's still going to be ouchy.

I can't believe after waiting for this race all year, that I am so unwell, wounded and under-prepared and it is going to have the sort of mud that just tears your legs off! What did I do? Spit at a nun or something?

How on earth am I going to find the fun in me to give this a go and get the team all excited? I'm usually the person in our group that does that!

[crazycanuck]

Blech! I hear ya on the weather..

Ya know what..Think of it this way. You & your team are out there giving it what ye got in the conditions. Others..are at home in bed thinking..hmm..i wonder what it would be like in the mudfest & gee..I wish i was there.

Give it a go & remember to smile Get some cowbells & pretend you're in a paddock of cows? Umm..oo..Make lots of noise & headbang?

I've been riding(road) in the rain to prepare myself just in case it's pouring on our 6hr as per last year..

[Drtgirl]

Once you get wet, you're wet. So nothing left to do except have fun and slop around in the mud! Enjoy-I'm sure you'll have some great stories to share

[pinkbikes]

Thanks guys!

At least we've had a couple of dry days, so it's not as bad as it could be. But they are forecasting more rain for tomorrow night and Saturday (clearing).

I suspect it will still be VERY muddy and it is supposed to be cold too! I think we've pretty much got to a point where so many people in our team are a bit under the weather health-wise that we've decided to go, ride, and eat until it stops being fun. Then we'll think long and hard about having a quiet sit, chat and drink. And then a sleep.

The weather Sunday is supposed to be lovely, so if it's at least not TOO muddy, we'll get out and play some more and just see how it goes. But there will be no pressure on anybody and we'll try to keep it just a fun weekend.

Roll on some good health and nice warm, dry weather racing with DUST not MUD!

[Andrea]

You have some good mud tires? I'm kinda fond of my IRD Fire Pros. I've got them set up tubeless, too, so I can run lower pressure without risking pinch flats.

[TrekJeni]

Mud???? Did someone say mud?????

Dirt, Sweat, Gears 12 Hour race
Fayetteville TN May 9, 2009.


First lap - 11 miles 5 hours and 29 minutes



Clean and ready for lap 2. My teammate has just gotten back from his lap. (We didn't do a Lap 3 - we drank beer instead with everyone else)




The PreWash

[pinkbikes]

Hahah! Yep - that's what I'm going to look like!

And it has been raining constantly for the last few hours. Supposed to clear in the morning! But the damage is already done.

I think we'll follow your lead - one lap each then sit and have a quiet drink and hope it fines up in the morning.

[crazycanuck]

Hey Pinkbikes, how did the event go????

[Andrea]

I was there!

[pinkbikes]

Oh my - it was fantastic. Now it's over and I've been able to put it all in perspective.

Let me see...

It was a mud fest! It was foul! It rained the whole night before and it was just soul-destroying to hear the mud grinding paste happily destroying bits of drivetrain and chewing out brakes.

But, our team rolled up anyway and decided to do a lap each to decide whether we kept going or sat down and enjoyed a nice camping weekend! (Sort of the TrekJeni option!) We all decided to keep going. We'd done three laps each when we chanced a look at the interim results to find we were coming third in the 6 person mixed teams. We made a pact to keep this a secret from the most competitive person in our team in case he started to ride us hard, but eventually caved in and told him. So he lined us up to do double laps through the night so we could get some sleep between rides - our worst fears realised!

I had a memorable and slow double lap at 1:30am with Meatloaf playing in one ear as I headed out. I enjoyed it well enough until my second lap, when terminal chain suck set in and it all locked up and sent me scrambling to unclip before I fell sideways in the mud! Then again. And again. Finally I had to admit I could not put any pressure on in granny and had to walk up all the rest of the hills. On one particularly torturously long and sticky hill my iPod started playing "Oh What a Night" and I almost sat down and laughed. What a night indeed!? Then, as I found I could spin along lightly in middle ring along the edge of the dam to the finish of the lap, on came Chris Rea singing "Driving Home for Christmas" which was just gorgeous as I headed back to all the lights of camp and the fairy lights I had put on our camp so I could find it easily! How "feel good" was that!? It really did look like Christmas!

When I woke up for my morning lap I was greeted with the news that we had crawled our way into second place. Well - the race was on then. I got out the old fire extinguisher and hosed off my drivetrain, loaded up with the right lube (I'd used the wrong one in the middle of the night for my double lap it seems - hence the chain suck in all the mud) and off we went.

After 24 hours it all came down to the last lap. We overtook the first place team at the very end of our second last lap and DH held them out to the end.

So after going out there expecting to have a crap weekend, we rode our way into first place by just being consistent and always having somebody out there no matter what. Everybody pulled their weight and put themselves out there. Our girls (the two of us) did the required third of the laps to qualify as a mixed team (if you drop below a third you get busted back into the all male category) which was very closely scrutinised by our competitors!

Unfortunately I got home with 6 buckets full of mudddy clothing and 4 pairs of muddy bike shoes, only to find that the washing machine had given up the ghost. So I still have buckets of muddy clothes that will be soaking until the repair man can come out on Friday! Bugger! But winners are grinners.....

[crazycanuck]

Good work Pinkbikes n team How much sleep did you get?

I'm quite surprised they allow Ipods..at all events here they're banned...

What's your next mtb event?

TJeni-THe distances at your enduro events seem quite long? Ours are normally 12-15km..Do your races state that you have to ride x number of consecutive laps or just x time?

I don't know if i'd survive an enduro up in the Northern Hemisphere..

[pinkbikes]

Got about an hour of doze before I went out for my double at 1:30am. Crawled into my sleeping bag (after a quick wash of my legs with a dustpan brush and a bucket of water, peeling off the arm warmers and a change of clothes) at about 3:30am and got up again at about 6am. Can't really say the stretch from 3:30 until 6 was all sleep but I did get some sleep in there. So I'd guess probably 2-3hours?

As for the iPod - I almost never wear one. I'm not a believer in wearing them on the road or at any time when you need your ears. They are not banned in our races that I am aware of (although this race was not run by MBTA) and I saw lots of people wearing them.

The one time I will make an exception is when I am riding in the wee small hours of the morning when the crowds are non-existent on the track. I find I can easily see when riders are coming up on me because of their lights. And I only put one ear in so I can hear whether the call is for track right or left. It just keeps me a little more focussed and sane (and awake).

Next MTB event will be some time off. I am riding in Cycle Queensland (9day tour) in September which will require some time on the tandem. Then I have the Anaconda Adventure Race on the Gold Coast (I'm doing the swim leg and a run at the end). And then I am doing the cycle leg for a team in the Noosa Triathlon - oh and the 100km Gold Coast Challenge. So the roadie and swimming are the order of the day for the next few months. I'll just be riding the MTB for fun for a while.

[crazycanuck]

PB..I've heard some of Ian's solo 12hr stories & he giggles at them now. Someone said hello to him whilst out there at 2am & has no recollection of anyone talking to him...

You certainly sound busy for the next few months.

We just have our 6hr, a few more club/state races, a 100km enduro(my mom, 2 aunts & cousin might arrive on the day of the event so we'll see if we're doing it...)& then the 12hr.

Hopefully the run leg of your Anaconda adventure race won't be as hard as the one over here

[pinkbikes]

Oh we do love to overload ourselves don't we?! Good luck with all that too!

I hope your rellos enjoy their visit. We have just sent members of our pretend Canadian family back home to Canada. Their daughter came out for a friend's wedding, fell in love with somebody she met at the wedding, moved out and married him two weeks ago. So they came out for the wedding. And a couple more of them look like moving out here next year so before long we'll have nobody to land on the doorstep of over there!

[TrekJeni]

[QUOTE=Andrea;441416]I was there!



Hi Andrea! Wasn't DSG chaos? I will always wear my t-shirt with pride. It's on the list of must do's for next year. It can't be as bad as this year was, can it?

TrekJeni