24 Hour ride report

This weekend was a big one for me.

The 24hr events are my favourite, and I have been looking forward to this one from November.

We heard a while back that the venue will be moved from Wiesenhof to Oak Valley. This was going to be interesting as Oak Valley is an unknown to me. The Cape Epic always stops there, and I have ridden there before, but the loops I have ridden before doesn’t cater for 24hr style lap racing, so we’d be riding unknown territory.

24hr racing entails riding as many laps of a course as possible in 24hours. Simple really, but very masochistic. I love it. It can be done in teams in a relay format, but I choose to hurt myself more by doing it solo. Yes, alone…

 The loop for Oak Valley was 9km with slightly over 100m of climbing. Not much on its own but it adds up to a lot when racing this for a full day.

I pulled in at OV early Saturday morning to set up camp and to ready myself for the day ahead. My mother packed in two cooler boxes of food and drinks to sustain me for the ordeal ahead. This included lots of baby potatoes, steak, sandwiches, ice water and biltong. For an event like this the idea is to sustain yourself with “normal” food as much as possible and not to use to many energy bars and gels. I have to give my mom kudos’ here, she came to the party brilliantly. I was spoiled for choice.

My strategy for the weekend was to start of at a very chilled pace and not to worry about laps in the afternoon. Last year I struggled to get a rhythm going until early Sunday morning, and this year I didn’t want to fall in the trap if this happened again by forcing laps that shouldn’t happen. I’d rather make up the laps in the dark and on Sunday morning.

The race started with a bang with the teams and racing snakes speeding off into the hot midday sun. I had no illusions of grandeur and started 5 minutes after everyone with a slow lap accompanied by John and Hanri (John of http://road2theepic.blogspot.com/ fame.) Last year it took me 18 hours to catch Hanri and I really wanted to win her this year…

We cruised around the lap chatting and singing Biffy Clyro (weird, I know, especially for so early in the race.) the first half of the lap was all climbing, until we reached a dam and some familiar singletrack. From here on it was pretty much balls to the wall with only a few flat sections and short steep climbs to break the long descent back to the race village.

Me almost taking out the camera man. photo by Photobay.com

The Oak Valley loop was a lot smoother than the one at Wiesenhof but also way less technical. This made for fast laps with the fastest laps being around the 20mins mark (I was never close to this.)

On the second lap I started sensing that my back wheel was losing air. This was not good news. I made it back to camp without drama and pulled in to have a look. It seems the Maxxis Crossmark tyre (worst tyre ever) had punctured and the Stans sealant didn’t do its usual magic. Not wanting to struggle with this I quickly took off the cluster and put on a new back wheel. I came prepared.

Form here on the afternoon blurred a bit into heat, laps, more heat, singletrack, climbing, more heat, sandwiches, lots of ice bottles, gravel road, vineyards, lots of lekker singletrack and more food. I was once again struggling to get a good rhythm but managed to still do lap after lap, albeit slowly and with breaks between every lap. I even jumped into the dam when the heat and exhaustion combined to threaten my legs with cramps. The cold water worked wonders, and in the intense heat setting off with wet cycling clothes helped a lot. At about three o’clock my blood sugar dropped through my feet and I was struggling. I was weaving all over the road on the climbs and almost missed some of the corners on the downhills. I was in trouble. I pulled in to the camp and downed about a liter of coke and fanta, the idea was to spike my blood sugar to get it back up. From here on I drank Enduren energy and water the whole time. It worked and I recovered. Enduren is now known as Kaptein Flipper- thanks Heino, you are a legend.

 

Styling it up for the camera. Photobay.com

Somewhere in the afternoon my mom arrived to help me as my support crew, between her and John’s parents we were well looked after. It was pretty cool to pull in after every lap for a quick talk and some food, and seeing their smiles really helped with motivation.

I also tried as much as possible to ride with other people on laps to break the monotony. I did laps with Myra and the Tipsy tarts, with Freddie (also from road2theepic.com fame) and with Werner Joubert. Riding with Werner helped a lot as he pushed me through the mental blocks on the last three laps of my afternoon session, his lekker conversation and encouragement pushed me through the three hardest laps of the race. He is also doing the Cape Epic soon and used the 24hr as two monster days of back to back riding. At sunset he already clocked 14 laps and I was on 9 laps. As the sun set we decided to pull in for dinner.

I whipped out the gas stove and braaied me some steak. It was only when I opened the picnic basket that I realised how brilliantly my mother prepared. It was at this stage that Hanri’s friend Nicoline arrived and I was able to treat her to a romantic dinner of steak and steak. Unfortunately there was no candles. (I’ll remember that for next year.)

The race village. Photo by Ewald Sadie

After dinner I set up my lights while Astrid and Nicoline tuned my music selection for the night laps. Riding so long on your own starts to mess with your head, and spending so much time in your own thoughts while trying to negotiate tricky sections at speed in the dark is not exactly ideal. So I opted to use my ipod for the night laps. Loaded with a lekker mix of dance music, hip-hop, rack and gospel it worked brilliantly.

My lights was a combination of a Magiclight on the handlebar and a Petzl headlamp on the helmet. When using Magiclights the headlamp pretty much fades into insignificance, but when climbing and riding slowly I switched off my handlebar light to preserve it’s battery and to keep it’s temperature down. (they get really hot.) for climbing the headlamp was enough. The combination worked brilliantly. With about three hours of night riding both lights still have about 75% battery life remaining.

The night laps was awesome. The combination of steak, music and colder temps had me putting in some of my fastest laps of the race. By now I had the course dialed and could klap it on the downhills in the dark. I was feeling strong and capitalised on it. At one stage I thought I could ride through the night, but at about 12o’clock I was struggling to stay awake and the hallucinations were getting weird. I was weaving all over the road again and couldn’t concentrate anymore. On top of the climb I saw someone walking back on the course. I stopped and it turned out that he broke his chain. We fixed it and I had a pretty surreal moment. It is only in 24hr racing where I’d be fixing a stranger’s chain on a wine farm surrounded by the most beautiful stars with a bunch of riders whizzing past you. At one stage I could make out 10 riders making their way down the singletrack left of my with another big group of lights approaching.  It was magical, but it was also time for bed. The rest did help me to get my wits together and I managed to make it back safely.

I finished the lap, checked in at the timing table to see I was on 13 laps. I was happy with this and went off to shower and have a protein shake. I was in bed by 1o’clock. I was pretty broken by this stage and really needed the sleep. Sometime between me going to bed and waking up at half past 5 Hanri set off for her second session. By this stage she was in front of me (again) and we realised she had a very strong chance of reaching the podium. I also made peace with the fact that she owned my ass on this race.

I set off just after 6 after John’s mother (bless her soul) fed me some muesli and meat. By the second lap I was awake and feeling strong again. I fell into rhythm and things just clicked in my head. I was feeling relatively strong and pushed on. I soon realised that I’d comfortably reach my goal of 20 laps (I did 19 at Wiesenhof last year) and set my sights on 22laps.

Sunday morning riding. photobay.com

I started stringing in the laps. By about half past 10 I reached 20 laps and realised if I played my cards right I’d be able to do 23laps. I just had to finish my 22^nd lap before 12. (you only count as a finisher if you finish the race after 12,) so now I switched over to Gu gels and ignored the piranha’s that were chowing their way through the skin on my ass. Sitting down hurt my ass, standing up hurt my legs and by now my palms and shoulders were also tired and sore. It didn’t matter, I just had to do it. At the end of lap 20 I herd my dad shouting at me in the forest. This was awesome as it was only 5 days after he had his knee replaced. He was still supposed to be in hospital, but lo and behold he was walking towards me to give me a high-5. This blew my mind a bit, but also inspired me to push beyond all my pain. I grabbed bottles, said hi to my mom, and pulled out all the stops. I knew I’d make 23 laps and I felt like an conqueror. I raced thought the start/finish area past the cheering crowd, and promptly slowed right down when no one could see me anymore. By riding these two laps conservatively I theoretically would pull in just before 12 to go for the final lap.

I surprised myself a bit and finished lap 22 by a quarter to 12. The last 3 laps were all under 30mins and with a mixture of coke, water and Kaptein Flipper in my bottles the last lap only hurt a little bit. I finished my lap and my race and I haven’t felt this great after a race in a very long while. I was spent, tired, my body hurt like hell but I was happy. I was also very hungry. Nothing 2 Spur burgers couldn’t fix. They tasted extra good.

Hanri eventually ended 2^nd lady and 5h overall. Only Hanlie Booyens and the top 3 guys beat her. She did 31 laps. Well done Hanri.

All in all the weekend was a great success. The Dirtopia crew pulled off the new venue brilliantly. I smashed my goal laps in the face, for next year goal is 32 laps. I want to beat Hanri, and end up on the podium as well. With decent training and preparation I can achieve this. I had a great weekend on the bike and off the bike. 24hour races are awesome!

PS: it took me 4 days to recover my sleep…

In two weeks I plan to race the African Continental Single Speed Championship. Will be building my old frame into a single speed on saturday. Should be interesting.

Happy trails everyone.

Peace