Mountain Bike Race Report - 2010

 

"The Stira is a lunchfest, they're being eaten alive up there!"

 

I'm waking up at 6am in the boot of my own car after 3 hours of fitful sleep, the voice is that of Kev who is outside the window bathed in sweat, a strange fuzzy cloud surrounding him. What is this insanity? What the hell is he talking about? Surely I'm dreaming. Nope, this is 16 hours into the second Gaelforce 24hr Cycling Enduro.

 

The Soggy Bottom expeditionary force invaded Mayo for the summer solstice weekend, emboldened by a near-miss with 3rd position in the previous year's event we had scaled up our operation, establishing a basecamp on Friday night. SBB headquarters now featured a mess-tent, kitchen and a warm-up/down lounge with turbo-trainer. Sure, we could have spent the interceding 8 months getting fitter, but we never let hard-work get in the way of better equipment. George had upgraded from his "festival special" to a monster four-man with a porch large enough to park a hatchback, whereas I had adopted a minimalist approach by bringing no tent, instead inflating a double airbed in the back of the Megane estate. The new infrastructure was complimented by a small cadre of staff, or more correctly a cadre of small staff, in the form of Shane and Jack Junior who made excellent runners, keeping the show on track and filming the entire spectacle for some future YouTube embarrassment.

 

A select group made a recon mission around the new course on Friday evening, finding a greatly improved lap for 2010. A nice flat warm-up leading into an undulating fire-road climb whose destination, "The Stira" (120m of granite steps necessitating shouldering of the bikes), was as fearsome as ever. Midway along the flat-out fire-road descent which made the previous year's course too tame, the course dived right, across some bogland which was mercifully bridged by a pontoon-like construction of pallets, then up onto the Bangor Trail. The descent from here was a real MTB dream, fast and technical, a narrow ribbon of path cutting through rock-gardens and bogland steps, alternative lines were abundant and attacking riding rewarded. There was plenty of danger available for those who wanted to push it but nothing crazy. The trail dipped into a small valley and over an awkward bridge before opening up into tight swooping singletrack along the river demanding a critical line to keep momentum all the way back to the start/finish run in. Overall the new trail was a great compromise, favouring neither baggy-shorted descending specialists nor carbon fibre mountain-goats. With the conditions set to be dry, this was going to be a good event.

 

Following deep sleeps induced by a large feed and several beers we woke on Saturday morning to perfect blue skies and began the ritual fettling. Alan was moved to give Kev's dusty steed the once over, tutting as he lubed the drivetrain and polished the frame, a great man for the dishes. It was a morning of nervous activity, tire pressures were debated, Camelbak volumes and energy drink ratios compared and the whiteboard was alive with sketches and schedules. The folks at Killary were as professional as usual, briefing us on the various obstacles to expect, which included a mass Honda 50 rideout, sleeping animals on the course and of course the ever-present sharp pointy rocks.

 

 

With fewer entries than the previous year (due to a combination of calendar conflict and a less challenging course in 2009) we set our sights on topping the overall lap count, which should be easy in theory for a larger team, but with exceptional athletes like Eoin Keith and Chris Caulfield in the mix, there's no easy challenge. And so we ticked off the laps, settling for a strategy which had us do frequent single lap stints at a high pace to get an early assault on the leaderboard. After a few hours we owned almost half the entries in the top 15 lap time chart and were well up the board. Kev had a tough start to the event, being volunteered for the Le Mans start run on lap 1 and puncturing 300m into his second he hadn't registered a quick lap but it was soon put right when he went out in anger for this third stint coming back with our second fastest time to date. For the want of a better description, the Soggy Bottom machine was running smoothly so far, but as we learned in 2009, it’s the hours after dark that really put the system to test.

 

At dusk we switched to a twin lap routine to permit longer rests and even some sleeping and as the light waned, so did discipline back at base. The dishes piled up, food was half cooked or half eaten (sometimes both), riders rummaged in bags for edible scraps and dogs roamed the tents, we were slipping from military precision to refugee camp as fast as were eating up the course, which was even more challenging by night. Despite being lit by our powerful lighting systems the lines looked different, obstacles weren't as obvious and the lap times suffered, dropping by up to 5 minutes per lap. This was the time that tested the mind as much as the body, fighting the desire for sleep, forcing oneself to eat, but most importantly, concentrating on the trail.

 

Kev was the first faller, heading over the bars high up on the rocky Bangor Trail, while two laps later I tumbled down the riverbank through the ferns on the single-track. Falling from your bike at night is a scary experience. Unable to see the ground onto which you are falling, you slip off into the darkness, the undergrowth flashing in front of your face, your arms and legs flailing, all the time wondering if you'll stop before the boulders. We were unscathed this time, but reminded nonetheless of the seriousness of the challenge at hand.

 

 

In the dawn light outside the car window, I could see that the cloud around Kev was in reality hundreds of tiny insects dive-bombing his face. He was covered in midges. This was an unexpectedly vicious addition to the event's challenges, the wind had dropped overnight and given the Nephin Mountain Midge population time to follow the scent of sweaty bikers back to the camp. As I crawled out of the car all around me were bikers swatting their heads and scurrying around the site as if suffering from some psychological plague. I had a nightmarish vision of the conditions up on The Stira, with reports of riders wiping sheets of hungry insects from their limbs. No-one relished the prospect of heading out protected by a thin layer of lycra but we hauled ourselves onto the bikes and out into the sunrise fortified by porridge and coffee.

 

Entering the closing stages we were on top of the leaderboard with 31 laps, but incredibly Eoin Keith was second to us by a lap and half. We had maintained our double lap regime into the morning so that we would have only a single session each on Sunday taking us close to the 24hr mark. However the incredible performance of the solo leader and a late burst of speed by the leading foursome "Devils and Dirt" left us with the possibility of having to send out a last man to cover our lead. We weren't in great mental shape to be doing any maths never mind facing the prospect of heading out for a final lap so we gathered anxiously at the transition area to assess the form of our competitors. The solo guys were facing each other down in a gruelling chess game. Eoin came across the line looking tired for the first time and much to our relief he hung up his Camelbak, banking his 31 laps for the event, and leaving it to George to polish off our last two laps for the leading total.

 

Wanted: Team of masseuses, must be available to travel to Mayo mid-June 2011.