News flash - 24 hour racing is actually fun!

. . . if the weather is great, you have a good support crew, the course is fun, you have no mechanicals, you win your division, and you only bonk really hard once during the race.
Happily I can report that all of these conditions were met. Billy and I each completed twelve laps of the 8.25 mile course - the other two teams in the two-man singlespeed division each did only sixteen laps. We were third out of all the two-person teams, and 31st overall out of >100 teams.

We started the race pulling two laps at a time, and we were able to do ~50 minute laps for the first six or eight hours. This allowed us to bank a bunch of time against our goal of averaging 1-hour laps. Happily, we maintained our riding pace at about that level throughout the night, so we took a 1-hour break for breakfast (bacon and eggs, mmmmmmm). We each pulled a 3-lap turn overnight, to allow for more rest between turns. My loaner HID light set was really nice - my lap times overnight were not hampered by visibility, only by fatigue. I made a conscious effort to not hammer on the carriage road sections of the course, knowing that I could burn myself out too early. The consistency of our lap times from 8pm to the finish suggests that this was a good strategy, though it begs the question, should I have pushed a little harder? I bet we coulda' gotten 25 laps in. . .

I was extremely pleased with the reliability of our equipment - the only issue was Billy's one flat tire. My just-built rear wheel (with a fancy White Industries ENO eccentric hub) performed just fine, and my chain didn't fall off once (goodbye tensioner! Ben, I'll send yours back, I don't need it anymore - thanks for the loan).

It was great to be so well matched as a team - our lap times were within a couple of minutes of each other throughout the race, and we each pulled our weight. Billy was running a 32/18, and I ran a 34/18, and I think our gear choices reflected our relative strengths. Billy's a marvel at the technical stuff, and I was able to haul on all the carriage road sections. There were a couple of singletrack sections that I never really got wired, but it was fun to ride the same trails 12 times in a row and settle on the best line. The course was about 70% carriage roads and 30% fun singletrack.

The race was a great excuse to eat a lot, too - we had a huge variety of goodies, because it's hard to say what you might crave after a 24 mile bike ride in the middle of the night. My appetite stayed elevated well after the race, but I think now I'm just using it as an excuse to overeat - I don't really have to replenish any more calories because of the race.

Next up, 'cross season! And the daily excitement of Boston traffic, of course.

Climbing and Narcissism

There is this really good Radio West interview with David Roberts, author of On the Ridge Between Life and Death: A Climbing Life Reexamined that can be found here. I found the interview really compeling and a very trenchant critique of climbing, climbing culture, and why people climb. He strikes on many troubles I have presently with climbing and cuts through many cliche notions people pass off, he argues, to cover up indulgence and narcissism. I'm not sure what I think of his entire thesis (I'm not going to go into everything that I think about it), but it certainly stimuliates thought.

-w

Fat tire "fun"

Just thought I'd share my nervous energy with y'all - I'm racing in the 24 hours of Great Glen starting tomorrow at noon, teamed with fellow single-speeder Billy Vandervalk of the Cape-Able bike shop in Kennebunkport, ME. I've had about a month to prepare, which is when the training guides all say "your endurance base should be all set, now just do some fast rides and keep motivated." And this week has been all tapering. Ben, you'll recognize my training strategy - it's been loosely based on the one we used in preparation for our stellar performance in the Elk Mountains.
In the name of conditioning I did do a mountain bike race last weekend, a 24-miler that consisted of approximately 18 miles of barely-rideable root-fest, generally laid out such that if you put your foot down it meant walking the next 1/4 mile until the next reasonably smooth and flat section. So that happened. It was actually "fun," though.
I'll let you know how it goes. Today I'm just trying to keep my fuel tank topped off and not daydream too much.