Red Bull mountain mayhem was back, 24 hour relay racing at Sandwell Park. This was the fifth time that it has be held. It lived up to its predecessors as a great event, good course, well organised and fine weather. The event village was full of trade trucks and stands all showing their latest wares. Shimano, Magura, Hope, Fibrax, Weldtite and I'm sure others were all offering bike servicing. This is truly a bike event for all. There were 280 teams and 82 solo entries. Giant World Team lead by Rune Hoydahl made a return after winning in 2001, my team Helly Hansen - Giant has full of experienced 24 hour eventers (a combined 17 events) and some good shop teams had been put together.

At 2pm on Saturday the gun fired by the local mayor and we all charged off on the initial 800m run. Some competitors had chosen running shoes and other had opted to use cycling shoes so they did not have to change before setting out on the biking. I went for cycling shoes, I was well down after the run but as soon as I was on my bike I knew why I'm a cyclist, within 300m I had moved up to 2nd place! Our plan was for a fast few laps, Rune was on my wheel for most of the lap, we returned to the start area after 40 minutes. Rune continued for another lap where my Helly Hansen team changed over to Paul Oldham. Paul stayed with Rune for 3/4s of the lap before he opened a small gap. This is how it stayed pretty much for the next 24 hours. Giant World Team were just going that little bit faster than us and we were going a little bit faster than the other teams. We went for a strategy of changing every lap to keep the pace high. At night we split into two pairs and rode three alternate laps, so we could all get a bit of a rest. On Sunday morning we were trying to countdown how many laps we would have to do before the 2pm finish. As it turned out I had to go out on another lap at 1:45pm, this was my 10th lap, for company oddly I had Rune with me again (as I had 24 hours before), Giant had just caught us for a lap. I was being egged on by the team to finish in front of him as this would mean were weren't actually lapped!

It was another great event which in a funny sort of way everyone seemed to enjoy. Who said mountain biking was dieing?

         








          
             Elite Men's Podium
 

        Elite Men                                                                            Elliott's prize

 To the top of page
 

        Press to return to home page