Mountain Mayhem and Sleepless In The Saddle 2006

“It’s a 24-hour grueling, muddy, exhausting, twisty, uphill, gnarly, sleep-depriving, uplifting mountain biking kind of thing”

Over the summer months, riders from Southampton University Mountain Bike Club took part in two epic 24-hour off-road races. The format is pretty simple: four or five in a team…take turns to ride a lap of the course…repeat for 24 hours and see how far you get…

The first of the events was the aptly-named Mountain Mayhem at Eastnor Castle in the Malvern Hills; some 2000 riders took part and SUMBC had three teams entered. We arrived on the Friday night and set up camp; this was to become the centre of activity for all things bike-, food- and sleep-related. After a morning of soaking up the festival atmosphere among demonstrations and endless promotions, the 2pm start time was upon us.

One start line, 500 riders…how does that work?! The answer, a Le Man-style 800m run to pick up your bike. The course itself was just over 7 miles in length and consisted of over 300m of climbing. The varied terrain included stony fire road, uneven singletrack through dense forest, power-sapping uphill grassy sections, a water-splash stream crossing and steep twisting descents through scrub land.

Saturday afternoon passed without too much drama as the field spread itself around the course; the SUMBC teams were making good progress. But as darkness begins to fall, out come the big headlights and the real challenge begins: low-hanging branches, rocks and an increasingly slippery water-splash provided plenty of challenges for the unwary.

As the night continued, the riders made the lonely journey out from the campsite to join a procession of headlights picking their way around the course. Despite the usual mechanical difficulties, including a failing headlamp, broken chain and punctures, the teams remained in high spirits as dawn broke on Sunday.

By the time the finish line arrived at 2pm, the two SUMBC men’s teams had managed 32 and 28 laps to finish 67th and 149th out of 245 respectively and the mixed team another creditable 28 laps for 72nd from 107. But the event is so much more than just racing: the encouragement from the sidelines, not to mention the atmosphere in the campsite made for a memorable weekend.

The second 24 hour race of the summer was a slightly different story… the rains came.
Well they held off for a while but from about 8 hours in until the end there was a distinct dampness in the air, and the course that had been dry and fast for the first part of the race became in the words of one rider “Like riding in plasticine.”Another said “I walked up the climbs, I walked down the descents, I went backwards on the flat. It was the only way I could get any traction.” Sleepless in the Saddle was a soggy event this year, and priorities changed from trying to go fast to just finishing the race. SUMBC entered a team in the mixed category, and while many succumbed to the miserable conditions, they carried on through the night to finish a creditable 26th out of 96, even beating some of the professional sponsored teams.

Many people wonder why anyone would want to go riding for 24 hours in the mud as part of a team, let alone as a solo rider or on a singlespeed (SUMBC would like to put on record that Rob Driver has said he will race one of these events as a solo rider next year -  no backing out now Rob). The answer is it's many things really. It's how good a bacon sandwich and a cold beer tastes after you finish your last lap. Its the conversations you have with solo riders up long slow hills, it’s the surreal sleep deprived moments when trees move and leap at you at 3am, but mostly it’s bagging your mates and the competition for the little prizes: most stacks in the team, fastest lap, lapped by the most soloists/unicyclists/one-legged riders, best tanty, swishest palace i.e. tent at camp. All the little things you will talk about for long enough to convince yourself that really you did have fun and lets definitely have another crack next year. Maybe we can go singlespeed...