18 Hour Race Just for Fun??? No Such Thing...

From Dictionary.com

Race

1. An extended competition in which participants struggle like runners to be the winner: the presidential race.

When we decided to go to the 18 Hour Scout's Honor Race we really didn't know how we would do. One guy (bike shop mechanic) hadn't raced in 3 years, another guy had been on travel for a week, and yours truly spent 3 weeks in Japan with almost no riding to speak of. So, when we started the race yesterday afternoon, we all agreed it would be "just for fun". I figured that it would...until midnight when we realize that we are really close to another team and we would have to put the hammer down to increase the gap or move up a place. Sure enough, after 6 hours we were in first place by about 4 minutes and the competitive spirit kicked in. Long story short, the lead swapped back and forth a couple of times until we started to open up a consistent lead, 2 minutes, 6 minutes, 8 minutes 15 minutes then the other team had a crash and we were almost 45 minutes up on them. I guess it would have been more heroic to beat them at their best...but after 18 hours of riding and eating processed sugar jelly, I'll take the "W" any way I can get it.

So...I have only done about a half dozen endurance races but I do have some pointers...

Food

If you are going to bring anything that you have to prepare, make sure you eat (or prepare) it before you start riding. As the night gets later and you get further into your laps, noone even wants to peel an orange. Prep all of your stuff while you have some dead time

Lights

Don't assume anything. The manual may say 2.5 hours of run time but if you have never run your lights for that long, don't assume they will last that long. Even if you are meticulous, you are bound to have problems. My fancy pants High Intensity light blew out on me 30 minutes into a 2 hour ride. Fortunately I had a (crappy) backup light and made it through.

Competition

Don't ever think that an endurance race will be anything other than a race. If you are doing a 12, 18 or 24 hour race, you have been mountain biking for a while (most likely). If that's the case, you are probably a competitive rider. It will be a competition! I will say it again...it will be a competition.

There was too much going on (and one of those things wasn't sleep) for me to get the motivation to take pictures...but I do have pictures of the prizes that we won.

Prep Between laps

If you are not fortunate enough to have support person that will lay out your clothes, fill your camelbak, lube your chain, check your tire pressure, clean your bike and mount your lights, do it all before you try to get some sleep. You may not be able to actually get to sleep but it will be easier if you aren't thinking about your preparations and there is no way you will remember everything at 4 am after an hour nap.

Anyway, enough yapping from me. I'll post some pictures soon of the cool prizes we won. We got some energy gel (not bad) and four useless tires to split between all of us. My teammates were so generous that they just gave their tires to me...like I don't have enough crap filling up my basement!

$10 to spend at Sheetz...maybe I can get a chili dog next time I head North.


Some plain Hammer Gel. I may actually be able to use this.


and the tires...heavy...not tubeless...and just not the ones that I like to ride. I may keep pass them on to others that need tires or try to sell them on Ebay....or maybe they will just sit in my basement forever.