2008 24 Hours of Great Glen - part 3

I sat there waiting, fidgeting. I looked at the lap times as riders came through, checking their class to see if they belonged to the 4-man sport class. I saw one pop up as our class; I looked and memorized the jersey of the next guy going out on that team. I wasn’t sure if they were close in the standings or not, as I missed what their number plate was. I wasn’t taking any risks; I knew I needed to catch him. Now the wait was really killing me, every second that passed gave that guy a bigger head start over me. I saw the class results come up again. As we’d been all race, we were close to team 162. We were about 8 minutes behind at the last check, when Jake had started the current lap.

“Okay Jake, where are you?” I thought. I knew he’d have to put down a lap nearly as fast as when he was fresh to get in this soon, but precious seconds were ticking by. It’s amazing that after nearly 24 hours of racing I was worrying about tiny little seconds.

Suddenly there he was, coming through the field around the pond. This had been a really fast lap! I was going out again, at a quarter to 12:00pm.

I started out and immediately started to pass other riders. Less than I mile in I saw the jersey I’d marked for target. Despite a fair head start I’d caught him quickly. Knowing I was moving much faster he made space and let me pass easily.

“Now, who else can I catch?”

As I neared the top of a small steep climb near the cottage I saw a rider making the turn to descend back down the hill. I looked at his number. 162!! I immediately marked him for target and memorized the gray fox jersey and neutral colored camelback. A few seconds later I turned down the hill, one of the fastest sections on course for me.

I caught two slower guys who braked hard for a narrow turn that I’d been barreling through with minimal brakes all race. The first crashed over his handlebars blocking me. It seemed like days before the second guy moved through, I was in a race for position and stopping was not an option. I immediately pressed as hard as I could on the open section that followed. Another mile in and I saw my target again. Then he disappeared in the winding course. Then I caught him again, and again he escaped. Desperation was now flooding my system, I needed to catch this guy but my legs were awfully tired.

I decided to ease up just a bit. There was a substantial hill yet to come that most people were walking significant portions of. I knew I could clean all or most of it with strong enough legs, and riding it clean would be faster than walking. I reached the hill and began my ascent. For one small section the slippery mud forced me off the bike, but I ran up it and jumped back on the bike. Continuing up the hill I saw the rider again, I was catching him quickly as I rode up the hill.

Much to my dismay I wasn’t quite fast enough. He crested the hill just seconds before me and opened the gap as he dropped down the other side. I pushed down the hill, through the rocks and mud as fast as possible. Then the ground leveled off as I entered the mud pit of doom. There he was again.

“Get him here,” I thought, “you’ve got to get him here.”

I was catching him as we struggled through the mud running for an extended section. Then we both jumped back on, only he immediately had to jump back off while I railed through a great line I’d found earlier. I’d finally passed him. Then I heard the question I feared he might ask, the answer to which I’d been debating with myself while chasing him the whole lap.

“Hey, what class are you?”

I knew if I answered sport, he’d chase me hard right then and there, knowing he was in a battle for position. However if I answered another class he’d likely not chase as hard. Clearly he hadn’t paid attention to the results screen like I had, or he would have been familiar with my number and known he needed to fight for this position. I needed to take advantage of the knowledge I had over him and knew what I had to answer.

“Expert,” I replied.

“What place are you in?”

“I have no idea.” I replied.

“Well I hope you win anyways.”

I thanked him as I thought, “If he only knew what I just did to him.” Surely I had some bad karma coming my way sometime. I hit a dirt road with a small lead and pedaled as hard as I could. Checking back before entering the single track up the final hill it appeared I’d dropped him.

“Thank goodness, I pulled it off and we pulled back another position.”

Then I heard someone behind me as I’d been forced to walk the bike up the hill. There he was; he’d caught back up. I franticly began to scramble through the mud and over the roots, pushing the bike up the hill. I had to get further ahead. I dropped off the hill, running as fast as I could, knowing I’d likely wrecked in the ruts and mud only losing time. Finally, I was pedaling again as the trail leveled off. I checked back again, nothing.

Then some how, he was there again, just a few seconds back. What happened next was the last thing I needed, the front wheel slipped out on a root and I hit the ground. I got up quickly, but he was immediately on my tail like a missile locked on target.

We came out of the trail and onto the final piece of dirt road, 500 yards to go. It was all power and speed now, no finesse. I let him pass me, knowing he’d pedal as hard as he could. As he passed, I pulled into his draft, allowing me to work a fraction as hard to maintain the same speed. A hard right, then an easy left into the field, 200 yards to go. Matt was there, yelling at me. I pulled out and sprinted as hard as I could past the guy. Rounding a hard left I checked back, he was still there but I’d opened up a gap on him. Jake was standing just after the corner.

“Dude, he’s right behind you!” he exclaimed just loud enough for me to hear without alerting the other rider.

“I know,” I snapped back.

I pressed on the pedals with everything I had into the last hard right turn. I braked and rolled through the turn somewhat conservatively so not to crash again. Exiting the turn I sprinted back up to speed. As I hit the mandatory dismount area, I stepped off the bike at full speed and ran the final 20 yards across the finish line. I dropped the bike, exhausted, my legs were like jell-o. The rider came in 10 seconds later. We gave each other a high five/handshake over the race we’d just had, though I decided to let him figure out what really happened on his own.

So after 24 hours and 35 minutes two teams were separated by a mere 10 seconds. Team Dirtnuts 3.0 finished 4^th of 24 teams in the 4-man Sport category, just ahead of 5^th, and only 10 and a half minutes behind 3^rd. We were 11^th overall. We completed 27 laps of an 8 mile course during the race, 216 miles of dirt roads and muddy trails.

Click the picture below for a visual walk through of the final sprint.