Mayhem 2012

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BY: Louise Robinson

Published: 27th June, 2012

I have been at every Mountain Mayhem since 2006 and I have never been to one like that before! Some years it has rained more, some it has been windier and some, definitely, colder but I have never been to one where the course fell apart before the race had even begun.

 The Arena, but not as we know it!

The racing was hard but the camping, especially for those of us with kids, was probably harder. My three year old struggled majorly come Sunday morning as her wellies are only 20cm high and the mud was at least 30cm deep in places. When she woke up and looked out of the tent her first words were "Daddy, where has all the grass gone?" oh, good question!  However kids love camping, however muddy it is and being towed off the field by a tractor at the end of the day was just the icing on the cake!

 I was riding as part of the Four4th ladies team, in the Open Ladies race. We may be sponsored (chiefly because Del 'Mr Four4th' is a good friend through our bike club the Tunnel Hill Trolls) but we are just a group of friends who all live and ride in the Farnborough area. Our campsite resembled a crèche half the time, but with the addition of Hannah Bowers this year (another friend of Del's) we were dragged into another world with a Turbo trainer to warm up on, and a petrol powered pressure washer (I know!  How jealous are you!).

XCracer's Verity Appleyard - First lap and not too muddy - only 23 hours to go

My first lap - practically dry and dusty at this point

So to the race! After taking second spot on the podium for the last two years the team was prepared for a hard battle with our arch rivals the Scott Contessa girls (we are allowed to call them that as we are all friends!).  We all decided against a practice lap, choosing to spare the bikes and dry kit. We had the usual argument over who was going to do the run and generally got down to the business of organising kit, eating, and speculating on what the weekend would hold.

I was told this was a mountain bike race!

Wheel choice was taken to a whole new level by the Islabike team - blow 29er I want a 14er

Those of you who have raced at Eastnor before will be well aware of the clay soil that very quickly becomes a muddy quagmire in the rain. With two weeks of near constant rain before the start it was never going to be dry and dusty.  As the race progressed the course changed. Constantly. First it started to dry and the mud became claggy. Then it started to rain and the mud thinned. Then it rained some more and the mud became an endless sea of brown and then by the end it started to dry again and became the most unimaginable hell on earth. Lap times were completely unpredictable. We missed two handovers overnight due to this (we have never done this before), had punctures, mechanicals and multiple crashes. But we were not the only ones suffering. The Scott girls had their own fair share of disasters and as such we pingponged each other. The gap at 20 hours was a nerve wrecking  1 minute 15 seconds. In the end Gabby Day had legs the rest of us can only dream off and they took a hard won win by 20 minutes after 25 hours of racing.

Ladies open podium: 1st Scott Contessa, 2nd Four4th Lights, 3rd Saddle Skiddadle

I don't know if it was the awful conditions, resilience in the face of adversity and all that, but the general atmosphere on the race course was really friendly.  Many thanks to all those who helped out fellow riders in peril.  In particular to the very kind chaps who rescued Hannah (Four4th) and Beth (Scott), and assisted in fixing their punctures.  Anyone who completed a lap at this years Mountain Mayhem deserves their survivor's medal and the associated bragging rights (and no, my friends don't understand me either).

Jo Munden finds a last drop of strength to ride to the finish

My only criticism of the event was the timing. I don't think it matters if you are racing for 1st place or 71st place, timing is everything.  The timing, run by FR Systems, went off overnight (due to problems with mud apparently) resumed very temporarily and then died again at the end of the race.  The result was many laps not recorded,  lots of teams and soloists with no idea where they were in the general scheme of things and no opportunity to get the mistakes corrected before the podiums.  I do understand the issues with the mud but at the world's largest 24 hour race the timers should have had a contingency plan (even if this consisted of getting riders to slow down (most of us were moving at less than 3mph in the arena anyway!), wipe number boards and record race numbers).

But whinging aside, I would just like to say a massive thank you to my wonderful team mates Jo Munden, Hannah Bussey and Hannah Bowers; my long suffering husband and chief baby sitter Jason; mechanic extraordinaire and  man in charge of the petrol pressure washer  Stuart Bowers;  and Andy Dilkes, who had the misfortune of being the only one around when each of us burst into tears (and there were quite a few tears!!).

With the clearing up marathon completed the only thing left to do is start looking forward to Bontrager 24:12. Only 10 days to go. Martyn, I do hope you have fully paid up your tab with the weather gods.

Louise Robinson

Xcracer.com

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