90 Seconds

Share on Facebook  Share on Twitter

BY: George Budd

Published: 25th June, 2014

The annual pilgrimage that is Mountain Mayhem happened again last weekend.  I've said it before but this remains the only event I get genuinely excited about every year.  This year was my 13th Mayhem and my 25th 24hr race, so it's safe to say I quite enjoy them.  It's not actually that much about the actual race; rather the event, catching up with everyone in the bike industry and spending a weekend away with your mates.

This year, I had put together a team with Al Fairbairn (Singular Cycles), Scott McCarron (Mountain Trax) and Bruce Dalton (Kinesis Morvelo).  Looking down the entry list before the event, there seemed to be about 3 or 4 strong teams entered - Pivot Cycles, Naked Bikes and Corley Cycles to name a few.  With the dominance of the Scott team gone for this year, it was (finally!) wide open for the win.  I knew we had a strong endurance base in our team and so was quietly confident of at least ending up on the podium, although you can never tell what will happen at Mayhem...  This year the forecast was amazing, the track baked solid and the views across Gatcombe Park spectacular.

I did the run as usual and jogged round - I've learnt the lesson of sprinting so fast round the run I'm then too tired to ride fast.  Within a mile of riding I was in the lead with a rider from the Malvern Cycles team who was in the 10 man team event.  We put 2 minutes into the rest of the field on lap 1, which was a good start.  Unlike the other teams, due to the shorter laps (30-33 ish minutes) we had opted to do double laps from the start to cut down on the time lost in transition and also to better suit the riders on our team who are all strong endurance riders.  I set off on lap 2 and was quickly caught and passed by another Malvern rider - but this was OK as it was Olympian Liam Killeen - great to see him back racing again.

I passed over to Scott who set off on his two laps, then Bruce and finally Al.  The race was so close - there was only ever 6 minutes or so separating us and the Pivot Cycles team in 1st and 2nd, with the lead changing depending on who was out.  We had the edge in terms of the fastest laps, but Pivot's laps were more consistent across their team.  This made for an unbelievably close and exciting race.  I went out at about 9pm with only a helmet light to complete 2 laps, banking on the face that the low sun would allow enough light to do without the weight of a bar light.  Turned out this was fine for lap 1, but starting a lap at 9.35 with no bar light meant using The Force a fair bit - luckily by this point I knew where the course went. 

Overnight Big Al began a 2 lap stint  4 minutes behind Pivot and put in 2 smashing laps that resulted in us ending up with a 6 minute lead.  Al handed over to me and I added another 4 minutes.  This meant that by mid-morning we had stretched our lead to about 10 minutes over Pivot.  However, they had strength in reserve and managed to catch and pass us again. 

With 4 laps left we were 3 minutes behind.  Big Al and I decided to ride one double lap each to see out the race.  Al put out one of his fastest laps of the race on his first to close the gap to only 1.5 minutes but paid for it a bit on his second and saw the gap extend to 3 minutes again.  the tension in transition whilst I was waiting for Al was unbearable.  Pivot were riding single laps at this stage and so us on a second lap against them on a one lap flyer was always going to be tricky.  I set off at 10.58 with 1hr 2 minutes to complete 2 laps and send Big Al around again.  I did the first lap in 31.45 and in the process halved the gap to Pivot in one lap.  However, leaving myself with only 30 mins 45 to complete the final lap proved to be too much, despite absolutely attacking every bit of the lap and I crossed the line at 12.01, just missing the cutoff.  It turned out Pivot had come in at 23.:59.40 and had gone round again.  Over 24hrs we had lost by 90 seconds.  I was totally drained and just about managed to shake Pat's hand before collapsing in a heap on the finish straight.

This has to go down as one of the most epic battles ever in a 24hr race.  We were chatting and chilling with the Pivot team (Matt, Euan, Rich and Paul) throughout the race.  Rory was doing a top job keeping everyone informed about gaps and even put the tea on for us.  Whilst it was really quite painful to lose by such a narrow margin (I've still never won at Mayhem!) it was made better that we were beaten by friends.  We had all said that it would be such a shame if the race was decided by some issue (missed changeover, puncture, mechanical, crash etc) and so the fact that both teams managed to go 24hrs without any such issue was remarkable and just added to the drama.

The event itself was fantastic - the course flowed a lot better this year and of course the weather helped a lot.  See you in 2015 for a rematch and thanks to all involved with making Mayhem what it is.

---

Click any of the images below for a larger view / slideshow

---

More on the Wiggle Mountain Mayhem:

Event Calendar Listing