(Part One- Lead up to race day )
So I decided that I wanted to try MTB racing and that I would make my debut doing a 24 hour Solo Race. I figured it would be something I could do since I pulled all nighters before. Haven't we all?
I guess I should give a little background on myself so people know where I am coming from and maybe can figure out where I am going!
I'll be turning 40 in Jan of 2008 so maybe this is a mid-life crisis sort of thing. Up until about 6 years ago I played lots of team sports. Usually I played once a day on average. I was into Slo-Pitch, roller hockey, ball hockey, ice hockey , broom ball, racket ball and badminton. Over the last 7 years I got married, built a house, had a child (not in any particular order :)). I slowly started dropping all of my activities for the family live. I didn't play any sports the last two years so been a big change for me.
I did, however, start commuting to work over the last 4 years or so. I did this pretty religiously til this spring. My ride was between 20-40 kms a day, depending on if I carpooled with my wife part of the way to the outskirts of town. I did this rain or shine, summer or winter. I live in the Gatineau hills near Ottawa. I am about 7 kms from the edge of town. The country roads make for some interesting winter riding as they are not plowed often like in town.
I have studded tires and wide Snowcat rims for the winter. I have sometimes cheated and used a rear hub motor to assist me in the winter due to time constrains. The power assist would allow me to maintain summer tailwind speeds even in a snow storm.
So the winter riding on slippery rutty roads have definitely honed my skills as a rider. I was confident that this experience would allow me to manage off road on a cross country track meant for all skill levels. Plus I used to ride lots of BMX stuff when I was young and until my mid teens. So what if that was over 20 years ago. They say once you ride a bike you never forget, right?
With the race fast approaching my riding was next to nil for the last few months. I'd been busy helping build a garage with my Uncle in Law. My sister was also using my services with me making kitchen cupboards and moldings for her house she was renting out and had re-furbished and the new one which had a basement apartment. My last 8 weekends before the race saw me in Kingston doing lots of installing til late Sunday evenings and then a 3 hour ride back home.
To sum it up my training was not going well. I basically got out about 6 times, once a week on a beg/intermediate ride on the trails. This was pretty much the only trail riding I did on a MTB in my life.
I managed to borrow my folks little trailer the week before the race and spent most of that week getting it road ready. It had been in storage for the last couple of years.
Thursday before the race came quickly and I was quickly cramming in all the gear I thought I would need for the race at the last minute. I had booked the Friday and the Monday off and was hoping to get out of town before 3:00 p.m. on Thursday. I think we actually rolled out of the driveway around 8. With over 500 kms to go to the campsite and it was going to be at least 7 hours driving hauling the trailer. This would put us in Albion around 3:00a.m. Friday morning. Not off to a good start to be prepared to stay awake for 24 hours riding a bike on Saturday.
The drive on the road was pretty uneventful til we got into Toronto. We got off the Hwy about 2 exits too soon as we were not sure where we were and needed gas really bad. We got gas ok but there was no on ramp to continue North. We lost maybe 45 minutes trying to get back on the HWY but made it to the campsite without any further trouble at around 4:00 a.m Friday morning. We set up the beds in the trailer quickly and went to sleep.
