Its a bit late coming, but here is my race report on HAN Solo.
Pre Race
I think this years race was doomed from the begining. Some faimily health problems kept me off the bike for about 6 weeks leading up to the race. Happily everyone is doing well now and it was only me hurting over the 24 hrs of racing.
Due to the hectic going ons I was only getting the trailer ready for the road a couple of days before leaving, on Monday. I ended up with a leak in the plumbing which would elimnate the use of shower,toilet,sink, which was the primary reason for bringing the trailer. On top of this I was borrowing my Dads new truck and we had some trailer light connection problems.
Managed to get this fixed and put together the day I wanted to leave. So much for being packed the night before and ready to roll early.
Julie and I managed to get rolling about 2 hours later than planned and headed off to my sisters in Kingston Thursday evening to cut the trip down. About 20 minutes out of Kingston at around 11 p.m. the trailer tire blew out. Tons of tractor trailers rolling by on the 401 so had to really pull over to be safely off the hwy since it was the drivers side.
I was hoping to be in Albion Friday around noon and be through Toronto evening rush hour traffic. Since I had to get the trailer tire replaced we only ended up on the road around 11ish or so and we ended up in rush hr traffic. Not too bad but took us about 50 minutes to go 6 kms on the 401 to the 400 turn off.
We finally made it in to Albion around 5:30. It was a bit late to do a pre-ride lap now since i wanted to be all set up to go to bed around 10 to give me 12 hours of sleep for 10 the next morning.
We quickly made friends with the other Solo riders on the site. The pit crews had the beer flowing as soon as the coolers came out, which were conviently placed to be the first thing to unload :). Camp set-up went well and we had our couple of canopies up for the shade as it was to be a scorcer of a weekend. The pit crew, Julie, Paula(my sis) and Keith(my cousin) were having fun by the fire by dark and I got the beds together in the trailer and made it to bed at a decent hour despite the horible week of events.
Race Day
I woke up around 10 a.m as planned and had myself a blender filled breakfast and slowly got all geared up for 11:30. Headed up to get in line and wasn't to far back at the start line. Maybe 75 riders back. I figured this was about where I wanted to be. Ahead of some of the slower starters but behind all the fast teams that where bound to be close to the front.
It was pretty hot. I think the temp with the humidex was in the 40's.
3.2.1..... we were off. There was a crash a 100m out of the start with a few guys looked like they were stuck in the crowd. Didn't really slow the start pace. Within 1 minute everyone was in an orderly single file. This was a bit surprising as typically the start loop of grass double track is 4 people wide with people darting in and out of everywhere.
The track was nice and fast and dry. They didn't have the big monster climb in this year and I was actually a bit dissapointed. The still did have a fair bit of climbing in the last 5 kms. There were a few short steap sections and some longer climbing on the single track. I think I would have liked just the big monster climb . . .
If you were racing on a team I think most of the gang would have broke the 1 hour mark fairly easily. My fast lap was my first lap @ 1:03:29 which includes the extra km or two, some bogging down behind traffic in the single track, and a stop in the pits for a new bottle and a bit to eat.
By the second lap I was hurting pretty bad and the heat was getting to me. I was also getting a pain in one of the musles behind my left knee, which I hurt on a ride 2 weeks prior on a Gat loop. My one training ride since Summer Solstice. It nagged me te last 2 Fortune races, my only other rides since Solstice.
By lap 3 I was freezing for about 2 laps, probably from the extreme heat. I was holding onto 8th place out of 16.
I flatted on lap 4. Was a weird one with a cut at the valve stem. I was having a not bad lap but flatting and watching two solo guys go by while I replaced the tube really took the wind out of my sails. I also crashed 2 times on this lap. Mentally and phisically was my worse lap. Going too slow on a tight switchback climb, stalled, wheeled and fell on the inside DOWN the tight steep corner. Later in the lap on a fast switchback decent braked for a left 180 bend and as I was coming out of corner tire slide away in a huge groove off the edge of trail. Kinda went over the bars as I layed it down on the inside of the corner. On one of these two crashes I managed to bang the front of my sore knee so it was hurting on the front and the back.
Somehow I managed to hang on to 8th place after all this.
I was planning on taking my break at this point but decided that I had my pacing down to my heart rate was not of the charts and did another lap. I finished around 7 p.m. and I had moved up to 6th. Humm... maybe I should keep going. Its amazing how mentally uplifting being in a good position makes you feel and how much a poor position crushes you. But I felt I had enough and need a rest and maybe suffered a slight bit of heat stroke earlier on. I was feeling pretty crappy. Legs were heavy and week. Decide to come in, eat, shower and take a nap til midnight.
I managed to get up shortly after midnight and ate beside the fire. I think I headed out around 12:45 with the lights on. All in all I wasn't feeling to bad except for my knee, which was now swollen a bit on the front and a bit of pain in back.
My little nap had me down to 13th place. Yikes! Showed me 3 hours behind 12th. I think I was miss reading the Solo results which they had posted of the side for Solo rides in a Fast lane :)
At any rate after finishing this lap I was up two places in 11th. Huh. I think the results area bit skewed as you don't know if the rider in front of you scanned 3 hours ago but maybe they stopped on this lap and were now not on the course.
I did another lap and was feeling great except my left leg/knee. It was hurting pretty bad and was ok pedaling but on any downhill section felt like it was about to go into a painful knot. I was also mentally down about being so low in the placing. I had a goal of 15 laps after doing 12 last year. I had had a great start to the season and had been on more training loops in the Gats this year than the total riding for the two years before. I figuired this was a reasonable goal before the all the problems hit before Solstice. I knew my lack of training would hurt and I had hoped to do 12 or maybe 13 laps. At this point I had my doubts and the pain in my knee was bad. I figured my original goal of 15 was long long gone so no use doing any damage to my leg now. I wasn't really thinking of coming back Solo next year at this point. I finished up my lap and alkl I wanted to do was crawl into bed with Julie :). I did manage to force myself to shower and eat before dozing off.
I didn't even bother with an alarm. I think it was close to 9 and Julie was up asking if I was calling it quites. She said I may as well from the way I was sulking. At that point something got me going again and I figured I'd have time for 3, maybe 4 laps, to put me at 10 laps. I was in good spirits the lasp laps and going pretty good for the shape I was in.
It was starting to get hot and I decide to ride the plank and get hosed down to cool off. I ended up doing it twice and the hosing was really refreshing.
I finished my 9th lap with 2 minutes to spare. This ment I would need to do an 1:02 lap to get the last lap to count. With my knee hurting a lot and the last two lap times arounf 1:14 and 1:19 I figured it would be a long shot and decided not to. I think if I would have had 1:10 I wouldda went for it. I also didn't grab another bottle for the next lap as I already figured it would be too much.
So that ws it. 9 laps. Thats what I did in my first year. So lap total was the same as my worse but I was finished about 1 hour sooner than before and the distance per lap was about 1 km more each lap. So not actually my worst lap.
My feelings of not coming back ever for Solo were already wearing off and I was actually a little pissed at myself for stopping the second time.
A big thanks to Julie, Keith and Paula for keeping me going and the positive thoughts even though for me it was a struggle before I even started the race.
Congrated to Glenda Martin from our site who made a 3rd place podium. Also hope to see Drew Quarrie from our site back next year. I think he had 3 times the beer the night before than he did laps haha, but he still gave it a go. Lots of mechanicals on his new build.
Tanya Martin was another Solo rider from our site. She did Trans Rockies and said this 24 hr Solo stuff was way harder.
I took a nap after the awards and I was dreaming this strange dream of doing both Summer Solstice and Hot August Nights solo next year on a Single Speed :)
Cheers,
Paul
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