Nevis Cycle & Triathlon Club

I had decided to enter the SITS 24 hr as a Solo rider to put some ghosts to rest. I had entered the Redbull 24hr as a solo rider last year and I had based my whole years training on it with high expections. I had never trained so hard and with a little baby on the way I would make this excuse to wet the babys head and with the club paying for my entry fee the pressure was on, well it was a disaster, bad weather, flu, working 14hrs the day before the race, over trained, I had said never again.Fast forward 14 months and here I am, I was feeling a lot better this year and I had prayed that their would be no rain, I had taken the week off work leading up to the race did not do any training that week so by Saturday afternoon at 2 O Clock I was more than ready. I was looking forward to doing the 24hr and I was standing on the start line feeling a little strange, anyway, I had my wife Carol with me as my support team I had my tent right beside the course and with Ross Fryer and James Lyon going as a pairs team I would have plenty of support.
It was a Le Mans start with a 800metre run to our bikes I did a steady jog and tried to stay as relaxed as possible, my first few laps were hard with every rider going fast it was a little hard not to go with them but these were not the solo riders ( mad bunch) lap 3 my chain snapped, no, not the one on around my neck the one on the bike, and had to run about 6 miles to my tent to get it fixed, thank you James. I was doing good steady laps and I was in the top 30 riders but when night time comes that is when it really counts, I had acouple of 10min breaks got some good hot food into me and decided at 2am I would stop and have a change of jersey and shorts a good hot meal and rest for a half hour. My wife Carol said to me have a rest on the bed and she would wake me in 30min how sweet that sounded, unfortunately Carol fell asleep as well so 30mins ended up 2hrs 30min, as always nightime is make or break for you, anyway it was back out on the course and I was feeling really good it was starting to get a little lighter so morning was not far off which is always a good feeling. The course was a little wet from the dampness of the night so I slowed up for a few laps, I was doing around 50min laps with the course being about 6.7 miles long with around 600feet of climbing, it was not a very techinal course but their were a few fast down hills and two hard short climbs which after 15 laps I started to walk up. At last it got to 12 O Clock midday and as tired as I was I knew their were only 2hrs to go and I finished. M poor wife Carol was not looking to good bless her,I could not thank her enough I had done 25 laps and came 18th in the solo event, the winner did 36 laps, I think he was on a motorbike or had a twin brother to swap with every lap. I was hopeing that I would be finished with doing these 24hr solo races, but it gets under your skin and I want to do it next year, but please don,t tell the wife.

Mad solo rider