No damage though, so all good. Rob Mac, it was of course the Strathpuffer 24h race, Sat 10am to Sunday 10am, 18 hours of darkness or some such.
For 24 hours in powder snow on singlespeeds with the temperature range of -1 to -16. There's some sketchy ice patches at 5.30am in the dark screaming down off the mountain.
Life could be worse, but then again if you asked me at 4am I would tell you it could be a damn sight better as well
I had some motivational issues so sat out a few hours in the midnight zone but got back out for 5.30. Raced with the Fatty Owl team which, while a Fatbike based team does include a couple of retrobikers, Brian, Jason Liddell, GilM and myself along with a couple of Yorkshire lads. It was a good time as usual though bloody hard with everyone having their own stories and tribulations. Brian, Jason and I were solo while the others were quads. Brian and I were singlespeeds as usual but I think there were 13 singlespeeders all up.
The aim is to race round Ben Wyvis for 24 hours on fire road and singletrack with a lot longer track this year, I think it was around 12 kilometres or something with quite a bit of technical stuff. And if it wasn't technical before, it certainly was once frozen or covered in a foot of fine dry powder snow. The weather was very cold but crystal clear skies, very beautiful. Brakes freezing, beards freezing, water bottles freezing, derailleurs freezing, feet and people freezing. We were good though as we all had good gear with us. hard going but all good fun.
My bike had some mud build up on the bottom bracket and I went to get it off before I put it in the car but it was frozen solid, Brians was the same.
Not as much hours as usual for me. I sat out a good few hours in the middle of the night, but back into around 5.30. That's the beauty of solo I suppose, well at least at our end of the field, in that you stop when you want, for as long as you want.
Laps started taking longer and longer and it gets pretty slippery in the early hours when your tired.
Very hard to climb long steep climbs with 6 inch of dry powder on them The weather while beautiful made it a real epic this year. In the daylight I have my normal Polaris jacket but in the night time one I have a jacket I bought at Lidl at Christmas just for this race. It is a hiking jacket, wind, water proof and meant to be breathable. It's a good bit looser (?) fit so I can put stuff underneath it. It was one of those things on sale for £9.99 and I thought I would try it just for this race at night and if I got a couple of laps and it kept me dry then that would be good. If the weather was rainy and muddy then I wouldn't have to worry about, just throw it away if need be. It actually was really good and comfortable as well. It seemed to breath easier than my Polaris maybe due to it being a bit loose but I rode at night with my bib longs, long sleeve Helly Hansen underneath then a long sleeve performance winter merino and then the jacket, which is also thicker than my other one. During the day I didn't have the long sleeve Helly Hansen but I did wear a jersey over my Merino, then my jacket. Anyway I am well happy with the jacket and it will definitely see some use again.
Jamie
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