sidelined

Guest Post: Fabian Dal Santo kindly set the following post in regarding what seems a brutal cycling event. But the Aussies toughed it out and did very well. Follow the links to get an idea of the event. I’m sure not going to be complaining about my 45 minute RPM class tomorrow.

Thanks Fabian.

The World 24hr Solo Mountain Bike Championships were held the other weekend in Canmore, Alberta, Canada. An extremely strong Australian contingent went over, including last year’s overall third place getter Jeff Toohey and the current Australian 24hr champion Jason English. Others going over included Mark Fenner, John Claxton and Troy Bailey. Overall the Australians completely dominated the race, taking out first place in 4 divisions including the first 4 places in the Male Elite.

If you’re not up with 24hr solo racing, it’s exactly as it sounds. Riders do laps of a track on a mountain bike, continuously for 24hrs. They eat and drink on the bike for the full 24hrs. At this level, pit stops generally average around a minute and of course, they don’t sleep for the entire race. Australians have previously won the championship in 2006 when Craig Gordon stole the crown from Chris Eatough, the 6 time winner who was looking for his seventh win (much like Lance, by this race most people seemed content to lock in behind Chris and race for second). Not Craig. The epic battle between the two of them was captured in a movie, 24 Solo, which was initially created to herald Chris Eatough’s 7th victory, but had a much more interesting ending. If you can get a hold of it, I highly recommend it. It’s as interesting as 24hr racing will get and it’s an awesome story. By the end of it you’ll know what Rhabdomyolysis is.

This year, the track was extremely hilly and full of rocks and tree roots, in stark contrast to the usually dusty tracks we race in Australia. The race started as usual with a Le Mans style run to their bikes, to spread the field out. Tinker Juarez, last years winner from the USA and James Williamson from Australia set the early pace and were mere seconds away from each other for much of the early race. Then the heavens opened up and it became a complete mudfest, in 13 degree weather, with most riders then switching to survival mode just to keep going. Unfortunately for Tinker, he (literally) got some mud in his eye which he could not clear after a few hours, and was checked out by the medical staff onsite who sent him to hospital as a precautionary measure. This gave Williamson the lead which he held to the end. There are some small flash movies on the blog created especially for live updates of the race, showing some of the horrendous conditions.

The abridged final results are:

Male Elite:
1.James Williamson (AUS) - 16 laps 22:49:09
2.Jason English (AUS) - 16 laps 23:53:56
3.Mark Fenner (AUS) - 16 laps 24:00:49
4.Jeff Toohey (AUS) - 16 laps 24:27:25
5.Cory Wallace (CAN)- 16 laps 24:31:10

Female Elite:
1.Rebecca Rusch (USA) - 14 laps 23:26:21
2.Katrin Van der Spiegel (AUS) - 13 laps 22:59:23
3.Jennifer Gersbach (USA) - 12 laps 22:55:01

Male under 25yrs
1.Thomas Lindup (NZL) - 15 laps 23:46:31
2.Joel Donney (AUS) - 14 laps 23:33:22
3.Anthony Salmon (GBR) - 12 laps 23:47:38

Male 25-29
1.Andy Fellows (AUS) - 15 laps 23:52:47
2.Michael Cotty (GBR) - 14 laps 24:11:29
3.Dariusz Sawicki (POL) - 12 laps 23:16:24

Male 35-39
1.Troy Bailey (AUS) - 14 laps 23:52:37
2.Jason McAvoy (AUS) - 13 laps 22:59:40
3.Mike Gaertner (USA) - 12 laps 23:10:59
4.Peter Tondl (CAN) - 11 laps 24:20:16
5.Anthony Manning (AUS) - 10 laps 20:07:17

Male 45-49
1.Craig Peacock (AUS) - 14 laps 23:33:58
2.Shaun Taylor (CAN) - 12 laps 23:55:46

3.Mario Roma (BRA) - 11 laps 23:19:01
4.Charles Mortensen (USA) - 10 laps 23:46:59
5.Steve Eggleton (AUS) - 7 laps 21:51:00