Images courtesy Mike Anton
Bedgebury Insomnia – Three get hot and dusty
After three Dusk to Dawn overnight MTB races, the ‘rule book’ was thrown out for this overnight race. By rule book I’m referring to my typical pre event race prep of two weeks of driving a sun lounger and drinking beer. Then there’s the fact that D2D is in October and the sun doesn’t make much of an appearance before 7am. Oh and let’s not forget it’s either been very chilly or very wet.
So a 12 hour night MTB race in July where it’s completely light by 4:30 and on a weekend that was scorchingly hot? Could it be any more different? Well yes as Insomnia featured a shorter, faster course compared to Thetford. Using parts of their ‘Red Route’ there was plenty of full on technical single track tempered with hard packed fire roads.
Mr Hardisty was game for the challenge so Mr Seltzer sorted out the online entries through the BCF site. – Unfortunately this resulted in us becoming ‘temporary’ members of In-Gear but let’s not dwell on that.
A recce ride on Wednesday afternoon promised dry, firm conditions and Ben had his first proper taste of riding a trail centre at speed. His Cheshire Cat grin after we’d finished suggested we’d all have fun on Saturday.
Arriving late afternoon we set up the big top, Andy’s garage sized tent and off loaded way too much food and a swimming pool’s worth of water before registering and heading out on an inspection lap.
The start was a fairly laid back affair but Mr S started our assault in commanding style. He came past my first shooting point in ninth place but had progressed to second when he crossed the line to hand over to Ben.
Ben completed his first run nearly 3 mins faster than our inspection lap and then it was my turn. I set off at 9:14 and it was still bright enough for much of the circuit that I didn’t need lights and I had my fastest run of the night.
We then had another stint of single laps before going on to riding two laps. Andy proved to be Mr Consistent with his lap times throughout the whole event but Ben and I dropped the ball with our runs, slowing up for the early hours.
With Andy completing another two laps, Ben was starting to struggle with the effort and completed his final, and our 15th lap just after 6am. We then had the conundrum of trying to see if we could get three more laps in before the 7:30 cut off.
I tried to cane it for two more laps but got back to the finish line 1 minute too late. This ‘saved’ Andy from one more lap and left us with a total of 17 laps in 11:30:48.
With the sun basking down on everyone at the well received prize presentations, we were pleasantly surprised to have come 2nd in the 3 man team event. First spot went to Wildside Cycles who managed and excellent 18 laps in 11:40.
Mike
Full results here – http://www.bedgeburyinsomnia.co.uk/page_2936651.html . Detailed lap stats here – http://racetimingsolutions.racetecresults.com/results.aspx?CId=16269&RId=161&E=3 and Strava geeking here – http://app.strava.com/activities/65298727
