Hard day at the Office

Fat Tyre Flyers ran their annual 'Hard Day At The Office" 8 hour enduro on saturday.
3 Members of the 'bung racing' team decided to race, but I defected from the group and thought I'd give the 8 hours a go solo (just to see if I could do it!) Matt Aldridge and Steve Munyard were left as a team of 2, and at 9am racing started. Lets go back a little, generally we like to get to a venue early, set up, eat some food and relax before a long day of enduro racing. Unfortunatly one the Bung racing crew turned his alarm off and went back to sleep, so things were a little rushed and not long after arriving at the venue, I was soon on my bike, and that would be my home for the next 8 hours.
The course is the xc course at Whittlesea and it involves quite a lot of climbing, it was also very humid, making the climbing so much harder, especially when the legs began to cramp after the 5 hour mark. 425 riders raced entered in catergory's of solo, through to corporate teams of 6.

Bung racing had the 2 boys in male pairs with the guys doing laps in the 30 minute mark, and busting out 16 laps in the 8 hours (steve's last lap had him going out at 4.55 pm, only to break his chain on the first climb).

I gave the solo thing a go, doing 12 laps in the 8 hours. I was'nt sure how I would cope with riding that long non stop, but it was'nt too bad. The really nice thing was the amount of support I got from riders encouraging me throughout the day. ( and thanks amanda for the snakes near the finish line) My 8th and 9th laps were my worst, the legs were cramping really bad up the 1st long climb, and by the 9th lap I had a new rule: If I wanted a drink from my bottle, I was allowed to pull over on the track and stop and drink it. By the 10th lap I began to feel better, and I was able to go back to riding continually without my little stop/rest/drink rule! The legs were still doing the nasty cramp thing up the 1st climb, but I could see the end was near, so that was ok.
Matt and Steve finished 25th in the male pairs, and I got 2nd in solo women. It a great day of racing, with a good vibe and relaxed feel to the day. Many thanks to all at the faties that organised the day.

Jane Orellenshaw ||