24 Hour Race Round the Clock Race Report

The 24 Hour Race Round the Clock mountain bike race is held every Memorial Day weekend from noon Saturday to noon Sunday.  This year it broke records with over 850 riders registered.  That means that most of them camped and brought friends and family to the event - in other words it was packed wall to wall with campers and tents.

Fortunately the weather cooperated this year and was mostly clear and cool after several days of rain.  That meant the camping was much more hospitable and the course was almost without any dust and only a few mud holes which soon began to dry.  Two Wheel Transit had a team of 6 riders registered, of which 5 raced the entire race in the 10 person corporate division.  We wish we had cool video like the preceding post, but we do not.  Given that it was a 24 hour race here are some highlights and observations rather than a detailed version of the entire race:

Jeremy only raced two laps due to a commitment on Sunday morning.  What made his laps noteworthy was that he did both in flip-flop sandals on regular pedals.

Alec thought it would be a good idea to have some pizza, jerky, trail mix, soda and other goodies prior to doing his 10 pm night lap.  This was not a good idea and in fact a bad one that led to no sleep and massive stomach cramps the remainder of the night - looked like he was done for the rest of the race.

Tom ended-up doing 2 laps back to back because the above racer was unable to ride his designated 4:38 am lap due to pizza induced misery.

Alec rallied for a 3rd lap after memorizing the inside of the latrine in great detail.  He was later seen enjoying pancakes and then lasagna later in the day.

SOMEONE forgot to sign-in for his 1st lap which means the lap can be disqualified (this will be important later) so the team can lose the lap.  Somehow the recorder person did not catch this, so the lap was counted.  After discussing it among themselves the team decides to report the oversight and throw themselves on the mercy of the race directors.  Race directors were out of mercy Sunday morning - so the lap was to be lost.  Race directors later call for a representative of the team and informed him that after further investigation, credit for the lap will be granted.

(I did witness a rider for a winning team who had done just that. He came in from his lap, asked to be signed in for the lap and then scanned the timing chip to end his lap so there were other instances of grace on this rule.)

Some favorite team names - Pedalphiles, One Hour Lap Dance and On Your Right

Tom, Dan G. and Dan W. turned-in very consistent and fast lap times which carried the team - they are all great riders to whom we are grateful.

Geoff did his usual go out too fast on the beginning of his first lap and then try to recover during the second part after turning his lungs inside-out.  He missed his chance to redeem himself on the second night lap when both of his lights died at the same time half way into the lap.  (Those lights just don't charge themselves you know.)  It made for a very interesting lap as he rode the remainder with his back-up flashlight strapped to his helmet.

The race organizers, sponsors and volunteers did a fabulous job of running a first class event.

Two Wheel Transit finished 2nd out of 32 Corporate teams with 23 laps and had a lot of fun.  Had we lost the lap mentioned above it would have dropped us to 4th place and off of the podium.