It’s a testament to the human body, that it can be pushed to the extreme.

Beyond the suffering of fatigue or enduring the conditions that might be hot, cold ,dry or wet.

Most of us just ride for enjoyment. Perhaps just for 3-4 hrs at a time.

We do a big loop, grabbing a little food on the way round, before packing up and heading home to a hot shower. You’ll then pop the feet up on the sofa supping mugs of tea, revisiting the ride in your head.

However. This relaxed way of enjoying our past time/hobby/sport or lifestyle is sometimes interrupted by a race calender. More specifically the 24hr endurance calender.

This is when, many of us part time riders make a decision to enter one of more or them.

Whether this is from peer pressures, to achieve personal goals or as part of an annual tradition.

We head of with mates for a weekend getting messy and tired, by riding around a course of around 8-10 miles.

Options to be part of a team, a pair or to go it alone are made.
As are the choice of what bike to take and whether a certain type of tyre is needed. Some use gears, some suspension and more often than not, they take a bike not really up the test it’s got to come.

In the man made grime of a UK race venue, brake pads get eaten up as a rate quicker than the spares box and pit crew can cope with.
And the grinding paste trails, also make light work of every other moving part on your bike.

It will be an unlikely event, that your bike survives the weekend without ceasing up or becoming a rattling pile of components loosely resembling that of a bicycle.

Then there’s the food needed for you and the crew.

Accommodation for the weekend, will for most be a camping affair.
Tent’s for most. Caravans and campers for the lucky.

You’ll be sheltering under the cover of a garden gazebo with an old oil drum, containing broken pallets and damp wind fell or even rotting wood from the local tree’s.

A weeks worth of planning might of gone on before the weekend.
Ordering spares, getting the bike/bike’s ready. Food stocks. Organising mates and the whole logistics of getting everything there.

Then there’s all the time after the weekend.
Washing dirty kit, stripping down the bikes, etc.
A day off to recover then back to reality and work.

At what price?
Bike spares, fuel, food, booze, time off, more spares on the day and the rebuild cost of your bike afterwards..

You could probably be able to take a Friday and Monday off. Fly to the continent somewhere and enjoy a couple days away, flying back on the Monday and still have spent less money than you would doing an endurance race.

All this is however material.

There’s something taken to this events, that also suffers from the grime and time.

Your bodies.

Scratches, sprains and breaks are the obvious injuries most of us have had on rides, whether they are of an hour or 24..

But during a 24hr event you will be, pushing the body beyond the normal levels.
You’ll be warming up and cooling down.
The feeling of weakness, will mean you’re using different muscles around the body, just stay upright on the bike.
As you get tired, you’ll be straining further muscles and putting strains on your joints as you fight the bodies desire, to just shut down and force you to sleep.

Many of you will fight the temptation to stop and sleep and with physical and mental tiredness, you’ll push on and risk injury from either crashing or strain.

It’s a remarkable tool, the body.
We put it through a lot, during our pursuit of all that’s wanted from doing an event like these.

All it needs is some rest and it’ll soon all great again.
Maybe a little medical attention for some.

Yet after it’s all over and all but a memory.
Most of us will be thinking about the next one and how we will do it just a little bit differently..

Not entirely sure why i’ve rambled on like this really.
I was looking though my pics from the Strathpuffer the weekend and this picture made me think about the feeling of nothingness i’ve felt on big rides, when the body is running on empty.

Love the pic Sharki – to me it says more about being at one with nature than ’emptiness’………….oooh I nearly went all hippyspiritual for a second there.

Nice ramble, worthy of appearance in the mag IMHO.

I returned home after a road ride yesterday with that nothingness going on – my wife was slightly worried, she’s never seen me that way before, hallucinating mars bars and scrambling to eat before anything else is uttered!

Thanks Woody.

Normally i’d be thinking the same.

However this was almost 20hrs into a 24. I was thinking the rider wouldn’t of felt much at all.

Spooky pic!

I’ve managed a wet solo 8 hours riding in one session, linking the Qs with Exmoor. The whole last 3 hours felt like there was nothing inside – but I plugged on. By the end I could not climb even a moderate slope in the lowest of gears.

I found this appropriate image 😀

It’s a remarkable feeling for sure.

I guess we go out, with the belief that we’ll take on all we need along the way.
With regular breaks, etc.
Yet quite often when the chance arrives, for example a cafe, pub or shop. We make the executive decision to ride on.
We almost tell ourselves there’s a place to eat and re-fuel further along the way, even if we don’t know for sure.

The desire to ‘just ride’ keeps us going and we don’t realise to importance to feed till it’s too late.
Otherwise known as ‘feeling hungry’.

It’s all a little too late by then, so the body starts consuming itself.
That’s great for loosing bulk or weight should that be a desire of yours. But it’s not an ideal way to achieve it.

How many times have you ridden well and far, yet at the end, wish you had done a little more. You felt good, so why not go a little further? You ask yourselves.

Then there’s the times you take on too much, knowing full well you’re pushing your own capabilities as a rider.
Yet with that knowledge, we fail in being able to pace ourselves for the distance. Instead, we beast the climbs and rag the descent. Anything in between, is a rush to get to the next section to get our thrill. Be that going up down or just a challenging section you want to clean.

If we rode within our limits, and not do the last bit feeling wasted, empty, void of any coherent thinking other than just getting back. We’d feel like we missed out somewhere.
Not made the most of our time on the trail.

How many other hobbies and sports can make us do that?
For the maximum enjoyment, we need to suffer in these ways.
And in doing so, we raise the risk of injury one way or another.

My mother used to say to me. “Wouldn’t you rather play bowls or be doing something less hard work or dangerous?”
That would usually come on the back of my post race feeling or from a visit to A&E, after yet another bad off.

Mother! Not a chance in hell.

Life without a bike, would be like a forced sex change.
You’d learn to adapt but deep down you’ll feel wrongly shafted.

Great description of 24 hour racing, Sharki.

“The desire to ‘just ride’ keeps us going and we don’t realise to importance to feed till it’s too late”

Yeah you’ve got it mapped-out in your head and a desire get on with it; you forget about fuel until too late. Have you seen Find yet? The section watching Rob Lee degenerate is very interesting. But the guy lives for those moments when he’s pushed himself to breaking point.

This has got me thinking…

It’s threads like this that make up for all the arguing about breasticles and the ‘look at my chequebook bike’ nonsense.

Cheers Sharki – nice one sunshine 🙂

quality posting sharki, enjoyed that.

8) Great Post! x2 to Rusty Spanner comments. Cheers Sharki !!

Thanks for the kind comments chaps.

Made a chance to waffle on about something other than walks in the countryside, birds and scenery and my random rides.

I was asked to do a full race report from the view of a pit bitch and spectator.

On thinking about it, i realised it would be a massive write up to include my whole weekends experience.
And explain it all as i felt it..

Maybe tonight i will. Although i really should press on with my other written project and keep others busy.

Thanks again.

Sharki

Life without a bike, would be like a forced sex change.
You’d learn to adapt but deep down you’ll feel wrongly shafted.

Great quote, and can’t agree more with your post Sharki.
How did you get on at the Puffer?

JB

JB. I was there to take photo’s and assist in pit bitch duties.
Trying to keep the girls out there and riding.

How did i do?

Photography was poor on most accounts.

Massaging made me feel great, hopefully it helped the riders too. 😉

All in all a very different form of exhaustion, compared to that from the awesome efforts from all the weekends riders.

Having been on both sides of the event, both pitting and riding, i’m unsure which i’d rather do.

I know what you mean, a great pit team is essential, i’d never have have had a hope of getting 4th solo at SITS without the outstanding support of my team… and yes the massages would have been most appreciated by the girls!!!

Thanks Sharki – I enjoyed that. I think most people on here can relate to at least some parts of your post.

Have you got the rest of your photos on flickr or something?

Thanks.

Not yet, TBH like i said most are poo, other than the one that have already appeared on hear and other threads.

Might do some cropping and flickr hosting laters.