I’m sitting looking at the pile of kit that I’m taking and starting to think that the car might not be big enough

I’ve just been feeling smug loading my van – no more level 50 tetris, trying desperately to stuff sleeping bags under seats & anything soft into any available gap…

Aye back there again this year as a pairs 12 🙂

Lost my wing man at last years event when he took a big fall and then spent the rest of sat eve in A&E… New wing man prob still going to be quicker than me haha

If this weather holds could be a classic this year!!??

Weather report Plymouth’s not seen rain for over a week it’s going to be dusty, looking out my window towards newnham and there’s no threatening looking cloud in the sky… should be a good one!

12hour team (Mondraker Racing UK) feels a bit of a cop-out only riding 12hours in a team but I’m sure come midnight tomorrow I’ll be glad I’m done!

I’ll be in for the 24 solo, first time at Newnham, looks like a great course/atmosphere. Some random blog thoughts/last min tips on here:

https://mattjonesmtb.wordpress.com/

I’m currently melting into a small puddle trackside in the Solo area it’s gonna be a hot one!

Team sumo are trackside, disco going!

Fatbikes and sumo suits at the ready 😉

Cheer us on our solo 12 please!

Just finished a lap of the course. It’s dry, dusty, fast and bloody good fun 😀

Everyone enjoy that?

We had three teams from Silverfish in and all had an amazing time.

As always, great trails and brilliant atmosphere.

Bloody awesome time. Loved the course and the atmosphere. Our team coming 2nd in the 24hr open mixed was a right shock.

Team SUMO!

We are still here! Thanks for all the support 😀

Was a bit warm, but we kept going and drinking!

Who has a picture of us?

All I have is a “Sumo! Sumo! Sumo!” Can’t imagine what you boys went through, hard enough in the heat with normal gear. 🙂 Great course, great atmo – enjoyed that muchly. 🙂

Cracking weekend!!! Man that was hot and fast course!!!

What an awesome weekend.. excellent course and great atmosphere! Will be back next year! 🙂

Had a fantastic weekend, great atmosphere and a really good bunch of people down there.

Managed to get a decent result in my race which I’m happy with and also picked up a half-price Rotor crankset from their stand which was pretty good!

I enjoyed it, but found it really tough due to the heat. I didn’t drink enough on my first couple of laps and paid the price. I then spent the next 6 hours trying to get as much fluid down as possible, and was still feeling de-hydrated. At times I did consider having a lay down in the stream. I was very glad when it started cooling down, I got a second wind then and actually felt much better. I leap frogged my wife a couple times, who was also riding solo – luckily I managed to stay in front at the end, although was only ahead by 10mins or so. Pleased to manage 15 laps.

I thought the atmospshere was the whole event was great. Everyone was very friendly on the course, all overtaking was polite. Good music in the arena for most of the 24hrs. All the kids around the campsite did a great job of throwing water at the riders and cooling us down a bit.

Looking forward to next year’s event 🙂

Hot,fast & chilled weekend.

Results are up

Loved it. 24hr pairs and managed 30 laps and came 5th. Always had a bike out on the course which was our aim. So really pleased with ourselves.

We were the guys trackside near the very first little start loop who were having massages Saturday evening. Felt very smug!

As always, the course was great, the atmosphere was just lovely. Already scheming for next year.

I normally love a good tough climb, but was grateful that there seemed to be less sharp steep climbs than normal? It kept the course flowing well.

Well that was a great race! Apart from the braking bumps!!! Ouchie my hands during the night and morning hurt! Otherwise the course was great,it never felt over crowded and everyone was friendly! Love bontrager 24:12 and I won the 24 solo, yay 🙂

First time we did it and will definitely be back next year. Even though the other half had two nasty crashes and i crashed on the bridge at the bottom of the last descent at about 6am when it as wet!

We can’t get the results page to open. Is anyone else having difficulty? Tried it in Safari and Chrome.

Did anyone else do the ‘Long Jump’ on the straight through camp?

I did it in the early hours and no one was watching!

Dogsby

Another great weekend from start to finish.

I was racing the 12hr solo which seemed to be quite a popular choice.

Beautiful weather, although it was getting so hot around 4pm that I started dreaming about Alaskan snow bike races… Going for a lie down in the stream was getting more and more tempting!

A switch to drinking cool water instead of tepid energy drink for a couple of laps seemed to sort me out but I was quite relieved as we got to early evening and it started to cool off a bit.

Really enjoyed the course, seemed to have only good bits and nothing that you would really dread each lap. Basically once you’d winched up the first hill it was pretty much all fun to the end of the lap.

It ended up being a good weekend all round for the Pivot Boompods with all the teams ending up on the podium with a 1st, 2nd and 3rd place in the different categories that we were racing, with Euan and Ross Adams winning a hard 24hr pairs race. I finished up 2nd which I was made up with for my first 12hr solo!

Great result for Chris as well in winning the 24hr solo at his first attempt.

Some nice action photos once again from Kevin Sheldrake
https://www.flickr.com/photos/kevinsheldrake/sets/72157645554127927/

rich
https://www.facebook.com/PivotBoompodsRacing

I enjoyed it, but found it really tough due to the heat. I didn’t drink enough on my first couple of laps and paid the price.

Snap. Went out way too fast and not drinking nearly enough. Giving up on energy drink, and necking litres of water got me going again. Hands and arms still wrecked but great fun.

I managed 5 hours before my right knee gave out as I couldn’t put weight on it. I suffered quite badly with the heat and riding a rigid bike. Amusingly some of the marshals suggested I’d brought the wrong bike….
Kudos to those that slogged through.

Great event! Best one so far I think, although the first one we did (No. 3 I think, when you got a Bontrager plastic mug) was close.

The weather was fab; there were a few people moaning about the heat/dust and I guess if you were doing solo or pairs it might have been an extra thing to manage. But, I loved it in our team of 4. Too many years of watching the rain come down and the track get slippier, meant that this weekend was bliss!!
The braking bumps were pretty dire towards the end, but it was still a great course. Loved it; getting the climbing over with in the first half and then knowing the rest of the lap is more fun.
I think I’ve been spinning too easy a gear on the road bike so had no power/stamina at all for the climbs which was disappointing. But, that’s something to learn from!

We were sited on the out and back loop just after the start, before you popped over the bridge into the field. We were next to the massive motorhome that had all the fairy lights up at night.

I managed the sumo jump every lap apart from my second night lap, although I avoided the ‘long jump’. Probably would have attempted it, had it just been a normal ride though.

Passing/overtakes were 99% really polite.
There was a bit of a commotion behind me at one point when a rider was trying to get two people to move out of the way down the end of bluebell wood at it’s narrowest and dustiest. He got quite abusive.
And I had a Lumi rider clip my handlebar as we came around the final twiddles into the arena. There was plenty of space, so not sure why he got so close, but no harm done.

Thanks to all the clappy cheering people on the course and the kids with the garden sprayers!
Hopefully we did our fair share of cheering people on too.

Brilliant weekend. I was part of the Royal Navy inter service team. Third Bonty I’ve ridden and they’ve all been amazing. Great course and atmosphere. Thanks for all the encouragement as the services teams went through the campsite. The dusty cottage descent was the highlight for me.

That cottage descent was great fun! Just pinging off the rocks all the way down. The highlight for me was riding the sunrise lap. It was my turn to do a lap at that time and the sky was amazing going up over the fist climb/field.

Great weekend, fantastic support and perfect weather.
Little Yak (age 6) eventually got a kids race entry – massive thanks to James’s team for that! Best wishes and get well soon to your team-mate too. Little Yak was made up and smashed it round for 5th. We had a 4man 24hr team and managed to bring it in for 5th in the masters / 19th overall team. Happy with that and we all had some really fun laps.

We were camped at the top of the final descent with our kids periodically shouting ‘wheelie!!’

All in, a great weekend!

The kids races were excellent! There were some real characters amongst them. We gave them all a good cheer.

Yak, were your kids asking for High Fives at one point?
I came out of the trees for the final descent on my first or second lap and there were 3 kids asking for High Fives. I debated it from a kid safety point of view (for about half a second), before sticking my hand out and slowing down a bit…. 😀

No – not our kids. I thought it a touch risky. Sorry if that makes me a grump!
Just seemed that that spot was a bit quick.

I managed to hi-five 2 of the 3 kids at some speed they loved it!

That was my 5th or 6th twentyfour12, and probably the best ever. Quick, dry course and fantastic weather, its always a great event though! Congrats to the sumo guys, must have been hard work in those suits! We were just down from the long jump so had a good view, some people were getting an impressive amount of air given the short run up, I barely had enough speed to avoid nose-landing! Can’t wait till next year…

Yak – Member
No – not our kids. I thought it a touch risky. Sorry if that makes me a grump!
Just seemed that that spot was a bit quick.

Yeah, that was my instant thought; that it might be a bit quick and hence, risky.
Wouldn’t have done it on a wet course, but it’s quite predictable there in the dry and with the leisurely lap times I was doing I figured a dab of the brakes to give them a Five was OK.

markoulini – they seemed pretty chuffed, didn’t they!? 🙂

I managed to hi-five 2 of the 3 kids at some speed they loved it!

I think I managed a full house. I debated it from a smiling kids point of view and went for it 🙂

Is anyone else having trouble getting results from the timelaps website?
Doesn’t seem to be loading up for me.

Great weekend. Just got home, bike in the garden. Normally I’d have to clean tons of mud off it. This year just heavily dusted.
Thanks to everyone for a great race.

Is anyone else having trouble getting results from the timelaps website?
Doesn’t seem to be loading up for me.

Yup, been borked since I first looked last night, at home and work.

Yes, another great weekend. Big thanks to Martyn et al. My kids loved the 12minute – the youngest kept bursting into tears with nerves beforehand then rode around with a beaming face, which Keith Bontrager commented on. That was a nice touch.

My 3 virgin-24er team-mates all loved it and are already talking about next year. We didn’t do especially well but then two of the team were on a jump bike and a semi-DH bike, so no surprises.

Passing/overtakes were 99% really polite.

One guy shouted “Rider” as I got to the crest of the first bombhole. Stupidly I stopped, teetering on the edge, and let him pass instead of making him wait until a sensible place a few seconds later. 🙄 But the idiots were very much the exception, thankfully.

Two tiny criticisms – I tried to buy a T-shirt on Friday morning but they were already sold out 🙁 , and RESULTS! No good them being online if no-one can see them.

markoulini – Member
I managed to hi-five 2 of the 3 kids at some speed they loved it!

I managed all 3 but at such a speed I must have corkscrewed them into the ground. 😆

That was my first 24 solo and I loved it – or at least I do now that some of the pain has gone away. 27th Overall and 8th in vets not bad for a beginner, despite a torn tyre on lap 3 and a broken spoke later which I wrapped around another and rode on with.

I too was out at 3am to see the sunrise before breakfast and it was fantastic. Thanks to all the encouragement, the chap handing out jelly babies just before the Sumo tent, “Mr Baked Beans” who I had a chat with (Happy Birthday for next year)

One guy shouted “Rider” as I got to the crest of the first bombhole. Stupidly I stopped, teetering on the edge, and let him pass instead of making him wait until a sensible place a few seconds later. But the idiots were very much the exception, thankfully.

Quite – I had one ride shout “Behind!” – FFS at least shout which side you want to pass, or were you commenting on my lycra clad derrière? Then at the exit of the single track before the climb up a rider swore at me as he tried to barge past through the exit onto the fire road – he could have waited a few seconds or shouted at me. I made the latter point clear and to give him his due he apologised as he rode off.

Brilliant weekend!

Best event of the year in UK so far! I went alone for my first 24h solo and within 5 minutes of arrival the guys next to me offered support if needed.
Unfortunately I had to give up at midnight after 14 laps due to lateral pain in my knee, I think it’s tendinitis. I was 9th at that point and probably 8th before that painful lap.

Congrats to the winners, specially c_klein87, well done! Talked to loads of riders and enjoyed when everyone cheered.
Some of you probably saw me, long hair and beard riding a Lynskey.

and RESULTS! No good them being online if no-one can see them.

To be fair Timelaps, who did the timing, they are the best in the business, and this is the first time I can remeber them having a problem with their website – their results are normally online a few hours after the event finishes. Hopefully they will get it fixed soon.