TwentyFour12 roll call.

12hr solo here, wife is doing 12hr female pair.

xcwanabe, I didn’t really phrase that so well: I meant lots of racing (paid for) at newnham and night riding in the bits north and north east of the estate. I know better than to trespass in Newnham and spoil it for us all. As well as the ‘getting accidentally shot’ bit. 😆

24hr mixed team here. Team Emptybeers.

I’m the one in the tacky Pink Floyd Wish You Were Here jersey. 🙂

Signed up for 12hr pairs.

Any ideas how the course is going to hold up? Due to last minute technical issues I’m going to be on a 90’s hardtail with v-brakes and SB8s – am I going to spend the whole time crashing into trees and digging mud out from my retro rim brakes??

Compact-sized dynamo and course planner/taper Maddie Horton posted on xcracer forum last night:

We have had a fair bit of rain recently, but today the sun shone at Newnham all day and it was scorching. We have just clocked off from day 4 of course set up and by our afternoon trog round I counted about 3 puddles in total.

As we all know from last year though – heavy rain + 1200 riders = mud,

It hasn’t rained in Sunny Plympton for about 28 hours, is forecast to rain a bit today and then sunny sat and sunday. As long as it has a chance to dry a tiny bit without everyone riding all over it, it will be nice. My experience of Newnham is that as long as the rain stops before the race starts, the repeated riding over it sort of ‘churns’ the mud dry again in a short while.

Anyone want a last minute 12 hour mixed pairs entry? That’s both places, knock down price! Seems a shame for it to go to waste. Better text me: 07887704303.
– Geraldine

Still dry in Totnes today, sitting waiting at work to head down to Plym tonight….

Sorry Folks – Its LASHING it down here right now and has been for 20 mins.

yup not good in Newton Abbot ATM 🙁

Awesome!

Just had a nice wet un in the cleave.

Looking good for the weekends giggles.

Anyone one here have an unusual caravan at the event?

It looked like it had a fixed front bed with a garage underneath, with a central door on the rear as well, (possibly another locker at the rear?) towed by a double cab pickup. Just interested who makes it in a nosey type of way 🙂

Great event, topped off with the alternator in the car shorting out the battery 150 miles from home! Many thanks to the very nice man from the AA for giving me a new battery and disconnectting the alternator so I could get home(just).

Big respect to the nutters on the tandem.

Indeed – I followed them through one of the quicker bits of singletrack in Bluebell woods for a bit and their riding was very impressive!

Ming, its meant to be my alternator that is dieing! Its still struggling on in a half-hearted way, hoping to get it repaired next week as a new one is £275 excluding labour!

Followed ’em down the mid-lap drop into the campsite – as you say, very impressive.

Got overtaken on my fastest lap by one the TORQ “animals”. He overtook me on the last descent, I had to back off after 100yrds of trying to keep up as I was destined for a Hospital visit I was so beyond my limits……………..I doubt I could have kept up on my Quake.

Also full marks to the bloke that I let past at 0230 ish in the same place who treated me to a 6ft crossed up air before disappearring into the distance.

Well done to LoCo Team rider Zoe Frogbrook, she finished 2nd in her first female 24hr solo.

Second to the very quick UK and European Champ Hannah Welling by one lap.

Top ride by all ladies, to put that in perspective Zoe would have finished 12th in the male solo out of 47 riders.

Very proud of the girl, and the team support – it couldn’t have been achieved without the support of LoCo Tuning, who serviced her shock and fork with some real magic to make the bike truly comfortable for 24 hours – thanks Simon.

Zoe will be updating her blog soon with a full race report, Zoe’s Blog

OMG what a relentless course – managed to do a 53 min lap but blowing out my arse – I learn’t I am not race fit ATM – nice technical descents which I loved (best bits) but it killed me – we were 11th out of 54 in the male team 24 🙂

Well done Team Bullheart!!!

That was the most brutal 12hrs I’ve done, Euro Solo Champs in May was easier!

Had a quick chat with the racing Vegan, what a guy!

somehow struggled to another 8th place with 11 laps.

Cracking event and proper MTB course.

RN team did good, went from 3 1/2 riders to pairs over night and 2 1/2 in the morning still finished in the top 30 in open men.

that’s it no more endurance events for me this year!

yunki – Member
Well done Team Bullheart!!!

Cheats! The Bullheart Allstars were better 😉

Great event though, really enjoyable.

Was the best endurance course that I’ve ridden, properly fun. We came 4th in the Mixed Open 24, 14 minutes off the podium.

Sweet mother of God. My legs have stopped working.

Next year; Gears and suspension…

Tough but rewarding course! so happy to get 3rd 12hr solo male on my singlespeed 🙂 glad the rain hadn’t affected the course, could have been alot tougher

It was a good event, but not too sure about the course. I think I preferred the previous courses.
This one seemed to have a lot of climbing without a great deal of fun descending – I suspect this was partly down to my skill level/the weather, but I wasn’t the only one out there who was tip-toeing around the slippy bits. There were people attempting to overtake coming a cropper & people falling off left right & centre through some of the whoopy undulating sections.
I reckon had it been dry, there would have been a few more ‘fast’ sections to make up for the hills – living on the Lincolnshire border I like to moan about hill whenever I can…. 🙂

Aside from that – I saw MTG on his Rohlhoff bike & Go Vegan jersey at the start, but I was quite a way back & didn’t want to shout out to him. Also saw him go past our trackside camp, but our view was obscured by the large green/white stripy gazebo full of shouty encouraging people, so it was kinda like ‘there he is, oh, he’s gone’…..

I also saw the Loco Tuning rider, Zoe, and shouted a few words of encouragement, saw loads of Bullheart jerseys and introduced myself to Sharki, after wandering past him & recognising the jersey.

Must get fitter for next yr.

Must also make a more reliable Lumi conversion! Converted my second can to 830mA driver the night before we drove down, but pulled a track off the LED board being ham-fisted. My highly skilled OH managed to bridge the broken track, but it failed within an hour or so, I think due to all the bumping about……the original can is still going strong though & this one proved the concept/brightness of the 830mA version.

Yea, course was tough, but great beacause if that. Had a skills awakening though as it took me 3 laps to get through the 1st bombholey section without a dab!

Just checked the front page of Singletrackworld.com..

Did we imagine the whole thing?

This one seemed to have a lot of climbing without a great deal of fun descending

Eh? I thought the decents amply rewarded the climbing, sure it was tough up but was not so steep to be unrideable, you could just winch yourself up them with a low enough gear if needed. that cottage return descent on the 2nd lap was just the best, a proper grin raiser!

I thought it to be one of the best courses I’d ridden at Newnham, shame about the heavy dew/drizzle as it did make it a little slippy after halfway but a great test of bike riding ability…

Best course I’ve ridden by far. Well ahead of Mayhem in terms of fun factor and technical stuff.

superb course…. lots of grind and lots of grin!….

(makes up for Mayhem this year)

Best course I’ve ridden by far. Well ahead of Mayhem in terms of fun factor and technical stuff.

+ 1

Must get fitter for next yr.

You say that every year.
I did think of you Saturday night, but didn’t miss the 3pm laps.
Hope to make it next year.

rigid singlespeed = pain.

my body feels beat up, smiling though. what a course. 😀

Torchbearer solo, my first ever non-team event so a biiiig step up and eye-opener for me. Therfore relatively chuffed with 11th place avec 8 laps before I threw in the towel at 11.45. (I supopose I could have done a 9th, but I had so many ‘moments’ and a fairly big stack on my 7th lap so proper worried my co-ordination/skillz were too shot to do it safely.) Wierdest bit was riding all the climbs as slow as possible to conserve energy rather than just blasting up them. 😕

Either I signed the wrong box at registration or they gave me the wrong numberplate, but I kept looking for Tim Flooks at the start/finish as the commentator mentioned a couple of times that he had just gone through with the same number of laps as me, and I couldn’t believe I was nearly as quick as him. (oh yes he really is!) Turns out I ‘was’ Tim Flooks (who wasn’t there at all in the end). I would like to publicly apologise for inadvertently bringing his otherwise excellent racing reputation into disrepute with my paltry 11th place, I am sure he would have nailed 4th or 5th. 😳

xcwanabe – Member

That was the most brutal 12hrs I’ve done, Euro Solo Champs in May was easier!

From someone who is so much quicker than me in local races, that is relieving to hear!

Hookworthy (woods at top before return to capsite in the middle of the course) was certainly ‘interesting’ after midnight, having raced those bits in the yummy dry weather, the exposed damp and polished roots really were something! Definitely the hardest of the four 24/12’s at Newnham so far, both in terms of climbs and overall tricksiness. Nothing ‘gnar’ but nice and twiddly in parts 😀 .

Nice to meet a couple of new-to-me stw faces too (sharki and midlandstrailquestgraham), I just about kept sight of Graham down the cottage descent on my 8th and his 13th-or-so lap, he is pretty quick for a 40something vegan! 😉

I proper hurt this morning.

What we had there at 24/12, is what i believe to be a proper MTB endurance course.

The ascending wasn’t so bad as to be soul destroying, as the fun interesting section there after, where rewarding. Other than the two main big climbs, the others shorter sections of height gain, provided us with challenging bit of technical climbing and more sections of woodland fun.

During the night laps as the air and and ground got moist, conditions were said to have got slippery, however i felt them improve as the once tacky ground felt quicker with less resistance, as for the roots, well roots need to be tackled in a way to prevent them affecting you. A technique i feel alot of riders would do well to learn about. Avoidance and speed/power management was key for me for anything where the roots were anything more than about 45degs across the trail. Which means if you need to ride over the roots, don’t brake or pedal hard whilst on one. Anything else was just hit at normal speed. The bomb whole section was fun and momentum was important here, grip was always good, but a run out was needed so not having a rider in front helped in easy problem free progress through these area.

Moor riding: Such fun, fast and swoopy, however the sharp change in pitch on two tight corners did catch me out a more than one occasion. Then there’s the rock sections up there, Stay upright, have a low centre of gravity and straight line it the best you can, FUN!

Entering the shooting area was a chance to utilise my rather notchy bashring, which is like a 44th chainring, but dartmoorised 🙂 It’s all wide and smooth down here so lets wind up the speed a little a get this bit done and get on with the second half of the lap.

Across the bridge and into Plasticine alley, plodding in here means your in for longer, work hard on the tacky sections and the less tacky bits will feel better, the challenge along this stretch was that rooty section and only once did i almost clear it, stooling on the big root at the top, all other efforts were twarted by bikes and bodies or lack of momentum. 🙁

Now to climb two, keeping the sections turning i think broke it up nicely, instead of one long straight climb, we climbed a little, turned sharply, climbed steeply, levelled out, climbed, decended, climbed gently, then levelled out again before another steep section.

Final sections of woody rootland meant a little down, a bit of up and some across taking us to the grand finish.

Cottage return, Just sodding awesome, after all the ups, downs, up downs, etc as i dropped than that cheeky right hander over the low wall and through the last few bombholes, i knew just what was around the corner, a short wide gravel track, then that left hander across the rocks and rapidly heading downwards, jink left, right, jump rocks, avoiding pinches, maintaining rhythmic flow, i’m back in the 44th bashring and winding up momentum, a clear run again..blisss! left, right, left… powering up the slight rise and into the big roll in, still clear ahead YES! 🙂 A few big turns and speed increases, twisting, carving turns, mind the roots, this is super fast…tree step or straight line? Hell yeah, left, step, land, POWER!! go go go, stay right past that root, cut left, relax, rattle over braking bumps, GITS! right, left, right, scrubbing off speed down to the road, over the bridge and into the campsite. HELLOO, Oooo, still more fun, is it clear? hope so, left around barrier tape, roll in, step up over roots, back end twitching, left, up onto last straight and under the arch. Lanyard off and now somelses turn…Who’s up next? ENJOY 🙂

Also as always, it was ace to meet new and old peeps.

Help a sticken solo rider carrying no spares 😕 i loss precious minutes on what would of been my sub 50mins lap. 😥

And also glad the lady rider got her phone back after i stopped to pick it up on the course..In future, if you are a lady rider, and you carry a phone with you then go on to win the category, please could you keep your phone charged so when i go the check through your numbers(to notify someone i’ve got your phone)i can stalk you easily and get your number 😉

Thanks for the mention at the end, it was my pleasure. 🙂

We had two teams in the Open Mixed 24 (finished 8th and 10th) plus a just for fun team. Loved the event again, loved the course – was worried that after the 4th year I’d find it samey, but it was at least 75% different, with the bits which were the same being the grin inducing fun bits.

Really enjoyed racing as a team and being able to push myself a bit this year (last 3 years have been solo, so energy conservation was the aim).

Loved the random soft toys dotted about the course, wonder who stole the gel from the squirrel!

Big thanks to Martyn and the team and to all the competitors and supporters who make it such a great fun, but still competitive event.

Results are supposed to be here: http://www.timelaps.co.uk/assets/uploads/EVENTREPORT.aspx?eventid=176NewnhamPark23/07/2011 but it doesn’t seem to be working at the mo.

Yep – good race, first time we’ve done the 24hr, 7th in Open Mixed 🙂 (I think – haven’t seen the final results…)

I liked the course more the longer the race went on, but I felt the overall event lacked a bit of atmosphere compared with past years – not many trade tents and seemed to be fewer competitors – but may be that was my imagination.

Loved the random soft toys dotted about the course, wonder who stole the gel from the squirrel!

+1

Hamish, the results pages works, but for me took ages to load up..