The sun woke those of us sleeping in tents pretty early on Saturday. We hadn’t been up long before the Stayer Cycles support crew turned up, a dream team made up of Framebuilder/chef Sam, Wheelbuilder/voice-of-reason Judith & head of HR/canine mascot Nola. Our camp then transformed into a serious-looking affair, with a proper gazebo, a kitchen station and a bike stand. One of our teams’ sponsors Perky Blenders had come through with some excellent coffee they had described as ‘different with every sip’. Ideal 24hr race fuel. In turn we gave the bikes a once-over, changed into some serious-looking lycra and rolled out for a sighting lap before the morning rider briefing.
The course was surprisingly varied, with a mixture of steady and sharp climbs, woodland singletrack with a vicious A-line decent. Laps looked to be about 30mins for a quick one, so we perhaps naively planned to do 3 before handing over to the other.
The informal rider briefing gave us a full view of the variety of riders and steeds taking part. XC carbon whippets bumped bars with fat bikes and 90s rigid throwbacks. A quick run through of proceedings, a couple of group cheers, and we sloughed off back to camp to faff nervously. Joe opted for the first shift, which included a Le Mans style running start. The rest of the Stayer crew watched on as he weaved and (politely) elbowed his way up to the 2nd or 3rd row. A quick and rowdy crowd countdown and we were off!
The first few laps were a mixture of over-enthusiastic accelerations, shouts of ‘rider back’ and ‘on your left/right’ and getting used to a course that had precious little rest. I was feeling superbly smug I’d nicked the bell from my town bike and delighted at its every use. The third lap of each shift kicked harder than we would have liked, and after 6 hours most of the adrenaline had worn off, replaced with a steady grim determination. The sun was properly out, and bottle handups from the Sam and Judith were a total godsend. In our downtime, we were treated to the full support crew service back at camp with a seemingly endless supply of food, coffee and encouragement. 9 hours in, with 3 x 3 lap shifts each under our belts, we decided to regroup and have a chat about our night riding strategy. We were sitting a comfortable 4th in our category, but happy to sacrifice time for a reassessment and some dinner. All agreed that although the pace we were keeping was great, it was also laughably unsustainable, and it might be best if we got some sleep through the darkest part of the night. While Joe headed back out for a couple of night laps, I got a headstart on some much-needed kip. The whole campsite seemed to have settled down for the night, with the notable exception of the trackside Retro bikes pitch, who valiantly kept up a party atmosphere well into the small hours. Occasionally stirred by the buzzing of a freehub as a weary rider rolled back through camp, we slept pretty well.
