Eleven years on and the attraction of the Giant Mountain Mayhem is still strong, as over 2,500 people attended the biggest and most successful 24 hour race last weekend.
The move to Eastnor Castle, Herefordshire, hasn't coincided with the best of forecasts over the past few years, and 2008 was set to be no different. An overnight deluge turned the course into a mudfest, with sections quickly becoming unrideable under the weight of hundreds of tired riders.
But Brits are renowned worldwide for their plucky spirit in the face of adversity, and plug away they did. While many riders were reduced to slow pace, just content to get around and hand the batten over to the next unlucky victim, the top boys and girls continued putting away incredibly quick laps.
The Scott UK managed a quad busting 31 laps reaching average lap speeds of 13mph, with the Torq/Kona closely hanging on to their mudguards with a very respectable 29 laps. Anthony White in the solo men's category turned in twenty laps with his average lap time peaking at 11.25mph, Sally Bigham in the solo women's completed 18 laps in an outstanding time of 24:28.29.
Instead of us publishing all the results here (because we'd soon run out of space) pop over to www.mayhemworld.co.uk for all the results and more information about the event.
Element Racing's Mel Alexander is a veteran of five Mountain Mayhem's, but this year marked her first attempt at going solo. Here's how she got on:
With a poorer race than expected at the marathon champs and then pulling out of the Bristol BikeFest the following week feeling dehydrated and burnt out left me in two minds as to whether I was prepared and strong enough mentally to race Mayhem.
Mark Spratt, my partner and trusty support for the race, decided he would do a practice lap and give me a low down on the course. I had been hearing all kind of stories about steep hairpins, steep drops and steps and was beginning to lose my nerve. Mark came back grinning, remarked 'brilliant, you will love it, best course of Mayhem yet, just enjoy it'. So with this in mind I set off at 2pm with a good run and a steady first lap. I enjoyed every minute of it and every minute of the next 5 laps. I raced the first 6 laps in just over 6 hours and felt happy and strong.
Lights went on, it started drizzling, and the course got slipperier in sections. My confidence was gradually deteriorating and I found myself walking sections I knew I should have been riding, which was making me feel negative and wiped the smile of my face. Truthfully the night time became one big muddy painful blur, which was a shame as I love riding at night. At some point it did stop raining but this just caused the mud to get thick and claggy; in sections it was so thick it brought both wheels to a halt. Every 5 meters the wheels would come to a stop.
The only option was to wipe as much mud off, pick the bike up which weighed a ton, stagger as far as possible then put bike down, wipe off, pick up and continue like this until able to roll down the hill. Whilst pushing, dragging, unclagging and carrying my bike through these sections I just kept trying to remind myself that it would be fine once out of this section, the rest is still rideable/walkable and in a few hours the sun would be out.
Day did break and it was still drizzling so I continued plodding and riding along. Eventually this did stop and a breeze started which helped to speed the drying of the course. At some point in the morning Sally Bigham caught me up, (lapped me) we rode together for a bit which cheered me up. It sounds really nasty but it was good for my spirit to see a stronger rider than myself struggling as much as I was as it made me realize I was being a bit hard on myself. At this point it would have been nice to ride the rest of the race together but we had completely different strengths, Sally being much stronger on the climbs and me pulling away from her on the slippery sections in the first half of the course. We kept passing each other for the remainder of the race, encouraging one another to continue.
Towards the end of my 14th lap I found Mark at the top of the Kenda climb. He was there to inform me that Fiona was catching me up and that she had gained 25 minutes in 3 laps and was now only 24 minutes behind me but I would be fine if I just kept riding without stopping. This was at about 9.30am and not what I wanted to hear but I did as I was informed. I kept going, grabbing a banana and bottle at end of each lap and stopped once briefly to get my chain oiled. It hurt and although the course had become rideable again I felt completely exhausted and feared bonking. I managed to keep Fi off my wheel, finishing 2nd with 17 laps in 24 hours and 3 minutes.
We'll have more accounts and reports over the following days, plus the view from inside the Shift/Bikemagic/Whyte team, once they've recovered enough to write a few words...
