Chapeau James, what a ride in tough conditions by the sound of it. Based on my 6 hours a week, that's 4 weeks training in a day!! Rest up and enjoy the recovery!
Don't sit on the cake, BTW, eat it. You probably don't need to be told that after the last 24 hours though... inspirational stuff. When I grow up I want to be JMac!
Most of you thought I was mad and I was praying for good weather. Once you’ve done a 12 hour it’s the inevitable next step and instead of talking about it for a year and eventually getting round to it, like I did with the 12, I decided just to go for it (well I’m not getting any younger). It is a fantastic event if you want to lose half a stone in a day and put 20 points on your CTL at the same time (TSS 928) or if you have high blood pressure, bringing it down to ridiculous levels afterwards.
In the 12 last year in Wales it chucked it down for the last 5 hours. That wasn’t too bad, at least there was only 5 hours to go and I wasn’t too cold and I declined Roz’s offer of a rain jacket - not wishing to stop more than necessary and wanting to stay as aero as possible. As it was, when I eventually came to a halt after a 2 mile pootle to get a lift back to HQ I was very close to hypothermia. Steve Abraham just cycled back to HQ but my lack of body fat would not have allowed that at something of a saunter – more on Steve later.
The 24 is quite another prospect and should not be undertaken by the faint-hearted. The weather this year was also a different prospect. Sunshine and showers, they said, and I duly donned the skin-suit and No-Pinz overshoes – what could possibly go wrong I thought?
Bewitching hour (14:16 in my case) arrived and setting out it looked set reasonably fair and warm. About 3 hours into my ride there was an hour or so of quite heavy rain, my feet got very wet and cold so the overshoes bit the dust with dry socks and another pair of shoes. Jeremy was very encouraging and assured me that for the rest of the event it was due to be fine. My bike also needed attention at this point as all that nice ceramic dry lube carefully applied on Friday had been wash away and my drive-chain was grinding away – I didn’t make that schoolboy error in the 12 but then the rain had been forecast.
At about 8pm the rain began in earnest necessitating a complete change of clothes and a spell in the car with heater on to try and stop shivering. 25 minutes lost but now I was much more kitted out winter weather -2 body layers, dry skin-suit, arm and leg warmers, waterproof gloves (courtesy of JP), dry socks again, extra top and a proper rain jacket (Flamme Rouge TMG PRO I purchased but didn’t use in the 12). This was more like it and although conditions were miserable with flooded roads all over the place I could now cope and even when the temperature plummeted at about 4am I was able to continue riding. I stayed in these clothes until eventually in the late morning the sun was beating down again as we headed back to Wrexham and the finish circuit near HQ. It is ironic that the 12 was soaking in Wales and dry elsewhere but this time it was only when we moved from Wales into Shropshire that we found the rain.
I suppose I could say the rest of the race was uneventful, a seemingly never ending series of circuits concentrating on the road, working out what to say to Roz and Jeremy the next time I saw them, fuelling and most importantly focusing on the next chunk of time. Occasionally my support wanted me to stop to stuff me with food and I didn’t want to but mostly the ride plan was executed successfully. In total I had 1 hour of stoppage in 24 – half an hour for 2 clothing changes and the other half hour was made up of pee stops(far too many) and lights and food changes. The winner (Michael Broadwith) only had 20 minutes of stop and Jonathan Shubert who has a mileage just ahead of mine was only riding for 21 hours even though he averaged 23.8 mph in his first 7.5 hours.
For me this event was a pretty big thing but for Steve Abraham, just another day at the office. Our paths crossed just after mid-night and as I passed him I said “ah, Steve Abraham of the One Year Time Trial, you must be knackered? His response “I’m doing berra than I thought I would actually”.
My grateful thanks to everyone who has helped and this really is much more of a team effort than regular shorter stuff. With all the kind words of encouragement coming through it has almost seemed like a CCA team effort helping to keep my spirits up. On the day(s) several riders had support crew with camper vans and tents set up at Prees Heath RAB so it looks like we did it on the cheap on that front although there were 1 or 2 unsupported riders.
Roz and Jeremy (yes they were cheap and Jeremy I still owe you) were both fantastic in their dedication to the task and although I did shout at them at times I refrained from swearing.
Others I must thank are:
Martin Birch – strength and conditioning and rehab, Sean Buxton – nutrition advice, Robert B & Steve J – spare lights, Carmelo L – rain gilet, Richard G who spent many hours designing, making and fitting a special bracket to house a power bank to keep my 520 recharged on the fly – fortunately he loves all that stuff and it didn’t interfere with his training too much, Justin L – bike and position chats, Luke D – FTP % advice in my lead up 100 and offer of support if he had been able , Nick Hickman’s support team for extra gels.
Funny thing is every time I came back to Prees Heath where mostly I would see Roz & JP, a song kept coming into my head – something like “When I get older, losing my hair (or maybe head), many years from now, do do do do do, do do do do do, when I’m sixty four”, then in shock I realised this is the year and she might suddenly say “NO MORE”, then I thought, well at least Jeremy will be there!
I have some pictures which I will post in due course.
I hope you’ve stayed awake to read this, if not I recommend caffeine gels.
What a weekend and what an event. It was about as far away from a pleasant weekend ride to a cafe in the summer sunshine as you can probably get. James has posted a nice personal account above but here are a few thoughts from me.
The start was in a big industrial estate near Wrexham. I joined Team McKenzie with about 90minutes to go before James' off time. It was buzzing at the HQ with the sort of nervous energy you typically get at a road race. Mersey Roads have a long history with this event and it appears to be part of a worldwide competition for the three best cumulative 24h distances. James had been meticulous in his preparation - both Roz and I were well briefed. At the time it was warm and sunny. Steve Abraham attracted some attention riding the event on a bike with a pannier rack. There was a guy with one tooth and a floppy hat on the back of a tandem - turns out to be George Berwick who is a previous star of the 24h world riding his 56th event at 76years of age! We checked in with Nick Hickman from the Nomads and soon James was off.
After a transition section we arrive at a service station area in Prees that will be our base for the next 20 or so hours. The riders do a series of loops and pass the service area on each of the loops. It was 2 hours in that it all changed - torrential rain, flooded roads and backed up traffic. We had a battle with clothing and staying warm including a stressful stop for a complete change into dry cloths - some big learnings. Other teams were set up with big tents where riders could jump in and quickly change or take hot food. Bizarrely saw one female competitor having a mid-race cigarette - guess everyone has their own battle plan.
During the event there was never any doubt that James was going to finish this event. He demonstrated incredible determination and was always positive on the road. During the night he passed us every hour and James was very clear about what he wanted and needed. We followed a predetermined nutrition plan and James stuck to it - clearly it worked. The morning welcomed a much slimmed-down field with many riders DNF or having to take long periods off the bike. We let James know that club members were wishing him well on the forum.
James only really started to visibly suffer a bit when we got to the finishing circuit. I remember him calling out that he was 'fine but not that great'. All we could do was encourage him and all the other competitors as they passed us. Eventually it was over and James could stop pedalling. Nice atmosphere in the clubhouse afterwards as we enjoyed a celebratory beer.
Regardless of distances I take my hat off to any rider that completed the event. Chapeau to all!
What a difference a week makes - as we headed over to Ireland (without crossing the sea) - The Black Horse - to celebrate James's 24 hour last weekend, we stopped off to support Jan Laming from Beds Road, a 19 year old undertaking a 24 hour cycle to raise money for Dementia Care, in memory of his grandmother. His Dad Graham is supporting him. So if you are out cycling tomorrow before 12 over at Cople, Cardington, Old Warden, Northill, give him some support. James didn't seem too envious of Jan's nighttime solo pursuit. We wish him well.
The torrential rain and flooded roads on our Wells ride on Friday reminded me somewhat of the 24 back in July. I have just received the official result booklet from this event although the CTT results have been available online for a while:
My official distance of 416.32 miles gave me 10th place (8th male) out of 50 finishers (67 starters) and a National age group win (by just 3.5 miles!!)
In addition this constitutes an East Anglain VTTA age record for a 62,63 and 64 year old.
The event is also used to hold the VTTA National Champs which is run on age related handicap from age 40. My standard distance for a 24 hour is 292.96 miles which gave me a plus distance of 123.36 miles and this was good enough to make me VTTA National 24 hour Champion (14 miles ahead of 2nd who was last year's winner).
Needless to say I am delighted with everything I achieved in this event and extremely proud do have done it as a member of CCA. Thanks again to everyone who helped me.
Comments
Steve
fantastic. Well done support crew too.
Amazing, awesome, surreal and mad all at the same time - well done James.
In the 12 last year in Wales it chucked it down for the last 5 hours. That wasn’t too bad, at least there was only 5 hours to go and I wasn’t too cold and I declined Roz’s offer of a rain jacket - not wishing to stop more than necessary and wanting to stay as aero as possible. As it was, when I eventually came to a halt after a 2 mile pootle to get a lift back to HQ I was very close to hypothermia. Steve Abraham just cycled back to HQ but my lack of body fat would not have allowed that at something of a saunter – more on Steve later.
The 24 is quite another prospect and should not be undertaken by the faint-hearted. The weather this year was also a different prospect. Sunshine and showers, they said, and I duly donned the skin-suit and No-Pinz overshoes – what could possibly go wrong I thought?
Bewitching hour (14:16 in my case) arrived and setting out it looked set reasonably fair and warm. About 3 hours into my ride there was an hour or so of quite heavy rain, my feet got very wet and cold so the overshoes bit the dust with dry socks and another pair of shoes. Jeremy was very encouraging and assured me that for the rest of the event it was due to be fine. My bike also needed attention at this point as all that nice ceramic dry lube carefully applied on Friday had been wash away and my drive-chain was grinding away – I didn’t make that schoolboy error in the 12 but then the rain had been forecast.
At about 8pm the rain began in earnest necessitating a complete change of clothes and a spell in the car with heater on to try and stop shivering. 25 minutes lost but now I was much more kitted out winter weather -2 body layers, dry skin-suit, arm and leg warmers, waterproof gloves (courtesy of JP), dry socks again, extra top and a proper rain jacket (Flamme Rouge TMG PRO I purchased but didn’t use in the 12). This was more like it and although conditions were miserable with flooded roads all over the place I could now cope and even when the temperature plummeted at about 4am I was able to continue riding. I stayed in these clothes until eventually in the late morning the sun was beating down again as we headed back to Wrexham and the finish circuit near HQ. It is ironic that the 12 was soaking in Wales and dry elsewhere but this time it was only when we moved from Wales into Shropshire that we found the rain.
I suppose I could say the rest of the race was uneventful, a seemingly never ending series of circuits concentrating on the road, working out what to say to Roz and Jeremy the next time I saw them, fuelling and most importantly focusing on the next chunk of time. Occasionally my support wanted me to stop to stuff me with food and I didn’t want to but mostly the ride plan was executed successfully. In total I had 1 hour of stoppage in 24 – half an hour for 2 clothing changes and the other half hour was made up of pee stops(far too many) and lights and food changes. The winner (Michael Broadwith) only had 20 minutes of stop and Jonathan Shubert who has a mileage just ahead of mine was only riding for 21 hours even though he averaged 23.8 mph in his first 7.5 hours.
For me this event was a pretty big thing but for Steve Abraham, just another day at the office. Our paths crossed just after mid-night and as I passed him I said “ah, Steve Abraham of the One Year Time Trial, you must be knackered? His response “I’m doing berra than I thought I would actually”.
My grateful thanks to everyone who has helped and this really is much more of a team effort than regular shorter stuff. With all the kind words of encouragement coming through it has almost seemed like a CCA team effort helping to keep my spirits up. On the day(s) several riders had support crew with camper vans and tents set up at Prees Heath RAB so it looks like we did it on the cheap on that front although there were 1 or 2 unsupported riders.
Roz and Jeremy (yes they were cheap and Jeremy I still owe you) were both fantastic in their dedication to the task and although I did shout at them at times I refrained from swearing.
Others I must thank are:
Martin Birch – strength and conditioning and rehab, Sean Buxton – nutrition advice, Robert B & Steve J – spare lights, Carmelo L – rain gilet, Richard G who spent many hours designing, making and fitting a special bracket to house a power bank to keep my 520 recharged on the fly – fortunately he loves all that stuff and it didn’t interfere with his training too much, Justin L – bike and position chats, Luke D – FTP % advice in my lead up 100 and offer of support if he had been able , Nick Hickman’s support team for extra gels.
Funny thing is every time I came back to Prees Heath where mostly I would see Roz & JP, a song kept coming into my head – something like “When I get older, losing my hair (or maybe head), many years from now, do do do do do, do do do do do, when I’m sixty four”, then in shock I realised this is the year and she might suddenly say “NO MORE”, then I thought, well at least Jeremy will be there!
I have some pictures which I will post in due course.
I hope you’ve stayed awake to read this, if not I recommend caffeine gels.
The start was in a big industrial estate near Wrexham. I joined Team McKenzie with about 90minutes to go before James' off time. It was buzzing at the HQ with the sort of nervous energy you typically get at a road race. Mersey Roads have a long history with this event and it appears to be part of a worldwide competition for the three best cumulative 24h distances. James had been meticulous in his preparation - both Roz and I were well briefed. At the time it was warm and sunny. Steve Abraham attracted some attention riding the event on a bike with a pannier rack. There was a guy with one tooth and a floppy hat on the back of a tandem - turns out to be George Berwick who is a previous star of the 24h world riding his 56th event at 76years of age! We checked in with Nick Hickman from the Nomads and soon James was off.
After a transition section we arrive at a service station area in Prees that will be our base for the next 20 or so hours. The riders do a series of loops and pass the service area on each of the loops. It was 2 hours in that it all changed - torrential rain, flooded roads and backed up traffic. We had a battle with clothing and staying warm including a stressful stop for a complete change into dry cloths - some big learnings. Other teams were set up with big tents where riders could jump in and quickly change or take hot food. Bizarrely saw one female competitor having a mid-race cigarette - guess everyone has their own battle plan.
During the event there was never any doubt that James was going to finish this event. He demonstrated incredible determination and was always positive on the road. During the night he passed us every hour and James was very clear about what he wanted and needed. We followed a predetermined nutrition plan and James stuck to it - clearly it worked. The morning welcomed a much slimmed-down field with many riders DNF or having to take long periods off the bike. We let James know that club members were wishing him well on the forum.
James only really started to visibly suffer a bit when we got to the finishing circuit. I remember him calling out that he was 'fine but not that great'. All we could do was encourage him and all the other competitors as they passed us. Eventually it was over and James could stop pedalling. Nice atmosphere in the clubhouse afterwards as we enjoyed a celebratory beer.
Regardless of distances I take my hat off to any rider that completed the event. Chapeau to all!
https://www.cyclingtimetrials.org.uk/race-results/15599#anchor
My official distance of 416.32 miles gave me 10th place (8th male) out of 50 finishers (67 starters) and a National age group win (by just 3.5 miles!!)
In addition this constitutes an East Anglain VTTA age record for a 62,63 and 64 year old.
The event is also used to hold the VTTA National Champs which is run on age related handicap from age 40. My standard distance for a 24 hour is 292.96 miles which gave me a plus distance of 123.36 miles and this was good enough to make me VTTA National 24 hour Champion (14 miles ahead of 2nd who was last year's winner).
Needless to say I am delighted with everything I achieved in this event and extremely proud do have done it as a member of CCA. Thanks again to everyone who helped me.