Cyril Jay Rayon at Laguna Seca
This past weekend, I competed in my second 24 hours solo mountain bike race in Laguna Seca. My teammate, Seegs, also raced and won the women’s 24 solo division in style. The race was part of the world renowned 24 hours of Adrenalin series. After my first race at Hurkey Creek 6 weeks prior, I was determined to have a crash free race, pace myself better, and ride strong throughout. I managed to succeed in doing 2 out of 3 but I just couldn’t keep the tires down for the entire 24 hours and crashed on lap 14 (some 12+ hours into the race) and cracked some ribs as I overshot a corner, barrelled straight down the side of the hill and flipped and landed on my handlebars. I learned the hard way that it’s difficult to keep fatigue from affecting your handling skills. Another lesson learnt. I just need to slow down in the later part of the race on the more technical sections when fatigued. For all I know, maybe i was going slow and was so fatigued that I thought I was going fast around the corner. This is one of the interesting aspects of 24 hour racing as your mind plays tricks on you and sometimes blurs your perception of reality. Push hard enough and you might just get drug free hallucinations!
All this ultra endurance racing into the night begs the question. Why do some ride 24 hours solo when 12 hours is more than enough to completely trash you and leave you feeling that going any longer is senseless? Read More
