Race Report :: 18 Hours on the Farm Mountain Bike Race      back to races
Hosted by the Cobblestone Bicycles (event website)
November 17-18, 2007

Victor's Report:
All of my 6 laps were between 1h15 and 1h30 minutes, but between laps is the real story:

- after 1 lap, 1 minute break to remove layers.
- after 2 laps, 20 minute break to eat a clif bar
- after 3 laps, 55 minute break to eat cold soup, move all our gear into the warm dining hall, wait for Miguel, make him a hot chocolate
- after 4 laps, 1.5 hour break to change shirts, adjust shifters, warm up, eat, sit in the dining hall, and feel tired
- after 5 laps, 6 hour 50 minute break to eat another cold soup, sleep too long in the cabin until 10AM
- Finish 6 laps at 11:50.

I'm guessing that I started getting lazy in my transitions (9+ hours resting?). My bike and lights worked fine, but I basically fell on every lap at night: sliding out on curves and straight into trees. The dining hall worked great as our transition, but maybe a little bit too comfortable? Our cabin was so far from the start area, but we had 3 portable heaters and 24 beds to ourselves. Also, this is the most sore I've been after any race this year. I was right behind Bryce for a while on lap 1 but I ran off trail into some tall grass and stopped. Was that Bryce's multitool I saw sitting on a stump by the trail? I picked up a nice NorthFace fleece lying next to the course on the last lap (and gave it to a race official). Next time I'll try to sleep no more than 3 hours.

Bryce's Report:
I felt good after the race, except for my whole body. I felt like I played in a football game. My legs and butt were fine, it was mostly my upper body from all the falls I took. Here is a quick summary:

- Broke my bike
- 7 mile bike trot
- 4hr first loop
- slow and steady
- multiple hard falls
- slower and less steady
- more falls
- walk the hills to warm up the feet
- cold and tired
- while warming up in car for 30 minutes fell asleep for ~2hrs
- did not want to go back out after nap and through in the towel
- Took the towel back and went out for a few more laps
-broke bike again and called it a day
-7-8? laps (one trotting) it's all a blur

What did I learn?
- Do not stop for an extended period of time (get achy and feel sorry for yourself)
- Take care of your bike and don't break it
- It doesn't matter how slow or fast you go when encountering slippery roots at night time, might as well go fast
- Don't loose your bike tool
- MP3 player really helps you keep going

Miguel's Report:
This weekend Victor, Bryce, and I did the 18hours on the farm mountain bike race. It was a lot of fun, and I add a lengthy report at the end of this message. Andy, if you want to add this to the teampuravida web site please go ahead. While I was in my last night loop, I noticed a very nice setting moon in the sky, and I thought to myself, "I wonder if there will be a full moon during Primal Quest?" Well, since Dawn Man is involved, I bet against it.

Today I decided to check the ephemeris for Billings Montana (there will be little change on this result anyway) and indeed this is what I found out.

On June 24th, the sun will rise at 5:29 AM, and set at 9:08 PM (15 hours, 43 minutes of daylight)

The moon will rise at 12:04 AM (just after midnight) and set at 11:28 AM

As the race will go on, the moon will get closer and closer to the sun, becoming a new moon on July 3rd. So all of our night navigation will take place with out the moon.

Now let me go ahead and recount my experiences at the 18 hours of the farm race

"Getting there"

Driving there was easy. Victor and I shared a ride, and we talked about all kinds of things in the way there. It always makes it easier and shorter when you share a ride, and it is good for the environment tooJ We found a nice Mc. Donald's in the way, and got 8 plain mc. Donald burgers (I had made a goal of trying to do 8 laps, and I was planning on having one hamburger for each lap)

Victor and I got there around 3:30, with 1 ½ hours to get ready. We did that, and attended the race briefing. After that we had about 20 minutes or so left to get ready. At the briefing we run into Bryce, whom we had hoped to run into.

"Getting ready for the start of the race"

I had to make a call on what to wear, it was cold, but not spectacularly so. I decided to go with globe liners, long sleeve top and regular biking shorts. It made for a cold start, but I know that after the first uphill I would be all warmed up.

I setup the bike battery charges so that I would be able to charge my lights while on each loop. With out much time left to spare, I got on the bike, and lined up way at the back of the pack. Since I was doing this solo I was not expecting to pass anybody during the race, My goal was to just keep moving forward. Indeed the main goal of this experience was to be in a realistic long drawn out workout situation and making sure that I managed to keep eating/drinking/and taking care of myself while on the course.

The start of the race short of surprised me, as I was far enough from the start of the race that we did not hear the "GO", however the sudden burst of light beams shining all over the place marked the beginning of the race. One minute later we were making progress forward.

At first the riders were tightly spaced, but surprisingly fast the line thinned out. The race had started.

"Night riding on your own"

The start of the race did prove to be rather cold, but after the first set of uphill's, the cold was replaced by very welcomed warmth emanating from with in. About 10 minutes into the first 9.6 mile loop I started to find the bikers that were stopped in the side of the trail in the process of peeling clothing layers away. I kept moving forward, sorry that I had not had a chance to fix my computer bike. I was unable to tell what speed or what distance I had covered since the beginning of the race.

Since I had not pre-ridden any part of the course (it was forbidden) I was concentrating on the awesome single track that was unfolding in front of me. One of the things that started to annoy me pretty soon though was the slick roots that kept side slipping my rear tire. It was manageable, but it forced me to be cautious and brake on some of the downhills, since I was afraid that I would suffer a side tire slippage while at speed.

The course was marked with mile markers that counted down from 8 down to 1. It seems like going from the 8 mile marker to 5 took forever, but thanks to some great straight sections and up and down sections of the course, the next two miles went quite smoothly. Then from the 3 mile marker on to the end of the loop it kind of turned into another bit of a slog. I took a break at mile marker 3 to eat and drink (1 hour 15 min into the race) plus I decided to take a short break and help two female riders fix their chain.

After that I went onto my second loop, but not before taking 10 minutes to change bike batteries and eat my first McDonalds burger (yummm)

The second loop was considerably faster than the first, by almost ½ hour, and I felt strong and in a very good rhythm. The roots had gotten slicker as the night had gotten colder, and I had two near crashes, but I managed to recover. Like the first loop I took a 5 to 15 min break to change batteries and eat another burger (yuumm)

By the third loop by rear end started to ache some from the endless pounding of the roots, but of greater concern turned out to be my dimming bike light, which managed to last me just enough to get me to the end of the loop.

This time I took a considerably longer time to get back on my fourth loop. It had gotten cold outside, and I was drenched I sweat, so I wanted to change clothes and let the bike battery charge up. I caught up with Victor who was doing great and eating (but off course) heartily at the staging area. We compared notes on the course, and Victor proceeded to move on to his next loop.

I lingered a while longer in the warmth of the stage area, but after about ½ hour in the car with the heat at full blast, I got myself put together and got going on to my fourth loop. Though my legs were not as strong as at the start, the main problem and complaint for me during this 4th loop was my rear end with ached badly, and made me really consider the virtues of a full suspension bike.

I decided to walk some parts of the uphill's to both stretch the legs, save some strength and spare my rear end. This was compensated somewhat by the fact that I was faster on the course while on the bike, both because I was becoming familiar with the course, and because for some reason the roots were not as slick as they had been on the 3rd loop.

By the end of the 4th loop I was feeling pretty good, but the rear end was aching bad, and since my bike battery had not finished charging, I decided to call it a night. I had in mind to try and do another 2 loops after sunrise.

By the time I woke up it had turned out to be past 10:00, victor had at some point in the night come in and turned the heater on. By the time we woke up the room was warm (almost hot) and cozy. However as soon as we opened the door, we were treated to pretty chilly air.

After a bit of a stretch, I got back on bike, and after ditching bike lights etc, got back on the loop for what would be my 5th and final ride. The rear end still hurt, and the legs though rested did not have the same peak speed, however I moved very well, both because I could see the trail ahead, and because the roots had had a chance to dry up. I enjoyed the course all the more, and must say that I was somewhat sorry that I had not woken up earlier in the day, as I could have done two more loops instead of one.

So the final tally were 5 loops or around 48 miles ~(1/10th of PQ)

What worked?

I had good discipline with the drinking and the eating, and my energy levels did not faltered once during the event.

Stamina was not a problem since even after my 5th loop I was feeling pretty good, though legs were a bit tired.

My bike performed flawlessly with out a single issue with changing gears, derailleur issues, or chain issues.

What did not work?

Bike lights were hard to keep charged, plus I kept seeing bike lighting systems that were vastly brighter than what I was using.

Bike seat; I either have to change the angle slightly on it, or look into a rear suspension bike which will spear the rear end.

Bike helmet keeps riding a bit too close to the front, I need to either figure out how to make it fit better or get a new one.

Fear of crashing kept me using the brakes on the downhills and robbing me of efficiency.

What did I learned?

I need to strengthen the neck muscles. Since I craned my neck often to send my beam of light further up the trail, I noticed that by the end of the 4th loop they were very tense and sore.

I should have had ready access to dry riding clothing at transition points. It would have greatly improved comfort.

Well, that is all...