Ever thought of doing a 24 hour race. Well here’s your chance - “Sleepless in the Saddle on 12/13th August”. The venue is Catton Park, Walton on Trent (in-between Stafford and Derby), UK. There can’t be a better introduction to 24hr racing than this event. According to the organisers (the same ones that organise Mountain Mayhem), this course is well suited to unicycles and far easier than the bigger Mountain Mayhem. It’s a similar set up to Mountain Mayhem in that it’s a relay race and we’re in teams. Each rider completes a 10 mile lap, handing over to the next rider to do the same. Just keep this going for 24hrs and you’re done - easy!
Strictly speaking you only need to do a minimum of 2 laps each to qualify. So, if you think you can ride at least 20 miles on hilly off road stuff (nothing at all technical) over a 24 hr period then this is for you.
If you ask any of the ones that recently did Mountain Mayhem what we thought about 24hr events, we’ll all tell you the same. That being:
- It’s a great weekend.
- It’s a hard weekend.
- You become a “God/hero/super human” for the weekend in the eyes of the 2 wheeled ones.
- You come away with such a sense of satisfaction and achievement, plus a massive grin on your face.
- The encouragement and support from all the other riders and marshal’s is sometimes overwhelming.
- The social side is as much a part of the race than anything.
You can ride the course on anything from muni, 29er to Coker. I would recommend a 29er or Coker though. You don’t have to do a night lap if you don’t want to. You could always swap with one of your team mates if it’s not for you. Doing a night lap is one of the hi-lights for most though. If you do a night lap, then you’ll have to have a minimum of 10watts of light and needs to last for a couple of hours.
I must still remind you though that the course isn’t flat (although not too hilly) and that you still need to be relatively fit. You do loose a lot of sleep, especially if you’re doing night laps. You will need to be competant at riding off road, for your own and others safety. There will be moments when bikers will be overtaking you on narrow bits of singletrack. Saying that though, the 2 wheeled ones are normally very curtious to us unicyclists. We cetainly don’t want to cause an accident, or give us unicyclists a bad name.
At the moment we’re looking at 2 teams.
One team of 2 and one team of 4.
We’re one rider short of making the team of 4. So, if you’'re interested in being that 4th person, then either PM me or reply here.
If we get several people interested, then we’ll put in 2 teams of 4. I’ve had a word with the organisers and they’re holding a place for two unicycle teams until midweek only. I’ve been told by the organisers that they’re up to over 1000 riders so far. At Mountain Mayhem there’s usually 1700 riders, but that’s a slightly bigger event.
Most of the riders that did Mountain Mayhem are already looking forward to next years event, but are finding it hard to fit in another 24hr event so soon. This is your big chance to do something extra ordinary on that one wheel of yours.
Riders so far:
Steve Colligan
Sam Wakeling
Paul Royle
Tue Johansen
Rob Northcott
Please let me know as as possible.
Steve
