MOUNTAIN MAYHEM : MUDFEST PART 1

The Bike Mechanic Race Team were in attendance at the 11th Giant Mountain Mayhem, competing in the Men's Sport Team Category. This year's Mountain Mayhem team were Huw Thomas, Mark Deacon, Andrew James and Michael Wann, who came 56th out of 248 teams in the Sport Men's category.

Full results can be found on the 2008 Giant Mountain Mayhem website .

The weekend started with the traditional camp setup, barbeque and socialising and as ever, we all came prepared for all eventualities.


Well prepared! Mark, Huw and Andrew

The Friday afternoon sunshine and dry conditions put us in the mood for a leisurely pre-race ride around the course. This year's course was, for me, one of the best and included some nice sections of singletrack, some fun steps and even a pretty tight and steep switchback! The climbs were of a reasonable length but none of the usual "leg-burners" that brought tears to your eyes in the middle of the night on previous years.

Unfortunately, Saturday morning brought about the promise of rain with very heavy looking clouds above the site, and there was a flurry of activity around the campsite with people busy changing to mud-tyres. After a leisurely morning of eating breakfast, enjoying the atmosphere and browsing the stalls, it was time to get ready for the main event. Starting off for us was Huw, who had to run the half mile Le Mans style start, and having to battle his way through the usual middle-of-the-pack congestion throughout the first lap. Even so, he did it with a smile.


Huw at the top of the first climb (Photograph by Matt Cope)

Mike, Andrew and Mark followed with quick laps to bring us up into the top 100 teams. The next set of laps saw us climb up the positions and into the night stage. The weather and conditions deteriorated from there, with people having to drag, push and carry their bikes through ankle deep, sticky mud for the best part of 8 hours throughout the night. The low point must have been Mike's seemingly never-ending double laps during a downpour, however one thing was certain, we weren't the only team suffering! We soldiered on and kept up the encouragement and dawn brought about a change in the weather and the course soon started drying out to make the final hours of the race more enjoyable. Andrew completed our race with the final lap, bring our lap tally to a respectable 20 laps (5 laps each) in just under 24 hours and 5 minutes.

There were many times during the race when we all vowed never to enter the event again, but after some sleep, and now that our bikes and clothes are washed, we are all looking forward to entering again in 2009!


Andrew, Mike, Mark and Huw after completing the 24-hour event