Having spent a year out from 24 hour solo racing, I was more than a little apprehensive about throwing myself back into the fray this season. However, the 10th anniversary of a race that holds so much history for me was something that I could not miss, and the solo title was once again calling. I knew the competition would be tougher than ever and the challenge was one I couldn’t resist.

We were lucky enough to land a sponsorship deal with Endorfin bikes a month before the race, and the frame that the German team built for me was a work of art. Andy built it up into a formidable race machine, and we had the chance to test it, with great results, at Margam Park three weeks previously. So we arrived at Eastnor on Friday feeling as prepared as we could have been.

By the time the clock rolled around to 2pm on Saturday the rain had held off for long enough that the course was good to ride. I got a good start out of the run (unusual for me as I’m not much of a runner) and got through the first lap in great time. Traffic was heavy as expected, but people were making an
effort to keep out of each other’s way, and there were plenty of lines to choose from. I knew from pre-riding the course that there were plenty of rough, bumpy sections and semi-technical descents where the full-suss VP-4 would excel. My plan was to attack these sections hard, while taking it easy on the climbs, therefore using the bike’s natural advantage to build a lead without tiring out
my legs too much.

For the first quarter of the race, everything went like clockwork. I put in seven laps in six hours, and had built a good 20 minute lead by the time we were thinking about putting lights on. I was looking forward to my night laps as
I always do, especially as this time I had the new pre-production titanium-encased Lupine prototype system to test out. For the first
couple of dark laps I was like a kid with a new toy, relishing switching the full beam up in the singletrack sections.

It must have been about 4am, just as the sky was beginning to lighten, that the rain started and the fun stopped. I couldn’t figure out if it was the course or me that was getting steadily worse, most likely it was a combination of both. Either way, I started making silly mistakes, sliding off on the slippery stone road just after the first climb and bashing my left knee, then ploughing
straight into a tree on a singletrack descent and knocking myself giddy, then toppling into a bramble bush and climbing out covered in prickles, all in the same lap.

At that point I had to have a hard word with myself and make a conscious effort to tone things down. I had a big lead, over 40 minutes, so my biggest challenge was no longer riding fast laps, but rather keeping my body and bike intact and making it to the finish line.

One of the biggest challenges with Mayhem is the huge gap between sunrise and the end of the race. In the American events later in the year, the races run from noon to noon with 10-12 hours of darkness, so that by
the time you see the sun, you know the race is pretty much over. Not so with Mayhem – the sun comes up at about 5am with nine hours left to ride, and in this case with ever-worsening conditions. Plenty of teams (and soloists) had simply stopped riding, but that was something I couldn’t afford to even think
about.

By 10am I had clocked up 19 laps and was starting to map out my final laps to the end. I was clocking over an hour per lap by that stage, so figured I had another three laps left to run, to finish about 2pm. I had a spare bike, an old Stumpjumper FSR (veteran of three winning 24hr solos), and I was using it
on and off while Andy cleaned up the Endorfin. My one-man support crew never
slept and never quit, and I was able to stop for hot soup and mugs of tea after each lap, and then go out again on a clean bike, which kept my spirits from falling through the floor.

It was my 21st lap that turned out to be the real killer. Just as I thought the course couldn’t possibly get any worse, it suddenly did. The first singletrack section, which until that point had been claggy but rideable, joined the rest of the circuit in a muddy quagmire. I was not even 5km into
the lap and my tyres were so clogged with sticky mud they wouldn’t turn through the seatstays. I pulled armloads of mud away from the wheels and frame, and within five minutes it was back. Carrying the bike was not an option – my 22lb race stead was triple its weight with mud and I couldn’t physically
lift it, no matter how hard I tried. It took me over two hours to get around the circuit, wrestling with the mud. At one point I seriously considered leaving my precious new bike in a bush and running back – it would have been quicker.

By the time I finally got back to the solo pits it was after 1pm, and I was completely exhausted – any worse and it would have been a coma. The last thing I wanted to do was get back on the bike, but because my nearest competitor (Kate Potter) was still out on course, and technically still on the same lap as me,
she could conceivably have made it back before the bell and would effectively have caught me up. After much discussion and double-checking of lap times and gap times, we agreed it was a risk I couldn’t take, so I found some clean gloves and got back out on the Stumpy for a final dig in the muck.

It wasn’t as bad as I’d feared. The rain had mostly stopped and the course had dried out enough that there were patches of rideable track. I got off and carried the bike across the worst of the mud rather than try to ride
through, to avoid that first layer of mud building up. It worked, and I managed to keep the bike operational through to the last section of the course, getting back just after 3pm – yet again a 25 hour solo, but
nonetheless a winning one.

It wasn’t until I heard the commentator announce my name as the winner, and I saw Pat Adams waiting for me, that I actually believed I’d made it home. I jumped back on the Endorfin – showroom perfect again, thanks to Andy –
and rode it down the finish straight for the 22nd and final time, feeling like I’d conquered the world.

Special thanks to: Andy Patterson – for doing the work of 10 men, and doing a better job than 10 men ever could; Lutz and the Endorfin team – for building the best 24hour solo bike in the world, and for being there to watch it win; and all my other sponsors: PowerBar, Lupine Lighting Systems,
Panaracer (never got to Mayhem without Trailrakers), SRAM, Crank Bros, Hope, White Lightening, Lizard Skins and RockShox.