Over 950 riders gathered in the grounds of Cotswold Park Farm for the 2007 Bontrager Twentyfour12. This was an entirely new venue, presenting the organisers with a whole new set of challenges. 2006 was Twentyfour12’s debut year, and the challenging nature of the course was something that the organisers were keen on pushing. The same was true this time around – course designer Rob Lee (with some help from Keith Bontrager) assembled a varied and interesting course. They couldn’t design the weather, though…
Having Friday 13 July as the opening day of the weekend was perhaps asking for trouble, and indeed it rained pretty much all day. That didn’t seem to dissuade people from taking demo bikes out, though. As a side note, we can’t help thinking that the end-of-season value of 2007’s demo fleets will be a bit lower than usual – given the conditions they’ve all been repeatedly out in, those things will be hammered.
The weather improved on Saturday, though, and the unique (to 24 hour races) racing start (no running here) took place in something vaguely recognisable as summery conditions. First rider to complete a lap was Richard Wood in 37:37, and it got faster during Saturday as it dried out.
It couldn’t last, though. Doubtless to the great delight of those racing in the parallel 12 hour event, it started to rain around 2am on Sunday morning, well after the 12-hour racers had finished but with plenty of racing left to go for the round-the-clock teams. As conditions deteriorated, the Trek UK tech support crew was kept busy, occasionally resorting to lending out 2008 demo bikes to riders whose own mounts had gone irrevocably lame.
Overall 24 hour winners were the Cheltenham Cycles team, racing in the Open Men category with 30 laps. Torq/Kona won the 12 hour race with 18, which tells you something about the relative speed of the course on Saturday and Sunday… Full results at www.twentyfour12.com.
KB speaks
The race course is the most important part of a 24 hour race. Come up with some interesting, challenging lines through the woods and riders will get what they are after. Rob Lee laid out the main parts of the course and he nailed it – roughly 75% twisty, rooty single track, some serious climbs and speedy descents and a couple of technical features to keep you focused. You had to work hard and stay on your game to get around quickly.
I’ve done my share of critiquing race courses but I’ve never designed a course before myself so I was a bit nervous when Martyn asked me to come up with the lines through the mogul section – The Humpy Dumps.. It’s more difficult and time consuming than I thought, of course. In the end there was a kilometre of lines through the bumps and berms, and even a natural half pipe. It worked out and most riders I spoke to said they liked it (and I don’t think they were just being polite).
Thanks to everyone that participated and helped put this race on. I’ll be back to do it again next year and I hope to see you there.
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