We’ve already mentioned Twentyfour12 in passing, but we’ve got a few more details for you. To recap, Twentyfour12 (22/23 July 2006, Lodgewood Park, Shropshire) is effectively the Keith Bontrager signature race. Keith’s done well over fifty 24 hour races, and his plan is to combine his favourite elements of all of them into one event.

“After racing in as many of these as I have I’m looking forward to finally helping put a race on. I know what I’ve liked in a 24 hour race and what I haven’t, so it’ll be a challenge to put as much of the good stuff together in one event. It will definitely be fast and fun, designed for the racer in every respect.”

The extra tweak is that, as the name suggests, it’ll actually be two races in one. The 24 hour race will run from noon Saturday to noon Sunday, but there’ll also be a 12 hour race finishing at midnight. That’ll let racers who like the idea of a long-distance team relay with a bit of night racing but don’t want to jump right in with the whole 3am changeover/eight hours of darkness thing. Finish at midnight, get some sleep and enjoy the legendary 24 hour race atmosphere for the rest of the weekend.

The venue is a private estate with a fully serviced campsite – water, toilets, showers, all that. It’s an all-new course, too, which looks like coming in at about the 15km per lap mark.

The official website at www.twentyfour12.com is up and running with entry forms and online entry, and Keith’ll be updating it himself with preparation and race tips. We’ll also get him on our own forum for a bit of a chinwag. Is it still a chinwag if everyone’s typing rather than talking? Not sure. Anyway.

There’s space for 450 entries (across teams, pairs and solos), and there’s also a limited number of free entries for riders raising money for charity. More details on the site…