or at least that I've done, was undoubtedly the Strathpuffer 24 this
weekend.
A full 24 hours of racing, in mountains in Scotland, in January. Riding
relays in a pair. To add to the lovelyness of it, it was camping too.
Early on Friday morning, Joe McLean who I was riding with phoned me up
to say that he was going to be a bit late, because he'd just been to
the hospital and had a cast put on a suspected broken Scaphoid on his
wrist from riding his mountain bike. At this point, scary visions of
riding solo in Scotland came into my head and the fear set in.
Fortunately, Joe had talked the doctor into giving him a cast that he
could drive with, and had only promised him not to ride any bikes, the
doctor hadn't said anything about unicycles. So Joe turned up, with a
massive cast on his arm, and much to Penny's bemusement at his
insaneness, we set off up to Scotland for the race.
Much driving later, and we finally got there, at about 11.00 Friday. We
were greeted by a beatiful full moon over the mountains, so bright you
could see without a torch, and a scattering of tents pitched among
them, with a few very skinny looking riders milling around looking fit.
We were pitched up in a glade on the edge of the woods, with views over
the mountains in one direction, and a scarily steep slope going up into
the woods where the course was in the other direction. We could see a
line of singletrack on the course running along the side of the
campsite. It being Scotland, there was a fine drizzle just threatening
to start.
It was pretty cold, so we pitched up, ate some cake (home made lemon
and chocolate - an odd combination but definately recommended), and
some sensible food (if you think jam and cheese sandwiches are sensible
anyway) and I got into my sleeping bag with everything I own on, only
to get really hot and open up the toasty super-sleeping bag most of the
way down. At 4 am, I woke up frozen and zipped up the sleeping bag
again, as the temperature had really started to drop, and I took a
quick look to see that the sky had completely cleared, making for
fantastic racing weather.
The alarm went off at 7.30 and once we'd cleared a bit of ice off the
tents we headed up to register. There were a few more tents now, and
lots more people wandering around who looked like they did training. At
this point it began to dawn on us that this was quite a hardcore event.
We headed back and cooked up some breakfast and I got ready for the
start. The temperature was below zero, as I discovered when I put my
camelbak on and the tube was frozen, ooops.
At 9.30, we wandered off to the rider briefing, to be told to be nice
to each other, and look out for other riders, check they're okay etc.,
which was even more true given the conditions. I laid down my unicycle
in the start area, then, it being Scotland after all, a bagpiper piped
us along to the line where we would start running to the bikes.
Come 10 o'clock, a horn blew and we set off on the course. The course
climbed up 326m (1069 ft) each lap, and you started feeling this right
from the start, the finish and start lines being both at the bottom of
a steep uphill fireroad. I rode up the hill, passing several bikers
thanks to my rather lightweight unicycle, and into the first
singletrack, heading steeply down into the woods. Part way down,
there's a small fallen tree, with a log pile setup to ride over it.
This is followed by a tight corner, and then suddenly I'm heading
towards a rocky watersplash at full speed. This is way more technical
than any 24 hour race I've seen before. I bailed on the watersplash,
ending up right on the other side, away from my unicycle, so I have to
run back and get it and keep riding. This is followed by a long, long
climb, which is all fine to ride, a combination of fireroads and tarmac
tracks. At the top, there's a singletrack entrance, followed by a small
hop up onto a little wooden palette bridge, followed by a rock garden
and a steep and very muddy climb. Needless to say, this involves a
little bit of running.
Up on the top, it started to get a bit muddy. It was still rideable,
but barely, not helped by the scattering of rock gardens, slabs and
wooden palette sections. Then it went down into a tight drop into the
woods, singletrack through the trees so tight that it was amazing a
bike could fit down it, followed by another wooden pallet bridge, with
a rock angled to step up onto iit, although I preferred the flying
dismount option here. From this section, it got really super-muddy for
the next couple of miles, and I had to walk a fair bit. Then as
suddenly as it had began, I hit a nice section, descending at full
speed on a loose rocky track over the moors, towards a big loch, with
views for miles of the mountains and over the local village,
Strathpeffer. This was followed by loads of fantastic fast descending
through the woods, and then a massive sign 'SLOW DOWN' heralded a sharp
right-angle turn followed by a couple of small steps, down to an easy
fireroad. By this point I could hear the music playing at the start
again, so I knew I was nearly home. But the course had more in store,
off the fireroad, another sharp corner and the race headed steeply down
through another tight singletrack, this time littered with little steps
and roots, twisting down the side of the hill. This was fantastic fun,
and I really got to use my newly fitted brake down it. At the end of
this long section, we hit some relatively easy singletrack that headed
past the campsite, and a small uphill and downhill later, I'd finished
my lap, with a massive grin on my face from the fantastic xc riding
that made up the last third of the lap.
Joe was waiting at the start, so I told him that it was 'a bit muddy
and a bit technical', and he set off, to return later raving about the
final section, although a bit annoyed that he had to take it carefully
what with having the cast on his arm. Fortunately the cast was shaped
okay for his muni handle.
My second lap was a little bit slower, not helped by my frame breaking
part way through, leaving me with a twisty seatpost for much of the
final descents, so I ditched gears and brake and got out the muni while
Joe did his lap and got ready to go. As I was waiting, darkness fell,
it was 3 o'clock in the afternoon.
--
joemarshall
my pics http://gallery.unicyclist.com/albuq44
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