Home Now. It's all over for another year and but as i put in my last post, except for the memories, and what memories.

I went down with Wheely bin Graham and a non Richardsons rider, a good friend of mine, Steve. Dave, Andrea, 3 kids and 2 dogs arrived first and found us the perfect pitch, iIn the quiet solo area behind the solo tent. Next to arrive were Handsome  Rich, TEF Nic and Sandwich Chris.Then my group, then  Hazel and Capt Mark soon followed and ai little later Houghing Jax and Matt the Camera with Bob the Dog.

The solos were Sandwich Chris, Pickering Dave, and Steve. Tef were Nic, Graham, Rich and Mark. They made their base camp just near ours, so we saw lots of each other during the race and were able to encourage and help each other.

It was not a good start, those that pre road the course on Friday eve were not very happy. It was plain hard work, not much reward for all the climbs, the mud was like glue and there was lots of it because it was raining, hard. Oh dear.! The kids were a bit bored and the dogs confused! I had sensibly booked a bed and breakfast for the night as had Steve and Graham, so we left! So much for team spirit! Jax and Matt joined us for dinner. We did ask everyone else but the draw of a wet muddy field was too much!

Morning dawned bright and sunny. Everyone cheered up. There was loads to do. Set up the solo tent, buy all the stuff i had left at home, ( anyone seem a bucket of cleaning kit!). By 11am we were ready, well sort of. The solo tent was no where near full so we had lots of space to set up camp for 24 hours.

12pm and the riders were off, well almost, a 2k run first to split the field. All the solos did this as well as TEF Nic, who stormed over the line in the top 30 runners! It never works for all but the first fast few and the solos struggled to make a good time for their first lap as they were caught up in bottle neck after bottle neck!

The solos soon settled into a routine which proved hard for Jax, Andrea and i as for the first few hours they arrived almost together. We recorded the time of arrival, time of lap, rest time and eta. We recorded what they ate, what they drank. What they wanted ready for next time. We cleaned their Bikes, well Matt the Camera and Andrea's kids did, all wearing matching work gloves provided by another helper in the tent. We sent them on their way and took a deep breath, tidyed up and got all set for the next lap.

Although there was not much free time we soon found ourselves beginning to help other riders and slowly we stopped being a bunch of strangers in a tent but a united group.It started in little ways, we offered to make cups of tea, someone gave the kids gloves. Jax, when spotting someone with a stiff back or cramping, offered a massage. We were loaned a work stand to help clean the bikes each lap and so on and on. Jay, a solo rider with no support slowly became one of our group. From standing awkwardly on the edge of our area he soon progressed to being prepared, fed, watered, massaged, checked upon, massaged, encouraged as the rest of our solos. The fact that he was very very handsome had no bearing on our generosity whatsoever!

The Baked Bean family visited and after a tour of the event soon rolled their sleeves up and were washing bikes as the rain made it essential to clean the bikes each lap.I made them a drink and small baked bean gave my hot chocolate 8 out of 10! We were all so pleased to see them and the riders especially appreciated their thoughtfulness in coming along to support them.

The day passed, Steve got stronger and stronger. He has a target of 10 laps and acheived it  in style. He had a plan and stuck to it. 8 laps, a sleep then the final 2 laps and a lurk until 12. I make that sound simple but it certainly was not. he earnt the whole team's respect.

 The laps were longer than in previous years and even tho the rain eased from midnight the course remained very slippy for many hours. People was crashing again and again as tryes slipped again and again on  wet roots and all our riders ended up falling off. No real bad injuries and all were able to carry on. On one downhill  Capt Mark was overtaken by Sandwich Chris. Mark thought great, and followed his line until Chris crashed out near the bottom of the hill. Chris picked himself up, grinned and said, 'i crash there every lap!' Mark was left to pick himself up and try and work out why Chris didn't try another line!

Graham had the chain mechanical to end all chain mechanicals. He overcame a bad crash on his first lap, more mechanicals, even doing his last lap on Dave's spare but he battled through so not to let his team mates down. Ok you may say, but Graham only joined the group at the last minute but his loyalty, stubborness to not give in, lapping in brilliant times, raised the spirits of the whole TEF group and again the respect of us all. Thanks G. By the way the first part of the trilogy, 'Sram chain, my part in it's downfall by G.Foulds will be available from Amazon and all good bookshops shortly, rumours of a Quentin Tarrintino film are i believe true with Bruce Willis playing G.Foulds and Catherine Zeta Jones playing Debbie Richardson.  

Sandwich Chris rode very strongly if somewhat lacking in a sense of survival occasionally, see above, but was forced to slow down, a week of chamois cream will hopefully put him right. It hurt Chris to have to rest and hurt even more to get going again but i think he was happy with his acheivement. Well done.

Pickering Dave went out hard riding 3 very fast laps, leading the solos but during his 4th lap the rain started to fall heavily and the chance to chill in the tent with his family started to appeal more than laps in the cold wet rain. He retired for the evening, rising to complete a few more laps in the sunshine. Nice one.

more to follow!

Hi all thank god thats over lol well done solo gang  and all helpers + dog + kids lol. This was fun,s**t,hard dalby red 4 time would be easyer lol the route was a bikers nightmare,clay like glue,grass after grass feilds,big hills (lots),downs where very ruff and some mud here and there but with a good team,pasta,tuna,rice,sweet,water,gels,recov drinks,bit of sleep, few cans of beer NOT joke mark lol all in all glad i did it.

http://connect.garmin.com/acti…..y/93652436

my 1st lap.=my mood lol.

well done dave.

pos/lap/time
89,7,24:01:24,David Simpson,IM,164,David Simpson,1,01:50:01
,,,,,164,David Simpson,2,01:29:12
,,,,,164,David Simpson,3,01:57:47
,,,,,164,David Simpson,4,02:03:50
,,,,,164,David Simpson,5,02:03:59
,,,,,164,David Simpson,6,11:49:46
,,,,,164,David Simpson,7,02:46:49

well done chris

62,9,24:01:24,Chris Stacey,IM,183,Chris Stacey,1,01:48:51
,,,,,183,Chris Stacey,2,01:41:06
,,,,,183,Chris Stacey,3,02:01:15
,,,,,183,Chris Stacey,4,02:03:05
,,,,,183,Chris Stacey,5,01:45:05
,,,,,183,Chris Stacey,6,02:04:38
,,,,,183,Chris Stacey,7,02:49:04
,,,,,183,Chris Stacey,8,02:50:57
,,,,,183,Chris Stacey,9,06:57:23

simmsy said:

Post edited 12:32 pm - June 20, 2011 by simmsy

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Hi all thank god thats over lol well done solo gang  and all helpers + dog + kids lol. This was fun,s**t,hard dalby red 4 time would be easyer lol the route was a bikers nightmare,clay like glue,grass after grass feilds,big hills (lots),downs where very ruff and some mud here and there but with a good team,pasta,tuna,rice,sweet,water,gels,recov drinks,bit of sleep, few cans of beer NOT joke mark lol all in all glad i did it.

http://connect.garmin.com/acti…..y/93652436

my 1st lap.=my mood lol.

Just to add my thanks to everyone, what an event and an experience! Jaxs flapjack to die for and massage heaven sent to relieve the leg cramps. Thanks for cooking some food in the early hours of the morning too!

Agree with simmsy fun (with gritted teeth) and well hard, that clay glue mud just sucked you down. No matter how many times I changed my tyres it didnt work (nearly every lap)  . A couple of offs on those slippy downhills, some war wounds now bruising up well to show the wife and kids. Sore arms more than legs?

My lasting memories will be the sheer amount of wind coming out of simmsy from popping those gels - they must do something to your insides  - our tent was highly flammable, nice one Rich. The other was having to mentally force myself onto the bike to do the unexpected final lap for the team, after Graham and simmsy both posted quicker than expected laps (what did mark promise you in return for that…lol).

So with a handful of minutes before the finish claxon i was out again. Legs heavy, spirit cursing but determined I felt beat. God knows how but I managed to post our quickest lap sub 1 hour. Mark had held the 1hour record from his very 1st lap - a tough one to better but i was riding with no pressure and a few less riders. It was the almost riotous shouting “Go Nick, Go Nick!” and encouragement from the whole crew that spurred me on to race up the finish straight to cross the line - thanks so very much for that - felt like I was Julian Absolon just for a moment, amazing !!!

Looking forward to seeing some pictures.

This is an event well worth doing or getting involved in

Are there any photos up yet from Mayhem ?

Yep, theres some on the mayhem site of Simmsy, Mark, myself ……

http://www.flickr.com/photos/r…..9/?page=39

well jax and i look wonderful how did Andrea manage to hide!