2009 Naseby 12 Hour Challenge

Ahh the Naseby 12 hour race. I've been looking forward to riding this again since I rode a couple of laps back in 2005 at the first Naseby 12 hour event. As I ummed and ahhed about whether I should join a team or go solo, the word got out that all the team entries were full. Bugger! However, I emailed the organisers and was lucky to get a spot in the 12 hour solo singlespeed category.

This was a month out from the race. One week later, we finally got around from picking up my singlespeed from the basement of a friend's place, which left me with three weeks of singlespeed practice. This consisted of commuting to and from work (about 20 minutes there and back on the flat), half a dozen short (1 hour-ish) rides on the local tracks, and a couple of hours in Naseby over Easter. Combined with a couple of half hour runs, and a 2 hour road ride one weekend, and that was the total of my training for the event.

So Thursday night was spent loading stuff up in the car (Scotty) and baking bacon and egg pie (me) for the race. We drove up to Naseby on Friday evening after work (a couple of hours drive from Dunedin), and eventually found the place we were staying at - a 3 bedroom holiday home that a friend of Scotty's had rented out for the weekend. Friday evening was then spent setting up the tent site and sorting out my food for the race:


12 cups of food, plus a couple of extra containers of pasta and pikelets (in separate containers of course) later, it was 11:30pm and time to go to bed. Zzzzzzz..

Saturday morning arrived too soon. I had a very sweet breakfast of porridge, jam on a bagel, and a couple of doughnuts, and we headed off to the camp village (based in the local Naseby camp-ground) in time for the 8:30am briefing. The briefing finished with a minute's silence for ANZAC day (a nice touch I thought) and it was off to put the bike in a transition area, and back to the start line for a Le Mans start.

I had two goals for the race: to ride 12 laps (conservatively estimated at around an hour per lap, which included time for stops - I was riding around 40 minute laps when we practised the course over easter), and to make sure that I was fed and hydrated properly, given my tendency to under-eat and drink in longer distance events. I wasn't treating it as a "race" as such, because in reality, I would have been much better suited to a geared bike for this sort of event, but the challenge of singlespeeding around for as long as I could was strangely appealing.

So.. back to the race report: I'd conveniently put myself towards the back of the group for the start, which was probably quite fortunate because apparently a couple of people went down and were trampled on off the start line! Ouch! The run was a few hundred metres through all the tentsites, with a few bottlenecks where the course went through some singletrack, and by the time I reached my bike, most of the field had gone. This suited me fine however, because the first km or so was pretty flat, and with my 32:20 gearing (roughly equivalent to the middle chainring in the front, and the fourth easiest gear at the back), I wasn't exactly going at race pace!

The 10km course was a mixture of open sections (4wd roads, water race) and singletrack, with not too many steep climbs but a few gradual ones and a few pinch ones thrown in. In terms of competitors, there were over 700 people all up, with just under 30 solo men, 4 solo women, and a separate category for solo singlespeeders, of which there were 9 of us entered - 8 guys.. and me.

I'll cut to the chase: I discovered this weekend why someone invented gears!

While the first few laps were fine, by around the fourth hour, I was beginning to feel a bit sore. Not suprising because I hadn't done a long ride in a while, with the longest races I'd ever done being Karapoti (just under 4 hours) and 6 hour solo at the Taupo Day Nighter in 2008. On every lap, I was stopping briefly at the tentsite (I was basing myself out of Scotty's team's site) to stretch the back a bit, and grab another cup of food, and a bottle every second lap. After the fourth hour, the stops got a bit longer - from less than a minute to around 5-15 minutes. The longest stop was around the 6 hour mark, where I got a quick leg massage/stretch from one of our support crew. By that stage, my knees were beginning to play up. Not majorly, but I could definitely feel the effects of pushing that gear up the uphill sections.

From about that point on, things slowly got worse. By the 10th lap, I was walking most of the steeper uphill sections and even pedalling along the flat/slight uphill gradient sections was quite sore. A five minute sit-down at the campsite, and I gritted my teeth and headed out again to see how the 11th lap went. Very slowly and sorely was the answer. I could even hear my right kneecap clicking with each pedalstroke. Towards the top of a nasty climb (known as Nipple Hill because of the rather large uh.. formation? at the top), I came across a solo guy who looked like he was in pain and leaning up against his bike. Myself and a couple of others stopped. I grabbed the bike and the others sat him down on the ground. Sounds like his legs had cramped up on him in a major fashion. Ouch. The other riders had the situation under control so I headed off thinking that I didn't want to end up like that in this race.

At this stage, I knew I had to pull the pin before I did any serious damage to myself. But still, I was determined to get in that 12th lap. It was just after 5pm when I pulled into the campsite at the end of my 11th lap. I sat down for a bit, wandered off to use the bathroom, and put my lights on in case I got stuck out there when it got dark. After some encouraging words from Scotty with some advice to walk anything I couldn't ride up, I set off on my final lap. It was a very slow one, and by that stage, my left leg was largely doing all the work because any force through my right leg was hurting my right knee. A lot of walking on this lap, but I was OK with that. I just wanted to finish it without hurting myself any more. As I crossed the start/finish line for the last time just before the 9 hour mark, I felt a sense of relief as I got off my bike. A sure sign that it was the right decision to make.

I sat around our campsite for the next three hours watching people ride by. I was quite gutted I didn't get any night laps in, but by that stage, I was having trouble standing up from a sitting position, and bending my knees while walking. Any more laps would have been no fun whatsoever, and given I wasn't doing this race "seriously", what would have been the point if I wasn't getting any enjoyment out of it?

Still, I was a bit disappointed with myself. I never would've picked my knees to be what stopped me in the end since I've never had knee problems in races in the past. In fact, if I was to put money on it, I would've put it on lower back pain, or quad cramps. Neither of those were much of a problem in the end. However, as people have pointed out to me, I'm not used to singlespeeding for such a long duration, and have never ridden for 8-9 hours either!

However, I have learnt a lot from the experience, and overall I came 8th out of 9 singlespeeders, and did just as many laps as the solo woman in 3rd place (will have to wait for the results to see if I completed my 12 laps before or after her though). I'm glad I made my target of 12 laps (in 9 hours instead of the full 12), and I learnt a bit about what foods were good and not so good to have on the bike. I don't think I'll ever do 12 hours solo on a singlespeed again, unless I get ALOT of singlespeed riding in. It really does beat your body up when you're riding one for so long! It probably didn't help that I was on a hardtail after riding full-suspension for a couple of years either.

I was very grateful for the support and encouragement I got from spectators and riders throughout the event. It's quite a nice feeling when you're riding through the tent village with people calling out your name. Also when you're struggling on an uphill and someone calls out "good on ya.." or "you're doing great". I was wearing a new South Park riding top with "Oh man! You guys suck!" written on the back, which got a few laughs from the riders and spectators. Thanks to the Mountainbiking Otago crew for putting on a great event (as per usual). I'll be back next year to race it properly on my Superlight. Finally, thanks to Scotty and his team, the Flying Tepulis (apparently Tepuli is Aztec for penis!), for supporting me throughout the event.

Congrats to Tony Hogg who won the male solo category with 24 laps, Hannah Thorne who won the female solo category in 20 laps, and Mickey Fan who won the singlespeed solo category in 20 laps. Legends.

My stats for the race if anyone's interested:

Total ride time: 8 hours 6 minutes, 12 seconds
Distance: 118.4km
Average speed: 14.6km/h
Max speed: 48.4km/h
Average heartrate: 157 (pretty low for me..)
Max heartrate: 190
Calories burned: 4689 calories (19693.8 kj)

Time to hang the singlespeed up for a couple of weeks (at least!).


PS: If anyone has any photos of me from the event, please email me at psychavoc@gmail.com. Cheers!