We had three pairs teams at Mountain Mayhem this year. 24 hours of ride, rest, ride, rest, ride, rest…..etc

Here’s Jacqui Simcock’s account of hers and Andy Watson’s race…

The intention was to have the chance to ride the course as and when we liked. This was the proposal when Andy and I agreed to enter pairs for Mountain Mayhem. When the time came the course was fast, dry and despite seeming to be the same as last year seemed to flow better.

There seemed to be a great deal less of the congestion points and riders all moving at reasonable pace. Within four hours we were 3^rd, and then quickly 2^nd, definitely not part of the plan!

We had started the race riding one lap each, but with Andy riding considerably faster than me, he kindly volunteered to start two laps to my one we made our way until about 10.30pm, still in second place. At this point I had to revert to family duties and I left Andy to put in whatever he felt until I got up at 2.30am to resume my duties.

Getting track-side about 3am I discovered that Andy showed himself to be a legend and was still out and had not stopped! This gave us a very strong lead over the 3^rd place however we did not know if they were planning to start again after a night’s sleep and challenge us. So I put in three more laps…and then conferred. We had a great lead and it would have to have been a step change for 3rd to suddenly pull it out the bag and overtake us. Andy and I could have stopped then but decided to put in one more lap each and then lurk until the final horn. 2^nd it was.

From deciding to ‘have a go’ to ‘podiuming’ and a chat with Princess Anne made what was a good event into a great weekend. Big thanks to Andy and all the support team!