This should have been finished ages ago...however preparations for the summer season got in the way and I've only just been able to sit down and get it done. So finally, here is a downhillers perspective of a 12hr enduro:

I'd never even heard of Bristol Bike Fest a week ago let alone contemplated going along to race. The world of downhill riding is so insular and wrapped up in itself that sometimes you lose track of what else is going on in the world of mountain biking. I couldn't tell you for example who currently holds the rainbow jersey in mens or womens XC or who won Olympic gold... I follow the DH religiously and can tell you the highlights of seasons a decade ago but XC........not a clue. It's not that I don't ride XC, I'm happy on pretty much anything with two wheels which is how I came to get involved in Bikefest 2009. I was on a ride from Brecon to Cardiff along the Taff Trail with some mates who said they were entering a couple of teams in the 12 hour team category at this years event and had done the race a couple of times before. 'Good for you' I thought, not my cuppa tea but fair play for riding round and round for 12hrs. As we cruised along in the sunshine I learned of the Flip/Flop Challenge. My buddies weren't in a position to be challenging the top boys and girls at the race so had created a competition between their two teams which had been fought out for the last three races. The concept is simple: 2 teams (Team Flip vs. Team Flop) first one to the finish, winner takes home the coveted Flip/Flop Trophy (why its a flipflop I'm still not sure...). Team Flop had won the race two years on the trot and Team Flip were hungry in '09. At the end of the ride, sat in the sunshine outside the pub stretching my aching legs, my friend Dan gets a text saying that one of his team members was out of the running with a suspected broken wrist....

So it came to be that the following weekend I was at Bikefest 2009 and a member of the defending Team Flop. It had pissed it down on and off all night and was now settling into a good rhythm. Dan and I decided to arrive on the Saturday of the race rather than camp in the storm with the rest of Team Flop. This genius plan at staying dry nearly back fired when we had to queue for 45mins to get into the venue nearly missing the start. The place was in a state of chaos with cars backed up along the little lane into the site, traders weren't set up and cars were slipping around all over the place, not a great start to the weekend. We just about made it to our pit to accompany our first rider, Claire to the start line for the 9 o'clock off. The race format is simple, the clock starts and your team has 12 hrs to put in as many laps as you can with each rider doing a minimum of 2 laps each. This is the course:

 At just under 6 miles with 80% of the track under the trees, there was nothing that would make the average downhill rider flinch, a couple of technical sections that were a bit rooty and slippy given the rain but aside from that it was sweet, well maintained singletrack, fireroads and a bit of grassland. A shady wooden bridge and a steep sided bombhole, were the only real stand out features of the track.

Team Flop's Claire was our first rider and she and Elwyn of Team Flip had the short straw of standing in the rain waiting for the off. After a while word reached us that the race was going to be put back a bit to allow stragglers caught in traffic to arrive.....my opinions of the event at this point were less than favorable as we all legged it back to the dryness of the tents. Eventually, 45mins later than planned Bikefest 09 got underway with a le-mans style start which was frankly hilarious. None of the usual start beeps and lights that I was used to! A bloke with a megaphone shouts go and all hell broke loose with riders sprinting across a wet field looking for their bikes in the long grass!

As the racers disappeared into the rain for the first lap, I returned to the pits to prep my bike and get my gear on. As I walked back I checked out the competition and their machines. What a mixture..... Its funny how cycling has so many sub-groups within it, even within XC it was clear that there were more sub-divisions than I thought. There were the big XC teams with their trucks and turbo trainers, 12hr solo specialists who were going to be out there on there own all day, singlespeed teams and soloists and then everyone else down to your average joe with an out the box bike from Halfords. It was nothing if not diverse. It was pretty obvious however that most of the competitors don't read Dirt that often. I got the impression that amongst the hardcore solo riders and singlespeeders you got more credibility for having a distinctive beard and as weird a bike as you could make, 29 inch rigid bikes and 29/26 hardtails were everywhere.

I wasn't due at the changeover point for a few laps so had a bit of time to build up my bike and get sorted. I should just say thanks to Gaz (Speeder on the forum) for the loan of the bike for the weekend and Rhys for the back wheel, both have seen me ride and were still brave enough to lend me their equipment! I was using a Giant Trance that Gaz had set up as an enduro/mega bike complete with a Gravity Dropper seat post and big flat pedals and wide bars, although a bit small for me I thankfully felt comfortable on it straight away. The first few riders in my team reported horrendous conditions in some parts of the track and our first lap rider Claire had some bad luck and got caught in a big queue for the narrow bridge as people scrambled up it. According to Team Manager Tom we were 10 minutes down on Team Flip already as I waited my turn. I was taking over from Dan and when he came belting down the finish straight screaming at me to go I realised how hotly contested the FlipFlop Challenge was!  It was a strange feeling to go charging out the gate and into the first woods not knowing what was coming up. I hadn't walked the track, done a reccy lap looked at the course map or anything. As such I had no idea where to save energy and when to go flat out... So as a safety I thought I'd just go full beans for the whole lap and figure it out later! This plan worked well for the first singletrack section as I slammed the seatpost down and was able to really throw the bike around, sprinting like a loon out of all the corners and passing people left right and centre! The downhillers instinct of finding lines and keeping momentum was paying off. The whole first half of the lap went well I 29/26 wheels

even got a cheer for the drift around the bottom of one fireroad corner! And then the course started to climb and the whippets started coming past... More and more of them nipped past as I ground up the winding fireroad and I was hanging out. And then I learnt that there was no point in having good technical skills if you're so tired that you can't ride properly! So the next tech downhill where I should have been making up time turned into a pinball run, with corners being overshot and opportunities missed. I got back to the pits grateful to hand over the reins to someone else for a while. I'd made up a fair bit of time on Team Flip but didn't feel like I had another four or five laps in me...

We soon got into a routine as we figured out how long it took the individual members of the team took to do a lap and our whole team went down to the transition area to welcome home the previous
Team Flip's Elwyn after the carnage and mud of the first lap.

rider and cheer out the next one. Food and water was taken on with plenty of time and everyone was relaxed and rested before their laps. As anyone knows a routine works amazingly well in this kind of environment.....until someone breaks it. That would be me then... I had checked my watch and decided that Dan wasn't due back around for another twenty minutes, plenty of time to find the toilets and maybe grab a coffee. It turns out there was quite a queue for the loos. I wandered casually back into the pits with a few minutes in hand to grab my bike and helmet only to be met by scathing stares. It turns out I'd committed the cardinal sin of team endurance riding and missed my transition! Dan had put in a blinding lap and come in early to find no-one waiting to take over from him and so had stayed out on track for another lap.... oops. I was more than ready the next time Dan came around and made sure I was off up the track before he could swear at me too much! During all this the gap between leaders Team Flip and us had been fluctuating a fair bit, at one point we had them reeled in to under a minute but they soon pulled it back over the next few laps as different combinations of riders hit the track. The time went surprisingly quickly too, I thought the day was going to drag on and on and there would be loads of waiting around between laps. This was the case to some extent but the stints came around way faster than I wanted them to. A big screen was giving live-timing so you could see roughly how you were getting on compared to the rest of the field. Our lap times were on a par with the majority, taking around 35-40 minutes a lap depending on the rider but way off the top boys who were getting around in about 25 minutes!

Live Timing

During the lulls between laps you could wander around the race village which was pretty well represented by various manufacturers, obviously title sponsors Kona had a big presence but it was cool to see firms like Howies there. What did surprise me a bit was that there wasn't anyone selling food that was remotely healthy! I was expecting van loads of Pasta and carbs but it was all burgers and chips...!
As the hours passed and the 9pm finishing time approached talk turned to who was going to have to go out for the last lap. The gap was still close enough that the Flip/Flop Challenge could be decided on the final lap with the right combination of riders on track, a weaker member of Team Flip vs a strong rider from Team Flop and we might pull it off. As the last laps rolled by we figured out that I was going to be the last rider for Team Flop and I would have to go flat out to catch Team Flip.

I felt pretty strong going out of the arena, I'd worked out that it was better to conserve energy for the climbs rather than making lairy passes in the singletrack for no overall gain. I got in the groove but I was definitely feeling the strain. Most of the guys I was riding with had done a bit of training before the race, I on the other hand hadn't even swung a leg over a bike since the previous October!
Transition area. Blue number plate for Solo riders.

A winter of snowboarding doesn't really form a part of any XC training plan so the old legs were suffering at the start of this final stint! A lot of riders were heading out with lights on for the last hour or so as the skies darkened. Without them it was really tough to spot roots and rocks in the dense woods so I sat on the tail of a fella with lights and followed the little pool of light ahead of him. The lap seemed to take forever, but the thought that any of the riders ahead might be Team Flip kept the fire burning and my legs spinning. I realised that it wasn't going to happen as the lights of the race village appeared and I hadn't caught the Flip rider but it was still a great feeling to ride between the cheering crowds and cross the line. So we lost. Team Flip took the win and the gloating rights until next year! Here's a few stats to show exactly how close the FlipFlop Challenge was:
Average lap times:
Team Flip: 00:41:00
Team Flop: 00:41:37
Fastest Lap:
Team Flip: 00:34:46
Team Flop: 00:34:48
Despite my initial reservations Bike Fest was a great day and a good laugh. The shear diversity of the competitors was one stand out feature, some people were obviously very serious about the race but for every one of them there were more than a few others that were there just for fun.  A final mention needs to go to Adam Powell from Powell Fitness (and downhill rider) who belted out his share of laps for his team in the morning before legging it to the Blenheim Triathlon, came 3rd and then returned to finish off Bikefest! Nutter.

Cheers
Nick
The Search – Alpine Downhill Mountainbiking
www.thesearchmtb.com

 Check out a review on The Search when SDH took a trip here