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The 2006 Saab Salomon Mountain
Mayhem
24hr Mountain Bike Race
Eastnor Castle, Ledbury, Herefordshire, June 24th-25th
De Laune CC has an excellent track record in this
event, the world’s biggest 24hr mountain bike race, an event so popular
that it sells out within 3 days of entries opening. For the 3rd year
running it was held at Eastnor Castle in the Malvern Hills. Both the
previous years the course had borne the brunt of some seriously bad
weather but for once the Gods were smiling as the summer solstice
weekend dawned with a beautiful blue sky and the 7.8-mile course was
bone dry and dusty. Within a few hours on Friday, the arena went from
being a big empty field to being a vast tent city, with trade stands,
huge pro team buses, kids entertainments and refreshment stalls all
crammed in. Beyond that was the main campsite with thousands of tents of
every size and colour as the 2200 riders and another 3000 or so
spectators and helpers all set up their little areas.
The course wound its way through this organised
chaos, starting in the main arena, disappearing off over the back
through some lovely wooded singletrack then re-appearing on a grassy
S-bend descent, doing a small loop of the lake and then heading out
through the campsite up a 2-mile grassy climb to an obelisk, perched on
the summit overlooking the castle and the surrounding hills. From there
it undulated for a short while through some grassy doubletrack before
plunging down on some tight singletrack for another mile back into the
arena and the handover pits.
The team for this year consisted of James Lyon and
Ross Fryer, (both returning for their 8th consecutive SSMM), James
Peckham and Andrew Mock, a friend of Ross’ who’d stepped in to fill the
gap left by Bill after he was unable to race due to a recurring injury.
Bill was there but in a non-riding role as team helper.
For the last 7 years, I’d managed to avoid doing
the start line run so it seemed only fair that I was volunteered for it
this year. I lined up towards the front of the grid at about 1.30pm on
Saturday and gradually the arena became more and more crowded as all the
spectators gathered to watch the carnage of having about 600 people all
sprinting round a course of about 800m to get to where the bikes were
parked. 2pm and the start line whistle was blown…I surprised myself by
getting a decent run and coming through in the top 50 or so to grab the
bike and by the time the course widened out and dropped back towards the
campsite I’d recovered my breath and was going quite well. The rest of
the team gave me a cheer as I passed the tents and headed off up the big
climb. It was here that I made the most time gain on other riders and I
came back into the arena somewhere up in the top 25 or so to hand over
to JP. From then on, we alternated laps which gave each rider about 40
mins of riding followed by 2 ½ hrs of rest time before heading out
again. This worked well and the position of our tent right by the side
of the course made it easy to keep track of riders. James’ wife and 2
young daughters turned up on Saturday afternoon as well and joined us in
our campsite for a while, Katie and Lucy encouraging James’ efforts with
screams of “COME ON DADDY!!!”
As night began to fall we swapped to our tried and
tested formula of 1,2,1,2, 3,4,3,4 which allowed the non-riding duo a
bit of time to catch up on some much needed sleep. JP and I took the
first stint through to about 2am when a well rested Ross and Andrew took
over. The night laps were lovely, almost peaceful, there seemed to be
fewer people on course and conditions were excellent so the times were
only a minute slower than during the day. Nighttime is when the most
gains are made on rival teams and by the end of the night we’d moved up
into the top 12. The psychological barrier of nighttime over, it was
time to swap back to our 1,2,3,4 formula and hope for the best. Sunday
was once again a stunning day, even by 9am it was very warm and the
course was becoming very dusty and quite rutted where the braking bumps
had formed on the descents. JP was suffering the most as he was on his
S-Works hardtail while the rest of us were riding full suspension.
With the end in sight, we really began cranking up
the pace. My last lap was actually the fastest one I managed throughout
the race although a large part of that was due to me hooking up with
British Olympic rider and Scott team pro Nick Craig half way round the
lap. I stayed with him all the way up the final climb before he dropped
me on the descent but the extra pace on the climb knocked a good couple
of minutes off my average lap time! There was just time for me to hand
over to JP for the final lap, he left the arena at 1.45 (15 minutes
before the bell) and absolutely nailed it, he really was cranking when
he passed the tents. It was those final two laps that saw us leapfrog
from 9th place to 7th by the time James crossed the finish line to shake
the hand of the race organiser, Pat Adams.
We’d had a really good time; it was a thoroughly
enjoyable event, helped by the perfect weather, the great family
atmosphere and our good result! Perhaps more surprising was that no one
had had a mechanical fault, not even a puncture. We’d ridden a
collective total of 295 miles in just over 24hrs, with a total of
32000ft of climbing and finished 7th out of 245 teams in the Sport Men
category.
Here’s to SSMM 2007! (the 10th anniversary of the
race)
|
Lap |
Number |
Rider |
Time |
Speed |
|
1 |
778 |
James Lyon |
00:37:29 |
12.01 mph / 19.32 km/h |
|
2 |
779 |
James Peckham |
00:36:04 |
12.48 mph / 20.08 km/h |
|
3 |
780 |
Andrew Mock |
00:34:52 |
12.91 mph / 20.77 km/h |
|
4 |
777 |
Ross Fryer |
00:37:29 |
12.01 mph / 19.32 km/h |
|
5 |
778 |
James Lyon |
00:35:59 |
12.51 mph / 20.13 km/h |
|
6 |
779 |
James Peckham |
00:36:22 |
12.37 mph / 19.91 km/h |
|
7 |
780 |
Andrew Mock |
00:35:41 |
12.61 mph / 20.30 km/h |
|
8 |
777 |
Ross Fryer |
00:38:07 |
11.81 mph / 19.00 km/h |
|
9 |
778 |
James Lyon |
00:35:34 |
12.65 mph / 20.36 km/h |
|
10 |
779 |
James Peckham |
00:36:24 |
12.36 mph / 19.90 km/h |
|
11 |
780 |
Andrew Mock |
00:37:00 |
12.16 mph / 19.57 km/h |
|
12 |
777 |
Ross Fryer |
00:38:34 |
11.67 mph / 18.78 km/h |
|
13 |
778 |
James Lyon |
00:37:09 |
12.11 mph / 19.49 km/h |
|
14 |
779 |
James Peckham |
00:36:43 |
12.26 mph / 19.72 km/h |
|
15 |
780 |
Andrew Mock |
00:43:05 |
10.44 mph / 16.81 km/h |
|
16 |
777 |
Ross Fryer |
00:41:31 |
10.84 mph / 17.44 km/h |
|
17 |
778 |
James Lyon |
00:38:48 |
11.60 mph / 18.67 km/h |
|
18 |
779 |
James Peckham |
00:39:33 |
11.38 mph / 18.31 km/h |
|
19 |
778 |
James Lyon |
00:38:30 |
11.69 mph / 18.81 km/h |
|
20 |
779 |
James Peckham |
00:40:15 |
11.18 mph / 17.99 km/h |
|
21 |
780 |
Andrew Mock |
00:41:47 |
10.77 mph / 17.33 km/h |
|
22 |
777 |
Ross Fryer |
00:41:25 |
10.87 mph / 17.49 km/h |
|
23 |
780 |
Andrew Mock |
00:39:05 |
11.51 mph / 18.53 km/h |
|
24 |
777 |
Ross Fryer |
00:42:02 |
10.71 mph / 17.23 km/h |
|
25 |
778 |
James Lyon |
00:39:20 |
11.44 mph / 18.41 km/h |
|
26 |
779 |
James Peckham |
00:39:53 |
11.28 mph / 18.16 km/h |
|
27 |
780 |
Andrew Mock |
00:39:50 |
11.30 mph / 18.18 km/h |
|
28 |
777 |
Ross Fryer |
00:39:16 |
11.46 mph / 18.44 km/h |
|
29 |
778 |
James Lyon |
00:37:45 |
11.92 mph / 19.18 km/h |
|
30 |
779 |
James Peckham |
00:36:40 |
12.27 mph / 19.75 km/h |
|
31 |
780 |
Andrew Mock |
00:37:24 |
12.03 mph / 19.36 km/h |
|
32 |
777 |
Ross Fryer |
00:38:28 |
11.70 mph / 18.83 km/h |
|
33 |
778 |
James Lyon |
00:35:42 |
12.61 mph / 20.29 km/h |
|
34 |
779 |
James Peckham |
00:37:44 |
11.93 mph / 19.19 km/h |
|
35 |
780 |
Andrew Mock |
00:35:44 |
12.59 mph / 20.27 km/h |
|
36 |
777 |
Ross Fryer |
00:38:18 |
11.75 mph / 18.91 km/h |
|
37 |
778 |
James Lyon |
00:34:30 |
13.04 mph / 20.99 km/h |
|
38 |
779 |
James Peckham |
00:37:59 |
11.85 mph / 19.07 km/h |
|
Rider |
Laps |
Best |
Average |
Worst |
|
James Lyon |
10 |
00:34:30
(13.04 mph / 20.99 km/h) |
00:37:04
(12.14 mph / 19.53 km/h) |
00:39:20
(11.44 mph / 18.41 km/h) |
|
James Peckham |
10 |
00:36:04
(12.48 mph / 20.08 km/h) |
00:37:45
(11.92 mph / 19.18 km/h) |
00:40:15
(11.18 mph / 17.99 km/h) |
|
Andrew Mock |
9 |
00:34:52
(12.91 mph / 20.77 km/h) |
00:38:16
(11.76 mph / 18.92 km/h) |
00:43:05
(10.44 mph / 16.81 km/h) |
|
Ross Fryer |
9 |
00:37:29
(12.01 mph / 19.32 km/h) |
00:39:27
(11.40 mph / 18.35 km/h) |
00:42:02
(10.71 mph / 17.23 km/h) |
Event Results by
Singletrack Magazine
 |
 |
| James L, the hillclimb out
of the arena |
Ross takes the dawn shift |
 |
 |
| Ross, riding fast at the
start of his dusk lap |
Andrew in full
roadie guise |
 |
 |
| James L on the grassy
descent |
James P grabs a well
deserved 40 winks in the early morning sun |
 |
|
| JamesP crosses the line at
the end of the event to shake the hand of race organiser Pat
Adams |
|
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