During the weekend of June 20th-22nd ten of them plus supporters took place in the annual Red Bull
Mountain Mayhem Challenge.
This is a 24 hour off-road non-stop relay race on mountain bikes held at Sandwell Park near Birmingham.
The mayhem starts straight away when the 300 unfortunates picked to ride first for their teams have a
Le Mans style elbow-jostling half mile running start to split the riders up a bit before they jump
onto their bikes an head off at full pelt round the 10 mile course.
It’s rough, rutted, steep, (both up and down), highly competitive, and definitely dangerous!
Our boys and one brave girl were divided up into two teams imaginatively named ‘Quickies’ and 'Not So Quickies’ (Julian from Nielson won’t be applying for a job in Marketing then!), but they turned out to be evenly matched throughout the event. For mere mortals in the fun sport category such as our lot, a lap of the course took between 45 minutes to an hour to complete, although some of the elite teams were doing it in 35 minutes, and the teams of Unicyclists (honest!) took a couple of hours.
The event began at 2pm, so everyone had a couple of laps behind them before it got dark. Right through Saturday night they hurtled up and down spooky tree lined tracks as wide as their bikes at 15 to 20 mph in total darkness apart from their bike lights. Apparently enough adrenalin was produced to power the whole of Birmingham just down the road!
By 2pm Sunday everyone looked as though they’d spent a week having it large in Ibiza,
right down to the manic grins and staring eyes.
The ‘Not so Quickies’ finished 45th, and the ‘Quickies’ 53th, although in reality everyone had
such a great time that they all came away winners.
Most of the bikes looked as though they should be taken somewhere quiet and shot.
A couple of special prizes must go to Nikki as the only girl, who fought off her Friday evening
practice lap nerves to complete a set of very respectable laps, and also to Ed who tried so hard
he stripped the cogs off his chain ring and ran 8 miles with his bike on his shoulder.
This happened on his last lap so he’d been up for 22 hours by this time!
When they first entered the event, our teams thought they were just out for a laugh and a good time, but we have to report that they came away seriously bitten and are already filling in the entry forms for next year. Some people never learn!
WELL DONE GUYS!