Canmore

24 Hours of Adrenalin went down this weekend in Canmore. Jonny B, Alberto, Cam and myself were there representing the local singlespeed community under the handle of SWM. James, John L, Scott, and Gerald from Tinker Creek were also there, camped out right beside us.

Our race in a nutshell: we peaked too early. Way too early. About 23 and a half hours too early, to be precise.

Jonny B rocked the LeMans start, finishing the running lap 22nd out of the 300+ overall teams and solo riders.


By the time he hit the 2km mark of the first riding lap, he had surged into 7th place and was out for blood--at least as much as is befitting of a vegan. And that's where his string of misfortunes began. Pfffft. Flat tire. No spare tube. Another racer was kind enough to toss him a tube, but with no pump along it didn't do much good. Cam and I were walking past the finish area when we heard, "Team 113, you have a lap cancellation. Send out your next rider." We turned to see Jonny standing at the scorers table, having run 2km back to the start in order to cancel his lap. So Cam essentially started out on our first lap with a 25 minute deficit. Shit-tee.

By the time he finished lap 1, we were just happy not to be in last place any more.


When nothing goes wrong, Jonny B can ride real fast. Notice the other riders scramble to get out of the way as he stomps his way, 38x16-style, right up the middle of a climb toward the end of his first full lap.


Unfortunately, that was about the only lap in which nothing went wrong for him. On his next lap, he flatted again and had to run the last km to the finish. And it was during his night lap that he realized that it's best to make sure your lighting system is adequate before you head out into the dark.

Fortunately, things were going relatively smoothly for the rest of us. We were going pretty consistent, riding the 14.2 km course in 50-55 minutes, and turning in laps of just over an hour at night.


And the times Jonny was posting in spite of his series of crises was impressive. By the time we started checking results at about 4 hours in, we were sitting 5th out of the field of 25 4-person teams. And by the next morning we were even making a run on 4th place, taking back a couple of minutes per lap during the night and early morning. Jonny left at 10:30 to start lap 24 and Cam was set to do a 7th lap to make it 25. As we were headed to the results table to determine whether 4th place was realistically within reach, the lady on the loudspeaker said, "Team 113, you have a lap cancellation. Send out your next rider." This time his chain came off and sheared off 5 spokes--about 35 minutes into the lap. So once again, Cam had to rush to the start line to begin his last lap before he was entirely ready. Unfortunately our hopes 4th place vanished along with Jonny's spokes, as did our hold on 5th. We ended up with 24 laps, good enough for 6th place. In light of what could have been, a little disappointing. But given the difficulties, we were pleased with that result.

All in all, a great time. The Nordic Centre is a beautiful venue.


There was some sweet singletrack, plenty of climbing (almost all of it in the first 4 kms), a few screaming downhills, and lots of undulating fire roads that really worked out well on the singlespeed. There was one other team of ss'ers in the 5 person field, plus a few solo ss'ers. Lots of good camaraderie there.

This dude is from a group that calls itself WUSS--Western United Single Speeders. He seemed to think we might want to purchase a WUSS jersey that is being prepared. Will have to wait and see what they look like first.

Special thanks to Laura for her willingness to do food runs and for putting in 8 hours of volunteer work, first at a checkstop out on course and then in the scoring tent at night. Always nice to see a familiar face out in the forest.

More from velo bread and maybe even a report from the master of disaster himself.

OTT: Balkan Beat Box, Digital Monkey