There weren’t so many riders waiting in the Sleepless in the Saddle change over pen at midnight, many teams taking a break. I went out fairly fast for my 2 back to back night laps, but soon found myself slithering on the rooty sections. I ended up coming off twice, the second time quite spectacularly. I had just got past 3 slower riders and took too much speed into the corner. My front wheel slipped on a root and over the handlebars I went, blocking the track. My bars were twisted 180 and I lost my water bottle. After that I slowed up a bit and gave a little more respect to the roots.
My lap went OK but I was starting to gag for a drink and was desperate to get some food down me, but with a dry mouth I just couldn’t face it. Eventually I stared to really run out of energy half way round the second of my two laps and had to get some bar down me. I couldn’t eat it all but it gave me enough to drag myself up the final climb and into the finish. For the second half of that lap I was longing for the bottle of strawberry milkshake in the tent, and it tasted just amazing when I flopped onto my sleeping bag at 2.30am.
After a couple of hours of kip, a coffee and bacon roll I felt much better and flew round my next lap. At this point we were lying 4th in the Vets class with the other Cycle Shack team leading, however a Derby Mercury team was just 8 minutes ahead of us. There then started 
6 hours of cat and mouse chasing as we slowly ate into their lead, after each lap checking the live results. With a couple hours to go we finally did it, pulling up into third, all four of us giving it everything and holding it to the end. So a great result for Cycle Shack with two teams and a solo singlespeeder on the podium. We even ended up 11th and 19th overall!
Sleepless is a great event, with a fantastic atmosphere and lots of singletrack, thanks to Provelo Support, Singletrack Magazine and all the other sponsors and complete respect for those nutters who go it solo.
My lows: losing my water bottle twice early on in laps and using a baby wipe to clean my teeth.
My highs: a lap just after dawn with the sun rising above the trees and that feeling of crossing the finish line for the last time knowing the pain was about to stop……. Roll on Sleepless 2012
Results tend to take a while to come out, below is a photo of the overall results screen from the finish.
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| Sleepless in the Saddle 2011 click for Photos |