So we are done and dusted for another year!
Congratulation to Russ et al for a fabulous event at the happiest place on Earth: Majura Pines!
For me the toughest bit wasn't Boy Wonder, but that soul destroying trudge up the gentle climb with all the cartoons on the trees and the immediately following left hand turn to that fire road pinch.
I was wonderfully privileged (?????) to witness first hand what a caring bunch the mountain biking fraternity is. About 4 hours from the end I imploded spectacularly because my Achilles tendons on both legs decided they didn’t want to play (read: bear the weight of pedal strokes) anymore. I went from a 51 minute lap at around 8am to a 2 hour 51 minute stumble than included 20 minutes sitting at the half way tent and 45 minutes lying in the foetal position 200m before the finish line. Not a single person rode past without checking to see if I was ok! Absolutely superlative stuff at a time when podium positions were still being contested by some and the remainder were like me barely able to formulate words. Not sure what is wrong the Achilles, but I have a physio appointment tomorrow - fingers crossed it is nothing too bad/ permanent/ requiring surgery! (perhaps a little melodramatic, but in 5 solo 24s and open heart surgery, I had not yet to felt pain quite like this!!!)
I can’t make a pronouncement eloquent enough to properly convey how much fun I had at the Easter solo, so this will have to do (shamelessly appropriated from the DH section of the forum) “It was sick to the power of rad!”
The only suggestion I would make probably doesn’t affect 90% of entrants. My suggestion relates to the change in the age group formulations. This year, the youngest category at Solo Nats was U/23, in the past it has been U/25. I suspect that the rationale for the change was to draw Solo Nats into line with the WEMBO Finale Ligure World Solo Championships, which has a U/23 instead of a U/25 category. Given the ages of people that ordinary enter 24 solos, this change (IMHO) (if permanent) would condemn the U/23 category to forever being tiny and would inhibit the growth of the sport. As older people love to remind me, we U/23s are sheep, we very often follow the crowd to find out what we deem to be ‘hip’. A category of three, as we had this year, will not help the long-term growth of the sport. For the current competitors, it makes it more difficult to keep track of our fellow youngsters if some of them are split off and grouped with those (shock horror) almost-30 types! Also, it wasn’t as fun without Ed McD and Scott C beating the stuffing out of us – although Mark T stepped up and did the job magnificently! Therefore, I humbly submit a request, that we have our U/25 category restored next year so that we young’uns can stick together and so that any potential young 24hr soloists who look at a results sheet will find that 24hr solos are indeed as welcoming to young people as I have found them to be!
See you all next year (or sooner hopefully!),
Andrew Clark
