Shimano Sleepless in the Saddle 2003

[stevie]

Time to see whether anyone is really interested in trying a 24 hour race. Entry forms are now available for the Shimano Sleepless in the Saddle 2003. This is a 24 hour race on the weekend of 9/10 august at Trentham Gardens, Stoke on Trent. Camping is free/included in entry fee on the site from Thursday through to Sunday. There is a big pasta party on the Friday night and ... well ... Saturday night is spent either cycling, socialising or crashing out depending on your position in the relay.

Teams are made up of 4 members and teams are ranked according to how many 12km laps they are able to do between 2pm Saturday and 2pm Sunday. Hence, this does involve getting very tired and cycling at night :twisted:

Please comment in this forum to let me know whether you are interested in coming. I have fancied trying this for a long time and it would be great to get together an mtb-thrashers team. Or even 2 :!:

If you want more information, there is a Sleepless in the Saddle web site here:
http://www.sleeplessinthesaddle.com/
Currently it only has 2002 information.

There is also an article on bikemagic.com:
http://www.bikemagic.com/news/article.asp?UAN=3184&SP=&v=5
This includes a link to the 2003 entry form.

For those of you who are more financially minded, the cost of the event is £185 for a team of four. This includes camping for the duration of the event.

[jon]

no way i'm going to be fit enough this year for this sort of thing.

[stevie]

I wasn't planning on taking it too seriously! Looking at last year's results, the range of results was from 12-40 laps. There were only a few below 20, but 27 gets you into the top 50%. I personally would be happy with an average of one lap an hour, which shouldn't be too difficult on a 12km lap. I think that's a little bit less than the distance covered in the Red Bull which we usually manage to do in about 1hr15, and Trentham couldn't involve nearly as much climbing as that and the descents are definitely not as technical, so they should be pretty quick. I wouldn't be surprised if we were already capable of a not completely embarrassing score ... and by the end of August, we may even be able to get into that top 50% ... as long as we all keep up regular riding this year ;)

Still, I'm not saying it would be easy ... I would expect everyone to be completely knackered by the end of it. Each rider would presumably be doing 6 rides of about an hour each separated by three hour breaks. That's got to hurt.

Still ... anyone else interested? We only need four :oops:

[cheungy]

i'll do it .... but that just makes 2 of us!? .... we will look like :oops: after the wkend!

[jon]

was just thinking about this for this 2004.. but it seems to be the 14th and 15th of august and i'm away on holiday that weekend :roll: