This year Bob and I decided to reprise our old Furnace Creek 508 2-man team, rebranded as Wolfbaby, for the 24-hour World Time Trial Championships in Borrego Springs (http://24hrworlds.com).
This annual race is the last race of the season for many elite endurance racers from around the world.
“Every fall, the best endurance time trial racers from around the world gather in Borrego Springs, a quiet Southern California resort community. They come to determine who is the fastest in the world, to set personal records, and to spend time with friends in the bicycle racing community.
Borrego Springs offers the perfect setting – the stark beauty of the Anza-Borrego Desert set against the majesty of the Coast Range. Giant metal sculptures by Ricardo Breceda add to the beauty and add mystique. Sunrises and sunsets are spectacular. November weather should be ideal – warm days and cool nights – perfect for racing.
The course is flat and fast, featuring a main loop of 18.0 miles with 347’ of elevation change and a finishing loop of 4.8 miles with 63’ of elevation change. County road crews prepare the road surface before the race, making repairs and sweeping to insure optimal conditions. Racers compile as many miles as possible in 6, 12 or 24 hours.”
We flew down mid week to get settled in ahead of our 5pm start on Friday evening and had a chance to ride a shakeout social lap on Thursday, an annual tradition organized by Marko Baloh ahead of the race. It’s a good chance to reacquaint oneself with friends and the main loop as well as make sure one’s bike has survived the travel.
Friday morning started with a fine breakfast (thanks Martha) followed by packing up the van aka Wolfbaby Command Center to get set up in the pits. We were the first wave into the pits so got a prime spot up near the start line with Chris and Jim (The 508ers) directly beside us. We’re pretty low maintenance / budget compared to some of the support rigs in the pits and just have a cooler with gear laid out in the back of a minivan for anything we might need between laps. A step up from a cooler by the side of the road but no fire pit and s’mores or air mattresses for us!
Once we were all set up it was back to the house for a rest before attending the riders briefing at 4pm ahead of our 5pm start.
On to the race itself… we started in the fourth wave at 5:03 and I took the first lap. Our plan was to alternate laps throughout the 24 hours but with the option to adjust as necessary depending on how we were feeling. The first lap is always fast as the adrenaline and anticipation finally has an outlet. I held 22.5 mph around the 18 mile long lap for my fastest lap to date on this course (48:28), Bob then took over with a 21 mph lap to get us off to a great start.
The lap itself has distinct sections and as you get familiar with them you can get in a rhythm of what to expect. It’s pretty flat with one “hill” of 1-2% which feels progressively steeper as the race goes on. Lights are required after 6pm and it gets pretty dark out on the course with the temperatures dropping throughout the night (from 80s down to 40s). My speed really seemed to drop off during the night as it got colder. Although it felt like I was still going at a reasonable clip as I didn’t have my Garmin display backlit I didn’t check my actual speed or power on the road. My left hip also felt a little tight after about 4 laps on the aero bars, likely due to the fact that I hadn’t been on them and in that position for an extended period since last year and the dropping temps. I ended up just riding on the hoods in my normal position for the last couple of night laps which felt fine but was slower.
Alex helped us out in the pits throughout the 24 hours and was a rock star. He would take our bikes as Bob and I handed off our ankle timing chip for our brief 30sec exchange each hour or so and then see if we needed any food or drink top ups before moving on to help out the other Seattle racers. One of the funny things about racing as a team is that you really don’t see much of your teammate in this format. Bob and I only got to exchange a couple words during the race itself.
As dawn approached Bob let me know that he could use an extra lap off to get some rest so I doubled up on laps 13 and 14 and got to see the sunrise on the course. Then we got back to alternating and our lap times started to speed up significantly with the combination of daylight and warmer temps.
We got 22 big laps in before it was time to change to a shorter 4.8 mile lap for the last 1 1/2 hours. Bob cranked out the first two short laps and then I took over for the last three. I managed to average over 20mph for the last laps which isn’t bad after 24 hours of racing so was happy enough for that. We didn’t quite have enough time left to squeeze in one more short lap so wrapped up at 420 miles with 12 1/2 minutes on the table.
Great race all around with no real issues for either of us. I couldn’t ask for a better teammate, we had fun, raced hard and got a fine result. We’re already making plans for next year 🙂
