August 15th, 2006
Kona SITS 2006
Reason To Singlespeed
If 24 hour races from 2006 are going to be remembered for anything it is going to be mud.
There was the bog at Strathpuffer, the biblical rainstorm at twentyfour12, and now the carnage at Sleepless In The Saddle.
All of which is an unfair view of 2006 races.
SSMM was dry and dusty. Twentyfour12 started off dry and dusty. And so did SITS.
What a difference a bit of rain makes. Once again photos of mud encrusted linkage and VPP suspension bikes are being emailed out to California as design advice. On forums where folk ask “why singlespeed?” photos of the drivetrains from SITS are being posted. How soon the sunshine and dust of Saturday is forgotten. Simon Barnes, who was shooting rider portrait photographs for singletrackworld.com remarked how the number of riders passing him dropped from 600 an hour on Saturday to 150 an hour on Sunday.
The rain brought a certain lack of enthusiasm even on team Sideways B. Tim had done a Saturday lap on a borrowed bike in borrowed shorts and borrowed shoes (there’s a theme here if you look hard enough). Rob had forsaken the four a.m. dawn lap for some proper kip as the rain hammered down. It was left to Kirsty and guest rider Enrico Gonzalez to finish off for us on Sunday. I spent a good half an hour swapping tyres between Kirstys bikes to put some mud tyres on her singlespeed when I realised I could just have lent her my Mud Mad wrapped wheels. Doh!
(I’ve since discovered that the Mud Mad no longer exists in the IRC range. A victim of fashion over function? It cleared better than any of the square tread mud tyres I saw on Sunday).
That’s it for 24 hour racing for me this year - though I may go up to the relentless 24 to spectate and see if any friends want support.
Best start some running ready for the Three Peaks now.
Results were up within hours courtesy of Singletrack.
Images are available from:
- Joolze Dymond
- flickr - tagged sits2006. Add yours.
- flickr - my photos of the event
- flickr - my photos of cheeky peeps.
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August 15th, 2006 at 4:44 pm
Well done both - especially Kirsty on returning to the fray.
As usual, I’m beating myself up for being a lazy arse, cruising around, stopping for numerous pees and then retiring to my teepee with my ‘Ovaltine’ and then spitting the 4am dummy cos it was wet…… :-)
Still, I had a really great time - thanks to all of you for keeping me hooked up. I never want to stop.
August 16th, 2006 at 8:04 am
We all went into this team knowing it was slack Rob. You shouldn’t let the odd 47 minute lap let you think otherwise :-)
We’ve now cleaned the bikes and can reveal the the damage done:
2 bottom brackets,
1 headset,
1 pair Psylo forks.
August 16th, 2006 at 8:19 am
Given those conditions I think you got off fairly lightly - of course that list will treble when you step into the Sideways Tardis :-)
August 16th, 2006 at 8:46 am
Lists of stuff needed always treble when you walk into Sideways :)
Great to see everyone again.
August 16th, 2006 at 12:42 pm