When we set off to mountain mayhem this year with our mixed team of 5 I thought to myself “if we don’t win this year we are not going to win”!!

 

I had been quietly confident of our chances this year as we had the additional recruit of a young lad called Ben Cooper who really knows how to ride a mountain bike fast!

 

 

So the fact we had a full five person team this year and we knew what to expect made a difference to our mental focus. The only problem with Mayhem is you don’t really know who you’re against until you hit the start line as bogus team names are used until the last minute. We were unaware that last year’s winners had entered or that Evans cycles had the power of Becky Preece, but we had just decided to go at it full throttle and see what happens…

 

What happened was we led the whole event for 3hrs! Ben had gone out so quick on the first lap he was first back into transition and we just went with the flow “full throttle”….crazy really when it’s a 24hr event!

 

The mind set was let’s go quick, then if we have a mechanical we have time to spare. What we did not anticipate was the terrible thick mud on every climb and the slimy bridleways and the additional technical descents that made the lap much harder than last year and it showed in the lap timings. Thinking about this it was harder for everyone so it really made no difference.

 

The overall lead was never going to last but we soon made a substantial lead on the rest of our category stretching it out to over 3laps in front by midnight the night laps are my favourite there are less people out on the course , its cooler, calmer and often lap times are pretty much the same.  I’m so proud of the whole team no one really lost the plot or had a mental breakdown …  At 23.30hrs I had completed what we decided was our last lap so to stretch the timing out to 24hrs I had a little sit down which lost us a lap but no one felt like doing a lap that didn’t really mean anything so at 24hrs dead I rolled down to the finish with a Yorkshire flag flying in my hand to complete the win for team NIER….boom

 

 

Mountain Mayhem is a huge event and the most competitive 24hr team event in the UK. It has a massive following of riders who turn up year after year to get punished for a weekend on the mountain bike!

 

The Siemienczuk family after Gaby rode the kids race

Massive thanks go out to our sponsors Chia Charge and nutrixxion UK your products made the nutritional difference and we can never forget the pit crew of Dean Tempest Mitchell, Sally hatfield and Monika Siemienczuk top job team