Our best letter yet!

To the Fantastic MONT24 Team,
 
My name is Madeline Kennedy and I’m 16 years old. I was apart of the team, JB Bandits. We were an all girl, Young Guns team. For each of us this was our first 24hr race. And for one of our members, her very first mountain bike race! I have been mountain biking for around 8months but it feels so much longer. My first race was the Canberra All Schools MTB Race at Mt Stromlo and despite the fact I collapsed on my last lap, I instantly fell in love with mountain biking. The thrill and excitement from racing is indescribable!    

I attend Vincentia High School, on the NSW south coast. At my school we have a Mountain Biking Club, with two teachers who dedicate endless hours to help train around 30+ students. It was these two teachers who told me about the MONT24hr and helped me organise a team.

Since about November last year when I entered a team, nearly every day I would think about how excited I was for the weekend of April 4th and April 5th. I was so, so, so excited. At the start of this year I decided that I should join the local Mountain Biking Club, SCUM (South Coast United Mountain bikers). I attended a few meets and discovered so many local tracks that I never knew existed! It was only until about a week or two before the MONT that I realised that I had better start getting myself and my team organised. None of us really knew what was going on. I typed up my team a newsletter, much like the ones I received from you guys, with everything they would need to know and bring. One hiccup with a team member change about 3 weeks before the race, Friday the 3rd came around incredibly fast and before I knew it, I was traveling to Sparrow Hill. For the duration of the 3 hour trip, I couldn’t help thinking that Id forgotten something. Although as long as I had my bike and helmet, everything was sweet.

We arrived around 4.30pm and set up camp with the rest of the Vincentia High teams. (A few teachers and even our principal entered in the MONT! MTB definitely runs strong in our school!) I was really hoping to be able to do a practice lap of the course before the start of the race the next day but by the time we'd moved our tent about 3 or 4 times away from ant nests, I was absolutely exhausted. Myself and 2 other team members rode up with 6 waivers to registration and registered our team. When we went to registration we realised that our team name was the same as the category name. We were the Young Guns, in the Young Gun category so hence the name change to JB Bandits. We got our bag of goodies, race plates and went to check the race map. As we were looking at the race map we realised how BIG the course was. 18km sounds pretty long but then when
we were comparing the size of the humungous campsite to the even BIGGER race course, we went into shock. Our jaws dropped and Carly who had never ridden in a MTB race before nearly started crying. We wandered around checking out all the sponsor stalls and the food stalls and agreed that by the end of the weekend we were definitely going to buy some delicious looking dutch pancakes.

Friday night came around pretty fast and we were about 200m or more away from the main area of registration, etc but were still close enough to hear the announcements over the speaker. When the first warning came over about a storm we all just dismissed the idea of rain in Canberra. As if! It never rains in Canberra! 15mins or so later we were all running around like headless chickens trying to get everything undercover and out of the rain. I’ve never seen a storm like it! When your camping, the thunder seems a whole lot louder and the lightening seems so much closer! So we all found a dry space and waited for the rain to ease. But, it didn’t, it just kept raining. After a while we were sick of waiting for it to stop so we though 'stuff it, lets just go' and so we walked up to the band in the rain. Surprisingly there were quite a few other crazy people standing about in the rain listening to the band as well. It was a fun night. But soon enough we all walked back to the tent and collapsed into bed.
   
Saturday morning. I woke up around 7.30am and was surprised to see how many people were actually up! Mum cooked us a healthy, carbo-loaded breakfast. I was uncontrollably excited and just had to go for a ride! So around 10.30am we decided to go for a team demo lap. By the time we all got up there and completed a lap of the demo track it was time for the race briefing so I headed over with a few other people and listened up. I was a bit shocked to hear that the first rider (myself) had to do a 300 - 400m run to get to my bike before we actually started riding! I sprinted back down to the tent, a ball of excitement. Collected my team, my mum and baton and headed up to the start. Sparrow Hill was abuzz with excitement and nerves. Personally I was just too excited to even think about being nervous. I stood amongst the 450 other first lap riders for about 15mins before the GO! And off we went, a stampede of eager MTB animals! It was so great to see all the support from friends and family standing along the sides of the road yelling and screaming team names. As I was searching for my team member who was holding my bike, it became apparent just how big this race really was. 24 hours of MTB, a whole 24 hours! I found my team member and jumped on my bike. Adrenaline pumping through my veins I sped past multiple people. Although many, many, many more people were over taking me as well.

The first lap was hectic, so many riders, so much adrenaline. I stacked on the first lap as well. Ran straight into one of the pink painted rocks, over the handle bars and got a cramped calf muscle clicking out. The guy behind me was riding so close behind that he didn’t have time to break quick enough that he just ran into me when I was lying on the ground. I think it would’ve hurt but my adrenaline was going crazy! I shuffled off the track stretching my leg to rid the cramp. Many, many people were riding by asking 'are you ok?' 'do you need help?' I just said no because I knew that I was going to be ok, it was only a stack, everyone stacks at some point! I jumped back onto my bike as soon as I could only to discover that my derailleur was bent into my spokes. So I was standing on the side of the track, crying, trying to bend back my derailleur when I fell into a wild rose bush. It was possibly the most unlucky moment of my life. You could only laugh, although at the time it wasn’t very funny. I still had half the course to complete! I eventually bent back my derailleur far enough to be able to ride my bike. Off I went, slow and steady for the rest of the lap. I must’ve bumped my head when I stacked because I started feeling a bit dizzy and light headed so it wasn’t the best lap Id done. I came back into transition, everyone cheering, and me crying. I looked up at Carly, who has never ridden before, and saw a face full of horror. I handed over the baton to my next rider Mekayla and off she went.

After some ice from St Johns Ambo's and time to cool down, I was fine. Just a bit frightened if anything. But was still so excited to be at the MONT. Carly was our third rider so we helped her get ready and sent her off on her lap once Mekayla had come back through. Mekayla rode a lap of 1.02 and we were all sooo proud of her! Mekayla's a triathlete not a mountain biker but she goes hard! Everyone in the team completed their first laps without any dramas (aside from mine). The MONT was in full swing, with the boys on the speaker giving away all kinds of prizes, people coming back from laps with stories and everyone was beaming! It was the best feeling!

The first night lap was interesting. My light wasn’t the best but it got me by...just. I skidded out around a few corners but nothing like the first lap stack. People had been talking about the rudeness of some riders on the course so I was a bit scared about being pushed off the track by people who wanted to over take. But I had nothing to worry about, the politeness of riders was outstanding! I couldn’t believe how friendly people were. 'How you going tonight? Having fun? When your ready can I overtake please?' and then once they’d over taken it was 'Thanks so much, have a great night. Goodluck' It was awesome! It was around 10pm when I got back and they’d just announced that the showers were closing at 11 and I was sooooo happy that I was going to be able to have a shower before they closed.

After I'd had my shower, it was time to get Carly organised for her lap. She was in bed sleeping and she is someone who does not wake up very happy if you wake her up. I quite literally had to drag her out of the tent. Carly was sobbing so I gave her some lollies and rice salad to eat. Made her drink some gatorade and water, and got her stuff together. All she had to do was get dressed, yet it still took her an awfully long time. I walked her and her bike up to transition very slowly when an announcement came over the speaker for a 'Miss Carly Brown from the JB Bandits, your rider is in transition and looking for you' Oh god, I didn’t say anything to her. I wasn’t about to tell her to hurry up either. She was not in a good way. We got to transition and very slowly she rode off into the dark. By the time Carly came back she was all smiles. MTB does that to you. Her wheel had fallen off about 400m from the finish and the bike totally broken, yet she was still smiling and raving about how great it was. We all walked back to the tent and went to bed.

Before i'd gone to bed, I'd written on the team whiteboard the estimated times of arrival of riders and things like that so everyone knew their times. But being team captain I felt responsible for waking everyone up, so for most riders I had to set an alarm and get them up. I finally got to bed after some time and set an alarm for myself, yet I couldn’t sleep. I'd lay there worrying that I was going to miss my alarm and sleep through my lap. So I got up and started making some food. A guy who we were camping with told me that it was a newbie syndrome. Not sleeping because your worried you’ll miss your lap. I agreed, couldn’t think of any other reason?

My third lap came around fairly quick and I was feeling the pain. My legs after the first 100m started aching. It was going to  be a loonnggggg 18km. The lap went past incredibly quick though! Each lap seemed to go faster than the last. It was coming on dawn when I returned and the sunrise was beautiful. Everyone was a little tired and emotional, one lady we were camping with told us how when she was riding up into the finishing chute she started crying because the sunrise was so moving. We got a laugh out of that. It seemed as though that I was only going to get to do 3 laps, which suited me fine although I did come to Sparrow Hill thinking I was going to do 4. 3 was good though, 54km of MTB, impressive!

MTB being unpredictable, one of our riders took a turn for the worst and got sick. She was in no way fit to do a lap. We were all kind of putting off the idea of doing a 4th lap and moved everyone up a lap earlier. Then the last lap came around and we'd just decided that everyone would do 3 laps and just not have a rider for the last hour or so. That was until we discovered that you were disqualified if you didn’t complete the race. I knew that in the back of my mind I should probably do the last lap as it would be my turn and being team captain it would be the right thing to do. Even though id already eaten my delicious dutch pancakes, I got organised to do the 4th lap. At least I wouldn’t have to pack up the tent! I set off with a huge smile and came back with an even bigger smile. The last lap was truly amazing, I had the best time of my life! Honestly, it was just so much fun riding the last lap. Being out on the course with the photographers and all the other riders, everyone was just so happy to be riding. It was a great atmosphere to be in. As the signs counted down the kilometres it was a bit sad when the race finally came to an end. I came through the finish chute with a huge grin on my face with everyone from Vincentia High cheering me on. It is a moment that I will treasure for the rest of my life!
 
I cannot thank you all enough for the endless hours you guys put in to make the Mont happen. If it wasn’t for you guys, I would never been able to experience the best 24hr race ever. All the hard work definitely paid off! You guys are the winners and I thank you so very much for all your work!
 
Ill be seeing you guys next year for sure!
THE MONT ROCKS!