Race Commentary

Dawn Kaczor
i was lucky enough to be part of a focused, strong team consisting of
myself, kate, abbie and kim. i arrived at the campsite at 2pm friday and
helped with the tents. Then rich, lucas, barry, joe, matt and i went on a
pre-ride. towards the end of the ride it started to rain. i was beyond
despair when it started coming down hard and continued throughout the
evening. my memories from last years race had a huge impact on my ability to
get psyched for more of the same conditions once again. at that point i just
didn't want to race at all. but when i woke up saturday and saw some blue
skies and sunshine, i was ready to go. i had a totally fun time on the
course and during the night laps i could even describe it as being pleasant.
in spite of the rain on friday, the weather was dry saturday & sunday. the
plunge was still a bit slippery and the singletrack was about 95% rideable
throughout. my team kicked some serious butt. everyone was focused and ready
to race when it was time to go out and during the whole 24 hours.
incredibly, there were no incidents of mechanical problems or flats. and we
got along very well. all of that plus our hustle helped us to capture the
1st place position for 4 woman sport category.
i want to thank rich blair. he did a great job organizing the teams and
providing plenty of laughs. and to all the support people who were there to
help. it was amazing to see the committment of these people in helping us
behind the scenes. they were a huge part of our success.

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Hank Kells
This was my third effort at 24 hrs of Great Glen. After hearing the horror
stories about the rain and mud of last year's event, which I missed, I was
prepared for the worst. Thankfully, the weather gods were on our side this
year and the rain held off during the event. The course was about 2/3 fire
road and 1/3 technical singletrack, 8 mi. total. The singletrack had plenty
of mud and slick rocks and roots. I went out on the course to help Allyson
half way through her first lap and fixed her chain which allowed her to
complete the lap. My lights went out around 5:00 AM in the middle of my
4th lap which slowed me down but dawn broke soon after so I was able to
complete the lap in a reasonable amount of time. Reminder for next time -
bring an extra (charged) NiteRider Battery. I wasn't able to charge my
battery Sat. night even though I tried. I slid off the bridge at the base
of the "Plunge" on my second lap and went head first into the water.

Thanks to everyone on my team for your determined effort. Thanks to
Rich Blair, Mark Mistretta, Meredith, Shelley and the rest of the Support Crew
for helping out and making it a little easier on everyone who raced. Josh,
sorry about your battery.

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Matthew Juros

-Before I get too self indulgent: hats off to the support crew: especially
Jetski - this guy rocks; Meredith Johnson (the facilitator) basically made
it ALL happen; Melanie (yummy); Shelly, 'drew, and Ian: huge thanks.

-Having never done a 24 hour race, I wasn't too sure how my body / mind
would respond. It was fabulous - I mean really great. I did the LeMans
start without embarrassing myself too badly. Finished that lap (and all
others) in less than 60 minutes. Rode the entire course on my second and my
last laps. Kept pushing for the elusive sub-50 minute lap but never quite
got there...next year. Team LoL was impressive - steady leadership from
Hank (lead by example) Kells; Famely was fast and steady - doing the sub-50
lap I'd been striving for; Joe Stein was steady and a great presence in camp
and on the course; Allyson powered through her laps without complaint and
was very impressive in only her second mountain bike race ever !

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Andy Sherman
It took me about two days of sleep and recovery to fully realize it,
but Great Glen was the most fun I have had mtb racing. The location,
organization, trails and everything else are just ideal for an event
like this.

I wasn't sure how Great Glen, my first 24 hr race, would turn out,
especially when I arrived Friday afternoon in the midst of a pounding
rain. Fortunately, the weather during the race was great, so we
didn't get washed away. It was somewhat unfortunate that the pre-ride
rain left enough water to make a lot of the technical singletrack
unridable, but that was just became parr of the experience.

Our team of Endo, Bendo, Digger and Stack (Tom Varga, Scott Kirschner,
Chuck Piper and me) finished fifth despite one flat tire slow-down and
a late-night snafu on a baton change. We were happy with the result
and had great, consistent performances by the whole team.

There was one awful event that happened after the race when Chuck fell
asleep at the wheel on his drive home. He crashed into a tree and did
a lot of damage to his leg: with breaks in his pelvis and foot and
femur damage as well. He didn't have any head or internal injuries but
will have a long recovery. The good news is that he should be able,
and definitely wants to, ride again.

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Scott Kirschner
An over-40, rookie 24 hour team? Hell, yes! None of us except
Chuck had raced a 24 hour race before, but we collectively got
organized and had a plan. It poured rain Friday until about 7 pm,
then the weather got really nice and we woke up Saturday to a sunny,
but windy morning. Good sign. After the first round of laps, we
were in sixth place, but we kept putting in 50-53 minute laps and
moved up to third. Then, in the night laps, Andy got a flat on his
tubeless tires and we had one brain burp when the next rider was
asleep in his van and we lost about 25 minutes. Andy and Scott both
had nice plunge crashes to add to the adventure. But the morning
came, and we were in 5th place. We put in some more good laps,
securing our place. Great race, great time, great team.

On a sad note, our captain, Chuck Piper, fell asleep at the wheel in
Conway while driving himself home and had a single car accident
running into a tree. He was flown to Maine Medical Center and has
had 2 surgeries to repair his hip and right foot/ankle. Chuck will
hopefully be able to ride again, and he is lucky it was not more
serious. His van was totalled. Please people, if you do a 24 hour
race, get someone to drive you home or share duties and switch up a
lot.

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Barry Petzold
What a weekend!!!!
First thing... I have to thank Rich Blair and Matt
Juros for putting several teams together for this
race. They got some amazing talent together and made
some strong teams. We had 4 teams sharing the same
tentsite/support crew. It worked out perfectly.

Origionally I was supposed to be on a 5 person open
team, which i was really looking forward to. About 3
days before the race, I find out im on a 4 person
expert team! UH OH! I was a little nervouse about
that. Luckily, eating pasta 3 times a day for 10 days
gave me enough energy to turn out good enough lap
times to keep up.

After doing more laps than I can remeber, I thought my
race was over at about 10:15am. NOT! Josh had just
done a double lap, and then Dodd and Eric both had
fast laps. Eric finished his lap with about 5 minutes
untill the end of the race, and we only had to finish
one more lap to secure our third place spot. Turns out
it was my turn to do the final lap. I gave it my best
during that last 50 minutes, except for when Lucas
Brunell passed me on an uphill at about mach 3. Made
me feel like I was stading still.

How the hell can anyone sleep during a race like this?
I can still perfectly remember the 5 minues of sleep I
got. 2:34 to 2:39am.

Im still psyched about how our team did. What a great
race!

The best part about the weekend was the 14 hour nap
after the race was over.

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Joe Famely
First time doing GG, and I have to say that I was a bit nervous coming
in...but it was a great course and I had a blast...such fun. The course was
a good mix of fireroad descents and climbs, and good ol' rooty rocky
singletrack. Conditions changed with every lap on the singletrack, so
sometimes the mud was slicker or stickier than others. Actually, I believe
the correct term for it would have been "goop". The lockout on my Fox fork
proved to be quite a handy feature, as I was able to pass lots of people on
the fireroad climbs. And the steel hardtail just gobbled up the
singletrack...my bike and I were in heaven. On my fifth and final lap, I
was having such a great time that I even was able to clear the huge nasty
tombstone-like root just before the approach to the Plunge...which made my
day, er night, er day before that too!
Thanks to Meredith, Mark, Shelley and Ian for the great support. Thanks to
Rich Blair, Matt Juros and Barry Petzold for such superb organization and
all the encouragement to ride instead of wrench. Great job Team LOL, and
all the other Rage teams as well!

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Abbie Briscoe
This was an experaince for me. It was my first 24 hour race and rather than
racing for myself, now I had a team of girls that I didn't want to let down.
So it's safe to say I was feeling the pressure. Being the only one who admits
to doing any running I was voted for the run. standing in that mass of big
sweaty boys I was scared they were all going to run me over. The run around
the lake was a bit much, I wasted alot of my energy before I was even on my bike.

I thought the course was fun and fast. the singletracks (7 all together I
counted) were decent. # 4 and #7, the outback, weren't so great. muddy,
slippery, and just too worn for me to ride as time wore on. by about my 5th
lap the course was starting to get boring for me, I didn't know how the
soloists did it. during my 4AM lap I just thought "If I just slipped through
these woods to that part of the course there noone would know and I could be
done quicker" but I really knew it wasn't worth it.

this race was the ultimate test of my body and my frame of mind. as time wore
on it was getting harder and harder to even just hold onto my bike and i
crashed more and more. I could't feel my legs, my arms, or my shoulders. It was
great though, I had an awesome team of fast girls all who did thier best and
never gave up, the sunrising over the mountains during my lap at 4AM was
priceless, and facing my fear of the dark turned out to be fearless.

I would higly reccommend everyone try doing this at least once in thier
racing career. I will have to rethink my decision for next year due to
missing a family obligation and taking hell for it since and also the fairly
steep entry fee for this race. If I had the same team of girls though, it
might not take much pursuading.