The Revel Outdoors Race Team finished 24th in the Bontrager 24 hour event in Plymouth, completing 23 laps in treachourous conditions. 

(full results) 

Kempi and his Elbows

Darren Has a Rest

Knackered

Mud!

 Race report from team member Iain: 

Friday practice was on a damp, but drying course, including some very slippery muddy sections. 
 
A couple of good climbs, and plenty of challenging single track.
 
There was much talk of tyre choice amongst the team, ending in many changes.
 
Practice included tumbles for both Kemp and Styles on the same section, on different laps, neither suffering too much, just cuts and bruises.
 
Friday night saw heavy rain, but by the race start at midday the course was drier than Friday practice.
 
Kemp opted to start for the team, and his casual approach saw him starting right near the back of the ??? strong field.
 
Strong progress was made on the first lap, many places being gained.
 
Handing over to Bettaney, the teams strongest rider, more places were gained.
 
Styles, Balaam and Stoveld followed with strong laps, leaving the Revell team hovering around 13th place in the open category, contested by 68 teams.
 
A miscalculation of Kemps lap time in free traffic lead to a mix up with transition, but this only cost a minute or so.
 
A crowd pleasing skid, then wheelie went slightly awry for Styles on his next lap, which ended lying in someone’s pasta in the crowd!
 
Strong laps followed, then the drizzle began at around 8pm, and continued throughout the night until around 8am, transforming the course in to a quagmire in places, wrong tyres choices leading to clogging to the point of wheels not turning through the bikes forks.
 
These conditions lead to a fall? (I think) for Stoveld, causing a problem with an old ankle injury, and forcing him to withdraw for the race duration.
 
The conditions also hit the morale of Balaam, who also chose not to ride again at the 1am mark, but became team bike cleaner to ease the load on the remaining team.
 
The 3 remaining members had to dig hard in the difficult conditions, fast turn arounds meaning no chance of sleep.
 
Bettaney decided to call it a day after his 5th lap, as conditions continued to worsen.
 
Kemp opted to do a slow 2 lap stint to give the remaining member Styles a chance to get some rest.
 
Kemp informed Styles at the transition that as the track was drying, the mud was becoming ‘claggy’, as my bike condition proved, and suggested that one more lap would be an achievement as we were all suffering from fatigue now.
 
Styles completed a strong lap in the conditions, but Kemp had nothing left to give, so the team retired at 8.45am.
 
A great event for the team, many lessons learned.
 
A strategy leaving time for team members to sleep, and a permanent pit helper would have made a huge difference in hindsight.
 
The team will return stronger for sure!