Eddie O

I’m sitting here sipping coffee and remembering all the craziness that was the FM.24.08. Here is the basic premise:
- Each rider or team must stop at 5 check points throughout the city: Johnny’s Pizza on Highland (race HQ), Videodrome on North, No Brakes on Rogers, Flat Iron Grill in East ATL, and Elliot St Pub near the dome.
- the team or rider with the most laps wins
- there is no set route
- there is no closed course (as in we are dodging traffic for 24 hours)
- all laps must be completed between 12 PM Saturday and 12 PM Sunday

The suggested route:

View Larger Map

The first 3-4 laps were tough. There was just so much to think about while pushing my aerobic limits: what route, how to get through the intersections, what is that driver thinking, were to next. Namrita was a ton of help at the race HQ giving me bottles & food so at least I did not have to think about that stuff. My route changed each of the first 4 or 5 laps until I finally settled on what I felt was a good combo of speed, safety and traffic.

I don’t know when I took over the lead, but I never felt comfortable with it until the last few laps. I think that’s what kept me going the whole time. Mouhamed, who won last year and set the bench mark at 320 miles, was a threat. He has a ton of talent as a cyclist and a fighting spirit that I knew would keep him chasing until the end. I could not let up for a minute.

The scene at each of the check points was awesome. Johnny’s was just chaos wrapped in fun. There were bikes everywhere, lots of drinking and drunkness, bike whizzing in and out and a few too many guys in speedos. There was no party at the Videodrome, but there was cyclists going and going from every direction and I overhear many, many times from the neighbors “oh, it must be that 24 hour race again…cool.” No Brakes bike shop was an all light bash. They stay open all night for mechanical support, but by the early AM hours they were just there for moral support. There was always someone there to cheer you on. Flat Iron Grill is in the center of a bunch of bars, pubs and clubs, so the late evening scene was exciting though the traffic was crazy. Elliot Street Pub was a blast. I so wanted to just give up the racing bit and hang out. They were having so much fun and it was this crazy mix of cyclists and bikers (the motorcycle kind) and locals. The crowd there was so supportive that I looked forward to making another round.

Around midnight I was told that I had a two lap lead over Mouhamed and Mark B, so I took my only break of the race to change clothes. I was self supported at this point. Namrita was home sleeping (or so I thought), but she left a couple of coolers full of bottles, a big bag of PB&Js & a bag of clothes to get me through. I was just under 200 miles at this point.

Seeing the city transform every 40 minutes was interesting. Traffic ebbs and flows as it gets heavy in one part and lets up in another. There was a Braves game, Ultimate Fighting Championships & a Falcons game. The people watching was great. There was everything from church BBQs, yard sales, birthday parties, a lady who jumped out of the drivers seat to dance in the street for the person in the back of her car, to huge tree falling on the power lines downtown and the fire crew who cleaned it up, the huge number of homeless folks who live downtown that were actually cheering the race on, the guy showing his penis to passing cars on Nelson (I think he was selling himself). I’m sure recalling bits of these stuff for days.

The early AM hours were the roughest for me. I had been feeling good all night and figured out how to conserve my energy by working with the flow of traffic and using Atlanta’s many hills to my advantage. Mouhamed rode a few laps with me starting around 4 AM. He likes to try to play mind games with his opponents (or at least with me). He was telling me he just one lap down when he was actually two and I was too tired to really know either way. He kept throwing down these vicious roadie attacks as in he would sitting behind me drafting, then he’d come flying around so fast that I could not draft him. Then I’d reel him back in and he’d do it again. This went on until the sunrise lap and were I lost my RF ID card somewhere between the HQ & the Videodrome. I panicked.

I raced back to the HQ to get another card which was taken care of quickly. Since I was there I took a couple of Advil since things were starting to hurt, but I was not thinking about the can of BURN and the sandwich I just had 10 minutes before. The combo of Advil and caffeine is not a good one for me. I was cleared to head straight for checkpoint two and took off a little too hard….then I bonked. I probably spent too much energy keep Mouhamed in check and not paying attention to how much I was eating and drinking. The sunrise lap is usually the best, but I was hurting bad.

I tried to keep all the negative emotions that come with being physically beat down in check and just focused on how to keep moving forward as consistently as possible. I was feeling really low as I trudged up Freedom Parkway with the sun blinding me thinking about how I just lost the race over some so stupid. I was doing the math: Mouhamed was only one lap back and capable of pulling a 40 minute lap; he was 2 minutes up at the beginning of this lap, I lost 10 minutes going back for another card and at least another 10 struggling up every hill…..that’s 20-25 minutes. We still had 6 hours to go and I was slowing. One more lap like this and it’s all over.

Back at Johnny’s I asked what my gap over Mouhamed was. “He just left 9 minutes ago for lap 27 and you are heading out for lap 29, so almost two laps.” My whole mood changed in an instant. I lost my card and bonked and he could only gain 9 minutes….wooohoooo! Looking back at the results I was only about 4 minutes off my average pace on that last lap. My legs felt great again for the next couple of laps.

Namrita met me at out on the route at about 9:00 AM and rode with me the rest of the race. It was great to have someone to talk with. While I was never alone, being in the city and all, I rarely had a chance to converse with any one for more than a minute or two. She kept me motivate enough to keep riding right up to the cut off at noon even though Mouhamed had called it a day and Mark B was no close enough to over take my lead. The last two laps hurt a ton, but it’s such a great feeling of accomplishment to ride out a 24 hour. My odometer read 371.93 miles.

I barely remember the awards, but it seemed like everyone was enjoying themselves and a lot cool stuff was given away. I must have looked hungry, people just kept offering me food and drinks. Aside from the glory and bragging rights for the next year (maybe longer with a new record set), I took home a sweet messenger bag made from these recycled images of the city (there was more of story behind it, but I was too out of it to comprehend), a FM.24.08 cap, a few new tires (which I will need now), some metallic green track bars and great black and pink FM.24.08 t-shirt. Considering the race only cost $15, the prizes given were very generous.

I’d like to thank Namrita for all her help throughout the race, to the Faster Mustache crew for all the hard work that goes into something like this, all the checkpoint businesses for their hospitality, all of the racers & spectators for the encouragement, and to all of my sponsors for their support……specifically in this race my Amercian Classic wheel set kicked butt (I rode more curbs and bunny hopped my hobos than I can count) and Chamois Butt’r because even on the road I have a princess taint.

Some pics of the event:
http://fastermustache.org/node/5709

This entry was posted on Monday, September 8th, 2008 at 1:13 pm and is filed under Announcements. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.