2007 12 hour mess, 08-09DEC07

Poorly planned and painfully executed.

- No transport organised to and from the race until three days before the race

- Not enough

• Water, underestimated this time compared to the abundance of my last 12 hour effort
  
• Food; no proper carbo-loading in the week before the race, no decent food brought to the race and was cranky and starving after the second lap.
  
• Sleep, didn't catch up lost sleep in the week preceding the race. This cause me to DNF the race because I was dangerously falling asleep during the race.
• Base level of fitness; after two years of not doing any form of regular exercise, my body just resisted to being pushed harder.

- Untested lighting system; lights fade badly 3/4 into each lap on fresh battery, helmet light as main lighting source did not create shadows to aid vision and the very white light emitted by the luxeon washed out alot of colour contrast.
- The overgrippy 2.35" Maxxis Larsen TT rear tyre created too much irritating and sucky rolling resistance.
- Brakes untuned for riding since three years ago.
- 36:18 didn't compensate enough for my lack of fitness.
- Right Oury grip had the handlebar paint underneath broke down and rust through turning the grip into a motorcycle throttle.

I only managed 6 laps after retiring half way through the race because I was falling asleep at the handlebar; bad comparing to three years ago I rode the whole night and morning on looser gravely course and pulled off 9 laps, on the same bike with a 36:16 gearing instead of this year's 36:18 and skinnier 2.1" tyres.

Not dirty enough... only spent 9 hours on the trail.

Scruffed my saddle as I'd lost concentration for a second and washed out the front on a simple turn on my retiring lap.