The Red Bull Timelaps one…

Q. When is a 24 hour day, not a 24 hour day.

A. When Red Bull decide to run a 24 hour race on the day the clocks go back.

The marquee swelled with 1000 riders, give or take a few. The excitement was palpable and my ears were bleeding. The noise was deafening.

The event organiser took to the stage, the crowd quietened, and after a few warm words to welcome everyone, he spent the next 5 minutes articulating in minute detail the major crash that had happened the year before and the trail of destruction and misery that it had left in its wake.

The words 'be warned' reverberated in everyone's ears as we left the tent.

This was Red Bull Timelaps - a 25 hour team bike race set in Windsor Great Park. The format is simple. Teams complete as many laps of the 6km circuit as they can, with one rider on the course at any one time. The race would run continuously for 25 hours and the team with the most laps takes the prize. As a special little 'Brucey Bonus', there would be a power hour on a shorter course which would open the minute the clock hit 2am - unlocking the 25th hour of the race - and close the minute the clock hit 2am.

We arrived in the pit lane having looked like we'd just raided a local Sainsbury's distribution centre. We had so many bananas tucked away in our little gazebo, someone somewhere must have been asking questions. Despite this, our food reserves would still prove to be insufficient.

Having signed the compulsory death waiver at registration, we were to discover our team - Team Worms - had been ranked 182nd (out of 200 teams). And that meant yours truly was stuck at the back on the world's longest starting line. I could barely see the start despite the 5m high inflatable markers.

The upside was we gained a whole lot of places on the first few laps. The course was quick, with a couple of short taxing climbs, fast corners and a mini-chicane before the run in to the finish.

On my 5th lap, and roughly an hour's riding, I signalled left and hit the pits. We were now 130th place. So far so good.

Stavros - AKA 'Worm' - was waiting to take over. The battery powered flashing armband was passed on and he shot off at what seemed like twice the speed of light. Broadly similar in fitness and speed as a team, Worm would be our ace in the hole for the crucial power hour later on. Or so we hoped.

Chappers and then Sam took their turns before we settled in for our 2nd stints. We quickly became well practised at the handovers, with a team member running the armband ahead to whoever was about to hit the course next. It's not clear if we saved any time doing this and it made absolutely no difference to our position whatsoever. But it made us feel organised and competitive.

Just as we were feeling capable of seeing the race through, and now up to the heady heights of 70th place, it got dark and the course took on a more sinister feel, like it was somehow out to get us.

With lights switched on, the course now felt menacing. My senses were dialled up as tiredness started to eat away at my lap times. My speeds in to the corners dropped, especially on those first few dark laps, and riding in a group was now even more important. In a bunch of 3 or 4, there was 3 or 4 times the amount of light on an otherwise deadly dark course. Riding 6K solo in the pitch dark whilst riding on the limit was sole destroying. In company it was made doable, motivated purely by the desire to hold the next rider's back wheel.

The big digital display above the start line ticked over to 00:01 and the cold was becoming our worst enemy.

Now I am aware that riding for 1 hour, resting for 3 might sound easy enough. I would have thought so beforehand too.

Picture though, if you will, what’s involved. For each turn on the track, you need to warm down and warm up on the turbo, then get changed out of wet clothes and into damp ones, rehydrate, eat and then try to sleep in the back of a car. A car which was occupied by at least 1 other in a different phase of this routine. A car that smelt like mouldy Swiss cheese. All this before setting an alarm, putting on wet gear and doing it all again.

It was bitterly cold too.

It was so cold in fact that it nearly broke the Worm. Our ace in the hole had been ready and waiting at 2am to enter the power hour lap. He managed an incredible average of 38km/ph on an undulating, dark course with 199 other frozen, tired soles.

An incredible feat.

Shortly after, the car door opened and the Worm sat down. I say sat but it was more of a slump. He clearly had no control over his chattering teeth and didn't appear to have any feeling in his fingers. "S-O-O-O C-O-L-D" he managed as he forced his fingers between the flaps of the car's heater. The man was exhausted and in visible pain.

The Worm's efforts had not been without significant reward. We were now up to 45th place. Well played Sir.

"Don't worry, I'm sure you'll warm up in time for your next hour of pain" - I added, as we both dropped off to uncomfortable sleep.

Chappers and Sam valiantly did the graveyard shifts, making up a couple of places each. The team's endurance was at a low ebb, but everyone else's had ebbed even lower it would seem. This then was our chance to pick off other teams, the moment Team Worms came into its own.

So our strategy became,

Climb the leaderboard whilst slow and exhausted, but not as slow and not as exhausted as everyone else.

When the sun rose lazily, as it tends to in late autumn, we'd nudged into 40th place. We each had one more stint to go before the clock would stop and the suffering would end.

The new day brought a renewed optimism. The hardest part of the race was surely over and now we each had one hour to cycle as hard as our complaining legs would carry us.

Sat in 40th place, teams EWCC and Pewsey Velo were a handful of seconds ahead of us with 2 hours of riding to go. They were now cast as villains in this quest of ours,  and our attention was fixed on the leaderboard with every passing lap. Somehow finishing in 38th place mattered.

Worm, Chappers and Sam each put heroic efforts in on their final stints. We crossed the finish line with just 55s to spare, completing our 123rd lap. It was over and we'd climbed to 38th position. It was a victory of sorts and we’d have celebrated if only we’d had the energy.

Instead, we removed a lorry load of banana skins from our pit zone and took down a gazebo.

We'd managed a collective 123 laps, roughly 200km each and we were still talking to each other at the end of it.

Team Worms had survived all that Windsor Great Park had thrown at us.

Just.