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Let me begin by saying what a downright crazy event the 24hr trial is. A concept that I don’t think I fully understood until 4am on Sunday morning, roughly 14hrs in. I was soaking wet and bloody cold, trying to ride along a transport section in fog so thick it restricted you to a top speed of approximately 30km/h. This is what the “24” is all about, or so I had been told. Either way, I continued and made it to the next control. Where I had the chance to stand in front of a fire for a few minutes to try and get some feeling back in my fingers!
For those unfamiliar to the event, here in SA the “24” carries prestige as one of the most demanding events for man and machine on the calendar. A simple concept, you start on your allotted time on Saturday and keep going for 24hrs, all while staying on your allocated minute. The event is comprised of 4 laps of a 6hr loop, working out to be roughly 200kms per lap.
The region received rain in the week leading up to the event and scattered showers were forecast throughout the weekend. A stark contrast to the dry and dusty conditions that had been the precedent for the first half of the season. I left main control at 2:26pm on Saturday afternoon, I was able to gather some idea of what I was in for when I turned onto the first dirt road, it was an absolute quagmire! However, to my surprise the dirt roads were far worse than the sections.
This was my first attempt at the 24hr and I wasn’t sure how my body would react to spending so long on the bike. I had a rough plan to take it easy on the first few laps to make it through the night and re-assess once the sun came up. My first lap was going well, the only issue was having to deal with riding into the setting sun on a few sections but once the sun set, I was back in business. A few sections later I arrived at the start of the longest section of the trial. 18kms in a very rocky paddock that finished in open flowy scrub. Halfway through the section I came to a control. At the time, I thought it was the out control so I backed off and stopped, let them record my time, then took off at a leisurely pace thinking I was back on a transport section. I came to realize that it must’ve been a “secret control”. In place to prevent people from cutting the course. About 300m after passing the control it clicked that I was still in a competitive section, and I got back on the gas. Unfortunately, that was not the only drama I had in that section. A few kms further, I started hearing a clicking sound over braking bumps. Initially, I thought it was my fold down mirrors hitting against each other as they sometimes do but as the clicking got more frequent, I had to investigate further. Luckily, I looked down and noticed my headlight bracket had lost its bolts on one side and the opposite side had almost backed out entirely! I’m very glad I was able to catch this just before they also fell out. I was able to get to the end of this section by stopping/riding one handed every few hundred metres to tighten the bolts by hand. However, this caused me to lose quite a bit of time. I opened my tool bag to repair the lights at the end of the section. As I was carrying a spare bracket assembly. Unfortunately, this is when I realized I had lost most of my tools! I suspect the zip had worked loose and the contents of my bag had fallen out throughout the lap. I was left with only an 8 and 10mm socket and a Leatherman multitool. It was zip-ties and duct-tape to the rescue to secure my lights.
This dodgy fix held up surprisingly well and although I backed off the pace for the rest of the lap the lights didn’t move.
I left main control at 8:46pm to head out on lap two just as it started to rain again. Lap two and most of lap three were relatively uneventful. I was riding within my limit as I couldn’t afford to crash and damage anything as trying to fix a problem without tools would’ve been made even harder in the dark. The temperature got colder in the early hours of the morning, with rain making some of the sections in the hills around Kapunda considerably harder. As mentioned above, fog on the transport sections made navigation a real issue. Luckily, I was consistently catching the rider in-front in the competitive sections, so we were able to ride together on the road. This helped having some to confirm you were going the right way when visibility was so poor. With reliability trials you must stay on your allocated minute throughout the event. The fog heavily restricted how fast you could go on the road. On some transports I was limited to 30-50kph as I could only see 40m in-front of the bike. I was very concerned about not getting to the next control on time. I had a few close calls but thankfully was able to stay on my minute and not receive any penalties.
The sun started to come up 3/4 of the way around lap 3. This felt like a milestone as so many people had mentioned that the early morning would be the most difficult and I was glad to have made it through. To my surprise, my body felt really good. I was yet to experience any real fatigue or tiredness issues, so I took that as a sign to have a good crack and work my way up the leaderboard. The fog hung around for a few hours after first light. It was so thick that in the competitive sections I was trying to wipe my goggles with my glove, but they would just fog up 30 seconds later! I decided mid-section to take off my goggles in favor of being able to see where I was going!
Lap 4 went smoothly; in section two I was able to catch both riders in-front of me which was a massive confidence boost leading into the last lap. The track had started to fall apart in some sections, this required me to be smart with my line choices to avoid the worse of the braking and acceleration bumps. I was able to push the pace and attack the track rather than riding conservatively. My last lap was 11 and a half minutes quicker than lap 3 and my fastest lap of the race.
I made it to the finish line at 2:26 on Sunday afternoon, 24hrs since setting off. I didn’t approach this event with any expectations other than aiming to finish, so I was surprised to find out I had finished on the podium in my class in 3rd place and a respectable 20th outright. This event was like nothing I’ve raced before. It is a logistical nightmare and required a lot of preparation and planning, so I was very proud and relieved to have made it to the finish.
Thank you to everyone for your support this year. Now that I’ve got a bit of momentum behind me, I’m looking forward to second half of the season!
24 July 2024
Daniel Fraser claims a class P3 at the Hardi 24hr Reliability Trial
Fraser managed a class P3 during the Hardi 24hr Reliability Trial | PHOTO: ICEBERG STU INDUSTRIES
PHOTO: ANDREW TARRANT
PHOTO: BLANK ROLLS WITH JOSH
For those unfamiliar to the event, here in SA the “24” carries prestige as one of the most demanding events for man and machine on the calendar. A simple concept, you start on your allotted time on Saturday and keep going for 24hrs, all while staying on your allocated minute. The event is comprised of 4 laps of a 6hr loop, working out to be roughly 200kms per lap.
The region received rain in the week leading up to the event and scattered showers were forecast throughout the weekend. A stark contrast to the dry and dusty conditions that had been the precedent for the first half of the season. I left main control at 2:26pm on Saturday afternoon, I was able to gather some idea of what I was in for when I turned onto the first dirt road, it was an absolute quagmire! However, to my surprise the dirt roads were far worse than the sections.
This was my first attempt at the 24hr and I wasn’t sure how my body would react to spending so long on the bike. I had a rough plan to take it easy on the first few laps to make it through the night and re-assess once the sun came up. My first lap was going well, the only issue was having to deal with riding into the setting sun on a few sections but once the sun set, I was back in business. A few sections later I arrived at the start of the longest section of the trial. 18kms in a very rocky paddock that finished in open flowy scrub. Halfway through the section I came to a control. At the time, I thought it was the out control so I backed off and stopped, let them record my time, then took off at a leisurely pace thinking I was back on a transport section. I came to realize that it must’ve been a “secret control”. In place to prevent people from cutting the course. About 300m after passing the control it clicked that I was still in a competitive section, and I got back on the gas. Unfortunately, that was not the only drama I had in that section. A few kms further, I started hearing a clicking sound over braking bumps. Initially, I thought it was my fold down mirrors hitting against each other as they sometimes do but as the clicking got more frequent, I had to investigate further. Luckily, I looked down and noticed my headlight bracket had lost its bolts on one side and the opposite side had almost backed out entirely! I’m very glad I was able to catch this just before they also fell out. I was able to get to the end of this section by stopping/riding one handed every few hundred metres to tighten the bolts by hand. However, this caused me to lose quite a bit of time. I opened my tool bag to repair the lights at the end of the section. As I was carrying a spare bracket assembly. Unfortunately, this is when I realized I had lost most of my tools! I suspect the zip had worked loose and the contents of my bag had fallen out throughout the lap. I was left with only an 8 and 10mm socket and a Leatherman multitool. It was zip-ties and duct-tape to the rescue to secure my lights.
This dodgy fix held up surprisingly well and although I backed off the pace for the rest of the lap the lights didn’t move.
I left main control at 8:46pm to head out on lap two just as it started to rain again. Lap two and most of lap three were relatively uneventful. I was riding within my limit as I couldn’t afford to crash and damage anything as trying to fix a problem without tools would’ve been made even harder in the dark. The temperature got colder in the early hours of the morning, with rain making some of the sections in the hills around Kapunda considerably harder. As mentioned above, fog on the transport sections made navigation a real issue. Luckily, I was consistently catching the rider in-front in the competitive sections, so we were able to ride together on the road. This helped having some to confirm you were going the right way when visibility was so poor. With reliability trials you must stay on your allocated minute throughout the event. The fog heavily restricted how fast you could go on the road. On some transports I was limited to 30-50kph as I could only see 40m in-front of the bike. I was very concerned about not getting to the next control on time. I had a few close calls but thankfully was able to stay on my minute and not receive any penalties.
The sun started to come up 3/4 of the way around lap 3. This felt like a milestone as so many people had mentioned that the early morning would be the most difficult and I was glad to have made it through. To my surprise, my body felt really good. I was yet to experience any real fatigue or tiredness issues, so I took that as a sign to have a good crack and work my way up the leaderboard. The fog hung around for a few hours after first light. It was so thick that in the competitive sections I was trying to wipe my goggles with my glove, but they would just fog up 30 seconds later! I decided mid-section to take off my goggles in favor of being able to see where I was going!
Lap 4 went smoothly; in section two I was able to catch both riders in-front of me which was a massive confidence boost leading into the last lap. The track had started to fall apart in some sections, this required me to be smart with my line choices to avoid the worse of the braking and acceleration bumps. I was able to push the pace and attack the track rather than riding conservatively. My last lap was 11 and a half minutes quicker than lap 3 and my fastest lap of the race.
I made it to the finish line at 2:26 on Sunday afternoon, 24hrs since setting off. I didn’t approach this event with any expectations other than aiming to finish, so I was surprised to find out I had finished on the podium in my class in 3rd place and a respectable 20th outright. This event was like nothing I’ve raced before. It is a logistical nightmare and required a lot of preparation and planning, so I was very proud and relieved to have made it to the finish.
Thank you to everyone for your support this year. Now that I’ve got a bit of momentum behind me, I’m looking forward to second half of the season!